I posted about Apple back on May 3rd. Apple (stock) crushes it Earnings report came out better then expected this afternoon (see below, off WSJ email). Stock needs to rise 7% to hit the $1 trillion company valuation.
|
||
|
« June 2018 | Main | August 2018 »
I posted about Apple back on May 3rd. Apple (stock) crushes it Earnings report came out better then expected this afternoon (see below, off WSJ email). Stock needs to rise 7% to hit the $1 trillion company valuation.
|
||
|
Tuesday, July 31, 2018 | Permalink | Comments (0)
I'm a big user of Amazon - was a charter member of their Prime program - back when it was $25/yr. BUT, bad corporate citizens. I've posted about them a few times -
Amazon kindle Chinese factory working conditions - slammed by watchdog group
Not to mention this - nice work if you can get it - Amazon 2017 results: $5.6 billion in profits, zero taxes
Here's the latest on their sleaziness, from the Guardian (UK). Long article; I excerpted part below the link.
Vickie Shannon Allen, 49, started working at Amazon as a counter in a fulfillment warehouse at Haslet, Texas, in May 2017. At first, like many employees, Allen was excited by the idea of working for one of the fastest growing corporations in the world. That feeling dissipated quickly after a few months.
“I noticed managers would ask you questions all the time about any bathroom breaks, performance and productivity. What they do is code your time, and they are allowed to change it at will. To me, that’s how they get rid of people,” Allen said.
Amazon is now the world’s most valuable retailer. Its customers are served by over 140 fulfillment centers like the one where Allen worked across the US. The revenues from these centers have made founder Jeff Bezos the world’s richest man – Bezos’ net worth recently crossed the $150bn, making him the wealthiest person in history, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
In the meantime, Allen has become homeless after a workplace accident left her unable to do her job.
Nor is Allen alone. A Guardian investigation has revealed numerous cases of Amazon workers suffering from workplace accidents or injuries in its gigantic warehouse system and being treated in ways that leave them homeless, unable to work or bereft of income.
Allen’s story began on 24 October last year when she injured her back counting goods on a workstation that was missing a brush guard, a piece of safety equipment meant to prevent products from falling onto the floor. She used a tote bin to try to compensate for the missing brush guard, and hurt her back while counting in an awkward position. The injury was the beginning of an ongoing ordeal she is still working to amend at Amazon. Over the course of a few weeks, Amazon’s medical triage area gave her use of a heating pad to use on her back, while Amazon management sent her home each day without pay until Allen pushed for workers compensation.
“I tried to work again, but I couldn’t stretch my right arm out and I’m right-handed. So I was having a hard time keeping up. This went on for about three weeks,” Allen said. Despite not getting paid, Allen was spending her own money to drive 60 miles one way to the warehouse each day just to be sent home.
Once on workers compensation, Allen started going to physical therapy. In January 2018, she returned to work and injured herself again on the same workstation that still was not fixed.
Allen went back on medical leave and took an additional two weeks of unpaid leave because she didn’t have the money to drive to work. In April 2018, an MRI scan showed her back was still injured, but just five days after her diagnosis, she claims Amazon’s workers compensation insurer, Sedgwick, had the company doctor drop her as a patient.
Sound bad? It's actually much worse when you read what ultimately happened to the woman. And others.
Tuesday, July 31, 2018 | Permalink | Comments (0)
After the sweet growth last quarter of 4.1%; I posted about it here: WSJ: "Trump... every right to take a GDP victory lap" . It must be gratifying for Kudlow after his years of preaching lower taxes and reduced regulations seeing the results. Every reason to think consistent 3% growth is very possible for the foreseeable future. Business investment and money flowing into the USA - very important.
Monday, July 30, 2018 | Permalink | Comments (0)
The Koch brothers are despised by "progressive" Democrats. "If you are a Democrat and stand up to [Senator] Elizabeth Warren to corral enough votes for financial reform that breaks barriers for community banks and families, you're darn right we will work with you."
Sunday, July 29, 2018 | Permalink | Comments (0)
Check out the short video below. In other words, a country with vast energy supplies has been reduced to a barter economy with the professional, business and middle class getting out of the Country. And here's Bernie Sanders website in 2011 - These days, the American dream is more apt to be realized in South America, in places such as Ecuador, Venezuela and Argentina, where incomes are actually more equal today than they are in the land of Horatio Alger. Who's the banana republic now?
Yeah, great.
Sunday, July 29, 2018 | Permalink | Comments (4)
This from the Jesuit magazine America. It's a great short article. An excerpt below the link.
