Repeating my modest proposal about what we used to call marriage

The Illinois Legislature is in its Fall Veto Session this week and -- our overwhelming budget and pension problems be damned -- gay marriage is the only issue that commands the attention of TV news editors.

Yesterday all the pro-gay marriage folks trooped down to Springfield, demanding marriage equality. Gov. Pat Quinn, Lt. Gov. Sheila Simon, Attorney General Lisa Madigan (daughter of House Speaker Michael Madigan), and Sen. Richard Durbin all spoke at the rally, in the rain. There was even a Republican present, State Comptroller Judy Baar Topinka, and she was all in favor, too.

Today, a lot of anti-gay marriage folks will make the same trip but demand that gay marriage be blocked. Today's rally will attract more Republicans than yesterday's, but the numbers will come from church groups.

The Illinois State Senate has already passed a gay marriage bill. The overwhelmingly Democratic General Assembly, however, didn't have quite the number of votes in the Spring, and may not have them this time either.

For those of you looking in from out of state, I have not made a typographical error. Illinois is a blue, blue, blue, true blue state. The Democrats drew the maps and, on paper anyway, have a veto-proof House majority. And, of course, all the party leaders claim to be for gay marriage. Yet, somehow, they just don't have the votes.

No, it's not die-hards from Downstate who are holding up the passage of the bill; the biggest single reason the measure can't pass is that a lot of African-American state representatives from Chicago and nearby suburbs are afraid of crossing the anti-gay marriage ministers in their areas.

The Democrats are for gay marriage, and they welcome the donations of gay rights supporters, but they don't actually pass a gay marriage law.

Isn't hypocrisy wonderful?

Meanwhile, at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Springfield, Bishop Thomas J. Paprocki warned about any demonstrations in favor of gay marriage, saying anyone outwardly plumping for passage of the marriage bill would be removed from evening Mass. He went so far as to say that praying for gay marriage was "blasphemous."

Um.

Maybe he meant to level such an extreme charge as a sort of counterweight to the pleas of prominent Catholic laypeople, such as the aforementioned Gov. Quinn, Attorney General Madigan, or Sen. Durbin, for gay marriage.

As near as I recall, Jesus had a lot to say about marriage -- but nothing to say about homosexuality. Biblical condemnations of homosexuality can be identified -- but these are in the Old Testament or the letters of St. Paul.

And even if gay marriage is as wrong as Bishop Paprocki thinks it is, people pray all the time -- in church and out -- for things we don't need or shouldn't have. But it's not necessarily blasphemy to pray for the wrong things.

I'd like to move to close the debate. I think it readily apparent that the concepts of civil marriage and religious marriage are undergoing an acrimonious divorce. Let's separate the two and move on.

From now on, I would suggest, the states issue licenses for civil unions only. All benefits that heretofore attached to marriage would apply to civil unions. There will not be two classes of marriage, such as recently concerned Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg; there will be only one, for men and women, men and men, women and women and any other pairing or grouping that the legislature sees fit to accept. But it's not marriage. Marriage is reserved to churches. Some will embrace gay marriage (many old line, mainstream Protestant denominations already have); some never will. Doctrinal disputes, like the poor, will always be with us.

With my proposal, however, I can decide what is or is not a marriage -- and I can't interfere with my neighbors from tying the knot at City Hall. Bishop Paprocki may condemn me. But, then, so will gay rights activists. It is the scorn that would be heaped upon this proposal from both sides of the cultural divide that proves mine is the only workable solution. Bishop Paprocki and the African-American ministers save "marriage." Yet gay couples are truly equal before the law with straight couples. It may not make anyone truly happy, but it's a win-win for both sides.

It won't happen, of course. If it did, we might actually have to talk about the pension shortfall in this state.

True confessions: This morning, I was "that guy"

I was "that guy" as in, "look at that guy. What a jerk!"

