Relatively speaking, libs are children

[small children in the background]
Philosophical merry-go-round

I’ve had it with Tom Roeser. One time too many have I been skimming my email alerts from hither and (also) yon, and he slows me down, and this when I am on my way to another sparkling chapter in my book yet to be announced.

This time, in discussion at Chicago Daily Observer of getting bogged down in land war in Asia and elsewhere:

. . . [U]nderstand that the emotional Leftrootless of principle, relativist to the core has been the trigger in all war involvements starting with WWIs make the world safe for democracycontinuing up to WWII and propagandist William Allen Whites Committee to Defend America by Aiding the Allies White the small town Kansas editor (bankrolled by Wall Street interventionists) notice how these programs extolled by White rolled off the tongue?Lend LeaseCash and Carry then the savageness of Pearl Harbor, caused by FDRs tightening the embargo noose that made an attack on us a possibility (although journalist White was winding down then) then in 1950 the crusade by the Luce press,spare heroic, doughty little South Korea from invasion by the awful Red North in the late `50s from of all papers The New York Times urging Ike to do what the French failed at by defending South Vietnam from the hideous NorthAll these wars were originally validated by the idealistic Left; then suddenly the Left swung back to non-involvementnot so much with Korea but certainly with South Vietnam.

Relativist to the core, yes. Rootless, impulsive, prey to the latest to hit them in headline, cutline, opening news shot. Not the only ones that way, but they do have a corner on that noxious commodity.

These sisters would like their money back

2010-11-30 concert 033
Some of the sisters in concert

Is there a prince of darkness lurking somewhere in this dispute, between the Daughters of St. Paul and the Boston archdiocese? I refer to the J.F. Powers book title and his work in general, which exposed the seamy side of Catholic churchdom while credibly extolling its gritty, glorious side.

The Daughters, who run a very good book store on Michigan Avenue in Chicago, gave their money in 1989 to the Boston pension fund, now want it back. Have been trying for five years to get it back, to go it on their own towards taking care of their oldsters.

But the archdiocese never kept track of Daughters’ money, and its accounting system is very complicated. They have taken it (them, including Cardinal Archbishop O’Malley) to court about it. Regretfully.

Prince of Darkness and Other Stories was on John Updike’s list of best American short stories of the century. Powers’ novel, Morte d’Urban won the National Book Award in 1963. It’s a morality play featuring Father Urban, who got himself in a jam on a boat with a scheming woman who surprised him by appearing before him unclothed. He turned away, because it wasn’t what he had in mind; spurned, she pitched her spike-heeled shoe, hitting him on the head and giving him a lifelong headache.

In Prince a memorable vignette has the priest in the rectory near an open window hearing the click-click of high heels on the pavement and turning to look — which was not how they taught him in the seminary.

Powers deserves resurrection — he himself, of course, a splendid individual and anyhow saved by the blood of the lamb, but more immediately his books. He’s up there, in his way, with Flannery O’Connor. We don’t have writers like that these days. The congenitally angry (Bostonian, by the way) James Carroll does not qualify. Anyone out there know who does?

Indiana Dems in flight from Republican Herods

The Rest on the Flight to Egypt by David
On the way to Egypt

Indiana (state) house Repubs are “an oppressive majority” pursuing a “radical agenda,” says one of 40 Dems gone from their posts for a month in a quorum-denying tactic.

Unions are paying their fines, now up to $350 a day.

If you want to see them — guess where? — you got it, Illinois, go to www.IndDemsGPS.com for sightings.

For instance,

Rep. GiaQuinta has made numerous stealth visits home to Fort Wayne. The most recent was the weekend of March 18 after [being] given “permission” by Boss [minority leader] Bauer to cross the border. You can read more here. The first trip was on March 6 to do laundry and pay some bills. Read more here.

That’s what I call smokin’ ’em out. Globally positioned, compliments of Ind. Repubs.

I did not know about this flight to the land [238 miles north] of Little Egypt. It’s been under the Chi-newspaper radar, though Chi Trib has an AP story online today.

That anti-governor Wis. judge? She’s a union mother!

ABAMarch-SEIU marches across Chicago River
Her son arranges this sort of thing.

