Solidarity actions this week, FYI

Tea Partiers and like-minded citizens in 24 states, take notice. SEIU and like-minded citizens are planning get-togethers that you might want also to attend. Here’s a list:

Note: these are not all SEIU events – most are sponsored by other unions, but everyone is welcome to attend

Events on Monday February 21, 2011 (All times local)

Indiana
Rally
Time: 9 A.M.
Location: Indiana State Capitol
Address: 302 W Washington St – Indianapolis, IN

Montana
Rally
Time: 2 P.M.
Location: Montana State Capitol
Address: 1301 East 6th Avenue – Helena, Montana

Nevada
Rally
Time: 12 P.M.
Location: Nevada State Capitol
Address: 101 North Carson Street – Carson City, NV 89701

North Carolina
Rally
Time: 12 P.M. Location:
Address: 1 East Edenton Street – Raleigh, NC 27601

Oregon
Rally
Time: 12 P.M.
Location: State Capitol
Address: 900 Court St. NE – Salem, OR 97301

Texas
Candlelight March and Vigil
Time: 6:45 P.M.
Location: Meet at TX AFL-CIO
Address: 1106 Lavaca St. – Austin, TX. 78701

Washington
Rally
Time: 12:00 PM
Location: State Capitol Rotunda
Address: 416 Sid Snyder Avenue SW – Olympia, WA 98504

Wisconsin
Rally
Time: All Day
Location: State Capitol
Address: 2 East Main Street – Madison, WI. 53702

Events on Tuesday February 22, 2011 (All times local)

California
Vigil
Time: 5:30 P.M.
Location: State Capitol West Steps
Address: 1315 10th Street – Sacramento, CA 95814

California
Vigil
Time: 5:30 PM
Location: Poncitlan Square
Address: 38315 9th Street East – Palmdale, CA. 93550

Colorado
Rally
Time: 12:00 P.M.
Location: Colorado State Capitol
Address: 200 East Colfax Avenue (West Steps) – Denver, CO. 80203

Iowa
Rally
Time: 1:00 PM
Location: Iowa State Capitol
Address: 1007 East Grand Avenue – Des Moines, IA

Maryland
Rally
Time: 12:00 PM
Location: Lawyers’ Mall, Maryland State House
Address: 100 State Circle – Annapolis, MD. 21401

Massachusetts
Rally
Time: 4:00 PM
Location: State House
Address: 1 Ashburton Pl – Boston, MA 02108

Massachusetts
Rally
Time: 4:00 PM
Location: City Hall Steps
Address: 36 Court Street – Springfield, MA 01103

Minnesota
Rally
Time: 4:00 PM
Location: Minnesota State Capitol
Address: 75 Constitution Ave – St. Paul, MN 55101

Ohio
Rally
Time: 1:00 PM
Location: Capitol Building
Address: 1395 Dublin Rd – Columbus, OH 43215

New Mexico
Rally
Time: 12:15 PM
Location: East Side of the State House
Address: 490 Old Santa Fe Trl # 219 – Santa Fe, NM 87501

Rhode Island
Rally
Time: 4:30 PM
Location: Rhode Island State House
Address: 90 Smith St – Providence, RI 02903

Vermont
Rally
Time: 12:00 PM
Location: Vermont State Capitol Building
Address: 115 State Street – Montpelier, VT. 05602

Wisconsin
Rally
Time: All Day
Location: State Capitol
Address: 2 East Main Street – Madison, WI. 53702

Events on Wednesday February 23, 2011 (All times local)

Arkansas
Rally
Time: 11:30 AM
Location: State Capitol Building
Address: 425 W Capitol Ave, Little Rock, AR 72201

Connecticut
Rally
Time: 12:00 PM
Location: State Capitol Building, West Steps
Address: 210 Capitol Avenue – Hartford, CT. 06106

Georgia
Rally
Time: 4:00 PM
Location: State Capitol Building
Address: 206 Washington St – Atlanta, GA, 30334

Pennsylvania
Rally
Time: 12:00 PM
Location: Lackawana Court House
Address: 200 Adams Avenue – Scranton, PA 18503

Events on Thursday February 24, 2011 (All times local)

Ohio
Protest against Governor Kasich
Time: 4:00 PM
Location: Canton Civic Center
Address: 1101 Market Ave N. – Canton, Oh 44702

Michelle gets away with kids

Nouveau riche. If you’ve got it, flaunt it.

