Is Summer Reading Junk Reading?

Was it last summer or the one before that Jean Raber was sitting in her back yard reading Trollope? I was into my Dicken's Marathon...reading Bleak House, or was it Our Mutual Friend? Certainly we were listening to Pickwick Papers driving around New York State--remarkable similarities!

My annual Dickens or Austen rereads were cut short this summer by a friend who in late April sent me Anthony Price, Other Paths to Glory, feeding my World War I obsession. The plot focus is on a WW1 battle site being prepared for a post-WW2, Cold War meeting. Of course, all the characters are Brits MI6 with a far-off Cold War Soviet spy in the background and a French tour guide (really 2ieme Bureau) nosing around for the hidden surprise! It was a good read, a second-hand paperback deleted from the Braintree branch of the Essex County Council Libraries. The brown paper and 9 point type attested to its authenticity.

My friend was teasing a bit but it put me onto the other 19 Price spy novels, which range in price from 2.25 to 2.95 at Alibris. The postage costs more. (12 down, 8 to go). The round of characters appear and don't in each novel with the brilliant David Audley, a medievalist, the focal point of the ever warring (internally and externally) intelligence service. Quite the page turners.

This raises the question: Why are the English such good story tellers, plot-makers, and character creators? As I wait for my next batch of Price novels, we are reviewing all the Endeavour shows to be ready for the fifth and final (so they say) season!

More on McCarrick: "It can never happen again" - More Updates

Update 7/31/2018 9:24 pm: A few more updates are down at the bottom of the post; please scroll down to see them.

Update 7/30/2018 4:49 pm: Michael J O'Loughlin, writing in America, provides a round-up of American episcopal reaction so far to the allegations against McCarrick and his resignation.  At this point it's a fairly thin round-up, consisting of written statements from three bishops, some comments made in a radio interview by McCarrick's successor in the Washington DC archdiocese, Cardinal Wuehrl, and a couple of statements from others who are not bishops.  We may hope that the list grows in the coming days.  Among the items O'Loughlin highlights is a letter from Bishop Edward Scharfenberger of the Albany (NY) Diocese to his priests.  The letter hits some good notes and is worth a read for those who are interested in the reaction of church leaders.

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Sunday afternoon I returned from a weekend away, removed the shrink wrap from the Sunday edition of my local suburban newspaper, and read the words quoted in the title of this post.  Those words, from Commonweal contributing editor John Gehring, were quoted in that day's front page news article.  Headline: "Cardinal resigns amid sex abuse claims."

Dangers to freedom in the post-truth society

If you haven't heard of Reality Winner, read this.

Reality Winner -- her real name -- was an Air Force vet working for a civilian contractor when she read last year that Russian hackers had never succeeded in penetrating American voting systems. She knew better.  So she did what Daniel Ellsberg and Mark Felt (Deep Throat) did when they caught their government lying. She leaked.

She is getting ready to go to prison for five years and three months. As Will Bunch, who wrote the column for Phillynews.com, said:

So far, history is repeating itself. The nightmare of a foreign power like Russia trying to tip the scales of a weakened American democracy and install Donald Trump in the White House is the political scandal of the century, and yet two years into it, the only person convicted of a felony and sitting in a jail cell is the woman seeking to expose part of the cover-up.

Truth goes to prison, and the guilty send it there.

The five Trump voters

Who are Trump voters? Yes, okay, I know, we've seen this question beaten into the ground since the Republican primary season began ramping up in early 2016, especially by folks who can't fathom that anyone would vote for Donald Trump.  But courtesy of Henry Olsen, I ran across some public opinion research, published last year, that tries to sketch out just who it is who pulled the lever for Trump - and why.

Ensure Your Right to Vote

There has been a heightened focus on efforts to purge people from the voting rolls since 2016.  And lately New Hampshire has been in the news for an effort to prohibit voting by college students who came from other states (though it appears that this has been shot down, for now.)  All this points to concerns about voter suppression in the coming fall election. So now is the time to make sure that one is registered to vote, and that all information is correct.  It is less likely to affect the people reading this, since we are not likely to be first-time voters, and are likely to have kept our voting status current.  However we can help get the word out to others:

Disciples respond

This is my homily for this weekend, July 22, 2018, the 16th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Cycle B.  The readings for this Sunday are here.  More information on the fire discussed below is available here.

“I think it’s going to be beautiful to see all the appliances.”

WaPo takes a look at a small-town Southern Baptist congregation and how congregants struggle to rationalize support for Trump.

I liked the report because it does not lump all congregants together. A few seem focused on the many presents they hope to receive in heaven for having been good (the kitchen appliances in the title). Some are elderly people still trying to come to terms with the civil rights movement and are dismayed to find themselves in an America that seems to be pushing religious diversity to the detriment of their faith. Some feel comfortable putting qualifiers in teachings like "love your neighbor."

But most struggle to square up Trump the womanizing bully with his stated support for the things they care about: abortion, law and order, and an America rooted in European Protestant values.

Reporter Stephanie McCrummen does a good job letting the congregation speak for itself without making wry comments or falling into regional stereotypes. A pleasure to read.