Kilmer studied at Rutgers College Grammar School, where he was the editor of the school’s paper. He went on to Rutgers College and Columbia University, graduating in May 1908. He married Aline Murray in June, and they would eventually have five children. In the following years, Kilmer became a well-known poet, literary critic, journalist and editor. He started teaching Latin at Morristown High School in New Jersey and writing essays, poems and reviews for several publications including The Nation and The New York Times.
He and Aline moved to New York, where he held several jobs, including working for Funk and Wagnall’s defining words for The Standard Dictionary. In 1912, the Jesuit priest James Daly, a professor of English at Campion College in Prairie du Chien, Wis., wrote to Kilmer to discuss literature. The two began exchanging letters, and a friendship developed that intensified when Kilmer’s fourth child, baby Rose, was stricken with polio and lost the use of her limbs. His relationship with Father Daly led Kilmer and his wife to become Catholics in 1913, the same year Kilmer published “Trees.” Kilmer would write to Father Daly on Jan. 9, 1914:
I believed in the Catholic position, the Catholic view of ethics and aesthetics, for a long time. But I wanted something not intellectual, some conviction not mental—in fact I wanted Faith....
Well, every morning for months I stopped on my way to the office and prayed in this church for faith. When faith did come, it came, I think, by way of my little paralysed daughter. Here lifeless hands led me; I think her tiny still feet know beautiful paths. You understand this and it gives me a selfish pleasure to write it down.
*************
In April 1917, the United States entered World War I. Kilmer enlisted, joining New York City’s “Fighting 69th” infantry regiment: “I was Irish and Catholic and would go to France sooner.” The 69th was led by Major “Wild Bill” Donovan, and the chaplain was the Rev. Francis P. Duffy. Shortly before Kilmer left to go overseas, his daughter Rose died. In France, Kilmer was a dedicated and courageous soldier, often undertaking dangerous reconnaissance missions. A fellow soldier, Sergeant Major Ester, described Kilmer:
He would always be doing more than his orders called for, i.e., getting much nearer to the enemy’s positions than any officer would be inclined to send him. Night after night he would lie out in No Man’s Land, crawling through barbed wires, in an effort to locate enemy positions and enemy guns, and tearing his clothes to shreds.
The German sniper brought him down on one such mission, and he was buried in France. He was posthumously awarded the Croix de Guerre. Father Duffy’s heroic efforts in the war, such as going into battle to carry back the wounded, would lead him to become the most decorated cleric in the history of the United States Army. A statue of Father Duffy stands in Duffy Square at the north end of Times Square in Manhattan.
Sunday, July 29, 2018 | Permalink | Comments (0)
Today's announcement of a 4.1% growth in the economy in the 2nd quarter. Not likely to continue at that rate - but it doesn't have to - 3% would be fine. Article below.
The Economy Grows Bigly. Donald Trump has every right to take a GDP victory lap.
Call it huge or fantastic or even beautiful. Trumpian adjectives are absolutely appropriate to describe the humming U.S. economy in the second quarter of this year. The great American opportunity machine is roaring once again.
While it may be unlikely that growth will be quite this strong in the quarters to come, Friday’s GDP report from the Commerce Department gives every reason to believe that a robust expansion will continue. That’s in large part because businesses have been making significant investments in new factories and equipment since the start of this year. Such capital expenditures are not one-quarter wonders—they allow higher production in the years to come.
This morning at the White House, the President described this encouraging trend:
The year before I came into office, private business investment grew at only 1.8 percent. Last year, it jumped to 6.3 percent. That was my first full year; we had to do a lot of things to get it to grow. And this year, it’s growing at 9.4 percent. So that’s a very tremendous increase. There hasn’t been an increase like that in many, many years -- decades.
... I happen to think we’re going to do extraordinarily well in our next report, next quarter. I think it’s going to be outstanding. I won’t go too strong, because then if it’s not quite as good, you’ll not let me forget it. But I think the numbers are going to be outstanding.
Why shouldn’t he think that? Mr. Trump’s cuts to regulation and tax rates are having exactly the intended effect. And there’s more good news in Friday’s report beyond the increased willingness of business owners to bet on long-term success.
Specifically, at least two other elements of the report suggest solid growth for the rest of 2018. Real private domestic final purchases (consumer spending plus fixed investment) grew 4.3%. This kind of growth is generally a signal that the next quarter will also be strong.
And Natixis economist Joe Lavorgna describes another tailwind in a note to clients. Businesses have an imminent need to restock their shelves:
The largest drag on Q2 real GDP was inventories; they fell nearly $28 billion at an annual rate which had the effect of lopping a full percentage point off of economic growth. A rebuilding of stockpiles is on track for the current quarter and beyond. This in turn should keep GDP growth above 3% and enable the economy to register a similar gain for the full year.
