Ellen cries

Ellen DeGeneres should learn that the world laughs with you when you laugh but sometimes laughs at you when you cry. I did.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Ellen DeGeneres’ talk show was put on hold for a day because of her emotionally wrenching dog-adoption drama.

“It’s been a long week and a tough week and we decided to take a long weekend and be back on Tuesday,” said Laura Mandel, a spokeswoman for Telepictures Productions, which produces “The Ellen DeGeneres Show.”

So what was it all about, Ellen? She got this dog from this non-profit animal-rescue agency, Iggy his name, and he didn’t get along with her cats. So she gave him to her hair-dresser’s kids in violation of contract: adopter has to give it back to agency, who then re-locates the animal.

So the agency took the dog back, leaving both the kids and Ellen in tears, she on air.

Not gonna let “the Ellen DeGenereses of the world” push them around, said the agency women, who (I have heard on the radio, where I also heard a clip of her losing her composure completely) have since found another home for Iggy.

So Ellen took a few days off to recover. It’s like Oscar Wilde’s comment on the death of Little Nell in Dickens’s Old Curiosity Shop:

One must have a heart of stone to read the death of little Nell without laughing.

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Can an archbishop say that?

Gutsy guy in Genoa gets red hat:

The Pope announced the names of 23 new cardinals yesterday, including the controversial leader of the Italian Church who recently compared homosexuality to paedophilia and incest.

Archbishop Angelo Bagnasco of Genoa will be made a cardinal on Nov 24, at the next consistory. Mgr Bagnasco has been under armed guard [italics added] since he made a speech in April which claimed that permitting gay marriages was merely the beginning of a slippery slope. “Why then say ‘no’ to incest? Why say ‘no’ to the paedophile party in Holland?” he asked.

Why “no”?  Because if you do, you need an armed guard.

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Compassion run amok

Stephen Fry, comedian, actor and quiz-show host who came in third in a survey of Britain’s wittiest people, came in highest among those who have not yet died, reports Times of London.

He once quoted Oscar Wilde [#1 in the poll], whom he played in the 1997 film of that name, when passing through customs at an airport, announcing: “I have nothing to declare but my genius.”

Fry also objected to animal testing as cruel because “they get nervous and get all the answers wrong.”

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Crime trend

Sun-Times may be the voice of progressivism, as it has claimed in the last few months, but it’s running a very subversive daily news feature about crime.

It’s “24seven,” on page 9 today, far-right (ahem) column, with the usual rundown on mayhem. Thing is, and here’s the subversive part, the crime is almost all in black or hispanic neighborhoods, this day almost all in black ones.

Subversive because it says that if you’re black, step back when it comes to law and order, which is something we are not supposed to say, under penalty of hate-crime accusation or worse.

Today’s offering:

1. SUNDAY | 10:15 P.M. GRESHAM: Argument leads to shooting:

Steve Huff, 40, was shot at 8512 S. Elizabeth. Huff, of 9505 S. Marshfield, was shot in the head — apparently after he and an acquaintance “exchanged words” with a group on the street, police said.

2. SUNDAY | 10:45 P.M. AUSTIN:
Man fatally shot

Darrious Blackmon, 23, of 5030 W. Ohio, was shot outside in the 500 block of North Lawler. He was pronounced dead shorty after the shooting at Mount Sinai Hospital.

3. SUNDAY | 11:30 P.M. STONY ISLAND PARK:
27-year-old shot in neck

A 27-year-old man was shot in the neck near the intersection of East 84th Street and South Stony Island. The man was in a vehicle when the shooting occurred, and he was expected to survive.

4. MONDAY | 1 A.M. WEST GARFIELD PARK:
Church broken into

The True House of Holiness, at 4157 W. Harrison, was broken into. Someone climbed on top of a garbage can and removed a vent outside to get in the building. It was unclear if anything was stolen, and no one was in custody.

5. MONDAY | NOON LINCOLN PARK:
Bank heist

A North Community Bank branch at 2000 N. Halsted was robbed. One person made off with an unknown amount of cash, according to police.

