Oak Park-River Forest High School and its closed campus

OPRF High School people are well-advised to give proposed lunch-time campus lockdown some careful thought.  Major, major changes are involved.

Much of the issue with a closed campus is related to space. The campus has been open since 1971 and the cafeterias and other areas might not be equipped to handle the extra students who typically leave, officials said. Likewise, [Principal Nathaniel] Rouse said there is also the possibility, but not a guarantee, that more students interacting might cause more discipline problems.

“Because you have more individuals inside the building, that means the infractions are going to increase,” Rouse said. “Infractions not just necessarily related to violating lunch privileges, but infractions in general. When you put everyone back in the building, and you have the wonderful demographics that we do, the different cultures, the different ways our students interact, you are going to have more, for lack of a better word, friction.”

In any case, what’s on the table is looking like Prohibition of the ’20s, whose enforcement leads to more problems than it solves.

 

Columnist wants to eat rich people

Rich people’s money is for giving away, especially in taxes, says this fellow, a syndicated columnist — “The American ruling class is failing us — and itself” — without even a nod to the power his ilk has about what happens.

Whole column is a paean to rich people’s altruism — he fails to mention Carnegie and the libraries — as if editors and columnists of a certain stripe were not at least equally the whip-crackers.  Not to mention rich people who own newspapers etc.

Also as if capital invested in money-making (i.e. job-producing, economy-enrichment) schemes weren’t our (economic) salvation.

The column is a rumination but manages to slip this in while discussing shrinking tax rates for the rich: “And you wonder where the deficit came from.”

I wonder where the chutzpah comes from.

(Eat the Rich is PJ O’Rourke’s book, FYI.)

Our irritated president

President Barack Obama Honors Teachers (201001...
Do not mess with me.

This Obama is not the one we elected:

The Barack Obama we’ve been seeing lately is a different personality than the one that made a miracle run to the White House in 2008.

Obama.2008 was engaging, patient, open, optimistic and a self-identified conciliator.

Obama.2011 has been something else — testy, petulant, impatient, arrogant and increasingly a divider.

Look, annoy Cocky Locky and you get his dander up. Lese majeste and all that. It goes with the autocratic territory.

Deficits blues explained

When you put it that way . . .

“When the federal government spends more each year than it collects in tax revenues, it has three choices: It can raise taxes, print money, or borrow money. While these actions may benefit politicians, all three options are bad for average Americans. Deficits mean future tax increases, pure and simple. Deficit spending should be viewed as a tax on future generations, and politicians who create deficits should be exposed as tax hikers.”

Which means the incumbent Chief Spender is a tax-hiker, among many others.  Or so says Rep. Ron Paul.

Oak Park item: Mary Anne Brown a lady

The RC Knights of the Holy Sepulchre are in Chi this year for initiation of new members. 

This year’s Investiture Mass will take place at Holy Name Cathedral on Sunday, September 18 and will be celebrated by our Grand Prior, Francis Cardinal George, KGCHS.

And Oak Park’s own Mary Anne Brown, head lady at Hephzibah Home, and her husband Max are heading up arrangements.

Your hosts Sir Max and Lady Mary Anne Brown are working with many of your fellow knights and ladies to make this a truly memorable event. . . .  If you have any questions feel free to email Max at dr.tort@comcast.net.

May our Lady of Palestine bless you.

— Charles H. Foos, KC*HS, Lieutenant

The knights are a 900–year-old fraternal and benevolent organization that raises money for the church in the Holy Land:

This past year, members of the Equestrian Order of the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem sent almost €8 million ($10.7 million) in donations to the Holy Land.

Cardinal John Foley, grand master of the order, reported this Saturday in London at a lieutenancy meeting regarding the projects the organization is supporting.

He noted the commitment of the order “to the continued existence of a Christian presence in the Holy Land, defined as Israel, Jordan, the Palestinian Territories and Cyprus.”

Part of this funding went to support Benedict XVI’s visit to Cyprus earlier this year, and another is going to help in the construction of a Latin Catholic church in Aqaba, Jordan.

Members are nominated by the local bishop, in this case Cardinal George.

What’s a meta baby? Nothin’, baby, what’s . . .

In an email alert, Chicago News Cooperative supplies this summary while linking to Crain’s Chi Business story about Chi Trib editor finding life after newspapering:

Back in the Game: Former Trib editor and CNC board member Ann Marie Lipinski returns to journalism as director of Harvard’s Nieman Foundation.

Eh???  Back in a sense, yes.  But in meta-journalism, which is to journalism what metaphysics is to physics, right?

Doing what seemed a good idea at the time

Roger Pilon of Cato Institute on the death of principle in American governmental life:

“Unfortunately, over the course of this century Congress has largely ignored the constitutional limits on its power. And the courts, especially after Franklin Roosevelt threatened to pack the Supreme Court with six additional members, have only abetted the resulting growth of government by fashioning constitutional doctrines that have no basis whatever in the Constitution. As a consequence, many of the programs Congress oversees today are without constitutional foundation, having resulted from acts that Congress had no authority.

Not that principled behavior hasn’t been the exception in human history.  But still . . .