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.

Rauner’s right to work plans are not appreciated by some

​Big Labor objects to Rauner’s worker-empowerment zones:​ (http://insurancenewsnet.com/oarticle/2015/01/28/rauner-blasts-labor-unions-for-states-woes-a-588002.html#.VMmY7CwfrIU)

​“The Bruce Rauner that managed to mask his true feelings about working families for most of last year showed his true agenda today. Much like his past proposal to cut the minimum wage, he is now going after workers on all fronts by supporting Right To Work, attacking Unemployment Insurance and Workers Compensation, as well as prevailing wage and Project Labor Agreements that benefit both workers and the taxpayers.​

​Which working families is he talking about? The privileged ones whose union contracts insure them lots of money by way of wages etc. which are not and never will be available to the hoi polloi. Tsk, tsk.

Being a pacifist about drugs

​Gummint wars on drugs as its duty to protect citizens from a social evil, George Mason University’s Don Boudreaux argues; but it has become "addicted to intruding in this and many other noxious ways into people’s lives to win this war.

But:

​Even if, contrary to fact, the government could succeed at ‘winning’ the ‘war on drugs’ – and even if you believe that government has a moral duty to protect people from themselves if doing so is worth the price by some reckoning – is the actual price paid today to fight this ‘war’ really sufficiently low to justify the alleged gains?​

​Think about it.

On anti-feast of Saint Thomas Aquinas, Priest and Doctor of the Church

​Once a saint with a feast day, now nothing but a stinking “memorial.” Thus have decreed the liturgical technicians, who wrap pliant bishops around their little fingers.

It’s a “pastoral” loss, because Aquinas was a real, graspable human being who was like us in every respect but oh so different. Vive la difference, my friends, the kind that gives samples of living life in the real. But not making the muster for lit-techs who have their PLANS, do they not​?

For getting things neat and orderly and making it pretty damn hard for the daily homilist who might just otherwise have a bit of advice or two, in Thomas’ case for scholars and students.

Homilist can talk about Thomas if he wishes, yes, but he’d have to decide to go against the grain in an age of relative indifference to saints. The techies have spoken, the matter est fini.

This publisher died for his faith

​Wow. Wanna good thought or two while mourning for the Charlie Hebdo victims? (R.I.P. them) It’s here in Dolores Madlener’s Church Clips column in the Catholic New World.​

​Cartoons and Catholicism —

  • Coming shortly after the Jan. 7 terrorist attack on an audacious publishing house in Paris was the feast day of Blessed William Carter. The two historical episodes have little in common. Yet there is some irony in the proximity of dates since William Carter was also a slain publisher. According to Franciscan Media’s “Saint of the Day,” online, this Catholic layman was born in London in 1548. William entered the printing business at a young age, serving for 10 years as an apprentice to well-known Catholic printers. After setting up his own business, William had to spend time in prison for “printing lewd [i.e.,
    Catholic] pamphlets” and for possessing Catholic books. Two years later he was again arrested for printing books that aimed to keep Catholics firm in their faith — an even bigger crime according to Elizabeth I. William was sent to prison for 18 months, suffering torture on the rack.Saint of the Day concludes: “He was eventually charged with printing and publishing ‘A Treatise of Schism,’ which allegedly incited violence by Catholics and which was said to have been written by a traitor and addressed to traitors. While William calmly placed his trust in God, the jury met for only 15 minutes before reaching a verdict of ‘guilty.’ William, who made his final confession to a priest who was being tried alongside him, was hanged, drawn and quartered the following day: Jan. 11, 1584.”

​A publisher martyr, he.​

​

Reporter who wrote about being “harassed in Obama’s Washington” on the stand in re: AG nominee. Hmm.

​Among witnesses tomorrow before the judiciary committee about AG nominee Lynch:

Ms. Sharyl Attkisson
Investigative Journalist
Leesburg, Va.​

​She’s the no-nonsense reporter who quit CBS after her bosses spied on her after tough reporting on the Benghazi attacks, Fast and Furious and Obamacare.​

​Her book Stonewalled: My Fight for Truth Against the Forces of Obstruction, Intimidation, and Harassment in Obama’s Washington is all about that.

I will be looking at the night’s news and on web for something about what she said and how she said it at the hearing.

Marquette and L’affaire McAdams

​Libs have been lying in wait for this outspoken professor, got him suspended.​

​Howard Kainz on the suspension of Marquette professor John McAdams, who dared to defend academic freedom on a Catholic campus.

<—– John McAdams

With the ongoing advocacy of gay marriage and mandatory attendance at “sensitivity” classes, pressures on faculty at universities to avoid doing or saying anything “politically incorrect” have significantly increased.

A recent example, which has entered into national headlines, arose when a graduate student in philosophy, Cheryl Abbate, teaching a course on ethics at Marquette University, was discussing John Rawls’ “Equal Liberty” principle, which affirms individual freedom unless the rights of others are impugned.​

​Read all about at The Catholic Thing.​

​

The Obama administration wants to dramatically change how doctors are paid – The Washington Post

Take gummint money, get monitored. It’s a long arm that has no ending.

Rather than pay more money to Medicare doctors simply for every procedure they perform, the government will also evaluate whether patients are healthier, among other measures. The goal is for half of all Medicare payments to be handled this way by 2018.

Gummint gonna evaluate us. That’s nice.