You know, when you're driving, and the sign says left lane closed ahead? You can count on "that guy" staying in the left lane -- maybe even moving into it because "that guy" is sooooooooo much more important than you are. As "that guy" passes you, you say something like, "That guy thinks he can just zoom past everyone waiting in line and cut right in -- the #$%@!!"

Well... this morning... not too far from my house... after dropping Long Suffering Spouse off at school, I had to head for the Kennedy, planning to jump on the Tollway and head out to court in Geneva.

It's a hike, but I had plenty of time... I thought. I knew there was construction at Cumberland and Higgins. They're rebuilding Cumberland where it crosses the Kennedy and there have been various lane closures in the vicinity -- and consequently slowed traffic -- on the few recent occasions I've had to head that way. I had to turn left from Higgins onto Cumberland.

So, yes, the sign said left lane closed ahead, but I figured, well, that must be the left lane, not the left turn lane. People still have to turn left. The sign doesn't say road closed or detour.

So I stayed in the left lane. I figured that this was the way to get to the left turn lane.

I was absolutely, totally wrong.

In my defense, I will say I didn't zoom past anyone. No one was moving in front of me. No one was moving to my right. Cars were turning out of hotels and restaurants and other parking lots trying to get in line with me. The fastest I moved was when a couple of cars in front of me gave up and made U-turns trying to get away from the gridlock.

It took me 35 minutes -- by the dashboard clock -- to go about one-half mile.

So I was punished for my foolishness -- and I was late to court besides. But, punished or not, today, I was "that guy." I'm truly sorry.

On the increasingly controversial Washington "Redskins"

Seems like everyone these days has an opinion -- mostly hostile opinions -- about the name used by the Washington NFL franchise.  This recent editorial cartoon by Tom Stiglich illustrates a widely shared view:

Editorial cartoon by Tom Stiglich obtained from Creators.com.

The issue here is not whether some find the "Redskins" nickname offensive -- it is established beyond question that some do take offense.

Nor would I presume to argue that those complaining about the nickname should simply 'get over it.' There's no question that the term 'redskin' can be an intentionally offensive insult or slur.

But I will assert that, as used by the Washington NFL franchise, the term "Redskins" is absolutely not used as a racial slur. As I wrote last year, the name Redskins, like the names Indians, Chiefs, and Braves, were adopted by sports teams in honor of other teams or qualities they admired, or that they wished to emulate -- "and early in the 20th Century, most athletes (of any ancestry) wanted to emulate the skill and success of Jim Thorpe and the Carlise Indians."

In the early days of the 20th Century, the Carlisle Indian Industrial School played a major college schedule (and college football was then firmly at the apex of the football pyramid). Coached by Glenn "Pop" Warner (yes, there was a real Pop Warner), the Carlisle Indians dominated the college football world.

Now, you don't have to have a lot of skill at argument to prevail on a claim that the very premise of the Carlisle Indian Industrial School was racist, at least by any standard we understand today. The original purpose of the school was to take Indian boys off their reservations, strip away all vestiges of their heritage, and thereby 'civilize' them. Boarding schools like the Carlisle Indian Industrial School were determined to assimilate their charges into American society. Carlisle's founder, Richard H. Pratt, described the philosophy of the boarding school program as, "Kill the Indian in him, and save the man."

And Pratt was sympathetic to the Indians. He thought he was helping.

But teams didn't take up the banner of Indians, Braves or Chiefs or, yes, Redskins because they were in favor of the destruction of Native American culture. Nor did they take up the names to mock indigenous peoples. They took up the names because they wanted to be as successful as -- as good as -- the Carlisle Indians generally and Jim Thorpe in particular. (Thorpe excelled at baseball, too; it was the discovery that he'd picked up some money playing minor league baseball in the summers between school terms that led to his being stripped of the medals he earned at the 1912 Olympics.)

