4/29/11
Today’s (Friday, 4/29’s, page A4) Wall Street Journal reports on “bipartisan” efforts to reduce tax breaks for big oil in the face of $112 oil and a $10.7 billion first quarter profit for Exxon Mobil.
“Tax breaks” for “big oil” are neither more nor less meritorious than tax breaks for anyone else. One man’s tax breaks are another man’s “incentives” to do whatever the politicians deem desirable. An efficient and optimal tax code would be simple and flat with no latitude for politicians to reward their friends and benefactors. But since we are dealing with this lifetime, we have to deal with the issue of various tax breaks that politicians dole out to those who bankroll their flights of self-aggrandizement; hence the effort by pols to rescind tax breaks when the heat is on that the same gutless pols passed when the climate was more temperate, but I digress.
One portion of the Journal article caught my eye:
Oil executives and some Republicans countered that the Democratic proposals amount to new taxes on energy that would be passed on to consumers.Hmm…
Whenever the subject of high oil and gasoline prices comes up, oil company executives and their toadies in Congress immediately rush to the microphone to tell us that the oil companies have little or no influence on the price of oil, that they are what the microeconomists call “price takers.” Exxon-Mobil was once again making that argument yesterday when its gargantuan first quarter haul was reported.
If the oil companies indeed are price takers, how can they pass along any new taxes to consumers?
Friday, April 29, 2011
Thursday, April 28, 2011
“WHO TOLD YOU TO PICK UP YOUR MAT AND WALK (ON THE SABBATH)?”
4/28/11
I sent the following reply to the same friend and reader who initiated the conversation on Father Pfleger in response to his question of how some can consider it principled for Mike Pfleger to “not follow the rules of a Church that has supported, educated, and cared for (him) his whole career”:
It’s not necessarily principled, but Pfleger's admirers will make Pfleger sound principled while trying to make George look like a buffoon. That’s perhaps the only thing about which one can be confident regarding this episode.
Pfleger probably should have been forced out in 1993, when his twelve years had expired. On the other hand, had that happened, he would not have been able to do the things he has done for St. Sabina, for the black Church, and for the Church itself in maintaining and strengthening its presence on the black South Side, which was disappearing in the ‘70s and ‘80s. On yet another hand, one could argue that Mike Pfleger wasn’t doing anything for the Church; he was serving the community, maybe Christ, and, of course, Mike Pfleger, but not the Church. As has been said about Mike Pfleger, St. Sabina, and the Masses there, it’s all very Christian but not all that Catholic. It’s a multi-faceted situation, to be sure.
Had the rules been enforced, we would have avoided all this controversy. On the other hand, some wonderful things that have taken place for the people of Englewood, especially spiritually, would never have taken place, either. Perhaps this is a case of God’s intervening and/or, as Jesus so often insisted, of genuine faith’s overriding adherence to the rules so that God might be glorified and His ultimate purposes achieved.
I sent the following reply to the same friend and reader who initiated the conversation on Father Pfleger in response to his question of how some can consider it principled for Mike Pfleger to “not follow the rules of a Church that has supported, educated, and cared for (him) his whole career”:
It’s not necessarily principled, but Pfleger's admirers will make Pfleger sound principled while trying to make George look like a buffoon. That’s perhaps the only thing about which one can be confident regarding this episode.
Pfleger probably should have been forced out in 1993, when his twelve years had expired. On the other hand, had that happened, he would not have been able to do the things he has done for St. Sabina, for the black Church, and for the Church itself in maintaining and strengthening its presence on the black South Side, which was disappearing in the ‘70s and ‘80s. On yet another hand, one could argue that Mike Pfleger wasn’t doing anything for the Church; he was serving the community, maybe Christ, and, of course, Mike Pfleger, but not the Church. As has been said about Mike Pfleger, St. Sabina, and the Masses there, it’s all very Christian but not all that Catholic. It’s a multi-faceted situation, to be sure.
