A pessimistic view of today’s Catholic liturgy:

The [post-Vatican 2] Pauline rite [Paul VI’s] is so radical a deconstruction and reconstruction of the Roman liturgy that it does not exist in the same tradition of organic development. It is a new departure, a new thing, not a revision of the old thing that had been handed down over the centuries.

As an artificial liturgical entity constructed out of pieces of the Roman heritage combined with modern scholarly inventions, any future reform of it would be no more than a variation on the new theme. The only way forward is not to tinker any more with this “fabrication, a banal on-the-spot product” (as Ratzinger called it in 1992), but to return steadfastly and stalwartly to the Catholic and Roman liturgical tradition embodied in the preconciliar Missal.

Indeed, only in this way can the deepest aims and aspirations of the Second Vatican…

Don Harmon is on a tear, is he not? Has he not been preternaturally active leading up to this election season, when he’s running unopposed (fancy that!) for relection to his automatic senate post?

There were town hall meetings last spring and summer, in which he exposed himself in unprecedented fashion to slings and arrows as the state writhed in fiscal agony; a meeting he called and promoted with multiple robocalls about the Eisenhower expansion; multiple letters to Wed. Journal in the shape of guest columns (again exposing himself, this time to online-comment scrums); more recently rallying his troops for call-athons to promote his and presumably others’ candidacies; and most recently an “urgent” Saturday-morning meeting (tomorrow) to endorse a county board candidate.

This last is part of an all-hands-on-board effort to block the candidacy of the felonious former alderman Ike Carothers, two years out of federal prison and eager to…

The village hired HOPE Fair Housing Center to study discrimination in Oak Park housing in 2013. The organization conducted “paired testing” by sending African-American and white renters to eight local management companies to ask about rentals.

The village hired people to be its agents with a view to work undercover to check up on citizens who rent housing in the village?

It’s come to that?

Here’s a thought about findings of racial and other discrimination in housing rental in Oak Park, based on this from the findings:

Despite the village’s reputation as “one of the truly integrated communities in the Chicago Metro area,” significant discrimination persists, the study states.

The thought? That being a truly integrated community calls for a certain amount of such discrimination, assuming, as the village board apparently did, that the findings are credible.

Historically, the village faced accusations of unduly “managing” integration in the ’70s, presumably lest “resegregation” be the norm. Consider Maywood.

I feel free to make this observation — admitting that I have not read the report but only about it and being opposed to unfair discrimination — because as a liberal community we are committed to considering all aspects of most issues.

Republican Natl Committee report from Ill. Chairman Jack Dorgan has 2016 news.

The committee . . . elected members of the 2016 Convention Site Selection Committee.

Important stuff that — Midwesterners are from Iowa, N. Dakota, and Indiana. But the hoi polloi resonate more with this:

Among . . . cities vying to host the convention . . . are Las Vegas, Kansas City, Phoenix, Denver, and Columbus.

Would be a case of (a) what happens in Vegas not staying there or (b) everything being up to date or (c) rising from the ashes of the Obama trainwreck presidency or (d) thin air being no obstacle to high-energy performance or (e) saying goodbye (guess: Roth novel) without regrets.

Asked where he stood on the five-day week for mail delivery yesterday, Feb. 10, at the library, Rep. Danny Davis gave a litany of experts who had chimed in on the matter — lawyers, economists, and others, including “actuarians.”

It’s “an old issue,” he mused, picking his words with deliberation but ignoring the question. “Sometimes Congress quickly decides a thing, sometimes not,” he said.

Businesses, unions (as letter carriers), and other groups have opposed the change, he said — including Amazon, a major U.S. Postal Service customer, the USPS district supervisor, Peter Allen, added later.

“I’ve been in countries,” Davis continued, “where five women are put to clean a hotel room. In one of these, he asked the government host about this. “You Americans don’t understand. We believe that it’s important for as many to work as possible.’

“We have not reached that point,” Davis said, reporting the incident as…