How it bounces is what counts

This pic is from today’s Dems of Oak Park e-blast for its Get out OUR Vote! campaign:

Obama with ball

But didn’t the West Wing character do that all the time?  Play with a rubber ball?  A little fantasizing here?  Actually, downsizing the prez, since the West Wing fellow was a mere aide.  But showing O. as the shirtsleeved easy-goer, cool fella, our kind of guy.  I think that’s the idea, but I’m not sure.

Grim statistics

SNAP has studied the matter:

—256 of the Chicago archdiocese’s roughly 400 parishes have, at one time, had an accused pedophile priest working there,

– 30 parishes had two or more alleged predator priests assigned to them at one time, and

– a disproportionate percentage of parishes in lower income neighborhoods had accused priests working at hem.

The leaders:

Two parishes have had five accused priests [each] (St. Leonard in Berwyn and St. Aloysius in Chicago). Six have had four accused priests [each] (Holy Innocents in Chicago, St. Christina in Chicago, St. Eulalia in Maywood, St. John Vianney in Northlake, St. Thomas of Villanova in Palatine, and Resurrection Life Center in Chicago).

Maybe a new group?  Priests who Stood by Unknowing or Uncertain (PSUU)?  In silence, that is.  Many of them feeling not so good at this point, I bet.

A little bit of Oxford in River Forest

Dominican Friars at the 2009 March For Life in...
Dominicans dress well, do they not?

Latest from the Church Reporter:


(POSTED: 10/11/10) The amazing thing about the Rev. Timothy Radcliffe at Dominican U.-River Forest on Sept. 30 was that he was completely interesting and engaging. He was scripture prof at U. of Oxford, where he studied, there and in Paris. He’s past provincial for English Dominicans and past master (general) for the Dominicans worldwide. He gives retreats around the world, writes books on spirituality, etc. Who knew that he’d make a terrific talk-show host?

His talk was all about love, and a trifle airy at times, but this was a Caritas et Veritas lecture (Love & Truth), and anyhow he salted it with apt citations and anecdotes. It was easy listening.

As to questions, which do tend to be idiosyncratic and overly complicated, he demonstrated much aplomb.

. . . .

More more more at Chicago Catholic News.

Noodling how to grow (verb intransitive)

National Public Radio headquarters at 635 Mass...
Can this bldg go populist?

The people I know who listen regularly to NPR are almost all degreed.  It appeals to them partly for the very aspect that this study says is limiting its audience:

A new study for NPR identifies a much bigger potential news audience that would listen to public radio if the field works to break down perceptions that its programs are elitist and stuffy.

Producers would have to make shows that are more lively and conversational and promoters would have to take greater care when describing public radio as “intelligent” and “serious,” according to the Los Angeles-based firm SmithGeiger.

So.  Maybe more like Rush Limbaugh?

Tags:

Wheeling Jesuit new presidents-to-be?

Jesuite missionary, painting from 1779.
This Jesuit not available for Wheeling Jesuit

The search for a successor to the fired Rev. Julio Giulietti at Wheeling Jesuit U. is approaching the wire.  Now two candidates: Joseph Bascuas and Richard Beyer.

Both will be on campus next week, and an announcement will follow after a final review on Oct. 20.

Beyer is vice president of Trimble Navigation Ltd., based in Sunnyvale, California, a company that develops global positioning systems.

Trimble provides positioning solutions enabling professionals in engineering and construction, surveying, agriculture, fleet management and field service to be more productive by revolutionizing their work processes.

Trimble is transforming the way work is done through the application of innovative positioning. Trimble uses GPS, lasers, …

He’s also served as chairman of the board at [his alma mater] Michigan’s Olivet College, [affiliated with the United Church of Christ and the National Association of Congregational Christian Churches] and he’s currently on the board of the Wash. DC-based Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges.

Bascuas was most recently the interim president of Becker College [private, apparently nonsectarian] in [Worcester] Massachusetts. Before that, he was president [’02–’06] of Medaille College [private, nonsectarian] in Buffalo, N.Y.

