In memoriam

This photo is from my high school yearbook, senior year.  I know it's not very good - as I mentioned recently, I don't have any photographic skills,  But truth to tell, it doesn't look much better in the book.

I'm in the picture, sixth from the left.  I have considerably more body fat and considerably less hair now than I did in 1979.  But the person to whom I want to call your attention, at least in the first part of this post, is the young woman fifth from the left, the one with her back up against mine.

Biden blows it UPDATE

Joe Biden has led the pack of Democratic presidential hopefuls. He may not be the best candidate to become president in 2020. But a lot of people thought he could beat Trump. Now he has given Trump and the Republicans his head on a platter.

Biden has supported the Hyde Amendment forever and said so earlier this week. But under attack from his fellow guy and gal candidates, Biden flip-flopped Thursday saying he could no longer support the Hyde Amendment. It bars federal funds for abortion, except in the case of rape, incest, or the life of the mother. Abortion proponents say the Hyde Amendment is unjust because it keeps poor women from getting an abortion. Abortion opponents say using tax dollars to pay for abortion make them complicit in killing the unborn... til now the courts have agreed with them (the federal government can neither prohibit nor support abortion) and so have Congressional votes.

Yes, the Hyde Amendment.

     "For opponents of abortion, the Hyde Amendment is an obvious corollary: If abortion is wrong, then so is government funding for it. Anti-abortion activists began pursuing the amendment soon after the Roe v. Wade ruling in 1973.

     "But some people who generally support abortion rights also support the amendment because they don’t believe providing access to abortion is an appropriate use of government funds, or because they are “uncomfortable with being complicit in the procedure through their taxpayer dollars,” said Mallory Quigley, a spokeswoman for the Susan B. Anthony List, an anti-abortion group. In the 1980s and 1990s, it was not unusual for Democratic politicians to make this argument.

     "Mr. Biden, as a senator from Delaware, made a similar case in 1986, telling U.P.I., “If it’s not government’s business, then you have to accept the whole of that concept, which means you don’t proscribe your right to have an abortion and you don’t take your money to assist someone else to have an abortion.” NYTimes, June 8, 2019.

The Washington Post gives a rundown of the Hyde Amendment and its part in the Democratic Party's "big tent."  

The "Big Tent Party" has resumed its traditional position: circular firing squad.

UPDATE:  Michael Gerson at the Wash Post give a brief history of the Dems and abortion (they weren't always so gung-ho) and agrees that Biden's decision plays into Trump and Republican hands.

Pope Francis and "walking together" as christians

There were two stories today about comments Francis made while and after returning from Romania.  The stories are quite different, and I was especially intrigued by the different coverage of the saying of the Lord's Prayer.   Thoughts?

Bishops Behaving Badly

W.Va. Bishop gave powerful cardinals and other priests $350,000 in cash gifts before his ouster, church records show

For people who still wonder how McCarrick could have gotten away with so much for so long, we now have the details of how a W.Va. Bishop abused seminarians, all the while giving gifts to influence as many people as he could.  It is really stunning how many people in the diocese knew about the bishop. And, of course, the bishop was busy buying friends elsewhere in the church just in case one of the those who knew decided to do something about it.

The source of the bishop's power :

The roots of the West Virginia diocese’s unusual wealth date back to the late 1800s, to a friendship struck on a transatlantic cruise ship between a bishop from Wheeling and a New York heiress. When she died in 1904, Sara Catherine Aloysia Tracy left the majority of her estate to the diocese, including a large tract of land in west Texas. Oil was discovered there decades later.

The income from the mineral rights generates annual revenue averaging nearly $15 million in recent years and has funded an endowment now valued at $230 million, according to financial documents. As a result, West Virginia’s parishes are largely supported by the diocese — unlike across the rest of the country, where dioceses must be supported by local parishes.

What has the former Bishop of Wheeling in common with McCarrick and the former head of the Legionnaires?  They were able to thrown money around to pave their way through life.. Money may talk but it also appears to shut people up when it comes to sexual abuse.

The Burden of Suffering (updated)

In the latest issue of Commonweal, B.D. McClay discusses Francis Poulenc's Dialogues des Carmelites, which was recently revived at the Metropolitan Opera for a three-night run.
From the article:
"Dialogues tells the story of the (fictional) Blanche de la Force, an intensely fearful French aristocrat who joins a Carmelite community as a way of hiding from the world....Mother Marie of the Incarnation, the sub-prioress, convinces all the nuns to take a vow of martyrdom, from which Blanche recoils and then flees. This vow is fulfilled when the sisters (except, painfully, Marie) are caught by the police secretly meeting together. Blanche returns at the eleventh hour, joining her sisters as they go singing to the guillotine."

No Headline, but an accounting! (Update)

I found this photo pretty hilarious (on the Guardian with other Trumphotos)
What came to mind for a headline, I decided might be taken to be anti-Semitic and anti-English so I forbore.  The whole photo shoot at the Guardian is here.   Amuse yourselves.





UPDate:  And it hasn't been cheap:
"Contracts placed by the state department show US taxpayers have spent $1,223,230 (£965,921) on VIP accommodation at the InterContinental hotel on Park Lane in Mayfair, a hotel linked to members of the Qatari royal family.

"A further $339,386 (£267,994) has been spent on “hotel rooms in support of a visit” at the Hilton on Park Lane, one of London’s most exclusive addresses, and also on “passenger car rental”.   The Guardian counts it up.

A National Security Threat?

OR: How the Rich Get Really Rich: "A Bridge to China, and Her Family's Business in the Trump Cabinet."

Not being a fan of the NYTimes's zillion-page coverage of Big Topics, I was surprised and impressed today with the two-page (plus above-the-fold start on Page 1) report on the comings and goings of Elaine Chao, Secretary of Transportation and wife of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R.,-KY).

Ms Chao, as she is know to the Times, is the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Chao, Chinese immigrants and fabulously wealthy shipping magnets with close ties to the Chinese Government. Mr. Chao is a former classmate and friend of the current president of China.

As Secretary of Transportation in the Trump Administration, Ms. Chao has a lot to say about the U.S. Maritime Industry, ship-building, and the training of U.S. seaman, etc. If Trump thinks the crowd at the southern border is a national security threat, he should take a look at Ms. Chao's comings and goings reported in the Times's story.

My political junky mind, however, immediately turns to the possibility that Mitch McConnell's Democratic opponent in the 2020 Kentucky Senate races is not a complete dolt and will call the economically depressed people of Kentucky's attention to this amazing story of Chao family largess to the majority leader and the dubious activities of his wife, Ms. Chao.

P.S. Perhaps Katherine Nielsen can supply a link if the story appears in her favorite go-to substitute for the New York Times. It's worth a read. It will make your blood boil! And raise the hope that McConnell can be defeated in 2020.