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Mary Margaret Clark (Schultheis)

John, to be specific the satire piece was in fact taking a jab at Nike, but it was also highlighting the foolishness and recklessness of the current President. Joe Biden encouraged, via his Execurtive Orders, the influx of tens of thousands of migrants coming at will across the southern border. The consequences of his decisions are anything but justice for those who now find themselves living in horrible conditions. The Biden administration wants to call it a "situation" and a "challenge" but the pictures and videos speak for themselves...it is a full-blown humanitarian crisis.  U.S. immigration laws have needed reformed for decades, but both parties simply choose to kick the can down the road.    

My daughter is the assistant principal at St. James the Less school and over half of the 500 students have parents who came here from Mexico and a number of them she suspects are not here illegally. Nearly the entire student body have received Ed-Choice school vouchers. I don't pretend to have all of the answers as this is a complicated issue, and of course, John, Catholic social teaching applies to all peoples everywhere. However, that does not mean that the U.S. should not be permitted to control the numbers of immigrants that are accepted into our nation each year.  

https://www.heritage.org/data-visualizations/immigration/biden-administrations-border-catatrophe-a-policy-tracker/?www

Mary Clare Hummer (Bauer)

Never feel like I’m really awake in the morning until I get my first full cup of hypocrisy. Problem appears that over half the school enrollment mentioned above is comprised of students of Mexican heritage. (There was a time in the history of US education, when half the enrollment was of Irish or Italian or various other heritages, but that is a horse of a different color, I guess.) So, axe them. Now we have a school half the size. Gotta’ axe half the teachers who I assume are contributing, card-carrying citizens. Now we must deal with the rest of the children who are enrolled courtesy of that socialistic program of Ed-Choice vouchers, a mainstay of church schools.  Since, of course, socialism (you know, those programs used to benefit the whole society paid for with taxes) in any form is EVIL, EVIL, EVIL, we do away with those pesky vouchers. Get those brown and black faces back in the public schools where they belong. Now you’ve only got 1-3% of the original 500 students. Time to axe the rest of the staff. There. No more kids. No more school. Send’em home. Build the wall. Turn’em back. Problem solved. 
Clare

Mary Margaret Clark (Schultheis)

Clare, you obviously have taken my mention of the make-up of the student population at St. James as a slight to all immigrants.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  It was an attempt to point out that Catholic schools are carrying out the Catholic mission of aiding all of those of every ethnic background to find a path to achieving the American dream.  School vouchers help to provide a way out of the failed school systems of some of our public schools.  I apologize if I did not communicate that. 

John Jackson

I’ll try a different tack by encouraging MM  to turn down the histrionics and look at the facts.  Below are U.S. Customs and Border Patrol statistics on border crossings from 2018 through roughly the first half of 2021 (CBP keeps statistics on a U.S. fiscal year basis which runs from Oct. 1 through Sept. 30).

In the top figure the blue curve is 2021 (still incomplete) and the orange curve is 2018 showing total “encounters” at the southern border.  This data shows the ebbs and flows of migration that are affected not only by U.S. policy but also by the seasons and conditions (gang violence, drug dealing, government repression of minorities and corruption) in Central America.  Let’s remember that 2018 was two years into Trump’s attempt to brutalize immigrants/asylum seekers at the southern border by taking their kids away and using other tactics I doubt the Church’s teaching on social justice would countenance.  To be sure, the curve for  2021 is a bit higher than the orange curve but it’s not the total meltdown you describe in your post (another example of the baseless hyperbole that right wing media persist in feeding to their followers).

And in the bar charts at the bottom, you’ll see that the number of unaccompanied children (UAC) is still a tiny fraction of this year’s encounters.  And if you double the tiny blue bar for 2021 (which shows only half the year) it looks to me that it will very close to the height of the orange bar that shows full numbers for 2018.

The main change Biden has made is that we’re no longer sending unaccompanied minors from Central America back to Mexico (not their native country).  For other much larger categories (single adults and families) the granting of asylum or immigrant status has changed very little, although I’m guessing those who are turned back or held for immigration hearings are at least treated with respect.

