This guy thinks the world of his wife and kids and state of Wisconsin and lots of other things, but HE LOVES THE GREEN AND GOLD!!
How to be a fan
Category: Blithe Spirit
Monkish behavior
Church Reporter: Changing the Words of the Mass
(POSTED: 2/10/11) Like the TV detective Monk, I have a gift that is also a curse: I pay very close attention at Mass. So when the priest veers away from the approved text, I hear it and fume. Used to fume. Now I go into my free-fly zone. Frequently.
In this zone, I woolgather, daydream, write columns for Chicago Catholic News dot calm, etc. This means that one minute I’m saying “Lord hear our prayer” with the other faithful, next minute that I know about, I am rising for the Our Father. Awful, I know. Can only say I’m working on it.
The paying close attention thing is a bigger problem. The priest subs out “His” for “God’s,” “disciples” for “friends,” “Almighty God” for “Almighty Father,” etc. Two of these reduce masculine references, sparing feminist sensibilities. The other is apparently meant to de-emphasize levels of authority in favor of intimacy. Irritating, . . . . more more more at Chicago Catholic News . . .
Wispy woman, pls shut up
There goes Oprah again, asking that we respect the president, just as she used to do incessantly for Bush.
Oprah called on President Obama’s critics on Friday to show some level of respect.
“I feel that everybody has a learning curve, and I feel that the reason why I was willing to step out for him was because I believed in his integrity and I believed in his heart,” the influential TV host said on MSNBCs Morning Joe in Chicago.
Of the negative mood of the country, Oprah added, I think everybody complaining ought to try it for once.
She said the presidency is a position that holds a sense of authority and governance over us all, and that even if youre not in support of his policies, there needs to be a certain level of respect.
Away, slight woman! To adapt what Brutus told Cassius, when the two were squabbling in Brutus’ tent in Act III.
Trib’s hit & run story – slings, arrows
Trib Breaking News lags behind home-delivery hard copy coverage of last night’s hit & run by SUV driver running red light, sending two female pedestrians, aged 53 and 71, to the hospital. In the Loop!
Comments say it:
* Mawitz at 9:40 PM February 10, 2011: chicago tribune has more information [i.e. home-delivery etc. as
above]:A Sauk Village woman confirmed Thursday that her daughter owns the SUV, but she said the daughter had lent the vehicle to her brother since November so he could commute to work.
2nd comment presses issue further:
* kellygirl1 at 5:43 PM February 10, 2011: If they have the license number, how can they not know who the owner of the car is?
Hard copy has the #. (Separate on-line story adds missing hard-c info) Why not give the name? It would help find the reckless driver.
Dems have an edge
Being a Democrat means never having to resign because of a scandal, says The Other McCain:
Let me explain something: If you want to be a member of Congress and screw around, join the Democratic Party. You can screw around all you want and no problem, if youre a Democrat. But you cant do that and be a Republican member of Congress.
It’s for considering. Thing is, Republicans claim virtue, Dems don’t bother: it wouldn’t sell.
Another, indisputable, point:
UPDATE: Fastest scandal ever! The Internet not only makes it easier for cheaters to cheat, it makes it easier for cheaters to get caught, and the rapidity with which the damning evidence becomes public tends to accelerate the resignation.
Now you see them, now you don’t. It’s also the role of shame, a most useful reaction as regards the common good. Let there be shame! It saves us a lot of trouble.
And expediency, of course. Where would we be without that?
(HT the extremely good “Morning Jolt,” by the top-of-the-line Jim Geraghty, part of the National Review Online stable. Sign up here. You won’t regret it.)
What, no peerless leader?
This should be a humdinger, SecDef Gates to the Notre Dame grads. (Kidding. I love bureaucrats, just hate to listen to them.)
Being reasonable about it
These three white guys walked into this 7-11 in Oak Park and . . .
