. . . winds up his sharp, telegraphic assessment:

And finally, with [police department] manpower down 18 percent across the board, retirements through the roof, resignations at record levels and no one take the entrance exam, Groot [the
mayor] decides to take fifty-six officers, two sergeants and a lieutenant (mostly from the already shorthanded Districts) and assign them to….her house.

That’s most of a Watch, now assigned to Groot. That means (once again) if you want a day off to relax, recover and maybe make some sort of family plans after three weeks of 12-hour days (and more to come), too darn bad.

Sure, Groot will tell you she cares as she hides behind a phalanx of cops (that she hates). Groot will also tell you your mental and physical health is at the forefront of her mind and she’ll thank your family for not having you around for…

He certainly has it in for the supernatural, offers new proof of living while ignoring eternal truths. A sort of Holy Rotary leader (with all respect to Rotarians the world over), not the Holy Rosary. Oh boy . . .

The rumors appear to be true: Pope Francis is planning to rescind Summorum Pontificum, Pope Benedict’s 2007 motu proprio liberalizing the celebration of the traditional Latin Mass (TLM), which Benedict dubbed the “Extraordinary Form” of the Latin Rite. This at a time when the TLM has been flourishing while most of the Church is experiencing significantdeclines. Before exploring why Pope Francis is considering this radical move, it might be helpful to briefly review the history of the TLM over the past 60+ years.

Let’s do just that . . .

It’s having a new heyday.

Anti-Semitism is having yet another of its semi-annual flare-ups. It’s a disease that will never be eradicated. On Tuesday, Rabbi David Wolpe said on Twitter: “I remember when hating Jews wasn’t chic.” His memory is better than mine. You don’t have to be a Nazi to be a Jew-hater. I recently heard a university administrator describe a woman’s voice as “too Jewy.” Anti-Semitism is an equal-opportunity employer.

[You can find Eliot
Weinberger’s translation of “I, a Jew” in Borges’ Selected
Non-Fictions,
Viking, 1999.]

Open & shut case of Black privilege asserting itself.

Maybe. She dramatized and gold what many want to hear but couldn’t get it straight. Now what?

Forging ahead with Uncle Joe’s MAW* program.

In a move certain to increase prices across the board and heighten America’s energy dependence on foreign sources, the Biden administration will suspend oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

Interior Secretary Deb Haaland will publish a secretarial order formally rescinding the leases, which were issued during Trump’s final days as president, according to sources familiar with the matter, per the New York Times.

The move comes after Biden’s executive order, on his first day as president, to place a moratorium on new Arctic drilling.

* Make American Weak.

Sanity from Fla.

Those two, however, seem like the fabled Dutch boy with thumb in dike.

For which they are to be applauded, of course. (Also of course, not to be dismissing of their constituencies, which is as it should be.)

As for the Dutch boy, a.k.a. Hans Brinker . . . Look it up.

The long form lives in this Chicago Contrarian series.

The face of failure

When Lori Lightfoot announced her bid to unseat then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel in May 2018, the Ohio native and former head of the Chicago Police Board and Chicago Police Accountability Task Force struck a pose as a seismic and completely heterodox politician. Over the past two-year period, Chicago residents have come to learn at halfway through her first term in office, Ms. Lightfoot has been a miserable failure. That Ms. Lightfoot has failed is not because of faulty policy, but because she has forsaken her duties as the leader of the City of Chicago. The three areas in which Lightfoot has failed most significantly are on budgetary matters, education and crime.

Etc.

Quite interesting . . .

“Masks are really for infected people to prevent them from spreading infection to people who are not infected rather than protecting uninfected people from acquiring infection,” Fauci wrote in response to one person who was concerned about the use of masks on her upcoming trip.

“The typical mask you buy in the drug store is not really effective in keeping out virus, which is small enough to pass through material. It might, however, provide some slight benefit in keep out gross droplets if someone coughs or sneezes on you,” Fauci continued. “I do not recommend that you wear a mask, particularly since you are going to a very low risk location.”

If he had been that clear for the rest of us, he would have saved people a lot of trouble, even anguish and grief.

Quintessence of the blue, blue state.

Few things in the COVID-19 saga are more frightening than how casually most courts have let our most fundamental constitutional rights be voided by emergency orders, particularly in Illinois. Under those orders, which Illinois courts allow to persist with no time limit, the list of trampled rights is almost as long as the Bill of Rights itself, including freedoms of association, travel, assembly, religion, property, equal protection and due process.

Two rulings by Illinois courts this week continued the trend.

First, an appellate court upheld one of the most egregiously unfair elements of Illinois’ emergency orders – the eviction moratorium, which has essentially forced property owners to pay for a free housing program. . . .

For a quick, reportorial look at how the ruling party talks to voters, see this little book.

Illinois Blues: How the Ruling Party Talks to Voters