I’m not suggesting  that the more humane policies of the Biden administration have had no effect in encouraging more people to try to cross the border but it appears that the total numbers aren’t much higher than the bad old days of 2018.  And if a modest increase is the price we pay for treating these desperate people with compassion and respect, I’m OK with it.

Michael McLeod

Oy the blend of irony and deja vu in seeing someone reference a "foolish and reckless" president.

Mary Margaret Clark (Schultheis)

John, I reject the adjective of histrionics. It does not appear that you read the distinctions in the Heritage link between Trump's and Biden's illegal immigration policies which are also facts.  One thing that seems to remain true on this forum, is that information that opposes the pevailing Democratic narratives is either ridiculed or dismissed.  Tolerance for thee but not for me. Therefore, I will repectfully bow out

Mary Clare Hummer (Bauer)

Hey, Donna. Just read about Barcelona's great experiment with a masked but SRO (without social distancing!) concert of 5000 attendees. Let us know how it went. Your success could be a good barometer. We do have a reunion to plan for sometime in the the coming years!  Hope you are well & ready to enjoy a Barcelona springtime.
Clare

David Mitchell

I'm wondering how the "Wall" will stop the staggering numbers of murders of women in Honduras - one of the most dangerous countries in the world to be born female?  

I'd put the video link in here but it's simply too chiiling - too gruesome.

David Mitchell

A favorite song. This was one of Freddy's best, but I give you an alternative - Italian pop singer, Giorgia - singing at one of Pavoratti's annual "War Child" concerts in Modena, Italy (to benefit his music school for the children of Sarajevo after the War)

Donna Kelley (Velazquez)

Hey, Clare & Co. The concert on March 27th with 5000 people and a previous concert with 500 people are being called trial concerts because a team of doctors monitors the health measures taken. Masks were mandatory and more importantly Antigen tests were given to all the morning of the concert. Of the thousands tested only six tested positive but as you said there was no social distancing to be found in the Sant Jordi Sports Pavilion so we should see how that pans out in a couple of weeks. 

Michael McLeod

Always great to hear from you Donna.

As for this side of the pond: Spring break went on as usual in Florida just like none of the kids ever heard of this minor inconvenience called covid, and our equally carefree governor is doing his best to stomp out local mask wearing regulations. So with both the kids and the grownup in charge acting wild and wacky the rate of infection is on the rise, and Florida is one of the most dangerous places in the world to be if you have not yet been vaccinated. 

Still, things, in general, are looking up. Historically, civilizations have made great progress upon coming out of pandemics, and there are a lot of signs pointing in that direction here. I am, as the expression goes, cautiously optimistic. 

David Mitchell

Donna,

So good to hear from you. I hope you are getting that freezer filled up with those special reunion burritos and tamales. I have been practicing my Macarrenna moves and can't wait to hit golf balls off your balcony. 

Frank Ganley

I know my next statement as usual will a   b red car no deemed wrong and it also deemed a conspiracy ! That's ok! The wearing of masks has contributed to a dreastic increase in every aspect of Crime from banks and other armed robberies to petty crime. It is so rampant in cities such as Baltimore that the police has informed the community that the police will NO LONGER arrest or prosecute drug crime. Robberies, home invasions and that list I'm sure will greatly increase in the future at alarming rates. Now I'm sure the bleeding hearts in all of our communities will say ," well if they didn't run and steal etc they would starve. How long my fellow classmates will we allow this type of behavior be tolerated." I predict that crime will continue to be the law of the land until a congressperson is killed or thier families killed. Oh the outrage. Guns must be banned, no bulllets will be the rally cry of the left.When will sanity again rule our senses. When we treat each other nicely? When will we rid ouurselves of suspicition about everyone and everything. And lastly when will be able to discuss not fightand respect each other thoughts. 

John Maxwell

Michael McLeod

Frank, I can completely identify with you. Because hell yes, once I saw something happen that made me think crime would deliver a knockout punch to the law of the land. But then January 7 came and went and here we are, still ok. 

Donna Kelley (Velazquez)

Jack, I got called away just as I was about to post this yesterday.  The Easter Bunny Therapy suggestion  is for Petra.

