Chicago Inspector General Joseph Ferguson delivered a rebuke on the eve of Arbor Day, finding the city’s vaunted tree-planting program suffers bookkeeping and inspection problems that have cost nearly $500,000 worth of trees in recent years.
Hey, it’s not their money and they don’t stand to get fired for such a mistake.
Letter to S-T:
Dear Editor:
Bob McClory’s argument for keeping Fr. Pfleger at St. Sabina parish limps in several respects.
First, it’s Bob’s own credentials for limiting Cardinal George’s authority in this case, Bob being an enthusiastic proponent of new limitations on bishops’ authority in general. Indeed, the Pfleger case fits his predilection for espousing radical change in the church.
Second, he (rightly) praises Pfleger’s pastoral availability to the bereaved and suffering — a combination of high profile achieved by Pfleger himself and Pfleger’s abundant empathy. But nothing in his transfer from St. Sabina would interfere with that, even work as president of a high school. He could be equally available to bereaved and badly treated people.
Third, he says the cardinal has handled this badly, to which I ask, Pfleger hasn’t?
— Jim Bowman
Off to see #1 Daughter (also #1 Child) Angela at Uncommon Ground on Devon tonight, 8 o’clock. She’s warbling to the music of Jon Williams. And strumming too.
Angela & Jon
Uncommon Ground has this to say about it:
Singer Angela Bowman (also of WABOLABR) teams up with guitar and piano player Jon Williams (Blue Line Riders, Chandelier Swingers) for a night of soulful songs. Come for a mix of roots music, honky-tonk, standards and swing tunes.
The Mama & I are going, plus others. Report forthcoming.
From Fr. Pfleger’s St. Sabina allies, via email:
On March 11, 2011, Fr. Pfleger met with Cardinal George where he was asked to take over as president of Leo High School .
On March 19, 2011, Fr. Pfleger sent a letter to Cardinal George saying that he was neither qualified nor experienced being president of a high school but that he was willing to help Leo High School in any way that he could.
There has been no response by phone call or letter from the Cardinal. Today, Fr. Pfleger was called to a meeting at 4:30 at the Pastoral Center . At that meeting Fr. Pfleger was given a letter that he was suspended and the Cardinal did not want to discuss it.
The Leadership of St. Sabina will have an official response tomorrow. We are in shock.
For your information the press received this letter before Fr. Pfleger and the church heard about it through press calls.
There’s lots of church history behind this one, going back centuries.
Fr. Pfleger said he’d bail out of the church if he could not stay at St. Sabina.
If that is truly your attitude, you have already left the Catholic Church and are therefore not able to pastor a Catholic parish.”
George explained:
This conflict is not between you and me; its between you and the church that ordained you a priest, between you and the faith that introduced you to Christ and gives you the right to preach and pastor in his name, said George. If you now formally leave the Catholic Church and her priesthood, its your choice and no one elses. You are not a victim of anyone or anything other than your own statements.
He’s been talking otherwise in recent years, says George:
George wrote that Pfleger told him several times in recent years that he did not want to stay at St. Sabina for the duration of his time in public ministry.
Introducing Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. and assorted others.
Happy to see this book discussed, exposed, whatever. Picked it off the OP Library shelf few weeks back and had some revelatory skimming, including the part where in Boston in 2000 the store clerks don’t sell, they just fill orders. (Recipe for bored clerks, yawning their way through their time with you)
But the part I remember best is how governmental efficiency takes the hassle out of shopping for the item of your choice. No, instead you go to stores where samples are for viewing, with full, complete descriptions done impeccably by government employees in a central office!
Glory be, no more schlepping around from Macy’s to Carson’s to Old Navy and back, fretting about what you will buy. In this marvelous book, government employees slip you the info you need, leaving you time to get back to perfectly tuned and attuned government surround-sound in your perfectly temperature–controlled house. If only!!!!
Public Education and Illiteracy: Looking back Over 123 Years
Samuel Blumenfeld reports:The year 2011 marks the 123rd year since the publication of Edward Bellamy’s famous utopian novel, Looking Backward, in which the author depicted a happy, socialist America in the year 2000. In Bellamy’s optimistic fantasy, greed and material want ceased to exist, brotherly harmony prevailed, the arts and sciences flourished, and an all-powerful and pervasive government and bureaucracy were efficient and fair.
A history lesson well worth your time.
This is the sort of thing you want to support, if only to declare your lack of confidence in how gummint people spend yr tax $.
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How you do this, I don’t care, but run do not walk now to get a DVD or otherwise viewing medium of “Doc Martin.”
It’s the best thing out of Brit-humor television yet. (and probably of any TV anwhere). Trust me.
Sun-Times’s Rosalind Rossi and Kim Janssen pack a lot into one sentence:
At once disarming and unhelpful, the Rochester superintendent’s response seemed to reveal little beyond a healthy fear of a politician who once sent a dead fish to one of his enemies.
He’s new Chi schools chief Jean-Claude Brizard, newly hired by mayor-elect Rahm Emanuel by whom he’s been told to keep his mouth shut as accusations swirl about him
Wish I’d said it in just this way . . . . :
“I wouldn’t call it fascism exactly,
but a political system nominally controlled
by an irresponsible, dumbed down electorate
who are manipulated by dishonest, cynical, controlled mass media
that dispense the propaganda of a corrupt political establishment
can hardly be described as democracy either.”
. . . . Having said it differently back when Big O. was not quite elected president, noting that Oak Parkers were going all-out for him:
The “man of action” business is particularly foreboding. It’s a staple of fascism, of course. Mussolini, Hitler, and FDR were a mutual admiration society before the stuff hit the fan in the matter of Jewish people being rounded up and beaten up and eventually much worse-the German contribution to fascism. The political appeal was based on admiration for the strong man who brooked no opposition.
Mussolini was crafty about it and inspired admiration in “progressive” circles in this country, as he had admired American pragmatism in Woodrow Wilson, the college professor-become-president with a yen for power that puts even today’s tenured radicals to shame. Then came FDR, the roaring pragmatist, and then Hitler. Progressives, later called liberals, yet later progressives again-the name changes keep them ahead of the awareness curve-love the man of action.
Now they have one. He’s The One, our smooth-talking Democrat presidential candidate with a yen for deciding how much you should earn before being hit with a tax hike-to “spread the wealth around,” as he unfortunately told that plumber in
Ohio.
Forget about the plumber. It was the thought that counted — then and now.
Blithe Spirit 