. . . approached the clerk. One of the men pointed a black handgun at the clerk, another said give him the money or he will shoot you, according to police reports. The clerk triggered the silent alarm and fled to the back of the store.
There’s more:
While leaving the store, the three men saw a man servicing an ATM and demanded that he open it and retrieve money. When the service man said he could not open the machine, one of the robbers hit him in the back of the head with an unknown object, causing a laceration. The man was transported to the hospital.
But the whole thing worked out badly for them:
The three men left empty-handed and were not found when police arrived.
So they had to go by the clerk’s and ATM service man’s description, which was not bad as those things go. The gun was black, as above, where what one of them said is also narrated, and were “in their late-teens” and “wearing hats, black jackets and blue jeans.” Hmm, black gun and jackets, blue jeans.
But neither witness noticed if they were black, white, or other! Or they noticed but preferred not to say. Or they told the reporter and swore him to secrecy.
Anyhow, I assume they were white, because there are more white people in Oak Park than any other. It stands to reason.
Movie time: KC Confidential
1952 movie last night at the PC: Kansas City Confidential, with handsome John Payne and very pretty Coleen Gray, all in all a thing of joy. A gun is called a “heater,” to kill someone is to “burn” him, and the bad guys, including Lee Van Cleef and Jack Elam, are certifiable. more more more at Blithe Spirit original . . .
Practice makes perfect
This from about.com agnosticism/atheism about prayer and belief is very well put:
According to Catholic tradition, lex orandi, lex credendi [means] the law of prayer is the law of belief. What this means is that how a person worship[s] not only shows what the person really believes, but that how a person worships can ultimately decide what that person really believes.
Hence the importance of liturgical nuance:
As people’s patterns of actual worship change, so will their underlying beliefs – even without their realizing it. It is because of this that the Catholic Church can be so strict in maintaining what many might regard as superficial practices, causing them to be seen by many as old-fashioned and tyrannical.
The hierarchy realizes that allowing even minor changes in the practice of worship could lead to unforseen and unintended changes in beliefs, and the Church is one organization which understands how to think about how things will turn out over very long spans of time.
The author’s intent may be to show how we sheep are manipulated by our shepherds, but it’s an honest statement and quite accurate as taken to show how bishops fulfill their mandate and the deposit of faith is preserved.
I am reminded of one of the late Ralph McInerny’s novel about the Soviet mole who after years in a monastery was converted by the daily chanting of the divine office. (Anybody out there know the name of that book?) Prayerful repetition has its effect, as in J.D. Salinger’s Jesus prayer in Franny and Zooey.
I think today’s priests who insert subtle changes into the words of the mass have this in mind. They have their theology and want to promote it.
Red State magic
A little publicity is a dangerous thing, as Erick Erickson explains:
Late yesterday RedState broke a significant story, found in this morning’s Morning Briefing, which points to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the nations premier public health organization, making a conscious decision to stop publishing the only federal report on abortion.
To briefly recap, for 40 years the CDC has published the Abortion Surveillance Report. For 40 years that report has appeared in the last November or first December issue of CDCs journal, the Morbidity and Mortality Report Weekly Report. This year it didnt. A RedState tradition has been to use this report for our annual retrospective on abortion. When it didnt appear in November or December or in January we decided to ask why.
That inquiry and its response led to our article yesterday.
The internet is an amazing thing. After weeks of checking and phone calls and emails no report. Then one blog post at RedState later, and suddenly the CDC is falling over themselves to produce something. Funny how that works. Two hours and six minutes after the post went live we had an official response from CDC.
What did Jefferson say, embedded in concrete at the entrance to the Chi Trib Tower on Boul Mich, about the relative importance of free government and a free press? (Help me here, someone.) Believe it, people.
Erickson:
According to the CDC we should move along because there is nothing to see here. Really? Were not so sure. It’s never the action, it’s the cover up.
They would prefer that, would they not?
says Erick E., who is editor at RedState.com
