Barnes & Noble is not stocking the #1 Amazon-rated book by Jonah Goldberg, Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning, at least in a number of places, east, west, and heartland. It apparently hits too close to its target.
Haven’t cracked it yet myself but am fascinated by the title, which matches how I feel about so-called liberals.
More on Fred T., this from the poo-bah of mainstream newspaper journalism:
Fred D. Thompson, 65, is plying the comeback trail in South Carolina, his poll numbers showing a tease of life — he is, statistically speaking, tied for third in recent polls — and his country wit growing more serrated.
It’s nicely done, by one Michael Powell.
Meanwhile, back at the Chicago Tribune ranch, Fred finally gets a story, by Lisa Anderson:
With his young wife, Jeri, and two small children in tow, the veteran actor, lawyer and former U.S. senator from Tennessee — the candidate billed as the second coming of Ronald Reagan when he entered the race — vehemently emphasized his vision, consistency and clear conservative values to supporters at The Beacon restaurant in Spartanburg on Friday, telling them “That’s why we will win.”
Now really. “Vehemently”? He gets vehement? How about “vigorously”? Or even “forthrightly.”
Point is, Chi Trib will be the last to know if Fred has winning touch:
Fred Thompson, the actor and ex-U.S. senator from Tennessee, has yet to justify the advance billing that suggested he is the second coming of Reagan.
is how its Tim Jones said it yesterday.
A more sympathetic observer has him shining “at the last minute,” however.
in the final appearance of Thompson’s South Carolina primary campaign, in a packed room at Greenville’s Embassy Suites hotel. At that appearance, Thompson was so good, so energized, so non-laid-back-Fred, that many of his supporters wondered where the man had been during the campaign.
That’s Byron York of National Review Online. Hey. Pay your money and take your choice.
The U.S. Episcopal church is going after its breakaway conservatives.
Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, head of the 2.4-million-member U.S. church, last week slapped Bishop John-David Schofield, leader of California’s 8,000-member Episcopal Diocese of San Joaquin, with an “inhibition.”
It ordered him as of January 11 to “cease from exercising the gifts of ordination in the ordained ministry of this church” and stop all “episcopal, ministerial and canonical acts.”
That happened because the Fresno, California-based diocese last month seceded, becoming the first Episcopal diocese to do so, and aligned itself with the conservative Anglican Church of the Southern Cone, based in South America.
Schofield told the Episcopal leadership neither he nor the diocese were under their jurisdiction any more.
The civil courts may be courts of last resort.
Clergy abuse rears its ugly head in the Bishop Braxton case:
BELLEVILLE, Ill. (AP) An advocacy group for victims of clergy abuse wants Roman Catholics across southern Illinois to earmark or cut back their tithings to the church until complaints that the bishop misspent money is sorted out.
Pastoral groups in the 104,000-member Diocese of Belleville want Bishop Edward Braxton to address claims that he bought ceremonial garments with about $8,000 in donations to a Vatican world outreach fund.
And the Belleville News-Democrat reports Braxton also may have bought a wooden chancery table and chairs with $10,000 from a fund for children and adults.
Braxton isn’t discussing the complaints publicly.
His ilk is usually above all that public discussion. Bishop Ed, formerly pastor of Oak Park’s St. Catherine & St. Lucy parish, can afford to ignore this, because he has friends in high places.
Obama’s minister has a way with words. Listing O. as a black savior along with slave-rebellion leader Nat Turner and Martin Luther King, he said there have always been reasons not to follow them.
Some argue that blacks should vote for Clinton “because her husband was good to us,” he continued.
“That’s not true,” he thundered. “He did the same thing to us that he did to Monica Lewinsky.”
Zowie.
Who said this?
One clue that Romney is our strongest candidate is the fact that Democrats keep viciously attacking him while expressing their deep respect for Mike Huckabee and John McCain.
It’s someone with a keen eye for liberal obfuscation and sharp wit for nailing it. Here’s your killer tip, next ‘graph:
This point was already extensively covered in Chapter 1 of “How To Talk to a Liberal (If You Must)”: Never take advice from your political enemies.
OK. It’s the author of that collection of keen, sharp columnary broadsides, Miss Ann Coulter.
The Vatican cardinal speaking in Rome at the Jesuit’s general congregation for electing a new general
told the Jesuits that it is with “sorrow and anxiety” that he has seen even members of religious orders weaken their attachment to the institutional church and their fidelity to its official teaching.
You gotta love bishops, for instance:
“With sadness and anxiety, I also see a growing distancing from the hierarchy,” he said, emphasizing that St. Ignatius insisted his companions exercise their ministry under a particularly close bond of obedience to the pope.
“The fundamental nucleus of Ignatian spirituality consists in uniting love for God with love for the hierarchical church,” Cardinal Rode said.
You are bothering people:
“The doctrinal diversity of those who … by vocation and mission are called to announce the kingdom of truth and love, disorients the faithful and leads to a relativism without limits,” he said.
Otherwise, nice job and good luck!
Criticism of Fred T. as lacking fire in belly, etc.
is put forth by the court jesters who know their brand of foolishness could not get an audience in a Thompson presidency.
says private-citizen letter-writer in Tennessean.
Yes. He could revolutionize media coverage. Imagine a president willing to say that’s a dumb question. It’s not easy.
Newsweek has a devastating account of Jesuit malfeasance among Eskimos.
It is one of the darkest chapters of sexual abuse in the Roman Catholic Church. More than 110 children in Eskimo villages claim they were molested between 1959 and 1986, raped or assaulted by 12 priests and three church volunteers. Families and victims believe that another 22 people were sexually abused by clergy members but have since killed themselves. The Jesuit Oregon Province, which includes Alaska, has agreed to pay $50 million in damages. It is believed to be the largest settlement ever against a religious order.
Religious colonialism. Closed system. Rampant lack of accountability.
Bishop Ed Braxton of Belleville IL, once pastor of St. Catherine-St. Lucy parish in Oak Park, dipped into a forbidden cookie jar for $8,000 to pay for new vestments from the House of Hansen in Chicago, St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports. He took the money from sacrosanct Propagation of the Faith funds raised for Vatican “outreach,” once called mission work.
“We attempted to discuss it,” said one member of the diocese’s Presbyteral Council. “But no progress was made. The bishop did not want to talk about it.”
As long ago as a diocesan finance council meeting Nov. 17, Braxton was asked how he had paid for the vestments, according to sources who were there. Braxton told the council the cost of about $8,000 was paid from a fund for international mission work, said the sources, who asked not to be identified because council members take an oath of secrecy.
Braxton, two deacons and two priests who were being ordained in a ceremony in May wore the new garments.
The papal nuncio in Washington has been informed of the breach by the diocese’s 16–member finance council. Catholics the world over are familiar with the annual Vatican appeal.
On the second-to-last Sunday of October — called World Missions Sunday — parishes around the world take up a collection to be distributed to about 1,150 dioceses and territories that are considered underserved by the church. All of Africa and most of Asia are included.
Worldwide, donations reach as high as $120 million per year, according to Monsignor John Kozar, national director for the U.S. office of the Society for the Propagation of the Faith, in New York. About 40 percent comes from U.S. dioceses.
This year it’s 40% minus Belleville’s $8,000.
Blithe Spirit 