NCR Comments Going Down, For Now

NCR's comments provider Civil Comments is shutting down 1 Dec.  So NCR will have no comments, though they hope to open them up again when they can find another provider.  I wonder what the trolls do when comments shut down.  I guess they migrate to another venue to exercise their charms.  Otherwise, all that venom and sewage would back up and you'd have troll explosions all over the place.  Ugh!
While I'm here, I'll join with others in welcoming back Jim Pauwels.  Nice to have you here, Jim.

Poverty in the US, and government programs that combat it

A friend of mine who belongs to the Jesuit Volunteer Corps (JVC) forwarded an email to me earlier today.  It is a call to action: it urges us to alert our senators that the Senate's tax bill "is unacceptable in its current form."  The notification explains why:

Really - him too?!

This news bulletin was waiting for me in my inbox today - if I was better able to keep up with my email, I'd be more up-to-the-minute informed of the latest man to be unmasked, and then fired, as an abuser of women:  Garrison Keillor.  I wouldnta thunk it of him.

Keillor follows Matt Lauer, who follows Jim Rose, who follows Al Franken, Roy Moore, Harvey Weinstein, and so on back through Donald Trump, Bill Cosby, several guys from Fox News, and probably others I'm not remembering.  Well, to be accurate, while they all have been unmasked, it seems to be only the guys who aren't in politics who actually get fired.

As I don't have many original thoughts, I'm sure I'm not the first to see the similarities between this parade of shame and the one that has beset the Catholic Church and its clergy to alternately greater or lesser extents for the last 25 years.  While I am sure the comparison isn't apt on every point, there are some interesting parallels: in both sets of cases, the perpetrators are men; and in both cases, they constitute, not just sex-related abuse, but also abuse of power and privilege.

They also are similar in that they both consist, not of crimes committed very recently, but rather of crimes committed in the past that only now are coming to light.  The crimes themselves already happened; there is no undoing them, no choice that a possible perpetrator can make now to refrain from doing what is forbidden.  The deed already is done, and all the perpetrator can do now is sweat and pray that his victims won't see fit to unearth his malfeasance.

But there is an important lesson here - and I'm speaking to you now, fellas.  Keep your belt buckled, your robe cinched tight, your hands to yourself.  Something has changed in society.  Victims aren't going to cooperate in keeping creepiness hidden anymore.

The victims are now speaking up, but what about the institutions that employ perpetrators?   What has put the church so deeply in the mire is not only the abuse, but the subsequent cover-ups.  And so it's interesting, and almost certainly admirable, that the news organizations at least are terminating their employees so quickly - we hope with a sufficient basis of established fact.  But with the exception of Fox News and perhaps Weinstein's production company, for the most part the organizations that have employed these guys have escaped scrutiny and criticism.  We may wonder what MPR, CBS, PBS, NBC and so on knew about the track records of its high-profile stars.  But so far, there haven't been many allegations of employers looking the other way.  As the victim lawsuits start to fly, that may change.  And maybe that's the final parallel with the Catholic Church's experience: if the institution doesn't self-police, plaintiff's attorneys and the courts will do it.  And that's much, much worse.

Easy! rider

It's deeply satisfying to see my native city--Chicago--praised for doing something not only right but smart. William Galston in today's Wall Street Journal (11/29/17) gives a shout out to the CTA--the Chicago Transit Authority whose trains have an on-time record of 96 percent [no Mussolini jokes please].  Galston lays out that budgetary, supervisory, and planning strategies that created this record.

He contrasts it to New York's MTA--the Metropolitan Transit Authority, which runs the city's subway and buses. The on-time record of its subways lines has fallen 25 percent since 2007.  The worst, the no. 2 train has a 33 percent on-time record. The MTA claims increased ridership causes the delays--it takes more people more time to enter and exit. But in contrast to the Chicago practices, the MTA's budgetary, supervisory, and planning strategies are woefully misapplied and mismanaged with predictable results--worn equipment, breakdowns, and signal delays. 