... the increase in inventory investment that accompanies the ongoing improvement in factory activity implies more job and income creation. In turn, this should help sustain consumer spending which rose at a robust inflation-adjusted 4.0% pace. Over the last four quarters, nominal personal income has increased by a solid 4.7% or 2.5% in real terms.
Right now the economy is so good that White House advisors are trying to figure out how to persuade more Americans to join the labor force and take all the jobs waiting for workers to fill them. A recent report from the White House Council of Economic Advisers sets the table for reform:
The timing is ideal for expanding work requirements among non-disabled working-age adults in social welfare programs. As was the case in the period of welfare reform in the mid-1990s, current labor markets are extremely tight and unemployment rates are at very low levels,even for low-skilled workers. Still, even if work requirements improve outcomes for the majority of affected recipients, some may experience negative effects, which is why it is important to design requirements carefully and to support recipients overcoming barriers to employment (e.g., lack of access to childcare, mental illness, or criminal records). Ultimately, expanded work requirements can improve the lives of current welfare recipients and at the same time respect the importance and dignity of work.
A booming economy in need of workers and new incentives to join the labor force mean that if Mr. Trump can avoid a trade war he has a chance to preside over an historic American revival.
Friday, July 27, 2018 | Permalink | Comments (1)
Actually, public employees and not everywhere - NY gets no mention - but what if you're in New Jersey, or Illinois, or California? The answer is in the last paragraph.
An editorial from last week.
According to the study, accrued liabilities—how much states are on the hook for—between 2003 and 2016 grew more than 50% faster than the economies in 28 states and more than twice as fast as GDP in 12 states. Leading the list are the usual suspects of New Jersey (4.3 times faster than GDP), Illinois (3.23) and Connecticut (3.18), as well as New Hampshire (3.46) and Kentucky (3.08).
Between 2003 and 2016, New Jersey’s pension liability ballooned 176%. Unions blame lawmakers for not socking away more money years ago, though lower pension payments helped them bargain for higher pay. The reality is that New Jersey’s pension funds would be broke even had politicians squirrelled away billions more.
Ditto for Illinois, where the pension liability has grown by 8.8% annually over the last 30 years. Yet when the Illinois Supreme Court in 2015 blocked state pension reforms, the judges rebuked politicians for inadequately funding pensions. The solution, according to unions, is always to raise taxes. But no tax hike is ever enough because benefits keep growing faster than revenues.
*******
Stanford University lecturer David Crane has calculated that every additional penny that California schools have received from the state’s 2012 “millionaire’s tax,” which raised the top individual rate to 13.3% from 10.3%, has gone toward retirement benefits. The only salve to state pension woes, as the Wirepoints study notes, is to rein in current worker benefits.
Friday, July 27, 2018 | Permalink | Comments (0)
How do I do that? Easy! Always subtract seven years. So a few recent pictures -
Here's my fat, hairy leg - where I got bitten on the back of my knee. Currently on antibiotic for my lyme disease.
First time I've had it. We thought this was a spider bite, but when I finally went to the doctor 17 days later - immediately diagnosed as Lyme (the day I took the picture). To me it just didn't look like the pictures you see of a lyme bite area. I was bitten on June 23rd. I finish the doxycycline in seven days. Improvement started immediately on taking it. Leg looks pretty normal now - just fat and hairy.
And here - at the Carusi Cowboy and Indian Party 12 days ago.A serious Indian.
And with a couple of cowgirls. Our friend Stacy -
And the cowgirl from York, England
As my good friend Bob E. used to say, "easy livin'".
Thursday, July 26, 2018 | Permalink | Comments (10)
Inevitable when the growth in earnings is missed. Remember, investors are paying a premium price for expected future earnings.
Facebook plunges more than 24 percent on revenue miss and projected slowdown
The company reported its second-quarter earnings after the bell on Wednesday. Shares were down as much as 20 percent. At the current after hours prices and given its market cap at the close Wednesday, Facebook is poised to lose more than $123 billion in market value.
So - could be a buying opportunity for people who are not risk adverse. Better then buying a couple of days ago ...
Wednesday, July 25, 2018 | Permalink | Comments (0)
Wednesday, July 25, 2018 | Permalink | Comments (1)
I posted this Tomorrow - fiftieth anniversary of Humanae Vitae yesterday. It's good to have an open mind about this contentious issue.
This is about a woman physician who survived a concentration camp and went on to become a counselor to Pope John Paul II. She is still alive - now 97 years old. It's quite a story. I've bought her book mentioned below.
