Our Cubs come to the end of the season before the playoffs begin. A disappointing season for us so we enter the offseason with hope that we can come back next season with a better showing.<\/p>\n
Madeleine Kearns on plastics<\/strong><\/a>:<\/p>\n We\u2019ve been thinking about it an awful lot since then. The mass production of plastic products began during the Second World War and has skyrocketed ever after. At this point, the industry is predicted to double in the next\u00a020 years<\/a>. While the benefits of plastics, from keeping food fresh to your toddler happy, are too obvious to note, its downsides \u2014 that there is currently more than 5 trillion plastic pieces weighing over 250,000 tons afloat at sea \u2014 deserve proper attention, too.<\/p>\n The trouble is that the West\u2019s war on plastics has, of late been missing the mark. A couple of years ago, for instance, the vice president of the European Commission attacked \u201csingle-use plastics\u201d \u2014 the kind that take \u201cfive seconds to produce, are used for five minutes, then take 500 years to break down again.\u201d The problem he described has, in many ways, been replaced by similar problems.<\/p>\n Like paper. Did you know, for instance, that the life cycle of pulp and paper is the third largest cause of air, water, and land pollution in the United States, releasing over 100 million kilograms of toxins\u00a0per annum?<\/a>\u00a0Or that around\u00a010 percent<\/a>\u00a0more energy is required to create a paper bag than a plastic one, and around 4 percent more water? Paper is also made of trees, as you well know \u2014 which play a crucial role in absorbing carbon dioxide.<\/p>\n Despite this, Seattle banned plastic straws in July 2018, as have many corporate greens. Starbucks is phasing out plastic straws by 2020. MacDonald\u2019s is moving to ban them in the U.K. and Ireland. Alaska Airlines is also ditching them. Will this change the weather and restore the climate to harmony? Not if the ban on single-use plastic bags are anything to go by.<\/p>\n When California banned single-use plastic bags in 2016, the state saw a reduction of 40 million pounds of plastic per year. However, a social scientist who\u00a0researched<\/a>\u00a0that in 2019 found that it had inadvertently eliminated in-house recycling (i.e., using a plastic bag a second or third time for another purpose). That, in turn, resulted in the\u00a0increase<\/em>\u00a0of trash bags by 12 million pounds. The study\u2019s author added that to overlook this fact was to \u201coverstate the regulation\u2019s welfare gains.\u201d<\/p>\n Similarly, after the Scottish government brought in a plastic-bag tax, it conducted a two-year investigation, published in 2005, comparing the life cycles of a single plastic bag with that of a paper bag. The conclusion was that a \u201cpaper bag has a more adverse impact than a plastic bag for most of the environmental issues considered.\u201d A better response, evidently, would have been to try to encourage consumers to use plastic bags multiple times. In 2002, Ireland managed to do precisely that, reducing plastic-bag use per person per year from\u00a0328 to 21<\/a>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Emily McGowin\u2019s take on women\u2019s ordination is classical<\/strong><\/a>: what is assumed by Christ is healed, what is healed can be sacramental.<\/p>\n Many arguments are proffered against women\u2019s ordination, some biblical, some theological, some historical, some even biological and psychological. Of course, there is far more to the arguments for and against women\u2019s ordination than this short piece is able to address.<\/p>\n For now, due to space constraints, I choose to focus on one argument against women\u2019s ordination that I find particularly theologically problematic: The assertion that women cannot represent Christ in the celebration of the Eucharist; the claim that women cannot act\u00a0in persona Christi\u00a0<\/em>(\u201cin the person of Christ\u201d).<\/p>\n The argument, in short, goes something like this: Because women have female bodies and Jesus Christ has a male body, women cannot serve as a sacramental sign of Christ in the Eucharist.<\/p>\n To be more specific, women cannot act\u00a0in persona Christi\u00a0<\/em>because their female bodies do not correspond to the body of the male Christ. In this view, female priests are not just\u00a0not allowed<\/em>; female priests are\u00a0false signifiers<\/em>. In their female persons, female priests lie, as it were, about the male person of Jesus Christ, who is presiding sacramentally at the altar.