Author: Jim Bowman

Jim Bowman covered religion 1968-78 for the Chicago Daily News, since then has written books, articles, etc., mostly on corporate history but also on religion (Company Man: My Jesuit Life, 1950-1968), and more recently on politics (Illinois Blues: How the Ruling Party Talks to Voters -- Lulu.com, Kindle). Longtime Oak Park, Illinois, resident, he lives now on Chicago's North Side, where four of his and Winnie's six children live close by.

Fact-Checking Fauci

Has he spoken unwisely?

Chicago Newspapers

Dr. Fauci said worse is yet to come Covid-wise: Didn’t lock down soon enough, and when we did, people wouldn’t stay locked down.

There are several immediate problems with Fauci’s arguments, including the fact that COVID cases are showing clear signs of a summer resurgence in the same European countries that allegedly tamed the virus through harsh lockdowns in the spring.

Sure enough,

The American news media . . . seized on Fauci’s narrative, and used it to call for renewed lockdowns. The New York Times and The Washington Post both editorialized in favor of a second stricter wave of nationwide lockdowns lasting until October – this despite there being no clear evidence that lockdowns actually work at taming the virus.

Hmm.

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How Legacy Players Are Changing Lineup In Big League Ball

A leveler’s nightmare.

Chicago Newspapers

Droll meets common sense as to some iffy ideas by some legislators about leveling playing fields the nation over. In fact, the writer at one point refers to these dedicated souls as levelers— a word with a history.

He, by the way, is a New York gem. His outlet is the NY Sun. Read him.

His closing lines save the meat or heart of his treatment.

That doesn’t mean that first-generation ballpayers won’t sometimes win, or that some children of Hall-of-Fame baseball players might not be better off going to law school. It does mean that when fans are finally allowed back into ballparks, rather than booing the Blue Jays infield for reproducing a multigenerational lineage of hereditary elites, we can cheer them for exemplifying family values.

Got it.

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Aftermath of looting in downtown Chicago: 13 cops injured, 2 people shot, more than 100 arrests, Mag Mile trashed – Chicago Tribune

Looters are people too but . . .

Chicago Newspapers

Chi Trib lede for this story:

Hundreds of people swept through the Magnificent Mile and other parts of downtown Chicago early Monday, smashing windows, looting stores, confronting police and at one point exchanging gunfire with officers, authorities said.

Can Trib say looters? Or why not rioters? At least they’re not protestors.

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Mag Mile looting, property damage reported, all around mayhem, and what does the mayor say?

How many times have we heard it?

Lightfoot said the public has a responsibility to help apprehend the looters.

???Give no shelter to the criminals,??? Lightfoot said. ???People in [the] neighborhoods know who these folks are. … This is your time to step up. … We cannot do this without you. … We are not going to let our city be taken over by criminals and vigilantes.???

It hasn’t worked, it won’t work. People are terrified. The mayor needs a new line. Like this one, unveiled for the occasion:

???You have no right, no right to take and destroy the property of others,??? Lightfoot said. ???We are coming for you. … I don???t care what justification was given for this. There is no justification.???

What does she mean, and she might have said it before (I don’t remember it). But it’s supposed to be a sign of determination. How many take her seriously?

Keep schools open, says the governor of South Dakota

Her arguments bear considering:

She is Gov. Kristi Noem. “When it comes to schools,” she says, “the science is clear: we need to open them.”

Her arguments?

[T]he virus doesn’t impact [the children] on the same level as the flu. A JAMA Pediatrics report states, “Our data indicate that children are at far greater risk of critical illness from influenza than from COVID-19.”

“SARS-CoV-2 appears to behave differently in children and adolescents than other common respiratory viruses, such as influenza, on which much of the current guidance regarding school closures is based,” says theAmerican Academy of Pediatrics.

Moreover: . . . see here. . .

Pontifical Academy Rips Faithful Catholic Scientist

Going after Vaticanspeak in a time of Francis:

VATICAN CITY (ChurchMilitant.com) -??The Vatican has launched a personal attack on a Catholic scientist after she??shredded a pontifical publication??for portraying “an earthly utopia without God.”

ImageDr. Doyen NguyenDr. Doyen Nguyen, an academic physician and moral theologian with specializations in diagnostic hematology and bioethics, slammed the Pontifical Academy for Life’s (PAL) document titled “Humana Communitas in the Age of Pandemic: Untimely Meditations on Life’s Rebirth” as godless, Christless, churchless, hopeless??and faithless.

The Pope’s scientists can dish it out, but . . .

Keep schools open, says the governor of South Dakota

She’s done her homework.

She is Gov. Kristi Noem. “When it comes to schools,” she says, “the science is clear: we need to open them.”

Her arguments?

[T]he virus doesn’t impact [the children] on the same level as the flu. A JAMA Pediatrics report states, “Our data indicate that children are at far greater risk of critical illness from influenza than from COVID-19.”

“SARS-CoV-2 appears to behave differently in children and adolescents than other common respiratory viruses, such as influenza, on which much of the current guidance regarding school closures is based,” says theAmerican Academy of Pediatrics.

Moreover:

. . . via  OakPark.com