In today's NYTimes, Jim Dwyer (the Mike Royko of New York) looks at the burden of delays and overcrowding combined with the city's housing costs. As housing prices have risen, people move to the far-flung outer boroughs. That can mean twice-a-day, two hour commutes on trains and buses.

I know all of you drive on empty roads and find parking places wherever you go, but shed a tear or two for New York commuters, and if you're thinking of vacationing in a big city, go to Chicago where the trains are on-time!

Trump & the Navajo code talkers

Yesterday I had a post at my own blog about an article in The Atlantic that opined that the reason people voted for Trump and still support him was/is *not* because of financial worries but because they and he are racists. Here's a bit from the article ...

[...] Clinton defeated Trump handily among Americans making less than $50,000 a year. Among voters making more than that, the two candidates ran roughly even. The electorate, however, skews wealthier than the general population. Voters making less than $50,000, whom Clinton won by a proportion of 53 to 41, accounted for only 36 percent of the votes cast, while those making more than $50,000—whom Trump won by a single point—made up 64 percent. The most economically vulnerable Americans voted for Clinton overwhelmingly; the usual presumption is exactly the opposite.

If you look at white voters alone, a different picture emerges. Trump defeated Clinton among white voters in every income category, winning by a margin of 57 to 34 among whites making less than $30,000; 56 to 37 among those making less than $50,000; 61 to 33 for those making $50,000 to $100,000; 56 to 39 among those making $100,000 to $200,000; 50 to 45 among those making $200,000 to $250,000; and 48 to 43 among those making more than $250,000. In other words, Trump won white voters at every level of class and income. He won workers, he won managers, he won owners, he won robber barons. This is not a working-class coalition; it is a nationalist one ...

And then yesterday Trump proved that article right when he met with Navajo code talkers ...

What is creepy is the lengths his toadies are going to to defend what he said.

Suffer, you little children

Not content to take parents away from American children, our cruel government takes children away from Salvadoran parents seeking asylum:

 The Houston Chronicle has identified 22 cases since June in which parents like Mejia with no history of immigration violations were prosecuted for the misdemeanor crime of improper entry and had their children removed. Minors cannot be kept in federal prison.
 Defense attorneys cite dozens more such cases. Groups who care for unaccompanied children report hundreds of recent separations, in which parents often lose touch with children in an opaque federal system involving a litany of agencies. The government declined to release its own statistics.

Not a nice way to MAGA. Whole infuriating story at: http://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Trump-moves-to-end-catch-and-release-12383666.php

Melissa: Liturgies for an Ethic of Solidarity

Cardinal Blase Cupich on the Signs of the Times

Witnessing to a Consistent Ethic of Solidarity (May 17, 2017

Bernardin was guided by three convictions:

1) that there was a need to read the signs of the times;

2)that the church’s social teaching had a role not just in deciding issues,

 but also in shaping and defining them; and 

3) that the church was uniquely positioned institutionally to promote the common good in society

It was the integrity of its teaching—that is, a consistent ethic of life, that set the church apart. As a result, Catholic social teaching would not and could not be fitted into the partisan political framework that governs American public life, then or now

Yet this also explains the hostility to the consistent-ethic-of-life approach. It asserts that the integrity of Catholic social teaching cannot be contoured to political divides. It asserts that Catholics are called to allegiance to their faith before allegiance to their partisan worldview.

The final principle that guided him was that the church should recognize that it is well positioned as an institution to implement a reshaping of public policy. Our worship, pastoral life, ministries of health care, and education all provide a platform of lived experience where the integrity of Catholic social teaching is on display.

Ethic and Rituals of Solidarity

Melissa, 14, American

Imagine that ISIS is kidnapping  fathers and mothers and sending them to an unknown location, telling their American children to pretty much "deal with it." Picture the bombastic tweets that would come from the nation's highest social medium.