The two are not Jesuit, as previously understood.  Catholic?  Ready to move forward in the Jesuit tradition?

Stone age coming, vote Dem!

Joe Biden und Barack Obama in Springfield, Ill...
Scary! Here's scary for you!

In an email message, not online, the OP Dem committeewoman sees “very scary consequences” from the coming election — “26 more days” — plus:

Concerns about the Democratic candidates have faded [they are not as worried about Giannoulias et al.] and the alternatives have become even more frightening as we have learned more and more
about the Republican challengers. [italics and boldface added]

She urges Dems

to see Brady’s positions on women’s issues (no abortion in the case of rape or even
for a woman’s health), lesbian and gay rights, creationism in the schools, animal rights, the economy etc.

When dismal economy threatens, go social-issues.

Oh and did I tell you he wants to lower the [job-killing] minimum wage? Illinois will revert back to the Stone Age if Brady gets elected!

As for Kirk,

See the top ten worst lies about his military record, the top ten worst votes supporting the Bush style
economy, etc.

Having the Republicans retake the Senate will jeopardize and/or wipe out all the progress
we have made by getting Obama elected!

Sounds like a call to Republican arms to me.

Tags:

Buying big house at wrong time

Ron Huberman with Harper High School Staff, 2009
Huberman meets, greets.

Ron Huberman on way out, as reported?  Substance’s George Schmidt will not be sad.  H. won’t submit to interviews.  S. speculates why:

One other possible reasons [sic] they’ve gagged him is that he went out and bought himself a million dollar “home” right at the time he’s firing the last competent people in the central office and threatening a half million parents and kids with massive destruction (class sizes jumping; teacher layoffs; end of extra-curricular; etc.).

Stupid is a word he doesn’t like having associated with the name Ron Huberman, but in those big two political activities (Data Drivel and Deficit), stupid he is. In purchasing that mansion, stupider.

Arne [Duncan] was smart enough not to do greedy at the same time he was doing cuts and privatizations. Huberman, from the day he started bringing in his posse at enormous salaries right through today, has missed the fact that all the dollars he’s playing with at CPS are in the public eye, unlike his supposed great work at CTA and Emergency Management, to name two.

I come in late to this debate, which dates at least from Ben Willis in the ‘sixties (‘fifties?).  But H’s buying a big house leads to speculation about how good those jobs are at the peak of public education in Chicago.

Peace, Peace — but there is no peace in Minnesota

Saint John's Abbey Church, on the campus of Sa...
St. John's Abbey church about to launch

The archbishop of Minneapolis-St. Paul, laid into the other day by a veteran pastor, does not play bean bag with the sacraments:

On Sunday, September 26, 2010, during Holy Mass at St. John’s Abbey on the campus of St. John’s University in Collegeville, Minnesota, 24 people were refused Holy Communion by Archbishop John Nienstedt of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis.

They were displaying rainbow buttons and rainbow sashes in direct defiance of the direction of the Diocese and thereby clearly expressing their rejection of the teaching of the Catholic Church.

. . . .  This open show of defiance in the context of the Mass was encouraged by a group calling itself calling itself “People Representing the Sexual Minority (PRiSM).

And the beat goes on, drip, drip, drip, batter, batter, batter, against the walls of Holy Mother Church.  So goes the argument for Catholics Who Care (CWC) about Catholic Tradition.

Wherever you stand on that burning issue, give a cheer, if not a care, for this fellow Nienstedt, who is not going to make Communion a reward for showing up.

Look, he’s got a 2,000–year-old dripped-on and battered-by-the-best-of-them institution to serve and protect.  Some may want him to knuckle under for peace at any price, but they are being unreasonable.

I don’t know the fellow, but when put to the test, he seems to have been ready.  They are kicking at a battleship anyway.  Blame if you must this old gray vessel, but spare your sacred moments — from profanation, he said.