Had the rules been enforced, we would have avoided all this controversy. On the other hand, some wonderful things that have taken place for the people of Englewood, especially spiritually, would never have taken place, either. Perhaps this is a case of God’s intervening and/or, as Jesus so often insisted, of genuine faith’s overriding adherence to the rules so that God might be glorified and His ultimate purposes achieved.
TIME FOR A COUNCIL OF CHICAGO?
4/28/11
A loyal friend and reader asked what I thought about the imbroglio surrounding Father Michael Pfleger, who has served as pastor of St. Sabina Church on Chicago’s south side for thirty years and who was suspended by Cardinal Francis George after Pfleger once again mused about leaving the Church if the Cardinal enforced the Archdiocese’s 12 year limit for pastors in Father Pfleger’s case.
Since my readers may enjoy (or be infuriated) by my thoughts, I have posted a redacted version of my reply:
4/28/11
I have, or had, a theory about Father Pfleger that may or may not hold up in light of yesterday’s events. I don’t know any more than I read in the papers; this is just a theory.
The Cardinal was confronted with a dilemma; there was an outcry, albeit a muted one, from parishioners of the many parishes, and from their former pastors, who had lost beloved pastors because of the 12 year rule. Why did they have to give up their pastors when St. Sabina could keep Mike Pfleger? On the other hand, Pfleger has been instrumental in keeping black Catholics in the Church and attracting blacks to the Church. Forcing him out of St. Sabina might, and probably would have, serious ramifications for the black Church in Chicago and maybe beyond. So the Cardinal went to Mike Pfleger with a deal: Pfleger would nominally leave St. Sabina to serve as principal of Leo High School. Leo is on 79th and Sangamon; Sabina is at 78th, just west of Racine, approximately three blocks from Leo. Pfleger would not be running Leo and whoever was selected to nominally succeed him at Sabina would not be running St. Sabina; it would be something of a ruse. In reality, Pfleger would still be running Sabina but appearances would be satisfied. Everyone would be happy. Pfleger turned down the deal either because he was too obtuse to see it for what it was (unlikely), too proud to take it (more likely), or didn’t trust the Cardinal (likeliest).
After Pfleger went on the radio with the latest of his threats to leave the Church, the Cardinal had little choice but to suspend him, given the premium the Church puts on obedience to the hierarchy. Since the Cardinal is enforcing a doctrine of the Church that many, including yours truly as well as many black Catholics who are loyal to their pastor and to their parish rather than to the Church, do not find the most attractive of the Church’s doctrines, the Cardinal is probably going to come off looking petty and vindictive to many but as decisive and strong to the people about whom the Cardinal really cares: the pray, pay, and obey crowd.
Again, just a theory, but one worth considering.
A loyal friend and reader asked what I thought about the imbroglio surrounding Father Michael Pfleger, who has served as pastor of St. Sabina Church on Chicago’s south side for thirty years and who was suspended by Cardinal Francis George after Pfleger once again mused about leaving the Church if the Cardinal enforced the Archdiocese’s 12 year limit for pastors in Father Pfleger’s case.
Since my readers may enjoy (or be infuriated) by my thoughts, I have posted a redacted version of my reply:
4/28/11
I have, or had, a theory about Father Pfleger that may or may not hold up in light of yesterday’s events. I don’t know any more than I read in the papers; this is just a theory.
The Cardinal was confronted with a dilemma; there was an outcry, albeit a muted one, from parishioners of the many parishes, and from their former pastors, who had lost beloved pastors because of the 12 year rule. Why did they have to give up their pastors when St. Sabina could keep Mike Pfleger? On the other hand, Pfleger has been instrumental in keeping black Catholics in the Church and attracting blacks to the Church. Forcing him out of St. Sabina might, and probably would have, serious ramifications for the black Church in Chicago and maybe beyond. So the Cardinal went to Mike Pfleger with a deal: Pfleger would nominally leave St. Sabina to serve as principal of Leo High School. Leo is on 79th and Sangamon; Sabina is at 78th, just west of Racine, approximately three blocks from Leo. Pfleger would not be running Leo and whoever was selected to nominally succeed him at Sabina would not be running St. Sabina; it would be something of a ruse. In reality, Pfleger would still be running Sabina but appearances would be satisfied. Everyone would be happy. Pfleger turned down the deal either because he was too obtuse to see it for what it was (unlikely), too proud to take it (more likely), or didn’t trust the Cardinal (likeliest).