Wanda Półtawska, a Polish doctor, is 97 years old. Her life and work is unknown outside her native Poland and some quarters of the Catholic Church, but her insights and influence have prospered the mission of the Church in defending the dignity of all human beings.
Equally unknown by most people is the long, close friendship she and her family enjoyed with Karol Wojtyla, later Pope John Paul II. In the 1960s, she advised him on family dynamics and sexual issues, including the newly developed contraceptive pill.
Through this relationship her views on artificial birth control are likely to have influenced Pope Paul VI in his writing of the encyclical Humanae Vitae, which ruled out family planning methods like the pill. Indeed, one biographer of John Paul II claims that not only her ideas but “in some cases her exact words can be found in the text.” (See note below)
The pill, in Dr Półtawska’s judgment, was no friend of married love and still less a healthy choice for women. She saw it as an assault on a woman’s dignity bringing not freedom, but a form of moral enslavement. It was a spoiler of love between spouses, an excuse for men to shirk their paternal responsibilities, and a straight path to abortion, pornography, sexual abuse and euthanasia. It was, in short, a destructive tool for the agendas of radical politics.
Having been herself a victim of the medical experimentation carried out by the Nazis during World War II, she also saw the pill as a tool of the eugenics movement for eliminating racially impure human beings.
Wanda Półtawska was just a slight teenage girl when she was dragged away to prison by four big men of the Gestapo. She spent most of the next four years in Ravensbrück concentration camp, where she, along with others, experienced the extreme of what was meant by eugenics. She endured having injections of bacteria into wounds deliberately created in order to observe the effect. This indescribably horrible and painful ordeal is recorded in her memoir, And I Am Afraid of My Dreams.
Before her incarceration, Wanda had been preparing to become a Classical scholar and teacher. But while in the hell of Ravensbrück she resolved that if she survived she would become a good doctor. Weak and disfigured in her legs, she did survive, went home and began her medical studies.
She married Dr Andrzej Półtawski in 1947, and they had four daughters. She completed her medical studies in 1951 at the Jagiellonian University, and in 1964 completed her doctorate in psychiatry, specializing in the care of sexual abuse victims and disorders of concentration camp survivors, whom she called her “Auschwitz children”.
By providential chance, sometime in the mid-1950s, Dr Półtawska took a pilgrimage with other Catholic doctors to the Shrine of Our Lady of Częstochowa, where she happened to meet Karol Wojtyla, assistant bishop of Krakow. She and her husband became close friends of the bishop, often discussing with him matters closest to their hearts and lives: chaste sexuality, marital relations, religion, theology, family life, marriage, celibacy, contraceptives, communism, philosophy and the changing times in the church and world.
Continuing pro-life work she had already begun with other women in the Krakow archdiocese before she met Bishop Wojtyla, she became his chief assistant in developing and managing programmes of marriage and sex counseling, as well as family and health care ministry there. This included a home for unwed mothers run by volunteers, which survived harassment by the communist authorities from 1957 to 1965, when it was forced to close.
She taught natural family planning, but took care to emphasize the possibility of conception and the importance of spouses remaining open to a child in their sexual relations, as Humanae Vitae was to reaffirm.
When, in 1962, Dr Półtawska was diagnosed with malignant colon cancer, Bishop Wojtyla – then in Rome for the opening of the second Vatican Council -- wrote and asked for the prayers of the Italian mystic Padre Pio, with whom he was acquainted. In 1947, the newly ordained Fr. Wojtyla had been to visit the Capuchin friar and spent a week in San Giovanni Rotunda where they talked together. When, 15 years later, Padre Pio received Wojtyla’s hand-delivered letter with the urgent request, he agreed to honour the written plea. A few days later the Polish doctors prepared to operate on their colleague, but they found that the cancer had vanished; there was no tumor upon which to operate. This healing, which had no medical explanation, was cited as one of the miracles contributing to the canonization of Padre Pio in 2002.
With her strong understanding of family, Dr Półtawska contributed to Wojtyla’s book on romantic theology, Love and Responsibility, with its theme of sexual love between husband and wife. At a time when the topic of women’s sexual experience was not spoken of openly, but largely assumed to be the same as the male’s experience, she threw Freudian psychology on its ear by openly insisting that husbands get over their selfishness and train themselves to cherish their wives and caress them lovingly in slow and intimate ways so that their wives might know spousal love through female orgasm. At the same time she criticized “the myth of orgasm”, that is, the contemporary pursuit of pleasure for its own sake.
Wanda Półtawska’s faith, service, wisdom and love were forged through extreme suffering. Having experienced the vilest of indignities during the Second World War, she became a powerful witness for human dignity and for purity in intimate matters. Holiness in marriage and in the priesthood, decency and proper regard for the health of women were greatly needed in a critical moment of the dark 20th century.