I shouldn’t call attention to this, it might get S-T in trouble, but there it is.

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To which this from reader Margaret McCarthy:

The Chicago Defender, in its early days, was a voice of hope and encouragement to the black community when it was trying to survive real racism. The Sun Times might as well rename itself, Ghetto News. It’s either featuring the daily crime by ghetto low-lifes, a long whine about racism and poverty, and/or the cruelty of deporting illegal aliens. There’s little news of any substance to interest middle-class people in the metropolitan area. How they survive is the question because their demographic is hardly a newspaper-reading, thoughtful sub-group. Oh, wait, I forgot that guilty white liberals are a large demographic sub-group in after decades of Leftist education.

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Black kids suspended

Today’s Sun-Times editorial, “Suspensions fail test of fairness,” baffles me with its discussion of blacks’ being suspended in Chi public schools more than whites without reference to their deserving it, not even to shoot the idea down.

Still overdue [after various adjustments] . . . are answers for the reasons behind [for?] the divide. Because even when the number of suspensions declined, the rates remained the same: African-American students were still suspended 3-1 over whites and Hispanics.

“There is something out there that we’re missing,” admits James Bebley, first deputy general counsel for the Board of Education.

There’s also something that we readers are missing, namely what constituteness unfairness in this matter.  Sheer “disparity,” as Sun-Times says?  Really?  What if black kids misbehave more often? 

Nothing is said about that.  Nor is anything said about racial discrimination in suspending kids, which would be the point, would it not?  If not, why not?

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The general got half-reported

Retired General Ricardo Sanchez got lots of ink for his calling Iraq “a nightmare with no end in sight” in his talk Friday to the Military Reporters and Editors Association.  It was news, but so was his criticism of reporters and editors, which got no ink, as WSJ’s John Fund says in the (subscription-only) Political Diary:

In his talk, General Sanchez accused reporters of “unscrupulous reporting, solely focused on supporting an agenda and preconceived notions of the U.S. military.” He added that such press bias sometimes “puts U.S. service members in deadly situations.”

“What is clear to me is that you are perpetuating the corrosive partisan politics that is destroying our country and killing our service members who are at war. My assessment is that your profession, to some extent, has strayed from these ethical standards and allowed external agendas to manipulate what the American public sees on TV, reads in newspapers and what they see on the Web,” Mr. Sanchez said. “For some of you, just like some of our politicians, the truth is of little to no value if it does not fit your own preconceived notions, biases and agendas.”

The audience of military reporters appeared stunned as General Sanchez calmly laid out his indictment. He concluded: “We must ask ourselves — who is responsible for maintaining the ethical standards of the profession in order to ensure that our democracy does not continue to be threatened by this dangerous shift away from your sacred duty of public enlightenment?” After an uncomfortable silence, punctuated by smatters of applause, James Crawley, president of the Military Reporters and Editors Association, thanked the general for his “unvarnished” look at the media. But to the extent the general has a point, how can we expect change unless his remarks are heard in the media forest?

Yes.

 
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A pair of quibbles . . .

. . . with my two favorite Chi Trib columnists, Krauthammer and Byrne:

* With K, who would never vote for Hillary even tho she would do good things, because her motivation is bad: The definition of a good candidate is what she is expected to do, not why.

* With B, who lays out too clearly overspending and overtaxation by state, county, and city government and hopes for voters to get smarter: Yes, but as Royko wrote in his column the day after Richard J. Daley died, Chicagoans had got what they deserve in him.  The fault, dear Dennis, lies (maybe permanently) in themselves.

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Putting his finger on it

“It bothers me that my fellow scientists are not speaking out against something they know is wrong,” he said. “But they also know that they’d never get any grants if they spoke out. I don’t care about grants.”

This is world-class meteorologist Dr. Wm. Gray in a speech at U. of N. Carolina.  Global warming, he said, is not man-made.  Grants are the thing for too many, he is saying.