Surely, this judge was not about to embarrass or thwart her son:

Maryann Sumi has a clear conflict of interest. Her son is a political operative who also happens to be a former lead field manager with the AFL-CIO and data manager for the SEIU State Council. Both the SEIU and the AFL-CIO have members who are public-sector employees in Wisconsin. In fact, as a federation, the AFL-CIO can boast of several member-unions that represent public-sector employees. Maryann Sumi is hardly an unbiased judge in the matter.

Jacob Jake Sinderbrand, Sumi’s son [see page nine here], runs a company called Left Field Strategies, a firm that works on political campaigns.

Just when you think things are as bad as they will get, they get worse.

Notre Dame pass-catcher in trouble? Really?

Drunk driving safety poster. "Don't mix '...
The issue in question

Notre Dame is a school run on principle:

. . . it is well known that Notre Dame has high standards for student conduct, takes these matters seriously, follows the facts where they lead, and, when necessary, institutes appropriate sanctions at the appropriate time.”

Says spokesman regarding pass-catcher Michael Floyd, up on a drunk-driving charge.

That so? And the sex-assault charge vs. a footballer during the recent season went unpursued by campus police etc. and remains unresolved? What’s that evidence of?

Economics lesson for unwary investors

Modern yo-yos.
Can you make money in yo-yos?

This fellow knows how to start a speech:

There is an old joke applicable to the Catholic media apostolate: How does one make a small fortune in the Catholic press? Start with a big fortune.

So what if it’s been said of the airline business, commodities, woodworking, something in Israel, or yo-yos, to name just a few possibilities.

So what because if you haven’t heard it, you laugh or at least smile and (b) if you have heard it and the timing is right, you at least smile.

Gleeson SJ in Philadelphia: inquiring student minds at work

Are we Catholics past the point of settling with accusers to avoid bad publicity and/or losing in court in sexual abuse and/or harassment matters? Rev. Thomas Gleeson SJ, outed three weeks ago in Philadelphia, could have had his day in court 11 years ago, but Jesuits fought the very idea and settled with the accuser, a former Jesuit scholastic. Case closed, end of story, they thought or hoped. Hardly.

As a campus chaplain at St. Joseph’s U., he had been placed in a position too public to be ignored by The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), and there he was again, in the very limelight he’d wanted to avoid by the settlement. And people in charge of his new place of employment tried once again to slide under publicity radar, and once again failed. (His crucial role in ousting a fellow Jesuit from the Wheeling Jesuit U. presidency — under suspicious circumstances partly of Gleeson’s own making — was a bad move by someone seeking anonymity.)

This time, Phila. Daily News coverage drove the St. Joe’s president, Rev. Timothy Lannon, S.J., to issue a university-wide memo “as students were finishing midterms and packing up for spring break,” as the student newspaper, The Hawk, noted this week. The memo was terse, even perfunctory: Gleeson had been accused but had been vetted by the Jesuits — “cleared for assignment,” a spokeswoman told the News.

Missing from the memo was “information concerning Gleeson’s history and subsequent settlement,” The Hawk’s editors wrote. Indeed, “the poorly worded statement created more questions and concerns than conclusions, and the university has yet to reveal how it plans to move forward with Gleeson’s case in the future,” they wrote in a carefully constructed editorial.

They added:

Given the enormous accusations currently levied against the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, it is surprising that Saint Joseph’s University officials did not think more carefully before responding in a seemingly distant and ineffective way.
The university could have opened the door for conversation about the circumstances and reasoning behind Gleeson’s hire, providing a great opportunity for community discussion on issues that are dominating Philadelphia’s headlines. Instead, St. Joe’s offered the same one-way declaration that has plagued the Catholic Church for decades.

Instead, the university offered “lackluster explanations” that did not inspire confidence. “When the university doesn’t defend their employees it makes it hard for students to get behind them with support,” the editorial noted.

That’s a fair description of how the Gleeson business has been handled, not only in Philadelphia but before that in West Virginia and before that in California. (It’s also how much or most priest abuse and/or harassment has been treated, for that matter.)

At what point, we must ask, does Jesuit loyalty to their own (as bishops’ to their priests) give way to the sort of “open communication” that has been respectfully requested by St. Joseph’s U. student editors?