Although the backwash of controversy following Humanae Vitae was violent and divisive, 50 years later there is a change, if not yet peace. The wisdom and sanity of that encyclical is beginning to be realized within and beyond the church and even, implicitly, in the secular world, where young women unhappy with hormonal contraception are turning to natural methods of family planning.
Indeed, the pill has been a bitter one, with many evil consequences, all foretold by this little known Polish doctor, wife, mother and concentration camp survivor.
Ruth Lasseter lives in a three generation household in St Paul, Minnesota. Mother of six and grandmother of 17, she contributed with her late husband Dr Rollin A. Lasseter to the Catholic School Textbook Project, and served in the Moreau Seminary (1983-84) as the "Voice of the Family". Her article on contraception and sterilization, "Sensible Sex", appeared in “Homiletic and Pastoral Review" and also in Why Humanae Vitae was Right (1993) by Dr Janet E. Smith.
Note: See, Man of the Century: The Life and Times of Pope John Paul II, by Jonathan Kwitny, page 219; cited in Wojtyla’s Women: How They Shaped the Life of Pope John Paul II and Changed the Catholic Church (2008), pp. 295-296, by Ted Lipien.
Wednesday, July 25, 2018 | Permalink | Comments (0)
Wednesday, July 25, 2018 | Permalink | Comments (1)
I thought only right wing types claim to be sent by God?
And I thought politicians weren't allowed to make political pitches in Churches? Oh that 's right you can't make political pitches in Catholic Churches. Silly me...
The link to Waters homily is here and it's 14 minutes long. The audio is mediocre but she looks great up there in the Lectern - Preach it Maxine!
The article is here - MAXINE WATERS: I’ve been sent by God to get Trump!
Move over Jake and Elwood, Maxine Waters is on a mission from God.
After acknowledging the children in the audience, the California Congresswoman ripped into President Trump during a Sunday appearance at First AME Church in Los Angeles
**************
Waters ended her remarks by claiming God has sent her on her mission against Trump.
“You’ve gotta know that I’m here to do the work that I was sent to do, and as pastor said to me when I came in this morning, when God sends you to do something, you just do it!
“So I have a message I’m going back to Washington tomorrow morning, I’m going to tell them pastor told me to come here and just do it!”
The pastor then embraced Waters amid wild applause.
Wednesday, July 25, 2018 | Permalink | Comments (1)
Pope Paul's Encyclical on artificial birth control and natural family planning. Here's an article from the Jesuit magazine America which is quite interesting, written by a nun. Will post another about a Polish woman physician on the subject tomorrow.
How “Humanae Vitae” helped one nun find her feminist voice
As a young woman I thoroughly rejected most church teachings and was planning on leaving the Catholic Church. I thought the church was a draconian institution that oppressed women, wanted us barefoot and pregnant, and told us to sit down and shut up. I believed that secular culture was what gave women dignity and rights. But, ever so slowly, I gave the Catholic Church a second chance.
Tuesday, July 24, 2018 | Permalink | Comments (0)
Tuesday, July 24, 2018 | Permalink | Comments (1)
Tuesday, July 24, 2018 | Permalink | Comments (3)
I suppose they ceased to be a real newspaper years ago. And because of legacy costs owner Mort Zuckerman can't even sell the paper. The strategy switch seems to be from hating Trump to "re-focusing much of our talent on breaking news – especially in areas of crime, civil justice and public responsibility..." We'll see.
Monday, July 23, 2018 | Permalink | Comments (1)
One of the six patron saints of Europe.
St. Bridget (1303-1373) was born into a devout and prestigious family in Sweden. Her father was a governor, judge, and one of the wealthiest landowners in the country. Bridget received an excellent religious education, and from a young age demonstrated a great capacity for holiness. She even experienced mystical visions in her childhood. At the age of thirteen she was given in marriage to a similarly devout young man named Ulf. Together the two had a happy marriage and raised eight children, one of whom was St. Catherine of Sweden. St. Bridget became famous for her sanctity, and she was well-acquainted with the Swedish king and many theologians who sought her counsel. When Bridget and Ulf were in their forties, they went on pilgrimage along the famous Way of St. James. Shortly afterwards Ulf died, and Bridget gave herself entirely to the religious life. Her visions became more frequent, and were written down in a famous work called the Revelations of St. Bridget of Sweden. She also founded a new religious order known as the Brigittines. To obtain approval for her Order she traveled to Rome with her daughter Catherine, where she lived until her death. St. Bridget of Sweden is one of the six patron saints of Europe. Her feast day is July 23rd.