Stiglich's use of the Confederate battle flag in his cartoon is thought-provoking. There is a wing-nut school of historical revisionists that claim that the Civil War wasn't about slavery. From this, the wing-nut revisionists argue that the Confederate battle flag and similar symbols are not emblems of racial oppression, but of states' rights.

This is, of course, utter nonsense. The Civil War was absolutely about slavery -- even though it is also true that most Confederate soldiers were not slaveowners. Some Union soldiers were slaveholders. We like to think of big plantation owners as the only supporters of chattel slavery. That would be so much more convenient than the actual truth: Poor whites in the North and South alike feared economic competition from freed African-Americans and many -- most? -- were implacably opposed to abolition. Their descendants became casual, and sometimes virulent or violent, racists. As Reconstruction ended, as Jim Crow laws were being put in place, the view grew up that many Confederate soldiers had been chivalrous Cavaliers, possessed of honorable qualities well worth emulating. Many sports teams in the South adopted nicknames like "Rebels" as a result. The Confederate battle flag was a common sideline symbol at sports events for decades. This wasn't necessarily a deliberate slap at African-American sensibilities; it is probably more correct to say that, in the racist culture of the time, the effect of the use of these symbols on African-American sensibilities was never given a moment's thought.

But the meaning of symbols can evolve. By the 1960s the symbols of the old Confederacy became increasingly and indelibly identified with the worst, most-violent, die-hard racists. And while historians can still point to the careers of gallant, chivalrous Cavaliers who mistakenly fought for The Lost Cause, we have matured as a society to the point where the hurtful, hateful aspects of the Confederate battle flag overwhelm any virtues that this symbol might once have represented for sportsmen.

How does this apply to the current Redskins controversy? I'd agree that the feelings of indigenous peoples were not taken into account by those adopting the Redskins name. But the Redskins name and logo is, at bottom, an homage to Native Americans, not a deliberate slur. There is no feat of sophistry that can be conjured to transmute the Confederate battle flag into an homage to African-Americans.

Thus, the analogy suggested by Mr. Stiglich's cartoon does not hold.

The Redskins name is not deliberately insulting or an intentional racial slur. The PC Police are wrong to say otherwise. Still, while the "Redskins" name is just another homage traceable ultimately to Jim Thorpe and the Carlisle Indians, it is the least sensitive of all. Granted, in 70 years, the Redskins name has become a "brand name" and there are many positive things associated with that brand. Nevertheless, if I were advising the team, I wouldn't counsel Daniel Snyder to dig in his heels and refuse to consider changing the name of his franchise. But let's do so for the right reasons, OK?

Curmudgeon on the road to bankruptcy -- a continuing spiral

If anyone were sufficiently motivated to sift through the ashes of my legal career, they'd find far too many mornings like this one: I was prepared to go to work on time, but Younger Daughter woke up feeling poorly and needed to see a doctor. The local Doc-in-the-Box Immediate Care Center opens at 7:30, so Long Suffering Spouse asked if I had anything up in court this morning. No, I told her. Thus it was settled. I would stay home with the granddaughter while Younger Daughter went to the Doc-in-the-Box and Long Suffering Spouse went to work. She's a Catholic school teacher, a position that, with seniority, pays around 70% of what a starting teacher, fresh from college, makes in the Chicago Public Schools. It ranks, in other words, above 'volunteer' on the pay scale, but only slightly.

Still, it's more than I'm bringing in most days. I couldn't argue with the logic.

There are also too many days like yesterday.

I went to work yesterday, on time and everything. Here is how I spent my day:

• I looked over a pleading and papers filed on a motion to dismiss for an ex-partner. He wanted my opinion about the viability of an appeal. If I took the appeal, he told me, he thought he could get me as much as $4,000 -- or roughly about one third of the minimum amount I should be charging for such a service in order to start turning a profit around here. Still, beggars can't be choosers: I promised to call after I read the materials
  
  After reading the materials, I realized that taking $4,000 from the client would be tantamount to robbery. He had no more chance of prevailing in this appeal than I do of becoming Pope. I called my ex-partner to explain why. That's what I thought you'd say, he told me. That's what I hoped you'd say. Could you put that in a letter to me so I can use it to show my client that I talked to an appellate lawyer, so he can see that I've turned over every leaf and there just is no point in continuing this?
  
