Consider this from a teacher at Fairfield U., a Jesuit institution:

Taking the thesis seriously, Sealey said, means “to acknowledge that any critical investigation of race should devote some time to the problem that is whiteness.”

She should look up Moby Dick and the pursuit of the white whale seen as dangerous.

It is little wonder that Ahab’s demonic pursuit of the White Whale has become an arch metaphor for our distrust of the other, from racial purity to global terrorism.

“Pondering all this, the palsied universe lies before us like a leper,” as Melville concludes, “and like wilful travellers in Lapland, who refuse to wear coloured glasses upon their eyes, so the wretched infidel gazes himself blind at the monumental white shroud that wraps all the prospect around him. And of all these things the Albino whale was the symbol. Wonder ye then at the fiery hunt?”

I’d take a class that took a Melvillian approach. Otherwise, no.

Our great state — as state rep Camille Lilly (D.-Oak Park and a string of other towns and neighborhoods as designated by Democrat district-makers) repeatedly referred to it in voter meetings recounted in my Illinois Blues: How the Ruling Party Talks to Voters — faces a huge income tax increase.

The plan [just passed in both houses] is defined by a massive, 32 percent income tax hike on Illinois residents, who are now witnessing the nation’s worst income growth. If signed into law, the House plan will hike the state income tax rate to 4.95 percent from 3.75 percent, and the corporate income tax rate will rise to 7 percent from 5.25 percent.

My debt here (for the “squeezing” adaptation) is to the post-WW2 Great Britain diplomat as regards reparations to be demanded of Germany, which got its revenge 20 years later.

No revenge is likely from Illinois citizens, however, tax-paying or otherwise — especially the otherwise, who will suffer most as the economy craters.

​Some good news on the smaller-government scene.​

The Senate still hasn’t voted on ObamaCare reform, U.S. workers are still waiting for tax cuts to drive economic growth and President of the United States Donald Trump is trading insults with the co-hosts of an MSNBC talk show. Yet Mr. Trump appears to be making progress in what might have seemed the most difficult task given to him by voters in 2016: reducing the power of Washington’s permanent bureaucracy.

​
State Dept. especially, but also Employment Prevention Agency (heh) and Energy.

​A first-term Oak Park trustee’s rude awakening​:​

Trustee  [Deno] Andrews, who owns Felony Franks on North Avenue ​[first-year man, had raised the issue as bad for business], said the issue has been divisive for Oak Park, and was discouraged by the tone of the arguments.

“I’ve gotten hate mail, calls and messages,” Andrews said. “I’m a little disappointed, to be honest with you.”

Regarding his own restaurant, Andrews said he has paid his workers more than the current minimum wage, and pledged to keep his wages above the new minimum, while also asking those in the audience to continue assisting the village’s local businesses.

“We are at risk because of this, but it’s worth taking,” Andrews said. “The small business community is going to need your help. I don’t mean just talking about it, I mean doing it.”

​
And the which-side-are-you-on crowd made enough noise, the vote was called off. Yes.

​Go figure.​

​Hard reading.​

​It’s Pell’s last stand. He’s had a target on his back for decades​, has a record for uncompromising support of what he considers the right thing.

​He is a blunt speaker, a tough and practical manager, a theological conservative, a supporter of the Pope, and an outspoken critic of contemporary social mores. He was the plumber of the Australian Catholic Church, the man who fearlessly waded into the sewer of its sex abuse scandal and cleared the blocked drains.

So Pell has no shortage of enemies. When Australia had a referendum on changing the head of state from the Queen of England, he was a leading supporter of Australia becoming a Republic. That was divisive. He opposes homosexual activism, which is divisive. He strongly opposes same-sex marriage, which is bitterly divisive. He supported John Paul II to the hilt and amongst his clergy that was divisive. He set up his own sex-abuse protocol and amongst the Australian bishops that was divisive. He shook up the Melbourne seminary and that was divisive. In his role in the Vatican, he has worked hard to set finances right and root out corruption and that was divisive.​

​Now he has to “prove his innocence.”​

The attacks on ​[him] ultimately stem from a loathing of the Church and its moral teachings amongst the left-leaning Victorian political establishment. At the moment it is in government, noisily campaigning for euthanasia and transgender rights and quietly gloating over the possibility of destroying Australia’s best-known Catholic.

It has been Pell’s misfortune to be a good man, an effective manager and a loyal priest. In today’s world that is a dangerous combination. Ensuring that he gets a fair trial will be the ultimate test of the fairness of Australia’s courts​.

​We may hope they are up to the task.​

​It’s not easy being a theologian, lesson # 3,053 (?), twisting and turning, giving self a spiritual hernia:

​With Mary as model, Christian spirituality recognizes in every birth, accepted by a woman in faith, an experience of the salvation that has come in the end time.

​He’s a man dreadfully unemployed, to have time for this sort of thing. Squaring circles.​

​You’d think you were reading about changes in city hall, the mayor solidifying his hold on how things happen.​

The story broke last week in the Spanish-language newspaper Clarin, and was reported today by the Rome-based Corrispondenza Romana.

Clarin suggested Muller would be replaced by Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley, known as a yes-man in Church circles. Other candidates include Vienna Cardinal Chistoph Schonborn and Archbishop Victor Fernandez, a close collaborator of Pope Francis.

​Looking ahead to the next election?