Monday, July 23, 2018 | Permalink | Comments (1)
This is a very good short video. Francis Collins, MD. PhD. wrote a great book a few years ago, which I reviewed and posted about here and on amazon. Latest read: The Language of God The video is only seven minutes long and is an interview.
Monday, July 23, 2018 | Permalink | Comments (0)
Monday, July 23, 2018 | Permalink | Comments (0)
Sunday, July 22, 2018 | Permalink | Comments (1)
This explains a few things at Farandaville. A 19 second video and short article.
Saturday, July 21, 2018 | Permalink | Comments (0)
I've been trying to figure this out since February 17th, 1978.
First comment reply to this video - I've no idea who these people are.
2
1
Friday, July 20, 2018 | Permalink | Comments (0)
Here's an interesting list - msn.com and espn.com top the list. #100 is thechive.com.? Tom Faranda's Folly didn't make it.
SimilarWeb Top Ranked Media Publications
Friday, July 20, 2018 | Permalink | Comments (2)
I already posted about this sad/horrible/tragic situation here The Scandal of Cardinal McCarrick and here. Jesuit magazine addresses the abuses of Cardinal McCarrick
Here's the editorial. Link shouldn't have a paywall.
The Editors: The Catholic Church should not be shocked by the McCarrick case—it should be ashamed.
The Catholic Church cannot pretend to be shocked about the pattern of sexual abuse of adult seminarians by Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, recently detailed in a comprehensive story in The New York Times. As The Times made clear in its reporting, many church leaders had received multiple notices of the cardinal’s behavior. Local dioceses had been told, the papal nuncio in Washington, D.C., had been told and, eventually, even Pope Benedict XVI had been told.
But none of these reports interrupted Cardinal McCarrick’s rise through the ranks nor his appointment as cardinal nor his eventual retirement in 2006 as a respected leader of the U.S. church. Nor did these reports lead to his removal last month from public ministry, which finally resulted from a credible allegation of abuse of a minor almost 50 years ago, recently revealed and acted on by the Archdiocese of New York.
It is true that none of the earlier reports of abuse alleged criminal behavior with minors, but they were serious enough that Cardinal McCarrick should have been called to account for the terrible misuse of his office and authority. The church and its leaders should be ashamed of their failure to do so. The slow and halting progress the church has made by way of reforms adopted in response to the sexual abuse of children, for example through the Dallas charter, has been called into question by the revelation of its ongoing failures to deal with other reports of abuse. Nor should the media, including we in Catholic media (Cardinal McCarrick was a longtime friend of this magazine and delivered the homily at our centennial celebration in 2009), be absolved of responsibility for any failure to take these and other rumors and reports as seriously as was required. To demand accountability only of the hierarchy is itself hypocrisy.
Eight more paragraphs if you hit the link. It's a good editorial.
Thursday, July 19, 2018 | Permalink | Comments (1)
Thursday, July 19, 2018 | Permalink | Comments (0)
Wednesday, July 18, 2018 | Permalink | Comments (0)
Yeah it's the Queen. Playful, but not nice. Explanation below the picture.
Wednesday, July 18, 2018 | Permalink | Comments (0)
It's depressing that lightweights like Hannity, Maddow, and O'Donnell would pull that many viewers. I guess they each play to their base.
CABLE NEWS RACE
MON. JULY 16, 2018
FOXNEWS HANNITY 3,963,000
MSNBC MADDOW 3,538,000
FOXNEWS TUCKER 3,219,000
FOXNEWS BAIER 3,185,000
MSNBC ODONNELL 2,984,000
FOXNEWS INGRAHAM 2,829,000
MSNBC HAYES 2,342,000
MSNBC HARDBALL 2,020,000
CNN CUOMO 1,848,000
CNN COOPER 1,711,000
Wednesday, July 18, 2018 | Permalink | Comments (0)
The magazine is America and they have two article posted yesterday which should be accessible without any sort of paywall. I posted about McCarrick on June 23rd. The Scandal of Cardinal McCarrick
Here are the America articles - the first offers a commentary on a NY Times article from yesterday. It takes about five minutes to read.
N.Y. Times talks to men who received settlements after alleged abuse by Cardinal McCarrick
The second article basically asks how could this have gone on for so long? And tries to give some admittedly incomplete answers. It takes a little longer to get through.
Cardinal McCarrick, seminarians and abuse: how could this happen?
It's all very sad - and especially of course for those who were abused. Mostly seminarians - with the exception of the altar boy in 1971, at St. Patrick's Cathedral, the revelation of which, 47 years later, is his downfall. At least that we know about ...
I always liked McCarrick - thought he was a conciliatory and sensitive man.
