. . . which is why a strong police presence is needed in black neighborhoods.
it is precisely in response to the disproportionate criminality among the black population that the police are deployed in much higher numbers in black neighborhoods, where they are trying to save innocent lives. . . .
And more here about black women at risk and Andrew Klavan rapping . . .
Let us now praise the Pope for making a good point:
There are sins of speech and writing and drawing (and lots of other things one could mention). Not a new point but appropriate in its Charlie Hebdo timing, EXCEPT for its confusing moral with political freedom, two quite different and not in themselves synchronous things.
Freedom of speech as generally if not universally understood refers to POLITICAL not MORAL freedom, which I am sure the Pope realizes. He should make that clear and not confuse matters by promoting a moral (personal) obligation rather than a political (governmental) requirement.
Lots of immoral things are legal, dear Holy Father. Please, make that distinction next time the spirit moves you.
G.K. Chesterton Academy of Chicago
If you were unable to join the thousands who marched with us in downtown Chicago, check out the photos posted on our Facebook Group page. 
Namely that my wordpress blogs whose url I am renting by the year, OakParkNewspapers.com MyJesuitLife.com, are inaccessible to me as owner/administrator. Again, what is WordPress doing to me????
. . . Why so? I cannot imbed a link in anything!!! WordPress wordpress wordpress, what the heck is going on?
Call off your tired old health inspections — of abortion facilities in our great state of Illinois. http://illinoisreview.typepad.com/illinoisreview/2015/01/gilligan-abortion-facilities-the-only-places-illinois-lawmakers-refuse-to-inspect.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+typepad%2FbYHz+%28Illinois+Review%29
In one fell swoop, Gov. Bruce Rauner reversed seven 11th-hour executive orders signed by outgoing Gov. Pat Quinn, declaring they were not in the best interest of Illinois residents.
That includes an executive order that called for Rauner to release all of his tax information as well as one that increased the minimum wage for state contracts from $8.25 an hour to $10 an hour. Both of the issues were sticking points in a bruising campaign between the two men in 2014.
It’s (almost) enough to make you feel sorry for the party that made him its standard-bearer. Not quite.
Loyola U.-Chicago lays an egg:
One day before the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, Loyola University Chicago will host a journalist who once thanked God for abortion on television.
Woe is us. Thing is, top- or middle-level Romantic Catholic leaders just want abortion to go away, not so much in real life as in public discourse. It’s an embarrassment, interferes with the business they want to conduct. They just aren’t interested.
Adherents of a religon of peace who paid no attention to that part.
Get ready for an all-out hashtag blitz by Mrs. Obama and other distant observers.
Addressing Vatican diplomats, he said: (http://www.cruxnow.com/church/2015/01/12/pope-francis-warns-anew-of-a-piecemeal-world-war/?s_campaign=crux:email:ja)
Peace, Francis said, is the indispensable condition for making progress on other fronts, such as economic development, care of immigrants, and the environment.
Second only to freedom. When was the last time a Pope pushed freedom as a sine qua non?
Well, he did talk about it, saying this:
“Before all else be free persons!” said the Pope. “Freedom means knowing how to reflect on what we do, knowing how to evaluate . which are the behaviors that make us grow. It means always choosing the good…. Being free to always choose the good is challenging, but it will make you persons with a backbone, who know how to face life, [and live as] courageous and patient persons.”
But I mean political freedom, Popes and Catholic writers and preachers have talked a lot about personal freedom, as from the chains of Satan and the like.
Thing is, he’s gotten very political. So political freedom? I’m listening.
Blithe Spirit 