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.

Lockdown Skepticism

Chicago Newspapers

Has you covered, all you people wondering what the heck is going on or strenuously objecting.

Examining the empirical basis for mandatory lockdown policies in both the physical and social sciences. We are concerned about the impact of COVID-19 lockdown / quarantines on our freedoms, human rights, physical and mental health, and economy. We are skeptical of an ongoing lockdown as an effective way to manage the coronavirus pandemic. This is a non-partisan, non-racist, multidisciplinary, global sub. Propagating conspiracy theories is strictly against this sub’s rules.

27.3k Members, At this moment 695 Online

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Newsmax Ratings Surge, Surpass Fox For First Time

King is dead, long live the king?

Or one night stand by upstart?

Before Nov. 3, neither OAN nor Newsmax could come anywhere close to matching, or surpassing, the ratings from America’s reigning king of cable: Fox News, the conservative-leaning news and opinion network that helped cultivate the base of GOP voters which Trump rallied to victory in 2016, has finally lost its crown.

According to media reports, Newsmax beat Fox News among the coveted 25- to 54-year-old demographic for the first time ever on Monday evening. The ratings win comes amid a breakthrough in the Trump Administration’s push to challenge the election results in the court of public opinion to try and “delegitimize” Biden’s presidency (just like how many on the left refused to accept Donald Trump as their president 4 yeas ago).

The battle has at times impacted Fox’s shares.

CNN’s Brian Stelter, who clearly likes to think of himself on the de facto “reporter of record” when it comes to covering the American media industry (the eptiome of naval gazing, as far as we can tell), broke the news late Tuesday.

“Before the election, Newsmax was not regarded as a formidable competitor to Fox; it was mostly dismissed as one of a handful of wannabe challengers,” CNN’s Brian Stelter reports. “But President Trump’s loss on Nov. 3 changed the cable TV calculus. Viewers who were frustrated when Fox admitted the truth of Trump’s loss sought other options,” and “Newsmax — and Kelly in particular — offered a safe space in which Biden was not called president-elect and Trump was not yet defeated.”

Of course, many on the left are blaming Fox’s “Fall From Grace” on the fact that it “stood up to Trump” by calling the vote for Biden, even as supreme court challenges and other questions remian unresolved. Trump’s most loyal followers are likewise repudiating Fox, and embracing Sinclair-owned Newsmax and OAN.

While this is only the first time any Newsmax programming blocks has topped Fox, we imagine it won’t be the last, particularly as Newsmax copies more and more of what worked at Fox, while filtering out everything that didn’t.

All from Tyler Durden at Zero Hedge, where the elite meet to catch up on things.

Bring on 2021 – Ugly truth on its way

How’s this for a lead?

It was in the musical Camelot (the movie) when King Pellinore (Lionel Jefferies) advises Arthur (Richard Harris) that the “uglier the truth, the truer the friend who tells you.”

Now, with mere weeks to go before the year changes, we have to confront an ugly truth. 2020 is just prelude to crises and conflicts to come. When they end, we cannot say. The 2020s may prove a troubled decade. I don’t pretend to have a crystal ball. But there are matters we can be sure of. One need only survey the scene — the wreckage, really — of 2020 to understand that America faces the gravest risks to its existence as a free and united country in 160 years.

So dig in.

“Does Jesus love me?” and other pregnant thoughts during mass . . .

Sunday sermons, weekday observations

From this woolgathering pewsitter, a few years back . . .

Sunday morning mass. I write, therefore I am at church, where having forgot my reading material, I must jot so as to reduce awareness of the liturgy according to Fr. X. Oh?

Does Jesus love me? No question he does. Do I him? I think so. No. Sure I do, based on what I know about him. Definitely. Have had to take others’ word so far, but yes, definitely. When I meet Him, assuming that I will, and I do assume it, then I will know for sure. And that’s the long and short of it.

Pope Francis’ okaying divorce and remarriage — put “remarriage” in quotes if you wish — calls for a better argument than his essay “Amoris Laetitiae” contains? I would say so. His application of Ignatian discernment of spirits is misdirected, for…

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Byron York’s Daily Memo: Trump in Georgia: ‘Get out and vote’

Tale of two newspapers:

TRUMP IN GEORGIA: ‘GET OUT AND VOTE‘ In the days leading up to President Trump’s rally in Valdosta, Georgia, there was a lot of speculation about what might happen. Would Trump spend all his time complaining about the presidential vote count, in Georgia and some other states? Or would he stick to the purpose of the event, to promote the candidacies of Republican Senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler in the January 5 Georgia runoffs that will determine control of the Senate?

To look at the headlines, Trump made it all about himself. “At Georgia rally, Trump spouts election falsehoods, amplifies old grievances,” was the headline in the Washington Post. The New York Times went with “At Rally for Georgia Senators, Trump Focuses on His Own Grievances.”

But there was much more to the story. In fact, Trump delivered for Perdue and Loeffler. Yes, he talked a lot about the presidential election. But he also talked a lot about the Senate races, stressed the importance of the races, and pushed repeatedly for Georgians to vote in the runoffs. He even took took a not-so-veiled shot at his own allies who have been urging Georgia Republicans to boycott the race.

Have they no shame?

A week to which there is no return

Monkish behavior in well-traveled ‘hood.

Man with coffee, seated, looking around . . . 3:30 in the p.m. on Colectivo patio, a few yards from Clark Street reading Richard Hughes’ Fox in the Attic. Very careful writer, says intro, author who takes time to do it right. It shows.

Lo, on Clark and the side street Rascher, where the man sits, mad monks walk by. Mad monks — he’s never met one, it’s a Gothic trope — are his fellow citizens in masks, covered nose to gullet, one after another, heads down, avoiding so much as a glance at this man in snappy red sweater under stylish green, chilly-weather vest. . . .

More to come from Blithe Spirit Weekly.