Tuesday, July 17, 2018 | Permalink | Comments (0)
Even soccer is exciting if you just pull out the scores. And at 4-2 this was very high scoring.
FOX soccer not allowing embedding so hit the link -
Monday, July 16, 2018 | Permalink | Comments (1)
Wow. Scary. ... Her hitting sixty - not the picture which is of her in 1984 as she was making it big. Article from the Guardian (UK). Here are some recent selfies she took. Had some work done.
Madonna: ‘Popular culture still reeks of her influence’
Monday, July 16, 2018 | Permalink | Comments (0)
The sixth in the series. Not sure when it comes to the U.S. I stopped watching them (always at home; rarely go to a movie) after the third in the series (here's the whole list) so I'll have to catch #'s 4 and 5, since the current one feeds off #5. Hard to believe the 1st one was in 1996.
Here are two reviews of Mission Impossible: Fallout:
REVIEW: Tom Cruise Spectacular in new 'MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE'...
TRADE: BEST INSTALLMENT YET...
And here is the trailer -
Sunday, July 15, 2018 | Permalink | Comments (0)
Saturday, July 14, 2018 | Permalink | Comments (1)
Haha. Something he's done for years.
“It is disturbing that a SCOTUS nominee can so flagrantly practice his faith in the public sphere without fear of reprisal,” read an opinion piece published on Politico. “We want justices who don’t have an inherent bias for lifting up the poor and enacting mercy and, well, you know—justice.”
The writer went on to compare the Catholic judge’s actions to “something out of The Handmaid’s Tale,” stating that if the United States doesn’t start vetting judges for extremist positions like being a member of one of the world’s largest religions, “we will soon be living in a theonomy.”
At publishing time, Politico had uncovered damning evidence that Kavanaugh likes baseball, Chevrolet, and apple pie.
Friday, July 13, 2018 | Permalink | Comments (1)
This is tragic. I wasn't familiar with the youtube channel, which has over 500,000 subscribers. UPDATE: The Washington Post has an article. They may have been used to taking risky chances.
Ryker Gamble, Alexy Lyakh, and Megan Scraper — YouTube travel personalities followed by more than 2.5 million people across social media accounts — were walking along the series of steep waterfalls. Scraper slipped and fell into one of the area’s pools.
According to various reports, Gamble and Lyakh tried to help Scraper but also fell. All three died as a result of the accident.
********
Gamble’s cousin, Rob Manglesdorf, said the group was going for a hike and did not intend for any foolishness, reported the Vancouver Sun.
Local search-and-rescue officials said that slippery granite and moss can create unexpected hazards where the accident occurred. Accessed by the Sea to Sky Gondola since 2014, the pool systems in the area can be risky.
“Unless you have the knowledge of that area, the expertise, and the right equipment, you should not be up there,” Cpl. Sascha Banks of the Squamish RCMP told the Edmonton Sun.
Friday, July 13, 2018 | Permalink | Comments (1)
This from the Guardian (UK). Almost lost lots of the rescuers after the boys were out. Great article.
Friday, July 13, 2018 | Permalink | Comments (0)
Well, that's a relief. Long overdue.
Thursday, July 12, 2018 | Permalink | Comments (1)
Thursday, July 12, 2018 | Permalink | Comments (0)
This from the Catholic League yesterday. The picture looks like from his college graduation.
FOUR REASONS WHY KAVANAUGH IS A GREAT PICK
Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s suitability for the U.S. Supreme Court:
All four of President Trump’s short list of Supreme Court nominees were splendid selections. Congratulations to his top choice, Judge Brett Kavanaugh. There are four reasons why the Catholic League believes he is a great pick.
1) Kavanaugh came down squarely on the side of Priests for Life in rejecting the Obama administration’s claim that there should be no religious exemption from its Health and Human Services mandate. He said that this mandate, which ordered Catholic non-profit organizations to provide for abortion-inducing drugs, contraceptives, and sterilization in their healthcare plans, was in violation of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
2) Kavanaugh turned back a challenge to the constitutionality of Inaugural prayers brought by atheist activist Michael Newdow. He did not mince words, saying that the religious significance of this well-established prayer cannot be discounted, and in no way runs afoul of the First Amendment provision regarding separation of church and state.
3) Kavanaugh made a strong case for religious liberty by challenging the right of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority to censor a Christmas bus ad sponsored by the Archdiocese of Washington. The agency banned the ad because it “depicts a religious scene and thus seeks to promote religion.” The scene, which shows a silhouette of shepherds and sheep on a starry night, is inscribed with the words, “Find the Perfect Gift.” The ban was criticized by Kavanaugh who called it “pure discrimination.”
