Happy days at Wheeling Jesuit.
Category: Blithe Spirit
Reading Danny Davis in the morning
ChiTrib’s Eric Zorn does Danny Davis nicely today:
“We have to reassess the operation of city government and make some serious determinations about what our needs are,” said Chicago mayoral hopeful and Democratic U.S Rep. Danny Davis Wednesday evening. We must “see whether or not there are any additional revenue generators or enhancers, and then make decisions and determinations on the basis of that.”
I curled into the fetal position on the couch in front of the television and began whimpering as Davis’ interview with WTTW-Ch. 11’s Carol Marin continued.
The rest of it is right here.
Tom Roeser would object on at least one count. Zorn calls it Davis’s “magnificent baritone” voice; Roeser has it “basso profundo,” which I find more evocative but can’t say if more accurate.
Danny D. wants to be mayor, as most of us know. Zorn finds him not only vague and thus noncommittal on solving fiscal problems but also redundant, with his idea to merge Cultural Affairs with Special Events — Mayordaley II has that in his latest budget. At a savings of “less than a tenth of a percent of the city’s $6.15 billion budget,” by the way.
But that cornerstone of Danny’s fiscal strategy might not even make it in a Davis administration. Why? Because Danny D. embodies taxing and spending philosophy as perhaps no other elected official in the history of the republic.
It’s here, where his dismissal of financial worries over the not yet passed Obamacare is recorded. And will be recorded elsewhere in too-long-dormant accounts of his townhall meetings last spring in Oak Park and Westchester. For now, however, in the immortal goodbye of Porky Pig, th-th-that’s all, folks.
What did she expect?
Open-and-shut case of waving red shirt at bull until (surprise!) you get a response:
It wasn’t being gay that cost Laine Tadlock her job in administration at Benedictine University’s Springfield campus. Her orientation was no secret to her employers. They knew when she was hired five years ago, Tadlock said.
It wasn’t that she and her spouse, Kae Helstrom, went to Iowa this summer to be married, after a 2009 Iowa Supreme Court ruling opened the door to gay marriages in that state. Her employer knew the marriage was happening, too, she said.
But when Helstrom’s and Tadlock’s wedding announcement was published in The State Journal-Register, it was the beginning of the end for Tadlock’s tenure as director of the education program at Benedictine.
You push and push and push, not knowing when to stop, looking for trouble (when enough will come your way without looking), and lo and behold, the institution says enough already.
In a Sept. 30 letter to Tadlock’s attorney, Benedictine President William Carroll wrote, “… By publicizing the marriage ceremony in which she participated in Iowa she has significantly disregarded and flouted core religious beliefs which, as a Catholic institution, it is our mission to uphold.”
Of course. It’s a crazy mixed-up world at best, where every last jot and tittle cannot be made a case of. But flouting? That’s something else. What was she thinking of?
Bye, bye, Gutenberg
Russ Roberts at Cafe Hayek has the case for Kindle etc. down convincingly.
Books forever. But new ones, apart from what are needed for Christian, Jewish, and other worship services? (He mentions only Jewish.) Forget about them.
History lesson
What liberal Dem, progressive, etc. would object to this as a political platform?
“We ask that government undertake the obligation above all of providing citizens with adequate opportunity for employment and earning a living.
The activities of the individual must not be allowed to clash with the interests of the community, but must take place within the confines and be for the good of all.
Therefore, we demand: … an end to the power of financial interest. We demand profit sharing in big business. We demand a broad extension of care for the aged. We demand … the greatest possible consideration of small business in the purchases of the national, state, and municipal governments.
In order to make possible to every capable and industrious [citizen] the attainment of higher education and thus the achievement of a post of leadership, the government must provide an all-around enlargement of our system of public education….
We demand the education at government expense of gifted children of poor parents…. The government must undertake the improvement of public health — by protecting mother and child, by prohibiting child labor — by the greatest possible support for all groups concerned with the physical education of youth.
[W]e combat the … materialistic spirit within and without us, and are convinced that a permanent recovery of our people can only proceed from within on the foundation of The Common Good Before the Individual Good.”
Probably not the educating-of-gifted part, based on this parent’s experience of public K-8 schooling in Oak Park IL.
But certainly not any of it, once the lib was told whose platform it was. See here for whose platform.
