Category: Blithe Spirit

The good and the bad, emphasis on Trib and Sun-Times

Rebecca West’s Unique Take on Communism & Whittaker Chambers

Writers & Writing

Headline above caught my immediate interest, having read Rebecca West and found her (a) very interesting and (b) thorough.

This subhead, however, reminds me of a common irritation:

West understood more clearly than anyone the allure of Communism for educated Westerners

Anyone else. Please. (She being someone, right?)

via National Review

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‘No worker without rights’: Pope Francis advocates for universal basic income in ‘this time of danger’

Sunday sermons, weekday observations

Holy meddler!

The pope expressed his belief that the time is now to consider the concept of universal basic income in an Easter Sunday letter about the coronavirus pandemic sent to the leaders of major social movements.

“This may be the time to consider a universal basic wage which would acknowledge and dignify the noble, essential tasks you carry out,” Francis wrote. “It would ensure and concretely achieve the ideal, at once so human and so Christian, of no worker without rights.”

The pope also said that some low-income workers “have been excluded from the benefits of globalization.

He’s a sucker for the utopian solution.

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NYU scientists: Largest U.S. study of COVID-19 finds obesity the single biggest factor in New York’s hospita lizations | ZDNet

I think of our governor in Illinois.

Doctors at NYU Langone Health center conducted the largest study so far of U.S. hospital admissions for COVID-19, focused on New York City. They found obesity, along with age, was the biggest deciding factor in hospital admissions, which may suggest the role of hyper-inflammatory reactions that can happen in those with the disease.

If some had listened and paid more attention to Michelle Obama’s crusade a few years ago . . .

A Little Learning

‘The media and a lot of supposedly smart people don’t know what they don’t know, and they don’t want to know. They don’t know how to look for “cooked” numbers, like strange causes-of-death rates. They don’t know why the perfect is the enemy of the good. They don’t want to believe that “No, you won’t get it right this time,” because central planning and government control of the economy and medical system can’t work’.

Cat Rotator's Quarterly

is a dangerous thing. Drink deep or taste not of the Pierian spring. – Alexander Pope

A WuFlu rant follows. Sorry, I needed to grouse. Come back tomorrow for non-current-events and lighter topics.

The line is part of Alexander Pope’s very long poetic essay An Essay on Criticism. It is not an easy work to read, and most of us no longer connect the Pierian Spring with the inspiration of the Nine Muses. Which fits my muddled meanderings on the modern media’s practitioners, a little learning, and the near-hysterical narrative shaping society in the US at the moment.

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The Curious Case of Cardinal Pell: “The Power of the State was Recruited to Destroy Pell”

Justice was delayed . . .

At the eleventh hour, the nation’s highest court redeemed some of the credibility the Australian justice system had lost, reminding the nation and the world that the rule of law is not yet dead.

That assertion, however, remains doubtful in Victoria (Australia’s second largest state in terms of population).

There, the conduct of the Pell case routinely violated principles of justice recognised as sacrosanct in every civilised society.

Also:

Astonishingly, not one Australian Bishop (as far as I know) has publicly demanded a public inquiry into the conduct of the Pell case by Victoria Police and the state’s justice system.

Timid fellows, or unwilling to protest treatment of one who had been a gadfly in the cause of conservative liturgical reform.

In any case, Australian crawl got a new definition.

via RORATE CÆLI: Op-Ed