4) Kavanaugh offered a stinging dissent in a case brought by the ACLU that sued the federal government for not facilitating an immediate abortion for an illegal minor. He accused the majority of overreaching, of assuming supra-constitutional authority. He also noted that the government had “permissible interests” in “favoring fetal life,” thus sending a clear message to those who deny that there is life in the womb.
For these reasons alone, we are confident that President Trump made the right decision in choosing Judge Brett Kavanaugh to sit on the high court.
Thursday, July 12, 2018 | Permalink | Comments (1)
Sounded strange when I got an email about them; but turns out to be a good company, and look where the proceeds go! Things like clearing land mines and funding women's education in Afghanistan.
Here's the link - hit it for the story.
And here's their website. With more of a story.
Also available on amazon but no discount. The reviews are pretty good.
Thursday, July 12, 2018 | Permalink | Comments (0)
Hahaha. Very funny. Thanks to Ricardo for sending me this. It's off the sarcastic (Christian) website The Babylon Bee. UPDATE: If you don't know this guy, Jones is a conspiracy theorist & his website is Infowars.
“I like the stuff he says on his show. Good stuff. The best stuff, really,” Trump said. “Whereas all the other candidates for the Supreme Court were heavily involved in the Deep State New World Order, Alex Jones sees right through all the lies. In a world of fake news, Alex cuts through all the BS to bring us the unvarnished truth about UFOs, weather control, and the reptilian plot to overthrow our plane of existence.”
“This guy is the real deal,” he added, before bringing out Jones in a judge’s robe.
Jones then addressed the reporters gathered, beginning a long rant about lizard people taking over the highest levels of our government in order to turn frogs gay with chemicals in the water supply. He was then asked to stop selling Caveman Supplements to members of the press and had to be restrained and tranquilized.
Wednesday, July 11, 2018 | Permalink | Comments (2)
Saint Benedict is known as the Father of Western Monasticism (think "The Rule of St. Benedict") due to his great influence on the shape and character of monastic life in the West. He lived in the 6th century as the Roman Empire - and society - collapsed.
Here's a link to a short article in Franciscan Media about Benedict.
Here's little longer article by a Benedictine priest at Belmont Abbey College, outside of Charlotte. Tim and I visited Belmont Abbey when he was looking at colleges; he'd been accepted there. It's kept it's Catholic heritage more than most Catholic colleges. Ultimately Tim chose St. Thomas Aquinas College in Rockland County.
Faced with a world in chaos, what did St. Benedict do?
Christian believers will celebrate the feast day of Saint Benedict of Norcia. The early sixth century saint still shines as one of Western culture’s brightest lights. And yet, of all the things that can rightly be said about him, sometimes the most obvious is missed. When the young saint found himself desolate and confused, what did he do?
Rather than accepting a life of bitterness, or joining in the debauchery of his day, or allowing himself to be overwhelmed by darkness and attempting to take his own life, Benedict chose a different option.
The historical record is accurate in recounting Benedict’s synthesizing of the Eastern eremitical and monastic traditions, and his subsequent formalization of Western monasticism by his well-balanced and famous Rule, which describes the structure, responsibilities, and harmony of a monastic community.
It’s also appropriate to note Benedict’s zeal with which he labored in creating monasteries throughout Italy, which led to monasteries being formed throughout Europe and eventually throughout the entire world (including Belmont Abbey in the area of Charlotte, North Carolina).
While these accolades should rightly be made and properly acknowledged, it’s worth pointing out again that the most obvious - and most impressive - thing about this saint is oftentimes overlooked or unappreciated, namely, what he did with a state of affairs that he didn’t want and couldn’t fix.
Benedict was from a wealthy and established family. He grew up shortly after the implosion of the great Roman Empire, and his life was surrounded by the chaos that follows such a monumental cultural shock and re-structuring. In spite of the social instability, the comfortability of Benedict’s family provided him with a relatively normal childhood and experience of life. And so, when the young Benedict went to Rome for his education, he was appalled by the disorder and turmoil in society and the licentiousness and corruption of its leaders. He found himself existentially dissatisfied and completely unhappy.
What did Benedict do?
Haha. Hit the link above to find out. It's only a few paragraphs.
Wednesday, July 11, 2018 | Permalink | Comments (1)
Ireland in Australia with Australia having won the first match and Ireland the second. A low scoring match... And some controversial calls. Match was played a couple of weeks ago. Here is the whole match https://youtu.be/Q88AdT_gjq highlights below and if you cycle through to 1:35 on the full game - interesting ending.
Tuesday, July 10, 2018 | Permalink | Comments (0)
Recent Comments