  I wrote the letter.
• Along the way, I fielded a call from a colleague with whom I'm working on a personal injury case. Our client may have a serious injury. She may also be trying to fake something. Or, possibly, there is another process going on here -- she is a lady of a certain age -- that is unrelated to her accident. We're waiting -- we've been waiting -- for a neuropsychologist's report that will (hopefully) tell us what we're dealing with. But it's been a year already since the accident. And the insurance company for the at-fault driver might not simply write us a check because of our report, should it be favorable to us, and should it ever get here. If all the tumblers align, we could be looking at a nice payday -- but they aren't aligned yet and may never be.
  
  Besides, that's not why my colleague really called. She has another case -- a littler one -- a passenger injured in a taxicab-pedestrian collision. The cab driver is a former client who thought my colleague did good work for him. He recommended my colleague, in fact, to his passenger; he gave her the phone number. My colleague wanted to know if she was conflicted out of the representation. I worked through the ethics rules with her and told her I thought she was free to undertake the passenger's case -- but she'd be wise to let the cab company's insurer know about her prior representation of the driver. First of all, they'd find out anyway....
• The next telephone conversation was with another colleague for whom I'd done a different appeal. Anonymously. And that was at my request. The appeal is fundamentally flawed and the attorneys who are pursuing it -- the ones who retained my colleague -- are foolish to take the case up. I'm pretty well convinced that they not only failed to properly preserve the substantive points of error, they actually failed to preserve appellate jurisdiction. That's the kind of thing that can force you to have to call your malpractice carrier.
  
  Still, I marshaled all my skills and wrote the best darn brief I could. It seems to have struck a nerve with the other side: They haven't figured out the jurisdictional flaw yet -- which doesn't mean the court won't do it on its own -- but opposing counsel were apparently so concerned about my brief that they brought a motion to strike my statement of facts as 'argumentative.'
  
  One does not argue a case in a statement of facts -- not overtly. On the other hand, the purpose of the statement of facts is to tell the story in a way that, by itself, gets the court thinking about ruling in your favor. You can't do that (not properly, at least) by omitting pertinent facts, or glossing over inconvenient facts, but by arranging all of the relevant facts in the case, good and bad alike, in the most persuasive order possible. In other words, if you've done your job properly, and if the other side is not represented by experienced appellate counsel, you may draw a motion to strike because they perceive that your statement was so darned persuasive it must be argumentative. It's almost a compliment, albeit of the decidedly left-handed variety. I needed to see if my colleague liked the Objections to the motion I'd prepared on Tuesday. She did.
  
  Coincidentally, if you noted my comment on what I should be charging for briefs, in this case I made the princely sum of $1,250, about one-tenth of what I need to charge. That includes my fee for writing the Reply Brief (probably this coming weekend). I might make more on this case -- eventually -- even though it should be a loser, but only because my colleague has agreed to share more of her contingent fee in another appeal, for these same trial attorneys, that should fare much better on appellate review. Should. Maybe. Someday.
• I also had a telephone conversation with a young attorney about a case where I'm representing a lady who works at my parish. She has no money to pay a $122 ticket that the City has resurrected some 11 years after it was (allegedly) written. It is over a decade too late to challenge the ticket on its merits, but not too late for the City to try and collect. (No, seriously.) The problem is that the City's records, such as they are, are decidedly at odds with my client's recollection. Now, I grant you that it is possible to forget a parking ticket with the passage of time. But my client recollects that the City towed her car away in the middle of the night, then made her hand over her car title lest it bankrupt her with storage fees. (The car was supposedly abandoned. It was old, yes, but drivable, and licensed, and insured. But a neighbor -- a neighbor with some serious juice apparently -- decided she didn't like the old car parked on her block and agitated to get it towed away.)
  
