Category: Blithe Spirit
God forgives sins? We hear that all the time, from hundreds of preachers. But God condemns sins and forgives sinners. Not theology or Scriptural accuracy here (hardly) but simple (not that it’s a simple thing to achieve) clarity.
Or the priest or lector prays for those suffering every misfortune. No. No one suffers every misfortune. He wants to say any misfortune. It’s hard to corroborate his prayer with “Lord, hear our prayer” in answer to such non-sense.
Of course, there’s the time-honored forgive us our trespasses, isn’t there? But forgive our trespasses we don’t say, now do we?
Think about it.
20 Best Jobs That Don’t Require a College Degree
College not a sine qua non for good job.
Even if you don’t know what the hell sine qua non means, which doesn’t mean you can’t look it up, fella!
Geo. Zimmerman pummeled, can of iced tea
Bleeding from the nose and back of his head . . . broken and bloody nose and swelling of his face. . . . open wound of scalp . . . . Nasal bones, closed fracture were reported by police or hospital about George Zimmerman’s injuries the night he shot Trayvon Martin, reports Smoking Gun.
And the can that fell out of Trayvon’s pocket while he was being given first aid while lying on the ground.
A Blue Line passenger, a white man 30 or so, in nice (expensive-looking) brown leather jacket and giving the appearance of an easy-going, inoffensive, non-confrontational fellow, dark hair neatly cut, neither swarthy nor bearded — a passenger, in short, who calls attention to himself in no way — rises at Pulaski, westbound, stands at the door as the train slows and stops. It’s in the middle of a weekday afternoon, the car is sparsely occupied.
Doors fold open before him, he steps toward the concrete platform, but as he does so reaches overhead and on the backlit glassed-in diagram of train routes overhead slaps a five-inch-square white label that sticks firmly, on which are inscribed black-marker pen scribblings. He does it in a flash, barely pausing as he leaves the car, and is gone.
The doors unfold and close, the train pulls away. The label’s markings, examined, show themselves as indecipherable…
View original post 125 more words
Wall Street has diversity
* Many of the hedge fund and private equity guys used to work at the big banks and left to strike out on their own for a reason.
* The smaller firms compete with the big banks for the job of managing capital for rich individuals and institutions.
* When the banks raise capital or handle trades for the smaller firms, they charge fees that the smaller firms wish were lower.
* The banks have access to cheap capital via the Federal Reserve and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation that the smaller firms dont get.
* The smaller firms sometimes dont like the trading terms set by the banks on things like posting collateral.
* The bank executives dont like the way the non-bank guys pay the capital gains tax rate on their carried interest, while the bank executives pay a higher income tax rate on their compensation.
What’s more, they give money to different parties, the big guys to Dems and Obama, the others to Republicans and Romney. So don’t lump them together as if they lacked diversity.
Argues Stoll of NY Sun. But Obama does take some private equity money, as Halper of Weekly Standard points out
. It’s not as if he’s boycotting them. He doesn’t boycott money.
Georgetown vs. the bishops
Founded in 1789 by John Carroll, a Jesuit priest, Georgetown University has, historically speaking, religious roots. So, too, do Harvard, Princeton and Brown. Over time, though, as has happened with these Ivy League institutions, Georgetown has undergone a secularization, due in no small part to the fact that much of its leadership and faculty find their inspiration in sources other than the Gospel and Catholic teaching. Many are quite clear that they reflect the values of the secular culture of our age. Thus the selection of Secretary Sebelius for special recognition, while disappointing, is not surprising.
And thiis:
With all of the people struggling so hard to preserve freedom of religion, and with all that the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has said in defense of this important value, Georgetowns choice of the architect of the radical challenge of such freedom for special recognition can only be seen as a statement of where the university stands certainly not with the Catholic bishop
American Catholic picked the quotes, adding this:
The editorial is not mincing words. It is plainly stating that Georgetown is, for all intents and purposes, no longer a Catholic university. As Msgr. Pope notes, these words come from the Archdioceses official newspaper, and therefore had to be signed off on by the Cardinals senior staff.
The invite is indeed a stunning declaration by the Jesuits, a throwing down of the gauntlet.
Newsies with a heart? Harden it.
We need journalists to get at the truth and to keep watch against abuses of power. They have a hard enough time getting that right. So lets absolve them of the responsibility of charity or iconoclasm. If journalists want to comfort the afflicted, they should send money to the Red Cross.
Get it straight, please.
Legislation moving right along to forbid trying to help people change who want to change. If Orwell did not foretell this, he might have.
Approached by a young woman at a reception and told she had bet she could get three words out of him, President Coolidge replied, “You lose.”
As mayor of Northampton MA, he bucked the trends and went out of his way for the Irish.
And how’s this for wisdom that lasts?
There is no right to strike against the public safety by anybody, anywhere, any time.
And:
I favor the policy of economy, not because I wish to save money, but because I wish to save people. The men and women of this country who toil are the ones who bear the cost of the Government. Every dollar that we carelessly waste means that their life will be so much the more meager. Every dollar that we prudently save means that their life will be so much the more abundant. Economy is idealism in its most practical form.
