Tag: Blithe Spirit

Blithe Spirit

Very hot news in Catholic circles: the Society of St. Pius X, broken away from the Vatican since the 2nd  Vatican Council, is “on the verge” of reconciliation with the church.

It’s remotely comparable to the resolution and dissolution of The Great Schism of the 14th  century, the three-pope period when disarray was the order of the day. 

Benedict XVI is making it happen.  Standing objections by the SPX people to Vatican 2’s “rupture” or disruptive aspects will remain. 

Trust me, folks, it’s like The Episcopal Church U.S.A. making room for Evangelical Christians.  Somewhat like?  Am working on that.

In Oak Park it means that the Pius X Latin mass church at Ridgeland and Washington, kitty-corner from Julian Middle School, is no longer out of bounds for venturesome Catholics. 

More to come.  more more more

View original post

Blithe Spirit

Assorted Jesuits, Jesuit university teachers, and other liberal Catholics DO NOT LIKE Rep. Paul Ryan’s citing Catholic teaching in support of his budget.

Among his sins surely would be his embracing the long-ignored principle of subsidiarity, which says big organizations or governmental entities should butt out of matters better handled by smaller ones. 

In accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, neither the state nor any larger society should substitute itself for the initiative and responsibility of individuals and intermediary bodies.

No surprise here: A Jesuit history prof at a large Jesuit university told me 20 years ago that the principle no longer had currency.  If it did, one might add, big government would not be considered the cure-all it is treated as today.

It was Dorothy Day, I believe, who referred ironically to “holy mother the state.”  It’s a good phrase for today’s feckless reverence for big…

View original post 20 more words

Not for attribution

A poem criticizing The Tablet, UK’s Catholic newspaper of record:

For the people at The Tablet
 Life seems very tough.
 They publish, publish, publish,
 But no one buys their stuff.

On tables, shelves, old, yellowing
 Unsold, the copies lie.
 “What can be done to save our jobs?
 What is there left to try?”

More more more at The Left Footer’s blog.

Not a regular reader of The Tablet, and this critique isn’t what would come to my mind, but I love how this urbane writer does it.

 

View original post

Not for attribution

* On Green Line: At Madison and Waa-waa-waa-Wabash, baby crying wickedly.  Oh for a nursing mother (who can quiet a kid in seconds).  Nothing doing, bottles visible on stroller top from other end of car.  Young mother and wailing child debark at Clark.  Man in hoodie to someone across aisle, commiserating: “I feel sorry for that young girl.”

* Day two, Green Line: At Adams and Wabash, packed car furiously loud, as if a bevy of raucous school girls were hooting and hollering with tales of their social life, talking over each other.  A few stops later, the crowd thinned, it’s clear there are only two women making all the racket, chatting.

A few stops later, at Ashland, one got off.  As the two said goodbye, the boy sitting next to the one remaining took his opportunity, leaping over the seat in front of them, and began running up and…

View original post 355 more words

Barack alias Barry and the Mrs.: law prof not

A take on the Obamas as lawyers that qualifies as a take-down.

1. He got the U Chi lecturer’s job after a call to the law school from the trustees, he

Official photographic portrait of US President...
Did not qualify as adjunct!

having been turned down as adjunct.

2. She “voluntarily surrendered” her license, as Bill Clinton surrendered his after he was convicted of making false statement in the Lewinsky case. Point: “Voluntarily” is not the surrendering one’s idea.

(H/T Nancy J. Thorner)

What made Mike Wallace tick

In this 1995 article, a 1987 TV show is recalled, where Mike Wallace professed to be a “reporter” and nothing else. Nada. Discussion was about saving U.S. troops vs. getting the story. Wallace was for getting the story. Newscaster Peter Jennings had just said he’d save the troops, even at the cost of his own life.

Ogletree [the moderator] turned for reaction to Mike Wallace, who immediately replied. “I think some other reporters would have a different reaction,” he said, obviously referring to himself. “They would regard it simply as another story they were there to cover.” A moment later Wallace said, “I am astonished, really.” He turned toward Jennings and began to lecture him: “You’re a reporter. Granted you’re an American” (at least for purposes of the fictional example; Jennings has actually retained Canadian citizenship). “I’m a little bit at a loss to understand why, because you’re an American, you would not have covered that story.” Ogletree pushed Wallace. Didn’t Jennings have some higher duty to do something other than just roll film as soldiers from his own country were being shot?

“No,” Wallace said flatly and immediately. “You don’t have a higher duty. No. No. You’re a reporter!”

A truncated view, to be sure, but widely embraced, we fear, by the reportorial community. Wallace was bespeaking journalistic objectivity, a good thing, a dying attitude, but sans examination, sans morality. Unabashedly, and on air he turned Jennings around, making them both the object of scorn of soldiers also on the panel. And of many, we presume, who were not.

(Hat tip Instapundit)

Nancy J. Thorner

It was on March 31 that Vice President Joe Biden had the following exchange with a Davenport, Iowa TV station in a series of questions regarding H-1 visas taking American jobs:

Question: Are too many H1B visas given out each year?  Are too many highly skilled jobs going to people outside the U.S.?

Biden’s answer: No H1b visa can be granted to an employee to come to a company unless they can prove there is no American to fill the job. What we have had is a real vacuum in the number of computer engineers and high tech personnel to work In particularly Silicon Valley. That where most of those H1b visas are going. That why we have made it so attractive, and I don’t understand why Republicans have opposed it.

Either Vice President Biden has no clue of what he is talking about, or he is simply being untruthful…

View original post 1,234 more words

Lucubrations and observations.

Not for attribution

* Saturday in the park with Jim: Man with bent back passes bench, we exchange good mornings.  Little dog runs about, mistress tagging along, leash in hand.  Across the grass 50 yards away, three knights of the road (homeless to our unimaginative age) gather on a long bench, catching the self-same freshness of April-morning air as I, who have a home and limit my road-riding to the “L.”

A yellow-sweatered blond, legs jeans-covered, with moderately shaggy medium-sized dog — an older fellow — walking calmly along with her, unlike those little guys that run and run.  Like one who chases the floppy cloth frisbie thrown by his blue-jacketed mistress, leaps, catches in air, wheels about, returns, and does it again, though not always with like results. 

Two days ago, for instance, he did not return after catching cloth frisbie, but dropped it a few feet away, then looked about briefly for a…

View original post 353 more words