  The "problem" is that the City has no record of this. Well, yes, midnight thefts are probably not well documented, even by the City of Chicago. But what this lady says happened to her car is sadly plausible. In other words, yes, I believe her. (She gave up her car title because she was thinking of selling the car anyway and she realized she'd not get that much for a 15-year old car in the best of circumstances.) The lawyer who is running the local office of the private collection firm on behalf of the City is a former Deputy Commissioner of Revenue. She was an honest, hard-working, straight-as-an-arrow public servant -- but she knew darn good and well that there were those in her department who were decidedly otherwise.
  
  My problem is that I'm not dealing with this lawyer. I'm dealing with her green-as-grass associate. To him the City's records are Holy Writ. What is not there never happened. He will not be moved by my pleas. I've asked him to talk it over with his boss -- the former Deputy -- and he has promised to do so. But she may not have the discretion to act in my lady's favor and my lady may yet be saddled with paying the ticket. I've warned my client of this, of course, and told her to start putting aside the money while I make my last Don Quixote effort. But, gosh, I'd like to win this one. Even though I can't -- and won't -- charge the poor woman a dime.

I did some billable work in the afternoon, for a client that doesn't pay its bills until I scream to the company's general counsel. That's no way to endear me to my client, or my client to me. And the work I did was insufficient, even if timely paid, to defray my 'nut' for the day.

But here I am again, back at the Teeny Tiny Law Office, ready in case work -- or a check -- decides to find me.

My auto insurance payment is overdue. It's raining. And, I've discovered, my shoes are no longer water-tight.

Curmudgeon takes stock at the end of a very long week

Luann comic, by Greg Evans, obtained from Yahoo! Comics.

If you saw last Saturday's post, you know why this comic struck home with me.

I'm still angry about what happened. How could I have let myself deteriorate to such an extent?

Mind you, I'm not sufficiently motivated yet to do anything about my evident physical decline -- I'm still in the hand-wringing stage -- and, besides, things are too hectic at home for me to take on some sort of conditioning venture. And what would I do anyway? The Chicago Marathon takes place this weekend and thousands of people, many of them older than me, are going to run 26.2 miles. I can't run 26.2 feet.

The good news is that I can bend my legs again without any pain. It only took several days.

Younger Daughter has already called this morning. Whatever is lurking in the fireplace chimney, just above the (thankfully) closed flue, is active again this morning -- not quite dead yet, apparently. Long Suffering Spouse heard it first. It's hard to describe my wife as she hears something alive and amiss: She gets entirely rigid, achingly alert, and waves of tension, maybe like sonar waves, emanate from the vicinity of her head and shoulders. But she was soon satisfied that, whatever it is, it isn't coming in the house anytime soon. Thus, we were able to leave the house and go to work today.

Younger Daughter was not mollified in the least when I related this to her. Long Suffering Spouse predicted how she'd be. "This is unacceptable," she told me. "Call someone to get that thing out of the chimney -- and be here when they get here," she demanded. I suggested she turn on the TV instead so she couldn't hear it. "I had the TV on," she said.

Of course, Younger Daughter's frayed nerves never had a chance to stop twanging: The Beast in the Chimney arrived Wednesday morning. Yesterday afternoon a giant wasp got into the house. (These things happen as we transition from Summer to Fall.) She used about 18 gallons of wasp spray in an effort to dispatch the creature -- she must have missed badly for some time -- and then couldn't find the wasp's carcass. "This is unacceptable," she told me yesterday afternoon. I suggested that, if the dead wasp had fallen to the floor, her baby would find it for her. Just keep an eye on the kid, I said.

Younger Daughter didn't like that one little bit.