John Maxwell

Timothy Lavelle

Source.

Keep the dough. Buy yourself a beer n a dog at the park. 

John Maxwell

Timothy Lavelle

Jack,

I meant to go back and add a PS and found your latest. I apologize...I am not back to posting casually...but I have been wanting to extol an old mate of yours for awhile. Yer bud from back about 150 years ago...dies 1879....Jimmie C. Maxwell or James as his Mom called him when he played with matches.

At 73 I have discovered anew how dumb I am or how impossible it is at this advanced age to "learn radio"...or chemistry or nuclear energy or hallucinogens or any really hard subject at the deep level I wanted to learn it. We all know how to turn on a radio...I want to understand what exactly happens at all levels of operation.

But...your boy "JazzMax" as his physics homeys called him....before anyone ever had a single thought about radio...he used nothing more than a pencil and paper to mathematically show the existence of what we call radio waves. So, let me say that again...he took something invisable and totally unknown...you know...like the existence of a diety for example...and put it on paper for others to study. So many aspects of that are amazing. Soooo, when I get high and am tempted toward negative thoughts, I think of Jimmie C and what a dipshit he would have considered me. AND I have hope.

No mas. No mas.

Michael McLeod

If you have pbs I highly recommend the three part profile of Ernest Hemingway that is going to run this month.

Ken Burns has had it on his schedule for years.

Like any American writer of my generation worth a hoot I've been inspired by "Papa"   - in my case ever since I read "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber" in college. Later on I wound up writing about him for various reasons and interviewed two of his three sons and one granddaughter in the process and even did a story about the Hemingway lookalike contest they have in Key West every year.

His public persona was and remains so very different from his achievements and innovations as a writer, and the doc - judging from the previews I've seen - does a splendid job of bringing that out. One thing I never factored in about him is the influence that his mother's preoccupation with opera may have had on him. Opera goes to the extremes and that's what Hemingway wound up doing in his writing - and, yes, in his public and private life. I think I would have been a writer regardless but he was surely my spirit guide, lighting the path  - from heights I knew I could never reach - along the way. I keep going back to immerse myself in him. Looks like at least one more time.

Joseph D. McCarthy

Pleas Mr. Maxwell.  How far(ris) will you go to discuss Ferris Wheels?

But I do want to celebrate, a little early, the achievements of a man who set a record that will never be broken.  After he completed his feat he was never allowed (barred for life) to try it again.  As it turns out he died at the age of 34 in 1968 when a Mig-15 training aircraft he was flying crashed.  Yuri Gagarin become the first person to fly in space on April 12, 1961.  If memory serves me I was in the end of Seventh grade; or I might have been in detention or mass.  It was 60 years ago. 

Michael McLeod

ha that's great. detention and mass. the lifestyle of a sinful catholic schoolboy

David Mitchell

March Madness

I'm feeling really old today.   "How old Dave?" 

Well I am so old that I can remember way back when March Madness was only 32 teams and was done before the end of March. In fact I can remember clear back when it was only 16 teams and I celebrated the "Sweet Sixteen" with my sixteenth birthday party, which included the "Elite Eight" group of Tom Litzinger, Kevin Ryan, John Jackson, Joe Royce, Mike Haggerty and his brother Tim (by whom I was uspset when he stayed, but it helped us put 4 against four on the court), and the two "outsiders" - Tom McKeon and Steve Hodges.  

I wish I could put my hands on a photo of six of us forming a human pyramid in our front lawn beside the driveway, with me on all fours, on the top of 5 other "OLP Boiz".

And there was an earlier birthday with a small group of that OL P group. I seem to recall they stayed late to watch the Buckeyes suffer one of those humiliating losses to those doggone Cincinnati Bearcats. Talk about a Birthday Bummer. 

GO BUCKS ! (maybe next year)

Michael McLeod

I can still feel the sting of that loss to Cincy. My dad called them "river rats." Jerry Lucas was hobbled. My big sister would be upstairs saying the rosary on behalf of the boys. To no avail. So much for God being on our side. And you wonder why I turned into an atheist.