Come fly with Mama in a beautiful new aeroplane.

Slapping union label on Wis. bishops

Bishops’ man in Madison WI provides a gloss for the bps’ gnomic message about teachers’ unions’ protest, tilting left:

Top right, man with union label.

John Huebscher, executive director of the Wisconsin Catholic Conference, said the recent protests . . . are unlike anything he has ever seen [in his 40
years] working in or around the capitol . . . .

“The bishops are very careful — it’s a balanced statement,” he said. Unions, “just like anybody else, have to consider the good and make sacrifices.”

However, it’s “a mistake to cite hard times as a reason to dismiss or marginalize unions.” Tilt. Financial crisis? Favored union status? Don’t mention it.

The bishops are merely reminding everybody of the teaching of the Church [about] the dignity of work and the appropriate place for unions without giving them carte blanche to have everything they want. [italics mine]

They are not merely reminding, they are injecting stuff into the middle of a hot political situation. Let us not play dumb here.

The bishops’ man continues:

Does the bill serve to marginalize unions? Does this serve to drastically reduce the ability of worker to articulate and protect their interests? Those are fair questions to engage. [Flack, flack.]

More flacking:

Huebscher observed that the bill has struck such a chord with Wisconsin citizens because of its potentially far reaching implications for public and private employees.

Struck such a what kind of chord? What’s he talking about?

If the state as a matter of public policy can say that workers are going to be very limited in what they can bargain for, that will seep into other segments of the economy, he said. I think workers perceive that this is going to affect them, even workers that aren’t unionized. [union argument]

Huebscher added that there are benefits employees in the state have today that they didn’t have decades ago such as just wages [justice! yes!], paid overtime, 40-hour work weeks and the inability to be fired without due process. Union talking point.

Ditto reference to “time when [unemployment and workers compensation] weren’t available, followed by reference to “a sense among working people that while they don’t belong to a union today things they have exist today because unions fought for them. And they’re concerned about losing that.”

And we the bishops take that union argument very seriously, do we not, says their interpreter with 40 years experience. In fact, Wisconsin’s “long tradition of integrating and affirming workers” — what the hell does that mean? — “parallels . . . the development of Catholic social teaching and the rights of labor.”

Applause, cheers, trumpet blasts: Spoken by a true labor skate of the 19th or early 20th century. Give him the hook.

But also give him credit for being glad there’s been no violence so far, noting that the bishops have “urged people to remain civil, talk to each other, and keep the common good in mind.”

Well, it was the least they could do, right?

Light comes to the archbishop

On the one hand this, on the other hand that, and why can’t we all just get along?

It is especially in times of crisis that new forms of cooperation and open communication become essential. We request that lawmakers carefully consider the implications of this proposal and evaluate it in terms of its impact on the common good. We also appeal to everyone lawmakers, citizens, workers, and labor unions to move beyond divisive words and actions and work together, so that Wisconsin can recover in a humane way from the current fiscal crisis.

It’s the archbishop of Milwaukee in a valiant attempt to find guidance in encyclicals.

Father Owino sentenced

Here are the stories:

Former NH priest sentenced on molestation charge

Fairfax County Circuit Judge Michael Devine sentenced Felix Owino on Friday to five years, but suspended all but nine months of the sentence, according to the court clerk’s office. Owino already has served seven months. Owino pleaded guilty in September NECN · 35 minutes ago

W.Va. priest sentenced on molestation conviction
Fairfax County Circuit Judge Michael Devine sentenced Felix Owino on Friday to five years, but suspended all but nine months of the sentence, according to the court clerk’s office. Owino already has served seven months. Owino pleaded guilty in September NECN · 53 minutes ago