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Bad Jesuit news

An accused Jesuit is in limbo in Florida.  He’s a Chicago transplant, to New Orleans, where he headed Loyola U. there.  Egad!  He was a university president, for God’s sake!

The Chicago Jesuits have given him the bum’s rush and said they are OK with him being out of pocket.

He was a 2003 case.  So was the convicted and sentenced, free while appealing Donald McGuire, also of Chicago, who was told only recently to stop wearing the collar, says Sun-Times.

I have heard a Chicago Province Jesuit rail against “the media” from an Oak Park pulpit within the past year, while otherwise pulling out the stops to good effect in a parish “mission.”  Would he and other churchmen prefer a veil of silence?

Here’s most of the Sun-Times story:

The Chicago Jesuits list the Rev. Bernard Knoth, once a star in Catholic education, as “absent with permission.”

He’s been working in the secular business world in Sarasota, Fla., since the Jesuits ruled four years ago that a child abuse accusation was “credible.”

Knoth, 58, works for Global Recruiters Network, which isn’t a Jesuit company. His corporate bio reads, “After leaving Loyola in 2003, Bernie decided on a career change.”

As if he had a choice. [Tone bad here, unfortunately]

The Jesuits forced the Chicago native to resign as president of Loyola University in New Orleans. He had formerly worked at schools in Chicago, Indianapolis and Washington, D.C.

Knoth denies the abuse, which the Jesuits said happened in 1986. He remains a priest and a Jesuit, though barred from public ministry or wearing priest’s garb.

When asked by the Chicago Sun-Times this week whether he’ll remain a priest, Knoth was noncomittal.

“We’ve talked about it,” he said.

The Jesuits said Wednesday that Knoth is living on his own, but wouldn’t discuss the terms of his leave or whether he’s being monitored.

“For the Jesuits to allow a known child molester to live without any kind of monitoring or treatment sets up children for abuse,” said Barbara Blaine of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.

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Smell like a rose

Lifebuoy soap was once the cure for b.o., body odor. Is there a cure for p.o. (perfume) or c.o. (cologne)? Maybe several, but one stands out, as it does in at least one other area of human endeavor, namely abstinence.

If people would stop using the stuff, just saying no, we’d be back to the simple life of b.o.

Or they could save up and buy the non-affordable stuff, whose smell is pleasant in a most non-affordable way.

Adolescent men and boys are the chief target here, trailing clouds of glory as they pass on street or in hallway; but females also sin in this regard.

They should all rush to the nearest toilet and flush down it their affordable deodorants, perfumes, and whatever else they use to mask their natural scent, for which some of us sometimes yearn, believe it or not.

While we’re at it, some recently issued common sense on the subject:

Body odour is caused not by perspiration itself but by the bacterial breakdown of it. Deodorants simply mask the pong. Antiperspirants go a step further, plugging the ducts to stop the perspiration from emerging (aluminium compounds react with the electrolytes in perspiration to form a gel plug in the duct of the sweat gland).

Don’t try to kill all your skin bacteria, says an expert doc, and ditch the cheap perfumes.

The good news for those either aesthetically or ideologically leery of these whiffy chemicals is that a new wave of more “natural” deodorants has recently hit the market. You can now buy sprays and roll-ons that blend essential oils and plants such as lavender, Aloe vera, lemon or coriander, and smell a lot better than their chemical peers.

They work, UK Telegraph’s Lucy Atkins found.

The organic cosmetics company Green People bases its deodorants on the mineral salt alunite, which apparently stops underarm bacteria from thriving. I rolled this on liberally then danced for four hours at a friend’s 40th birthday party.

Astonishingly, I came out smelling of roses (or, more accurately, of a faint blend of rosemary, lavender and peppermint).

So for you smart people, no more sweat-blocking antiperspirant.  Look around for

clever new products containing blends of essential oils and minerals such as zinc ricinoleate, which “fixes” the odours produced by bacteria so they can’t be released.

But beware junk stuff, go for Neal’s Yard, Green People and Culpeper, she says.  Never hoid of ‘em.

 

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