"Hail to thee, blithe Spirit! Bird thou never wert, That from Heaven, or near it, Pourest thy full heart In profuse strains of unpremeditated art."
Andre “Our ward, our moment” Vasquez opposing incumbent Alderman O’Connor in runoff.
I picture Fidel coming down from the hills, waving his rifle, galloping down Western Avenue, his people yelling “Viva Andre” and “Nostra La Sala.”
Means business, apparently. Wants a beachhead in my ‘hood. Don’t want him to have it.
Among supporters, by the way:
During an appearance on Nick Hanauer and David Goldstein’s “Pitchfork Economics” podcast released earlier today, Booker said that America was no longer “the top country” for “poor people” to be born into, and said this has changed drastically in his lifetime.
It’s an old leftist dumb thing to say. Get yourself a new shtick, Cory, something we haven’t heard before.
A party boss — no recommendation at all.
The runoff battle between Lightfoot and Preckwinkle promises to be a donnybrook, pitting a new reformer against an old one who has since become a party boss. Whatever happens, assuming the two indeed face each other in a runoff, Chicago will make history with its first African-American woman as mayor. [emphasis added]
Makes it an easy choice when you say it (credibly) that way.
Australian Cardinal George Pell was convicted in December of molesting two choirboys in the 1990s, but it was not until yesterday that the details were disclosed; charges against Pell that would require a second trial over other allegations were dropped. Pell’s lawyers are appealing the conviction.
There are many holes in the story that led to Pell’s conviction. To begin with, one of the boys who was alleged to have registered a complaint overdosed on drugs and died.
More important, the boy’s mother said her son admitted, on two occasions, that Pell never abused him. This does not matter to the boy’s father: He says he is going to sue the Church or Pell once the appeal is resolved. Let him. And let him sue his wife for libeling their son.
The other case:
Regarding the other boy, the sole complainant, he said that Pell made him perform oral sex on him after saying Mass at Melbourne’s St. Patrick’s Cathedral two decades ago. I have already written extensively about this, so I will not repeat it here.
AP account further serves to exonerate Pell.
However, I will offer a good summary of what this one boy alleges to have happened. The quoted parts are taken from a well-researched news story published today by Rod McGuirk of the Associated Press; he writes from Melbourne.
A prominent Vatican journalist has accused Pope Francis of covering up for an Argentine bishop who had gay porn on his phone.
Inés San Martin, who is one of the most respected journalists in the Vatican press corps, asked Archbishop Charles Scicluna at a press conference after the abuse summit: “We know there is a bishop in Argentina, Zanchetta, who had gay porn on his phone involving young people.
More:
“How can we believe that this is in fact the last time we’re going to hear ‘no more cover-ups’ when at the end of the day, Pope Francis covered up for someone in Argentina who had gay porn involving minors?
“How can we believe that this is going to change now?”
Followed by fumbling:
Archbishop Scicluna appeared to be taken aback by the question, responding: “Well I’ll quote what the Holy Father said this morning about the law. About the case, I’m not, I’m not, you know, I’m not authorised… I mean, yeah.”
And then, putting a stop to the whole thing:
Vatican interim press office director Alessandro Gisotti then cut off Archbishop Scicluna’s response, saying that questions about specific cases were not permitted.
It’s how it’s done in an organization pledged to openness.
For specifics on the Argentinian . . .
If not, we have here an addition to UK patois, because baseball players do this a lot, and I am gobsmacked to see it as headline for a Times of London publication article.
Haruki Murakami
© Sipa/REX/ShutterstockStill swinging for the fences: Murakami in conversation
Roland Kelts talks to the novelist about his legacy, his critics and the pleasures of translation (see below)
OK. Looked it up and answer is yes.
Not to worry, then, about further corrupting the Queen’s English.
But baseball is older, right? Wrong.
And look that up for yourselves. It’s too rich and complicated an issue for this blog. Sorry.
Changed my mind about that:
Cricket is older, the first definite mention of the game is found in a 1598 court case concerning an ownership dispute over a plot of common land in Guildford, Surrey. A 59-year old coroner, John Derrick, testified that he and his school friends had played creckett on the site fifty years earlier when they attended the Free School.
Derrick’s account proves beyond reasonable doubt that the game was being played in Surrey circa 1550, the first published account of baseball wasn’t untill 1744 where a publication in England by children’s publisher John Newbery called A Little Pretty Pocket-Book includes a woodcut and a rhyme entitled “Base-ball.” There were older games that can be seen as precursors to both games.
If you want the modern versions of the game, the first international cricket match was played in 1844 while the first official game of baseball played with codified rules was 19th June 1846.
OK!
The churchmen behind the Francis papacy.
On March 3, 2013, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor—an alumnus of the St. Gallen mafia—met with then-Cardinal Bergoglio over risotto and wine. It was the evening before the pre-conclave general congregations—as Murphy-O’Connor recalls in his memoirs—and the old friends were discussing “the sort of person we felt the cardinals should elect.”
A day earlier, an anonymous cardinal had been quoted saying, “Four years of Bergoglio would be enough to change things.” Later, Murphy-O’Connor would utter that same phrase, adding: “But pray to God we have him for much longer than that.”
A covering-up group:
Asked, before the conclave, if he’d advise that the new pope be “free from any kind of taint of cover-up,” Murphy-O’Connor at one point said: “You’re not going to get a saint straight away, you know; we’re all sort of, we’re all sinners” (31:31).
Murphy-O’Connor had himself covered up for a notorious abuser who went on to molest other young victims, some disabled.
Then?
One of the priest’s confirmed victims claimed that when he abused her Murphy-O’Connor and others were present and involved—yet the CDF’s [Congreg. for Defense of the Faith] 2013 investigation into Murphy-O’Connor was stopped because it lacked Pope Francis’s approval.
Sources for a respected Vaticanist claim that an angry Francis interrupted Cardinal Müller [CDF prefect, later demoted] while he was saying Mass, ordering the investigation’s shutdown.
Phew.
Source: Francis Allies Reveal Their Plans for Revolutionary Change – Crisis Magazine
VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis may have wrapped up his clergy sex abuse prevention summit at the Vatican, but a scandal over an Argentine bishop close to him is only gaining steam.
The Associated Press has reported that the Vatican knew as early as 2015 about Bishop Gustavo Zanchetta’s inappropriate behavior with seminarians. Yet he was allowed to stay on as bishop of the northern Argentine diocese of Oran on until 2017, when he resigned suddenly, only to be given a top job at the Vatican by Francis, his confessor.
New documents published by the Tribune of Salta newspaper show that the original 2015 complaint reported that Zanchetta had gay porn on his cellphone involving “young people” having sex, as well as naked images of Zanchetta masturbating that he sent to others.
Francis is carrying that “Who am I to judge?” business too far, it seems.
Blithe Spirit 