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.

Interstellar and “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night”

Bookshelf Battle

I saw Interstellar tonight and overall found it very moving and enjoyable.  As soon as I figure out what the hell happened, I’ll give it an actual review.  In the meantime, I wanted to share the text of the poem that featured prominently throughout the film:

DO NOT GO GENTLE INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT

BY: Dylan Thomas

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late…

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Coffee at Gordono’s after mass: drug store, coffee shop, deli all-in-one

Gordono’s at Clark & Catalpa, NE corner this a.m. after mass at nearby St. Gregory’s. Friendly Omar makes the salads there. He took my $5 for paper, coffee, and (glazed) doughnut, returned a few coins change in a no-look (at what I’d bought) transaction that took a half minute preceded by warm chat with lady of the establishment, who had intro’d Omar as salad chef.

It’s an amazing place. Says pharmacy out front in top of window signs on Catalpa and Clark sides, but just below eye level on Clark there’s “Jewish deli.” What’s that? Deli cum drug store? Yes, that and more: a full-scale restaurant and coffee shop, with sturdy high tables and stools along both windows and coffee dispenser a step away for initial cup and refill, plus restaurant-style tables in adjoining room.

In rear of the corner room is the pharmacy with big signs, aspirin etc. along one short wall, band-aids etc. along the other and a booth area for the pharmacist to take and fill scrips. Everything about it is tightly wound in sense of nothing flimsy, no space wasted — a triumph of interior design with no sense of being crowded, much of being fascinated by the variety of the place.

The matzoh-ball soup is made on the spot, the lady told me, she the apparent owner or at least manager, 30-something, bright of eye and black of hair, plump, attractive, friendly and businesslike at same time.

At my Trib when once settled with coffee and doughnut, I read of the governor mixing it with legislators, feinting, dodging, in the game, in sharp contrast to the somewhat aloof, self-absorbed predecessor who offered no solution at at any time, just stopgap measures to save our state, which is in a state of alarm or should be.

Obama at Georgetown: A welcome to the viper?

He and two other panelists had their say on a number of matters, the President chiming in about church and state working together on social issues. Robert Royal commented:

People will have differing reactions to all this. But over and above the mixture of dark and bright spots, Catholic institutions like Georgetown have settled into a quite comfortable stance. Prominent politicians who are pressuring the Church and promoting grave moral evils are welcome.

Don’t think people inside and outside the Church don’t notice. If the Church truly believed that the nation was killing over one million innocents in the womb yearly, would it coexist happily with those promoting that holocaust – just because they’re thoughtful on poverty?

As Flannery O’Connor once said, you can’t be any poorer than dead.

He had earlier provided context:

The Catholic Church in America sometimes looks as if it’s on a suicide mission. Individual bishops or institutions don’t seem able to tell friend from foe, invite enemies into their midst, ignore threats, give the impression that the best they can hope for is that people won’t be too angry at the Church. Which they would rather be thought of as doing nice, uncontroversial things like providing social services, and not overemphasizing more difficult moral matters.

As the hard-ball player Leo Durocher said, “Nice guys finish . . . ” Where?

President Nixon v. press, revisited by Axelrod and friends

David A. is a “believer,” he says in his book title, but in what does he believe? That is the question posed here:

In October 2009, the Obama White House launched a concerted attack against critical press coverage, one unparalleled since the days of the Nixon White House. In one respect, Barack Obama and Richard Nixon were in agreement: both perceived a distinctly liberal bias in the media. Nixon denounced the press for its leftism, Obama objected to the press’s deviation from it. So Obama and his senior staff singled out for condemnation Fox News, the lone television network that did not serve up the fawning coverage the president and his team had come to expect.

In “The Silencing: How the Left is Killing Free Speech,” Kirsten Powers recounts that in the space of a few days, White House communications director Anita Dunn, her deputy Dan Pfeiffer, White House Senior Adviser David Axelrod, and White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel openly asserted that the administration properly excluded Fox reporters from press briefings because Fox was not a legitimate news organization. When asked for comment by NBC News, President Obama stood behind his team.

“Unparalled,” says the writer, citing K. Powers’s new book.

David, David, is this how you felt in your Chi Trib days as a member of the media, as we say?

Some believer he, packaging for us a major league deceiver — to whom he remained loyal to a fault, though with what the Economist reviewer generously called a “broken heart.” Sure.