Priest Who Sexually Abused Girl Gets Suspended Sentence; Will Serve 1 1/2 Months
A former local priest will serve less than two more months in jail for sexual assaulting a child in Virginia. Rev. Felix Owino pleaded guilty in September to inappropriately touching an 11-year-old girl last year in Fairfax. WTOV 9 · 2 hours ago

Former Ohio Valley Priest Sentenced for Sexual Assault Against Child
FAIRFAX, Va. — A local priest is sentenced for sexual assault in a Fairfax, Va. courtroom. Father Felix Owino was sentenced Friday to five years, with all but nine months suspended. Owino was credited for the seven The State Journal · 1 hour ago

Former WV Priest Sentenced For Virginia Crime
Fr. Felix C. Owino was sentenced to five years and nine months in prison after a previous guilty to plea to aggravated sexual battery involving an 11-year-old girl. The judge suspended five years of the sentence and ordered Owino to jail for nine months.Metro News · 2 hours ago

The Madison experiment

It’s coming (come) to this:

[Of] 98 comments [on coverage of the Madison WI protests by unionized
teachers et al.]:

Fen said… I now support Union Busting. Thanks for the push.

Fire them all.

2/18/11 2:51 PM

What this country needs, besides a good five-cent cigar, is a political push to declassify the privileged class of unionized government workers.

On Wisconsin: Wall St. Jnl vs. Chi Trib

Wisconsin State Capitol 5 — Wis. capitol buzzing

Wall St. Journal tells percentage of Wisconsin public employees unionists’ compensation that would go for pensions, vs. “little or nothing” at this point:

Gov. [Scott] Walker first introduced his “budget repair” bill a week ago, setting off the firestorm that has swept the Capitol. Besides limiting collective-bargaining rights for most workersexcepting police, firefighters and others involved in public safetyit would require government workers, who currently contribute little or nothing to their pensions, to contribute 5.8% of their pay to pensions, and pay at least 12.6% of health-care premiums, up from an average of 6%.

Chi Trib does not run the 5.8% of pay to pensions, instead:

Walker’s proposal would . . . require all [non-public
safety] state workers to pay half their pension costs and 12.6% of their healthcare coverage, shaving an estimated $330 million off a $3.6-billion deficit.

Half the cost vs. 5.8% of workers’ pay gives us quite a different number to mull over bkfst coffee.

Trib also cites “conservative analysts” as having “long contended that excessively powerful unions representing teachers, welfare workers and other state and local employees have boosted pay and pensions across the country, laying the groundwork for the nation’s fiscal crisis.”

Correct, but Wall St. Jnl slaps this graph on its page 2:

Source: Labor Dept., as noted, providing ample grist for those conservatives’ mill.

Lombard has a picture

Crime has a face sometimes. Otherwise, it’s colorless, as in Oak Park police reports.

Crystal Lake too. Now we’re talkin’.

Losing black residents

This Chicago Census Roundup: Why Is Chicago Shrinking? probably does justice to the housing-stock issue but like other analyses treats the black-loss matter in terms solely of migration. But what about the black abortion rate?

Blacks . . . have much higher rates of abortions than whites or other minority groups. In 2000, while blacks made up 17 percent of live births, they made up more than twice that share of abortions (36 percent). . . . . The comparison with whites and other minorities is striking. Whites made up 78 percent of live births, but only 57 percent of abortions. Non-black minorities had 7 percent of live births and 5 percent of abortions.

In other words, there are fewer blacks in general, especially in big cities:

. . . black flight isn’t solely a Chicago phenomenon. New York’s black population declined as well, while the black populations of major Southern metropolises grew.

Unreasonable?

Fighting Irish sexual assault #2

Would you want your daughter to enter a Notre Dame dorm?

Trust a Domer when under influence?

Trust one when not under influence?

Knotty qq raised by this Chi Trib story about Case #2 of the Missing or Delayed Investigation.

Another St. Mary’s girl learning about the New Notre Dame the hard way.

Jenkins of Notre Dame (president)

Month: February 2011