After Pfleger went on the radio with the latest of his threats to leave the Church, the Cardinal had little choice but to suspend him, given the premium the Church puts on obedience to the hierarchy. Since the Cardinal is enforcing a doctrine of the Church that many, including yours truly as well as many black Catholics who are loyal to their pastor and to their parish rather than to the Church, do not find the most attractive of the Church’s doctrines, the Cardinal is probably going to come off looking petty and vindictive to many but as decisive and strong to the people about whom the Cardinal really cares: the pray, pay, and obey crowd.
Again, just a theory, but one worth considering.
“I MUST BE GOING!”
4/28/11
Yesterday (i.e., Wednesday, 4/27/11), the Wall Street Journal reported that Pakistan is urging the thug we installed in Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai (who, incidentally, might have a brighter future if he moved to the 50th Ward in Chicago) to “dump the U.S.” in favor of Pakistan and China. Juxtapose that with the report in today’s (i.e., Thursday, 4/28/11’s) Journal that an Afghan Air Force Officer opened fire on American forces at the Kabul airport, killing eight of our soldiers. As the Journal further reports
“Shootings by Afghans among the soldiers and police, some of them Taliban infiltrators, are becoming a leading cause of death for U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan. This month, there have been six attacks by uniformed Afghans inside military bases and facilities across the country.” (Emphasis mine)
It sounds like Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, who delivered the advice to Mr. Karzai to “dump” us, has a GREAT idea. Please, Mr. Karzai, bite the hand that fed you, indeed, poke at the womb that created you—PLEASE dump us! Then we can go home and put this most salient manifestation of the disastrous Bush/Obama exercise in nation building as foreign policy behind us.
As we leave, though, we should take the time to inform Mr. Karzai and his new puppeteers that if an attack on our shores or our interests (narrowly defined this time) should originate in Afghanistan, we will be back…but not for long and not to nation build.
Yesterday (i.e., Wednesday, 4/27/11), the Wall Street Journal reported that Pakistan is urging the thug we installed in Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai (who, incidentally, might have a brighter future if he moved to the 50th Ward in Chicago) to “dump the U.S.” in favor of Pakistan and China. Juxtapose that with the report in today’s (i.e., Thursday, 4/28/11’s) Journal that an Afghan Air Force Officer opened fire on American forces at the Kabul airport, killing eight of our soldiers. As the Journal further reports
“Shootings by Afghans among the soldiers and police, some of them Taliban infiltrators, are becoming a leading cause of death for U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan. This month, there have been six attacks by uniformed Afghans inside military bases and facilities across the country.” (Emphasis mine)
It sounds like Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, who delivered the advice to Mr. Karzai to “dump” us, has a GREAT idea. Please, Mr. Karzai, bite the hand that fed you, indeed, poke at the womb that created you—PLEASE dump us! Then we can go home and put this most salient manifestation of the disastrous Bush/Obama exercise in nation building as foreign policy behind us.
As we leave, though, we should take the time to inform Mr. Karzai and his new puppeteers that if an attack on our shores or our interests (narrowly defined this time) should originate in Afghanistan, we will be back…but not for long and not to nation build.
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
ST. JOHN PAUL II
4/27/11
Pope John Paul II will be beatified, the last step before canonization, on May 1, only five yeas after the Pope’s death on 4/2/05. This “fast track” to sainthood has drawn some criticism, especially since the decision to fast track the former Pope was made by those who were personally, theologically, and professionally close to John Paul II, most notably his successor, Pope Benedict XVI who, as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, was Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, John Paul’s, for lack of a better term, doctrinal and theological enforcer.
