7 things @ 9 o’clock (9.27)

1. Bud Selig is set to retire as commissioner of Major League Baseball after the 2014 season. Ari Kohen asks, “which old white guy is the odds-on favorite” to replace him? As much as I’d love to see a former player — such as Hank Aaron or Frank Robinson — replace Selig, the commissioner does tend to be a conservative, establishment figure. Mitt Romney is probably a likelier candidate than either of those hall-of-famers.

So here’s my proposal: John Roberts for commissioner of baseball. The chief justice of the Supreme Court would, of course, have to step down from that post in order to accept the promotion, but it shouldn’t be a problem for the president to quickly nominate a replacement.

2. Pasta magnate Guido Barilla has made a demographic calculation. The segment of the potential pasta-buying market made up of anti-gay social conservatives is much larger than the segment of the potential pasta-buying market made of of LGBT people. So he figured pandering to the former, larger group by insulting the latter, smaller group was a good business move. Whether or not he has miscalculated depends on how much of the remaining potential pasta-buying market regards this as a neutral bystander and how much of that population chooses to take sides with the small group being insulted.

3. “When you give a banquet,” Jesus said, “invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you.” One family in Atlanta is taking that literally.

4. Roman Catholic Archbishop Tim Broglio doesn’t think same-sex couples should be allowed to marry. This is Broglio’s religious conviction, and as the bishop who oversees Catholic chaplains in the U.S. military, you would expect him to say that the chaplains under his rule are not permitted to consecrate same-sex weddings. But Broglio isn’t satisfied with just that. He’s also forbidding his chaplains from ministering at the funerals of gay soldiers. That’s simply cruelty for the sake of cruelty. It has nothing to do with upholding Broglio’s ideas about “traditional marriage,” just with hurting people who are already hurting. Broglio’s rule isn’t due to his being a devout Catholic, it’s due to his being a sadistic jerk.

The only way to defend Broglio’s edict forbidding ministry at funerals is … No, wait, sorry. There is no way to defend Broglio’s edict. It’s just a dick move.

5. In Kisamos, Greece, there is now a Church of the Prophet Jonah — a bona fide Greek Orthodox church honoring Jonah. Jonah from the Bible, Jonah. As in the main character of the book of Jonah, the biblical book whose central, emphatic theme is “Jonah is horrible; don’t be anything like Jonah.” Apparently no one in Kisamos bothered to read the book of Jonah before starting their new church. (via AZspot)

Suggested liturgy for this church: “The Lord be with you.” “I am angry enough to die.”

6. BooMan makes a casual observation:

I’d like to live in a country that would ratify a treaty banning the sale of “tanks, armored combat vehicles, large-caliber artillery systems, combat aircraft, attack helicopters, warships, missiles and missile launchers, and small arms and light weapons” to governments that are engaged in genocide or crimes against humanity.

But, I don’t.

And here’s why he doesn’t:

“But you know what, Brian, the people that are behind this treaty want that world government,” Napolitano insisted. “And in their minds, this is a step toward it. … Eventually controlling all of us.”

7. “It reminds me of the Sermon on the Mountain: ‘Consider the lilies — they toil not, so f–k them, lazy lilies, with their stamens and their pistils.’”