There are no tweets, but the fathers and mothers of American children are being scooped up and deported by the government headed by the bombastic tweeter. Everybody knows about it, but nobody talks about it like they talk about kneeling football players. At the moment I am thinking about it a lot because I have names to go with it.

Melissa Ordonez is 14 years old and a citizen by virtue of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution that the Tweeter-in-Chief's voters say they revere. Why Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) took her father is covered after the break.

I thought you might like this story from The Washington Post: Scary, judgmental old men https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/no-country-for-scary-judgmental-old-men/2017/11/23/4faa93de-cfb2-11e7-81bc-c55a220c8cbe_story.html

Happy Thanksgiving :)

Saint Cecila Sing: A Hymn Festival

Saint Noel Church Lake County Ohio

November 19, 2017

The Panorama of  the Noel Bulletin for this Sunday

Roy Moore and the Liturgy of the Golden Calf

Molly Worthen is one of the few truly thought provoking writers now appearing in the NYTimes. Usually she writes about her students, her teaching, and her fellow-academics. She teaches history at the University of North Carolina.

Worthn departs from her usual territory today (November 19): "How to Escape from Roy Moore's Evangelicalism," to offer an intelligent and theological analysis of why his supporters stick with him and have lept to his defense. Here is one of the explanations:

"To Ms. Schiess, this is one more sign that a new ritual has superseded Sunday worship and weeknight Bible studies: a profane devotional practice, with immense power to shape evangelicals’ beliefs. This “liturgy” is the nightly consumption of conservative cable news. Liberals love to complain about conservatives’ steady diet of misinformation through partisan media, but Ms. Schiess’s complaint is more profound: Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson aren’t just purveyors of distorted news, but high priests of a false religion."

Worthen looks at various alternative to false religion, including Ron Dreher's, "The Benedict Option," belief in the Real Presence (!), and growth in spiritual communities among millenials (otherwise known as "nones").

As I finished reading her, I wondered: Is it only Evangelicals who suffer from the Golden Calf syndrome? Underlying false religion is the propensity for all of us to hang out with, listen to and watch people who agree with us. Though Hannity and Carlson are tagged as the high priests of this particular false religion, is it possible that Rachel Maddow and Jake Tapper are the equivalent sacerdotals for liberals?

Anyway Worthen is worth a read.

Headlands Boardwalk Observation Deck

Late Afternoon November 17, 2017 Panorama

Majority-Black Cities

Here is an intriguing report from Brookings: "Black incomes outpace the national average in 124 majority-black cities." The survey looks at cities, mostly small, and independent suburbs in which African-Americans are the majority of the population. It sounds like good news--and it is. 

A national map of majority-black cities, ranked by median household incomes of black families, shows that 124 communities outpace the national median household income for all races ($53,889), according to data from the 2015 American Community Survey. Black families are especially thriving in various city/suburbs in the state of Maryland, which hosts more than half of the top 124 majority-black cities.

BUT...the kicker is in the subhead: "So where's the investment?"

The author of the report Andre Perry points out that these 124 cities, as prospering, stable place, deserve more attention and  investment by government, investors, and developers. The fact that half are in Maryland is intriguing though the author offers no explanation: proximity to Washington? proximity to the Old South?  Some of the 124 cities have historically black colleges and universities within their boundaries which he believes contributes to this "prosperity" through stability and education.

He admits that median household income is an imperfect measure of economic well-being. It doesn't include economic assets--a measure that has shown that black families fall far behind whites because of segregation and discrimination. But his major point is valid, places with stable, middle-class families in places that have educational resources deserve more attention from the economic powers that be as well as from African-American families planning to relocate.

