The good and the bad, emphasis on Trib and Sun-Times
Consider this from Lew Rockwell:
“Fascism” has become a term of general derision and rebuke. It is tossed casually in the direction of anything a critic happens to dislike. … But fascism is a real concept, not a stick with which to beat opponents arbitrarily. The abuse of this important word undermines its true value as a term referring to a very real phenomenon, and one whose spirit lives on even now.
Hmmm. Read on.
Wow. In 1990 a Chicago writer took a second look at Mandela
Doing this “will send a message that Illinois stands for a strong road for justice,” he adds.
It would to many. But probably not to merchants who have to change their signs and letterheads. Not even, maybe, to the cash-strapped city of Chicago, which would have to change street signs etc. Not to mapmakers — wait: yes to mapmakers, who would gain much business from need for new maps. But not to the town of Cicero, for heaven’s sake…
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Today’s Vatican announcement that the Pope will create a new commission answers every question—except the one question everyone is asking.What we don’t know is whether the new commission will take action against bishops who fail in their own responsibilities: bishops who cover up abuse. So we don’t know whether the commission will address the root cause of the scandal.
We know that the new commission will issue guidelines for handling sex-abuse issues. But we don’t know if bishops will follow those guidelines.
Followed by several other “we know . . . but we don’t know”s.
God knows, we love a law. So let’s have one. Take bike helmets, please. Situation: kids ride bikes, kids fall off bikes. kids hit head on pavement, get concussion, die or worse. This is Oak Park. It can happen here, but it must not happen here, let’s forbid it. Pass a law. Is that simple enough for you?
Some say it won’t be enforced, this new law condemning parents to community service (watching bike racks in shifts, like outside the old Ridgeland Pool door, lest they be ripped off, for instance):
. . . the revised ordinance eliminates the fine and replaces it with possible community service for the parent if they cannot provide proof they [he or she, including single moms or dads already
working two or more jobs?] have acquired a helmet for their kid.
So what? It won’t be enforced:
The chances of…
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Scroll down for this very good analysis from a Deerfield man: (boldface, bracketed comments added)
Pope and economics
The pope’s heart is in the right place, but he demonstrated a fundamental lack of understanding of free markets and capitalism in his recent economic speech. It is only when China abandoned [reduced?
moderated?] paternalistic government that had kept a billion souls locked in poverty and turned to free-market capitalism that it went from Third World status to a superpower.. . . more people were lifted from poverty to middle class than the total population of the United States.
Better that capitalism resulted in a few superrich and 500 million lifted out of poverty, than no superrich and 500 million who never left poverty. [Room for papal allusion to obsession with idle rich in
public discourse, including churchly]The results of free-market capitalism in breaking the chains of poverty are not limited to China; rather, they are evident in every Asian country that adopted it.
John F. Kennedy understood that lowering taxes results in wealth creation for the greatest number of citizens. Conversely, Barack Obama’s imposition of increased taxes and regulation has resulted in the weakest economic recovery on record.
The facts are clear: Free markets and capitalism are the road to prosperity.
Rob Klein, Deerfield
Klein calls it “an economic speech,” which apologists deny. I’d say that the pope’s meaning well extends to the “apostolic exhortation” label he gave it. If he did not know the apostolic part would get drowned out by the economic part, he needs a media advisor in a hurry.
The old way, letting the priest do what he has to do while I meditate and commune, privately. It’s the nearest thing to heresy you can come these days. But it’s that or I lose it as far as Catholic practice and belief are concerned.
Too much going on at today’s mass: priest in my face all the time, mumbling or orating, performing, always as if I had no resources and he alone could provide them for me. Ditto the various songsters with hand raised at prescribed moments, as if hailing a taxi, and announcers, directors of all things worshipful or presumably so. I tune it out, reading St. Paul or other New Testament or Psalms or religious verse.
Currently St. Paul in a little volume from the Daughters of Same book store on Mich. Ave., where today I saw he told Timothy that we are citizens of heaven and…
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Stupid party again, says Wall St. Journal’s Allysia Finley in “The Problem With Illinois Republicans” as regards its passing the bill Quinn was put on earth to see passed:
So Democrats in Springfield have out-maneuvered Republicans again, and yet many like Mr. Brady don’t even seem to realize it. That could explain why Republicans keep losing elections in Illinois that are eminently winnable.
Take Bill Brady, who knows about blowing winnable elections. Please.
Sunday Dec. 8 at John and Mary Howell’s house, 644 S. Grove (NE corner Jackson), 2-5.
Dan Proft, who was born in Oak Park, visits at the Oak Park Republican holiday party. He’s an entrepreneur, writer, former Republican candidate for Governor, and radio talk show host for WLS in Chicago, where he co-hosts with Bruce Wolf on weekday mornings, 5-9.
He also works as a Senior Fellow at the Illinois Policy Institute, a free market think tank in Chicago, and serves on the boards of two non-profits — the Disabled Patriot Fund, that provides assistance to Illinois military families, and Freedom to Learn-Illinois, that “supports all forms of parental choice in education, with a particular emphasis on scholarships and vouchers that aid low-income and working class families.”
On top of all that, and topping it, he says, he’s “an aspiring basketball coach.”
A Northwestern graduate, he has…
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Blithe Spirit 