Category: Blithe Spirit

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

Keep schools open, says the governor of South Dakota

Her arguments bear considering:

She is Gov. Kristi Noem. “When it comes to schools,” she says, “the science is clear: we need to open them.”

Her arguments?

[T]he virus doesn’t impact [the children] on the same level as the flu. A JAMA Pediatrics report states, “Our data indicate that children are at far greater risk of critical illness from influenza than from COVID-19.”

“SARS-CoV-2 appears to behave differently in children and adolescents than other common respiratory viruses, such as influenza, on which much of the current guidance regarding school closures is based,” says theAmerican Academy of Pediatrics.

Moreover: . . . see here. . .

Pontifical Academy Rips Faithful Catholic Scientist

Going after Vaticanspeak in a time of Francis:

VATICAN CITY (ChurchMilitant.com) -??The Vatican has launched a personal attack on a Catholic scientist after she??shredded a pontifical publication??for portraying “an earthly utopia without God.”

ImageDr. Doyen NguyenDr. Doyen Nguyen, an academic physician and moral theologian with specializations in diagnostic hematology and bioethics, slammed the Pontifical Academy for Life’s (PAL) document titled “Humana Communitas in the Age of Pandemic: Untimely Meditations on Life’s Rebirth” as godless, Christless, churchless, hopeless??and faithless.

The Pope’s scientists can dish it out, but . . .

Keep schools open, says the governor of South Dakota

She’s done her homework.

She is Gov. Kristi Noem. “When it comes to schools,” she says, “the science is clear: we need to open them.”

Her arguments?

[T]he virus doesn’t impact [the children] on the same level as the flu. A JAMA Pediatrics report states, “Our data indicate that children are at far greater risk of critical illness from influenza than from COVID-19.”

“SARS-CoV-2 appears to behave differently in children and adolescents than other common respiratory viruses, such as influenza, on which much of the current guidance regarding school closures is based,” says theAmerican Academy of Pediatrics.

Moreover:

. . . via  OakPark.com

Police Commission Demotes Milwaukee PD Chief For Using Teargas On Rioters

Removing the option when protesters riot no matter how bad things get. An anarchist’s dream.

Milwaukee, WI – The Milwaukee Fire and Police Commission (FPC) voted unanimously on Thursday night to demote Milwaukee Police Chief Alfonso Morales to captain.

Chief Morales, who was chief of the Milwaukee Police Department for three-and-a-half years, had been at odds with the FPC since the commission chair demanded that he fire the officer who arrested Milwaukee Bucks player Sterling Brown in 2018, the Wisconsin State Journal reported.

FPC commissioners recently took exception to the Milwaukee Police Department’s use of teargas to disperse rioters at violent protests.

Enabling the war on cops beyond the current situation.

via  The Police Tribune

Biden unchained: All Blacks Think Alike!

. . . from his bunker:

The full, shocking statement: “Unlike the African American community, with notable exceptions, the Latino community is an incredibly diverse community, with incredibly different attitudes about different things” (Red State).

Tries fence-mending:

Biden later tried to “clarify” his remarks with a Tweet, but whoever wrote the tweet for him didn’t clarify at all but rather said what he wants you to believe Biden believes (Twitter).

Branches out:

In a similar statement trying to compliment Hispanics, Biden said “When I mean full diversity, unlike African American communities and many other communities, you’re from everywhere” (Twitter).

Protectors go to work:

The media is editing out some of Biden’s more racist comments (Red State).

The opponent can’t resist:

Trump mocked Biden for his “dumb” statement (Twitter).

His people are thankful for . . . what?

Democrats are thrilled Covid-19 is keeping Biden out of the public eye (Fox News).

Taking comfort where they may.

Silence squelched in Novus Ordo mass — a meditation on noise

Vatican 2-style mass and the death of silence . . .

Dominus Vobiscum: Notes from a massgoer's underground

The parish has N.O. masses and also Extraordinary Form (Latin) masses. Today I attended one of the former, where I had to start jotting just as the sermon began. Only a six-minuter and something acceptable, I trust, in any case not unusually good or bad.

Feeling dreaded ennui coming on, I reached for the little black pad and pen, and there I was again. In the few recent weeks when I made Extraordinary (Latin) my mass of choice, I had not done this once!

Why now? Because the service was losing my attention, and I had to wrench it back into place by recording my reflections. It’s a ploy I learned decades ago, in my exclusively N.O. days. This was my first trial of attention, of cooperation, collaboration, indeed participation in the holy sacrifice.

Most preachers fall short and thereby constitute a distraction. On this occasion Father urged us on…

View original post 208 more words

Up close and lethal . . . Consider the welder’s mask . . . . .

Which saves the eyes from viral pollution . . .

. . .  plus lends visibility to masking, so you won’t look like a bank robber or hold-up man or moll.

Think it over . . . and now the doggerel for the day . . .

Madam Birx, she told us so: The simple mask has got to go.

In place of it, there must be mo’.

. . . .

Of which mo’ mo’ mo’ . . . here: Up close and lethal . . .  OakPark.com

The ‘Cancelling’ of Flannery O’Connor by a Jesuit for the sake of “Jesuit values”

Jesuit values? That’s what they all say when they’d rather not explain.

 In the wake of the public statement issued by the university’s president, Rev. Brian Linnane, SJ, explaining that O’Connor’s name would be removed because she does not “reflect Loyola’s Jesuit values,” hundreds of writers, scholars, readers, and admirers of O’Connor’s work have expressed their shock and sorrow to see her repudiated by the university. [emphasis added]

These values are increasingly hard to discern, I fear.

via Commonweal Magazine