November Dawn 11-09-2009

The First Frost Descends

The Schola Cantorem of Trees Welcomes the Autumn Dawn

Thursday, November 9, 2017

The first frost descended upon the lake slope of my yard this morning

Each voice showed forth in its particularity 

Moore's deplorable supporters

A fifth victim has come forward to accuse Roy Moore of sexual misconduct. Many Republican lawmakers in Washington have suggested Moore step aside, but amazingly it looks as if the Republican voters of Alabama not only still support Moore, but are surging ever more strongly. Some of those voters say they don't believe Moore did what he's accused of, but the majority don't care if the accusations are true. These are the people that some have suggested the Democratic party woo in order to win seats in Congress, but I agree with Hillary Clinton that they are "a basket of deplorables" who should be left behind.

The Tax Plan

I don't often find myself in agreement with the columnist Robert Samuelson.  But in this article http://www.omaha.com/opinion/robert-j-samuelson-are-we-actually-taxed-too-little/article_36ee2043-bf1f-536f-b7e7-c7de84f6e9cf.html I believe he is correct.  He makes the case that we are actually not taxed too much; in fact we are taxed too little.
"The truth is that we can’t afford any tax reduction. We need higher, not lower, taxes. What we should be debating is the nature of new taxes (my choice: a carbon tax), how quickly (or slowly) they should be introduced and how much prudent spending cuts could shrink the magnitude of tax increases....We are under-taxed in a pragmatic and expedient way. For half a century, we haven’t covered our spending with revenues from taxes.....Many Americans like big government. They just don’t like paying for it."
That last sentence especially is a true statement. The whole article is worth reading, no one could accuse Samuelson of being a Pollyanna or engaging in irrational exuberance.

After the jump, there is a social media share which has apparently been around awhile, but today is the first time I have seen it. It is worth looking at for a reminder of how much even our loudly and proudly not-socialist society depends on government to carry out essential functions. It is entitled "If You Are a Conservative Who Hates Taxes, Please Do the Following:"

Democratic victory

Democrats win as governor in New Jersey and Virginia. Both candidates are supporters of Planned Parenthood and won the women's vote. I think this is a sign that voters do care about issues like women's rights and do see the Democratic party as standing *for* something. Yay :)

More on this all from Rachel Maddow ...

Inequality, Mobility and Technology

Catching up: Globalization is a big deal and a big problem as recent elections in Europe and continuing consequences of previous ones, e.g., Trump and Brexit, amply demonstrate.  Complaints about trade agreements loom large in U.S. media, but that's not the only story. A recent issue of the Economist shows that the impact of globalization is local as well as global. Here is its take on the local conundrum:

Even as regional disparities widen, people are becoming less mobile. The percentage of Americans who move across state lines each year has fallen by half since the 1990s. The typical American is more footloose than the average European, yet lives less than 30 kilometres from his parents. Demographic shifts help explain this, including the rise in two-earner households and the need to care for ageing family members. But the bigger culprit is poor policies. Soaring housing costs in prosperous cities keep newcomers out. In Europe a scarcity of social housing leads people to hang on to cheap flats. In America the spread of state-specific occupational licensing and government benefits punishes those who move. The pension of a teacher who stays in the same state could be twice as big as that of a teacher who moves mid-career.

Perversely, policies to help the poor unintentionally exacerbate the plight of left-behind places. Unemployment and health benefits enable the least employable people to survive in struggling places when once they would have had no choice but to move. Welfare makes capitalism less brutal for individuals, but it perpetuates the problems where they live.

 It seems to add up to a vicious circle. Is it?

More fall spirituality

Speaking of fall spirituality, I was enjoying the sun and the plants in the yard today, with the cats keeping me company. Here's a pic I took of an oak tree ...

The other photos are here, if anyone wants to look.

A Meditation for All Souls' Day

Someone posted this short video on Facebook:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6RgaPTo4hE

Thomas Tallis' chorale, "If Ye Love Me" is beautiful.  But what moved me most was the video image of people on a journey, carrying lights. Or maybe the lights were coming from them.  I found it a lovely and comforting metaphor for our souls' journey to God.