The criticism of the haste with which all this is taking place concerns John Paul’s shortcomings, which center around his handling of the clergy sex abuse scandal, and its cover-up, which rocked the Church through the latter years of John Paul’s papacy and continue to this day. Most salient of these shortcomings, according to critics, were John Paul’s handling of Cardinal Law, who was given a lavish and well compensated sinecure in Rome after decades of covering up the clergy sex abuse scandal in Boston and his handling of the Legionaries of Christ, a conservative religious order that John Paul held up as a model of Catholic orthodoxy while its leader and founder, Marcial Maciel, was committing what the Vatican, under Pope Benedict, would call “true crimes,” primarily involving sexual abuse and leading what the same Vatican would call “an immoral” life “devoid of scruples and authentic religious sentiment.” No one is accusing John Paul of being aware of Maciel’s various perversions. The argument is that the Pope should have looked a little harder before so vociferously singing the praises of Maciel and holding him up as a shining example of orthodox Catholicism.
Some have argued that the John Paul’s failings on the sex abuse scandal have their roots in his having been raised and spent his pre-papal priesthood in Poland, where the Communist rulers, and before them the Nazi rulers, had a habit of dispatching priests they found bothersome by concocting tales of sexual abuse. Given this background, the argument goes, one could understand why the former Karol Wojtyla looked with suspicion on such charges.
Regardless of what one thinks of that argument, it is one that need not be made when arguing for John Paul II’s early beatification and certain canonization. John Paul’s former spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls, came close to making the more effective argument when he said, after reading the entire case study of the beatification “I think it is enough to be certain that he (John Paul) lived the Christian virtues in an heroic way,” the requirements for beatification. But the case for St. John Paul can be put more simply, to wit: John Paul II was a very good man and a great Pope who, among other things, helped bring down Communism, allowing his countrymen and their neighbors to exercise their faith with a freedom that they had never seen before, made the Church relevant to at least two new generations, and, by his personal charisma and piety, drew people to the Church and to God and provided an example of Christian obedience to the will of God. John Paul also did some bad, some might say very bad, things. But everyone, even the best of us, of which John Paul surely was one, does bad things. Perfection is not required for sainthood; if it were, heaven would be a nearly empty place.
A simple argument to be sure. But beauty, and sanctity, is often found in simplicity.
Pope John Paul II will be beatified, the last step before canonization, on May 1, only five yeas after the Pope’s death on 4/2/05. This “fast track” to sainthood has drawn some criticism, especially since the decision to fast track the former Pope was made by those who were personally, theologically, and professionally close to John Paul II, most notably his successor, Pope Benedict XVI who, as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, was Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, John Paul’s, for lack of a better term, doctrinal and theological enforcer.
The criticism of the haste with which all this is taking place concerns John Paul’s shortcomings, which center around his handling of the clergy sex abuse scandal, and its cover-up, which rocked the Church through the latter years of John Paul’s papacy and continue to this day. Most salient of these shortcomings, according to critics, were John Paul’s handling of Cardinal Law, who was given a lavish and well compensated sinecure in Rome after decades of covering up the clergy sex abuse scandal in Boston and his handling of the Legionaries of Christ, a conservative religious order that John Paul held up as a model of Catholic orthodoxy while its leader and founder, Marcial Maciel, was committing what the Vatican, under Pope Benedict, would call “true crimes,” primarily involving sexual abuse and leading what the same Vatican would call “an immoral” life “devoid of scruples and authentic religious sentiment.” No one is accusing John Paul of being aware of Maciel’s various perversions. The argument is that the Pope should have looked a little harder before so vociferously singing the praises of Maciel and holding him up as a shining example of orthodox Catholicism.
Some have argued that the John Paul’s failings on the sex abuse scandal have their roots in his having been raised and spent his pre-papal priesthood in Poland, where the Communist rulers, and before them the Nazi rulers, had a habit of dispatching priests they found bothersome by concocting tales of sexual abuse. Given this background, the argument goes, one could understand why the former Karol Wojtyla looked with suspicion on such charges.