Go ahead, feel good, it won’t hurt you
Wanna look at something wonderful? Random Act of Culture at Macy’s in Philadelphia.
Wheeling Jesuit for sale?
A Pittsburgh banker, referring to nearby Wheeling WV as a bedroom community for his city, warns Wheeling Jesuit University adherents:
The hiring of Mr. Richard Beyer, the fifth president at Wheeling Jesuit University in 10 years, deeply troubles me. Besides the unresolved issue of the sacking of Jesuit Fr. Giulietti, there is the longstanding issue of the coming bankruptcy of this institution.
Does Mr. Beyer know that he was hired actually to close the school? The banking community in this banking city is waiting for the opportunity to arrange the sale of the institution. The loss of students and faculty, the disappearance of alumni support and crushing debt cannot go on much longer.
There are scientific and other research institutions in this city that need to grow and expand and have the resources to do so. But land is tight here. Wheeling is a bedroom community to Pittsburgh. It is time to act.
The land-hungry institution commonly mentioned is the U. of Pittsburgh Medical Center, which has a Specialty Care Center (for Pediatric Otolaryngology) in Wheeling.
Are the Jesuits and the Wheeling bishop (part owner of WJU) preparing to bail out?
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Later: That said, I’m into a little bit of buyer’s remorse, or at least uncertainty here, because I cannot discover a Leo Cleary in or near Pittsburgh, nor can others find him among WJU alumni. White Pages dot com says there are seven Leo Clearys in the U.S. Cities with one are:
The end of Indian innocence
TelePrompter tales from New Delhi:
Obama will make history for more than one reason during the Nov 6-9 visit. This will be the first time a teleprompter will be used in the nearly 100-feet high dome-shaped hall that has portraits of eminent national leaders adorning its walls.
Indian politicians are known for making impromptu long speeches and perhaps that is why some parliament officials, who did not wish to be named, sounded rather surprised with the idea of a teleprompter for Obama.
“We thought Obama is a trained orator and skilled in the art of mass address with his continuous eye contact,” an official, who did not wish to be identified because of security restrictions, said.
Obama is known to captivate audiences with his one-liners that sound like extempore and his deep gaze. But few in India know that the US president always carries the teleprompter with him wherever he speaks.
Teleprompters, also called autocue or telescript, are mostly used by TV anchors to read out texts scrolling on a screen and attached to a camera in front of them.
A modern-day emperor with no clothes.
Flying off to Cambodia
From Jim Geraghty at NRO-Morning Jolt:
Moe Lane, examining Democrat divisions: “Congressional Democrats are only going to be united by one person — the President — and just in case there’s still somebody who hasn’t noticed by now: the President is incompetent at leading people in directions that they don’t already want to go.
Which is not what the Democrats need right now. So there’s no solution in sight, unless of course the President wants to start learning all of those boring, practical political skills that he should have started picking up a couple of decades ago.”
But Cocky Locky doesn’t do boring. So that won’t happen.
Earmarks, passing lunch, street talk, shifting
* Sen. Jim Demint (R-SC) against earmarks (a) because they are used to sell bills that wldn’t pass otherwise (true: he cites La. [Purchase] and Neb. [Cornhusker goodie] in health-overhall passing) and (b) they distract senators from their national responsibilities, making them hostage to new bridges and playgrounds. Thus on Don & Roma on WLS-AM this morning. [Earlier, on CBS, quotes]
* Mike Huckabee on Dem’s saying we will know what’s in the overhaul bill when we have passed it: Like knowing what I had for lunch after I passed it. !
* WLS-AM news reader Wendy Snyder, raspy of voice and superior (above-it-all) of tone: Something happened on “Madison Avenue.” What a winner is this Wendy, pride of Brookfield IL, who should get to know the city.
* Chi Trib head about election results: “Titanic shift.” Tectonic. Yes, titanic is of great force or power, synonyms are big and large: above average in size or number or quantity or magnitude or extent.
But rapid reader of headline thinks shift as tectonic: pertaining to the structure or movement of the earth’s crust, as in “tectonic plates” and “tectonic valleys” or of or pertaining to construction or architecture, synonym is architectonic
Which would be figurative in this context, yes. But called for by the rapid reader, the kind who reads headlines. If you’re going to use shift, I am arguing, don’t break ground with new idiom. Am I alone in this?
