In Missouri, Republican Roy Blunt has a message: Obama is for his opponent! Enough said!
(It’s a Drudge heads-up:
IT’S ON: First negative ad from candidate linking Dem to Obama.)
Heads up, Chicago!
Same day, same trial, two newspapers, two hard-copy home-delivery headlines:
* Chi Trib: “Brother sticks by ex-governor, Ousted leader was misunderstood on some issues, older sibling says,” all under under “Blagojevich on trial.” Nice story, will neither disturb one over morning coffee nor unduly tax the mind. Go Trib.
* Sun-Times: “BLAGO’S BROTHER TESTIFIES: JESSE JR.’S GUY OFFERED $6 MIL FOR SENATE SEAT.” Capsule summary underneath and to the right: “Robert Blagojevich testifies that Raghu Nayak — who authorities say was an emissary for Jesse Jackson Jr. — offered to raise $1 million for ex-governor Rod Blagojevich. Nayak then said Blagojevich would get $5 million more once Jackson was appointed senator.” Lots of info, non-generic, for newspaper reader with better things to do than decipher things. Go Sun-Times.
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FYI: Online Trib story here, discoverable amidst online chaos, neither Drudge nor Newsalert, two that know how to reach online reader.
Sun-Times here, also not easy to find. Behold the noosepaper dilemma. But at least save the hard copy with punchy hard-news stuff! Nod goes as ever to S-T, Trib never was very good at it.
Remember McLuhan’s “People don’t actually read newspapers. They step into them every morning like a hot bath.” It’s here, but scroll down.
Fired U. of Ill. prof a natural
Major point made here inadvertently by a student complaining about Kenneth Howell at U. of Illinois:
Teaching a student about the tenets of a religion is one thing. Declaring that homosexual acts violate the natural laws of man is another.
But that’s Catholic teaching to its fingertips: everything is discussed in light of human nature, even the action of grace and the spiritual works of the church, which are supernatural. The distinction is crucial. A teacher of Catholic thought will inevitably talk about what’s natural and what isn’t.
With all respect to evangelicals and fundamentalists, the words of Scripture are not the last word for Catholics. They are not the clincher, as it were, before which reason must slink away defeated. Catholics defend the nature of things, the natural, while holding also for the supernatural.
The quote is from Huffington Post, which excerpts it from the News-Gazette of Champaign-Urbana, which also has a disturbing item which I hadn’t see elsewhere, namely that Howell has been fired by the local bishop, Daniel Jenky, C.S.C., once a dorm rector at the U. of Notre Dame.
He was also director of the Institute of Catholic Thought, part of St. John’s Catholic Newman Center on campus and the Catholic Diocese of Peoria. After losing his teaching position with the UI, Howell was told by the Newman Center that he would no longer be employed there either.
This man Howell can’t win for losing.
Later: An astute reader thinks Howell will regain his Newman Center job. The bishop is re-thinking the matter as public support grows for Howell. He and the Newman people reacted blindly but are “getting stronger” on the issue, “mostly because of pressure from lay people.” Vive la laïcs.
Jesuit want ads aren’t working
Wheeling Jesuit U., unable to fill its open presidency with a Jesuit, has company. Gonzaga U., in Spokane WA, for one, which has promoted its acting president, a 44-year-old layman, to president, suspending its bylaws to do so.
For another, Creighton U., in Omaha NE, is finding “a good Jesuit hard to find.” Its search committee
might bump into a 21st century reality that’s increasingly pushing other Jesuit universities to hire non-priests as presidents.
Nobody wants to see the day (of a non-Jesuit president) come, but it might come. We have to deal with that, said Bill Fitzgerald, the chairman of Creighton’s board of directors
The day has already come for nine of the 28 Jesuit universities in the U.S., each with a permanent or interim president who is not a Jesuit priest, Rev. Charles Currie, president of the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities, told the World-Herald.
We used to assume that (the president’s job) could only be done by a Jesuit, but we’ve learned over the years that it isn’t true, Currie said. It’s not something we should be fearful of. . . . . There’s clearly value in having a Jesuit, but if that person is not available, you have to move in other directions.
Be that as it may, Currie, who was Wheeling Jesuit’s president 1972-82, was an early (and repeated) defender of Wheeling Jesuit’s surprise ouster of its Jesuit president last August after only two years. In the stormy aftermath of the firing, Currie cited “confidentiality” requirements, inadvertently encouraging suspicion by alumni and others of scandal — which was never either alleged or demonstrated. Three Jesuits acting as Wheeling Jesuit trustees, effected the firing. One of the three was himself later replaced by a layman as president of University of Detroit-Mercy.
Wheeling Jesuit suspended its own search in late October, by which time no Jesuit had applied for the position. Last February the university hired a nun, Sister Francis Marie Thrailkill, as new interim president.
Job-killer
In hard times, union hardball has no traction:
With one of its two elementary schools crippled by a stalled construction project, the school board of River Forest Elementary School District 90 voted this morning to cancel a union contract and bring in a non-union company to finish the job.
Look. The working man is not just the union member, who in this case is killing jobs for himself and his brothers and sisters. When will they ever learn?
Thing is, this school board depends not a whit on labor money.
