Wed. Journal’s Ken Trainor unloaded the other day on an adversary who does not have 1,000 words of newspaper space at his disposal, piling on. No fair.

The adversary, who was nowhere near a household word before Trainor’s column, inched toward that eminence when his name was blazoned in Trainor’s headline, “Will the real Ray Simpson show up?”

A hammer was used for the fly on baby’s nose: Hammer-wielder Trainor (call him the Hammer) got pissed off at an online comment, and out came the thousand-plus words with their in-our-faces headline. This will teach a reader not to provoke him.

The reader in this case — you could be next, whoever you are — is a hothead online but he’s also schizoid: At meetings he and Trainor attended for 11 months, he “was soft-spoken, intelligent, and [apparently] a reasonable human being.” Doctor Jekyll.

Online, however, he hides behind…

Don’t become a sourpuss, advised Pope Francis:

85. One of the more serious temptations
which stifles boldness and zeal is a defeatism
which turns us into querulous and disillusioned
pessimists, sourpusses. Nobody can go off
to battle unless he is fully convinced of victo-
ry beforehand. If we start without confidence,
we have already lost half the battle and we bury
our talents.

We do it half-heartedly.

March on, Jesus told the world’s greatest evangelizer, Paul:

While painfully aware of our own
frailties, we have to march on without giving in,
keeping in mind what the Lord said to Saint Paul:
My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is
made perfect in weakness (2 Cor 12:9).

Christian triumph is always a cross, yet a cross which
is at the same time a victorious banner borne
with aggressive tenderness against the assaults of
evil.

Ne illegitimis carborundum, which is…

How Chicago Catholics are asked to commemorate Martin Luther King on his day:

As people of faith we are called to shape the world according to the Good News. The gospel vision for the world is one of justice and peace for all of Gods creation.

In this life? Really?

But, that vision will not happen unless we, the faithful, organize to make it happen. That is why OCJ is taking action on our faith values. On January 19th at St. Michael the Archangel Church in South Chicago we are joining IIRON in taking action for racial, economic and environmental justice.

Organize. Make it happen. Taking action. IIRON? (See here.)

Issues on the agenda will include:
Option for the Poor and Vulnerable by ensuring large corporations contribute their fair share in taxes to the city of Chicago and State of Illinois so we can stop cutting services and…

That be Jan. 19, with its menu featuring Rev. (uh-huh) Jesse Jackson Sr. on poverty, Gov. Quinn on justice for all, and a March for Life in the Loop — all of it competing, alas, with Patriots v. Broncos at 2 p.m. but not, thank heaven, 49ers v. Seahawks at 5:30.

I myself, choosing the march — would’nt it be nice to have Rev. J. and Gov. Q marching along with us? heh — have been advised to record the 2 pm game. What? so I can watch it play for play, knowing who won? No thanks. A missed game, with all its glorious free-market uncertainties (winner take all, for instance, survival of the fittest) is gone, not to be retrieved.

Same goes for Rev. J. and Gov. Q., of course. I had both penciled in, by the way, before deciding as I did. Rev. J. is at the Sankofa…

Excitement reigns:

After 26 weeks of eager anticipation, it was reported today that hundreds of millions of Catholics from across the Christian West began preparations for this week’s long-awaited celebration of the 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time.

“Really, outside of Christmas and Easter…and the feasts of the Assumption, Ascension, All Saint’s Day, Immaculate Conception, Ash Wednesday, Palm Sunday, Holy Thursday, and Good Friday, there’s really not a more exciting Sunday for a Catholic,” creator of the popular Catholicism series, Father Robert Barron, told EOTT.

And count on it: the secular media will ignore it.

. . . Booooo!!!!

Three strikes and you’re out, anybody? The Bernanke, now Yellen proclivity for telling us where we’re going — a good formula for knowing where we are not going.

Nice distinction, reflecting the real world (assuming the translation is correct):

In his remarks to the superiors, Francis flagged as a risk the “huge problem” of accepting into the seminary someone who has already been asked to leave another religious institute, and cited Pope Benedict XVI’s tough line on priests who commit sexual abuse.

“I am not speaking about people who recognize that they are sinners: we are all sinners, but we are all not corrupt,” Francis said. “Sinners are accepted, but not people who are corrupt.”

Not to say from what? Italian? Spanish? Other popes nowhere near as quotable, but friends of Francis raised the translation question as to Evangelii Gaudium. I’d like to see that pursued.

Newsies have their narrative, none must deviate, otherwise they look stupid.

Janet Yellen was confirmed as Federal Reserve Chairman on Jan. 6, but in spite of becoming one of the most powerful bankers in the world, the broadcasts networks continued to ignore her left-wing views.

Instead of discussing Yellen’s support for fiscal stimulus and regulatory efforts, ABC, CBS, and NBC focused exclusively on her gender in recent news reports.

In the first 24 hours following her confirmation, the broadcast networks spent no time describing her political and economic policy views. All of the networks’ morning and evening news shows, except for ABC’s “Good Morning America,” mentioned the confirmation and each highlighted Yellen’s gender and pointed out that she is the first woman to head the Federal Reserve.

It’s the lemming effect.