<\/p>\n And, as a result, women must not represent Christ at the Eucharistic feast.<\/p>\n Today, very often, though not always, this perspective is linked to a form gender essentialism gleaned from Pope John Paul II\u2019s \u201ctheology of the body<\/a>\u201d and his recent popularizer,\u00a0Christopher West<\/a>.<\/p>\n In the theology of the body, male and female are seen as ontologically distinct, two parts of the one whole of the\u00a0imago Dei.\u00a0<\/em>This \u201cnatural\u201d gender division then serves as the foundation for structured gender roles.<\/p>\n When it comes to the function of the priesthood, then, the male sacramentally represents Christ while the female sacramentally represents the Church. Within this perspective, to have a woman priest is to usurp and upend a fundamental ontological reality of the world God has made.<\/p>\n But this brings us back to our christological and soteriological principle: \u201cwhat is not assumed is not healed\u201d. If women qua women are fundamentally incapable\u2014and, according to some Christians, even\u00a0ontologically<\/em>\u00a0incapable\u2014of representing the male Jesus Christ in their female persons, then that calls into question whether their female persons can be redeemed by the male Jesus Christ.<\/p>\n But, of course, we know that isn\u2019t the case.<\/p>\n All human beings\u2014Jew and Greek, male and female, slave and free\u2014are saved through the Incarnation of the Word (the life, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ).<\/p>\n The particularities of Jesus\u2019 person\u2014a poor, Jewish, male, unmarried, 30-something adult living in first-century, Roman-occupied Israel\u2014are the means by which\u00a0all<\/em>\u00a0human persons are redeemed. And, by becoming one with Christ in our baptism, all become partakers of his Royal Priesthood.<\/p>\n If that\u2019s the case, then all persons are potentially capable of serving as sacramental signs of their Savior.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Good for Satchel<\/strong><\/a>:<\/p>\n (CNN)<\/cite>When Satchel Smith\u2019s father dropped him off for his shift at Homewood Suites in Beaumont, Texas, he expected the day to be like any other: He\u2019d start at 3 p.m. and leave around 11 p.m. that night.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n For my fellow Twainiacs<\/strong><\/a>:<\/p>\n HANNIBAL (WGEM) \u2014 A signature of Samuel Clemens has been discovered in unlit passageway in the Mark Twain Cave, officials say.<\/p>\n Cave officials made the announcement on Tuesday and confirmed the signature has been verified for authenticity by scholars.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have been looking for a Clemens signature for decades,\u201d said Linda Coleberd, whose family has owned the cave since 1923, \u201cbut with three miles of passageways, that means there are six miles of walls to examine. And with 250,000 signatures on the walls, looking for \u2018Clemens\u2019 has been like the proverbial needle in the haystack.\u201d Prior to 1979, visitors to the cave frequently added their names using candle smoke, pencil, paint, or berry juice. Upon becoming a National Historic Landmark, signing the cave was no longer allowed.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Officials state that the Clemens signature was discovered during a special tour in July, but Coleberd wanted to wait on announcing the news until scholars had the opportunity to compare the found signature to Sam Clemens\u2019s boyhood signature and those of his siblings.<\/p>\n Unfortunately, only \u201cClemens\u201d was scrawled on the cave wall in pencil, although higher resolution photos revealed the name \u201cSam\u201d had first been carved in the location.<\/p>\n The discovery occurred during the third quadrennial Clemens Conference, a scholarly symposium held by the Mark Twain Boyhood Home & Museum.<\/p>\n Scholars toured the cave on July 26th. Coleberd joined the last group with plans to veer off the tour with her friend and fellow signature-seeker, Cindy Lovell, who spotted the signature.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Thomas Cook, travel business, collapses<\/strong><\/a>\u2026<\/p>\n\n