Somehow beating RC bishops to the punch
From CNS News about rattling the U. of Illinois cage:
The Alliance Defense Fund, a Christian legal group, has given the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign until the end of Friday to re-instate a professor who was relieved of his teaching duties following complaints he engaged in hate speech by teaching students about Catholic teaching on homosexuality in a course about Catholicism.
If he’s not reinstated, they will seriously . . . consider a lawsuit, fund lawyer Jordan Lawrence told U. of I, calling the student’s complaint about Dr. Kenneth Howell, the (adjunct) professor in question, a hecklers veto unworthy of the university’s response, which he called heavy handed [and] authoritarian not the way classrooms should function at universities in the United States.
The fund’s blue-ribbon board of directors includes executives of Crusade for Christ International, Focus on the Family, and Fellowship of Christian Athletes. Not an RC bishop among them. What do you know about that?
There ain’t no justice department
Sad to say, the Eric BeHolder — beautiful in the eyes of — justice department is appearing not only grossly politicized but also inept, as in this “flub” of the Polanski case.
He’s Obama’s man, of course, a brother under the skin, but not before he was Bill Clinton’s, as in the case of the grossly venal pardons.
Good morning, Chicago
No surprises, says Chicagoist, that Stroger is using patronage to reward supporters. No surprise either, sez I, that Blagojevich used his office to enrich himself. We are used to hearing about both of them, as we have long been used to hearing about political corruption in Illinois, especially Cook County, especially Chicago.
What’s new this time around is the brazenness and ineptitude of Stroger and Blago, to whom we should be grateful for making it all so clear, so that maybe, maybe a periodic paroxysm of pseudo-reform can have its 15 minutes of fame in our state, county, and metropolitan area.
(By the way, when was the last time any of us heard a sermon against political corruption? Like this by Rev. Dr. Bellows in NYC in 1875?)
Wheeling Jesuit philosophy prof arrested on abuse charge
Bad news out of Wheeling WV, about a Wheeling Jesuit U. philosophy teacher, an African priest, who has been jailed in Virginia on a sex charge.
The Rev. Felix Owino, a priest in the Religious Missionary Institute of the Apostles of Jesus, was arrested on July 8 in Fairfax, Va., on charges of aggravated sexual battery of a minor.
Fr. Owino, a native of Nairobi, Kenya, with a Ph.D. from Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, was on summer break, visiting a Herndon (VA) family he knew well. The battery occurred in the family home, according to the charge. The alleged victim is an 11-year-old girl, a member of that family.
He taught at Wheeling Jesuit since 2008, first as a visiting professor, eventually (by July 4) an assistant professor. Most recently he taught an online course in Logic and Knowledge (PHI 105-81), in the first summer session, May 17 to June 28. He lived in a Weirton (WV) parish, saying mass and preaching on weekends. As of July 12, four days after his arrest, he had “no current responsibilities at the university and [was] not expected to return to campus,” the university announced, adding, “During his two years at Wheeling Jesuit, the campus authorities received no student complaints about his conduct.”
Information about him had been scrubbed from the university web site, including this paragraph, available through the Google cache:
Felix Charles Owino, A.J. is a member of the Religious Missionary Congregation of the Apostles of Jesus, the first African Congregation for Africa and the world. Fr. Felix has B.A , M.Th from Apostles of Jesus Affiliate of Urbanian University, Rome; M.A., Ph.D in Philosophy from Duquesne University. He has worked also as an administrator in Uganda Rector of Apostles of Jesus Minor Seminary; also as Rector of the National Shrine of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus and Immaculate Heart of Mary in Nairobi Kenya. In United States, Fr. Felix worked in different Universities and Colleges of Higher Learning both in administrative and faculty capacities before joining Wheeling Jesuit University as Assistant Professor of Philosophy.
Fairfax County police responded late last Wednesday to the residence on Franklin Farm Road, where 44-year-old Felix Owino was accused of touching the child inappropriately, Officer Bud Walker, a Fairfax police spokesman, said.
Owino was considered a longtime friend of the family, Walker said.
He was being held without bond at Fairfax County’s Adult Detention Center, with a hearing set for Sept. 2.
Later:
A brief, thorough local story here on the arrest, adding a few details:
On July 8, Felix C. Owino was arrested in Herndon on one count of aggravated sexual battery, according to Fairfax County police. Police responded to the home on Franklin Farm Road, where Owino, 46, was accused of touching the girl inappropriately, said Bud Walker, a Fairfax County police spokesman. Walker said Owino, who remained on the scene and had not attempted to leave, is a longtime acquaintance of the Herndon family. The girl was not physically injured, according to police.
Owino is currently being held without bond at the Adult Detention Center in Fairfax County. A hearing is set for Sept. 2, according to the Catholic Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston in West Virginia. No attorney information has yet been made available. Owino’s charges carry a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison, and up to a $100,000 fine, Walker said.
He didn’t try to leave. He faces a stiff punishment.
Fat black people are victims
Vapid is as vapid talks. Wanna hear empty pseudo-rhetoric, a bromide every minute full of air? Listen here to Michelle O. telling the NAACP about fat kids.
Did you listen? Did you get the part about the black community being threatened by its health — not by its bad eating habits and leaving exercise to favorite NBA players?
The lady urges “intensity,” Drudge headlines. It sits better than dieting and running, not to mention watching less TV and reading more books.
No self-respecting PTO would invite her back.
