“Trust women.” That’s what we’re told, time and again. We should “trust” that there is no need to criminalize abortion at any point in time up until labor and delivery itself because: Only a small percentage of abortions are performed after really starts to look at all human, or at any rate after viability, or certainly at that point in time when, in other circumstances the baby would simply be a little bit premature; Because of the need to have... Read more
Is it an inaugural address if it’s given by a mayor rather than a president? Better safe than sorry, I guess. At any rate, Chicago has a new mayor as of yesterday, and she gave a speech at her inauguration, and, for what it’s worth, she said some encouraging things with respect to city finances (including, yes, pensions): My team has already been doing the necessary work of measuring the size and depth of our fiscal challenges, as well as... Read more
Plus, a link and three questions. First, the insight: GOT is a massive spectacle. It’s incredible, the locations, the CGI, the actual filming, the costuming. If I could wear GOT clothing on a daily basis, I might be more motivated to shed the extra weight. It’s got a budget that can pay for all that not only because of the HBO viewership but the DVD/streaming sales and the licensing overseas. But there’s one limit that HBO, the showrunners, and the... Read more
So in my prior post, I observed that the conventional wisdom that “the only people who get abortions are those experiencing hardship, and that means poor women” is not necessarily true. I pulled out some statistics from a study I had read which suggested that middle class women are just as likely to abort, but, after having published that post, I wanted to check the reliability of that study (which draws the conclusion, “poor women aren’t having as many abortions... Read more
One reads a lot, these days, about what it means to be “pro-life” — and it usually goes something like this: People who merely believe abortion should be illegal, or that it is gravely morally wrong to obtain, perform, or advocate for abortion, are not “really pro-life.” No, to be a “true pro-lifer” means to object to any sort of intentional killing, especially State-approved killing such as euthanasia/assisted suicide as well as the death penalty. Oh, and it means supporting... Read more
First, an update on the fallout from the Farrakhan speech at St. Sabina’s Church in Chicago, as I originally wrote about last week: As a do-over for the mealy-mouthed statement on May 9th, in which the Archdiocese generically denounced “discriminatory rhetoric,” a new statement appeared on the Archdiocese website on May 10th, directly by Cardinal Cupich, in which he explicitly acknowledged and denounced Farrakhan’s vile antisemitism, including his labelling of Jews as “Satanic.” There still appears to be no consequence... Read more
In the news today, “A Catholic church hosted Louis Farrakhan for an anti-Facebook speech. At least one Jewish group was not happy about it“: One week after Facebook banned Minister Louis Farrakhan and others for promoting “violence and hate,” the Nation of Islam leader insists that he is not a hateful person. Farrakhan told those at Saint Sabina Catholic Church in Chicago on Thursday that he is “a hated man today.” . . . Pointing to his mouth, Farrakhan said:... Read more
The Democrats are going after Trump’s tax returns. In the first place, the House Ways and Means Committee, based on power granted it by a 1924 law to examine the return of any taxpayer it chooses, has demanded Trump’s returns. (A May 4 Politico article provides some of the historical context to that law, and states — how accurately I don’t know — that Congress is able to view any tax returns it wishes, unconditionally.) In the second place, California... Read more
Illinois readers will know that, under the new governor JB Pritzker, the state is moving full-steam-ahead towards pot legalization. To what extent it’s motivated by promises that it’ll be a financial cure-all, vs. a cure for all manner of social woes, I can’t tell, but the promises that are being made across the country — that pot is a medical cure-all, that its use will make us all happier, that crime will vanish, that opioid and alcohol addicts can simply... Read more
Yes, it’s a rarity, a popular culture phenomenon that I am actually clued into. But there have been So Many Articles on the Big Reveal of how the Battle of Winterfell ends and it’s driving me batty, because they’re starting to speak as if these are real characters and as if there was a real prophesy that exists, out there, somewhere, that the writers of this episode’s script failed to hew to, and, arrgh! Maybe this all just boils down... Read more
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