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.

Part 1: FDR warned in 1935 that Social Welfare Programs could become narcotic-like

Nancy J. Thorner

Not much attention has been given to a Cato report published on April 17, 2012 about Welfare and the War on Poverty by William A. Niskanen.  Although my print out of the article amounted to seventeen pages of material, it is worth taking the time and the resources needed to download and read in its entirety

Most telling is a statement made by President Franklin D. Roosevelt during his 1935 State of the Union message.  When speaking about his proposed social welfare program, Roosevelt added this ominous message (The Social Security Act was signed on August 14, 1935 as part of Roosevelt’s “New Deal”.).   
 
“The lessons of history, confirmed by evidence immediately before me, show conclusively that continued dependence on relief induces a spiritual and moral disintegration fundamentally destructive to the national fiber.  To dole out relief in this way is to administer a narcotic, a subtle destroyer of the human spirit. …

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Jim Bowman: Cardinal George led from his head and his heart

A sendoff of sorts for a good man:

The Cardinal George image I can’t shake is an amazing shot of him with Leo Catholic High School boys, during a visit to the school in 2012. He’s in the middle of them, one with his arm over his shoulder. He’s beaming, and so are they.

A close second is the sound bite at the news conference held jointly with his newly named successor, Archbishop Blase Cupich. George was telling reporters how much he had learned from them and singled out one of his long-time interrogators, CBS-Channel 2′s Jay Levine: “What I remember most, Jay, is your asking me always how I felt about this or that, never what I thought about it.”

More more more, set for Sunday’s Sun-Times hard copy.

Cruel governor, irresponsible Democrats

Two views of autism program budget cuts:

To Democrats, it was the “Good Friday Massacre;” a double-cross by the Republican governor after securing their votes on emergency budget bills. They voted for those bills at Rauner’s behest because, they believed, they contained assurances that programs like The Autism Project would be protected.

To Republicans, it was a painful yet necessary act by an administration that, for the first time in 12 years, will not play numbers games or push this year’s expenses into next year. It was the Democrats’ fault for passing a budget last year knowing that it did not have enough money to get the state through the year. Filling the $1.6 billion hole they created meant hard choices.

The second makes more sense. That phony budget of last year, very bad. Why do they do us like they do, do, do?

Sun-Times takes “every 28 hours” as gospel

It ain’t.

Thank stringer Ruth Fuller and the Sun-Times desk for not bothering to look this up:

Tio Hardiman, former executive director of the group CeaseFire, also spoke at the gathering Saturday in Zion [to protest killing of 17-year-old by a policeman].

“Every 28 hours, an African American is shot or killed by a police officer in America,” Hardiman said. “Select — not all — police believe they are above the law.”

They could have done so easily, googling “every 28 hours” and finding something viral and false about this claim:

The figure “every 28 hours” comes from an April 2013 report titled “Operation Ghetto Storm” by the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement. The report analyzed officer-involved killings of African-American victims in 2012. The report “is a window offering a cold, hard, and fact-based view into the thinking and practice of a government and a society that will spare no cost to control the lives of Black people,” according to the preface.

However:

It’s not hard to debunk the claims using basic findings and methodologies from the report. (Twitter user @FeministaJones did it in a series of tweets using Storify.)

As for the rest of the debunking, you can look it up. As could Tio Hardiman, Ruth Fuller, and the entire Sun-Times organization, on whom and which, fie!

Sing, sing, sing

Cantors at Catholic mass get out of hand sometimes, like the one at a recent mass I attended who sang well as far as I could tell, but alas, sang too loudly (belting it out), too long (every damn verse of whatever it was), and too often (does the cantor have that many openings usually?).

This one almost stole the show, upstaging the altar happenings, quiet prayerful reflection time, and in general forgetting that she is not the star of the event, but supporting case member.

Pizza maker in Indiana got asked by a reporter, answered, had to close shop, plans to get out of the state

About this pizza shop in Indiana, center of a homosexual hate storm:

The owners never refused service to gays. They never claimed they’d refuse service to gays. As [Reason.com writer Matt] Welch notes, they said the opposite — they would and do serve gay customers. What they wouldn’t do if asked is cater a gay wedding because their faith tells them that marriage is sacred and reserved for straight couples.

That “thinking,” politely declining to be conscripted by the state into a ceremony that violates one’s religion, no longer has a place in small-town Indiana according to the town’s own senator, who’s more keen to stay on the good side of the left’s gay-marriage mob than defend constituents guilty of nothing more than giving their opinion to a reporter.

Will It Ever End?