Regardless of what one thinks of that argument, it is one that need not be made when arguing for John Paul II’s early beatification and certain canonization. John Paul’s former spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls, came close to making the more effective argument when he said, after reading the entire case study of the beatification “I think it is enough to be certain that he (John Paul) lived the Christian virtues in an heroic way,” the requirements for beatification. But the case for St. John Paul can be put more simply, to wit: John Paul II was a very good man and a great Pope who, among other things, helped bring down Communism, allowing his countrymen and their neighbors to exercise their faith with a freedom that they had never seen before, made the Church relevant to at least two new generations, and, by his personal charisma and piety, drew people to the Church and to God and provided an example of Christian obedience to the will of God. John Paul also did some bad, some might say very bad, things. But everyone, even the best of us, of which John Paul surely was one, does bad things. Perfection is not required for sainthood; if it were, heaven would be a nearly empty place.
A simple argument to be sure. But beauty, and sanctity, is often found in simplicity.
Saturday, April 23, 2011
DOG BITES MAN
4/23/11
Today’s (i.e., Saturday, 4/23’s, page A11) Wall Street Journal reports that
Senator John McCain, the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, called on the U.S. and other nations to recognize the rebels as the “legitimate voice of the Libyan people” and to step up military support for them, including weapons, training, and more air strikes.
Vladimir and Estragon may wait for Godot. I will equally pointlessly wait for the war Senator McCain does NOT want us to join and escalate.
Today’s (i.e., Saturday, 4/23’s, page A11) Wall Street Journal reports that
Senator John McCain, the top Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee, called on the U.S. and other nations to recognize the rebels as the “legitimate voice of the Libyan people” and to step up military support for them, including weapons, training, and more air strikes.
Vladimir and Estragon may wait for Godot. I will equally pointlessly wait for the war Senator McCain does NOT want us to join and escalate.
WE’VE ELIMINATED ALL THE GOOD GUYS; NOW LET’S GO AFTER THE INNOCENT BYSTANDERS
4/23/11
Today’s (i.e., Saturday’s, 4/23/11, page A10) Wall Street Journal reports that
“Protests by truckers flared into a third day in China’s biggest port city and shippers offered the first indication that trade was being slowed, illustrating how inflation worries could gum up the world’s No. 2 economy.”
Apparently, as is taking place in this country on a smaller (but perhaps not for long) scale, truckers in Shanghai are parking their rigs because they simply can’t make any money with diesel prices at these levels.
Note also that inflated prices of every day necessities were largely behind the protests in Egypt, Syria, and throughout the Middle East. See my 2/3/11 piece AFTER ALL THESE CENTURIES, THE EGYPTIANS STILL HAVE SOMETHING TO TEACH US.
Hmm…
It looks like the Bush/Obama/Bernanke policy of inflating our way out the debt that is the legacy of a 20+ year public and private spending debauch is wreaking havoc, or worse, on people other than the hapless creditors, who had the good sense not to buy into the “spend all you can as fast you can” mentality that has become so popular in this country, that the policy is designed to punish.
Today’s (i.e., Saturday’s, 4/23/11, page A10) Wall Street Journal reports that
“Protests by truckers flared into a third day in China’s biggest port city and shippers offered the first indication that trade was being slowed, illustrating how inflation worries could gum up the world’s No. 2 economy.”
Apparently, as is taking place in this country on a smaller (but perhaps not for long) scale, truckers in Shanghai are parking their rigs because they simply can’t make any money with diesel prices at these levels.
Note also that inflated prices of every day necessities were largely behind the protests in Egypt, Syria, and throughout the Middle East. See my 2/3/11 piece AFTER ALL THESE CENTURIES, THE EGYPTIANS STILL HAVE SOMETHING TO TEACH US.
Hmm…
It looks like the Bush/Obama/Bernanke policy of inflating our way out the debt that is the legacy of a 20+ year public and private spending debauch is wreaking havoc, or worse, on people other than the hapless creditors, who had the good sense not to buy into the “spend all you can as fast you can” mentality that has become so popular in this country, that the policy is designed to punish.
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