Youngest Son is expected home sometime today. He has a week-long Fall break; he has graciously agreed to spend at least parts of three days of that with us. He has to go back to school early next week because he has to begin winterizing the baseball field. It's been gorgeous in the greater Chicago area the last couple of weeks -- but the one certainty about Midwest weather is that, now we're in October, Winter may begin at any moment. There's no transition required.

Long Suffering Spouse had a brutal week at school. She had an evaluation scheduled for yesterday and her principal is using a new method this year requiring the kind of detailed lesson plan that education majors don't have to write in their most paper-intense class. She's been up late every night this week stressing about the evaluation -- and trying to keep up with everything else she has to do. And then she had to schedule a conference with a problem student as well; that was supposed to take place at the end of the day yesterday.

The parent meeting did take place -- but the evaluation didn't. The principal had gotten behind. When Long Suffering Spouse found her later in the afternoon (giving her the lesson-plan-on-steroids) the principal was surprised. "Why didn't you send someone to get me?" she asked. "I figured you must have had someone in your office or that something else had come up," my wife said. Leafing through the massive lesson plan, the principal said, "Well, thank you for being so considerate." She promised to drop by some other time, assuring my wife that she needn't do another of these lesson plans.

My wife is not happy. "She's going to drop in on me unannounced and I'm going to look totally unprepared." I tried to reassure her -- she's always prepared -- but she wasn't buying.

We'll see how things go today. Fortunately, she has Monday off. Courts are closed Monday, too.

And I actually had some legal work to do this week. I'd tell you about some of that, too, except I still have legal work to do and the morning is getting away from me. Again.

And, thanks to modern technology, we can get jarring telephone calls even on the train!

Wireless signal is spotty along the CTA's Blue Line train tracks, especially when the sometime-elevated train becomes the Subway. Maybe that's why the caller ID on my oh-so-smart phone said "Unknown."

The last time the oh-so-smart phone said "Unknown" -- also when I was on the train -- it turned out to be Long Suffering Spouse. This time it was Younger Daughter. And, yes, thank you, I do have my wife and daughter -- all my children and children-in-law, in fact -- in my Contacts list. So I should have seen Younger Daughter's name and her number when she called yesterday, although I saw neither.

"Hello?" I said, tentatively. (One of these days, I'll answer a call from Unknown and it will turn out to be a sales call. From that day forward, all Unknown calls will be denied.)

"You're going to have to turn around and come home," Younger Daughter announced.

"What's the matter?"

"There's something in the fireplace and it's alive."

"What do you mean, in the fireplace?

"Well, I can hear it. It's moving and scratching -- here, listen." She must have held the phone near the fireplace -- pretty brave of her, really, considering -- and, over the roar of the train and the fading signal, it is entirely possible that I heard some sort of skittering noise.

"It's a bird or squirrel," I said. "It must have fallen in the chimney. But the flue is closed. It can't get in the house."

"Are you sure?"

"If the flue is closed, I am. And the flue is closed."

That was about when the signal gave up the ghost.

But several texts accumulated while I was out of range.

I called Younger Daughter back when I got in the office.

"I agree with your plan," I told her (having read through the several text messages). "Today seems like a fine day to take the baby out for errands."

"Well the noise stopped," she said. "Maybe it climbed out."

"Or died."

"Yeah." Younger Daughter did not seem comforted by this possibility.

"Well, don't open the flue to find out which it is," I suggested. I didn't mean to be rude, I told her, but I actually had stuff to do yesterday -- including telling you about the first phone call yesterday morning -- and I had to go to court as well. (Imagine that: I sometimes still go to court!) Younger Daughter seemed mollified by the end of our conversation; she outlined an ambitious itinerary that included retail therapy and a visit to Abuela. I said OK and plunged into my day.

Three hours later or so I was in the lobby of the Daley Center looking for someone. The person I was looking for was allegedly looking for someone, too. But the person I was looking for was nowhere to be seen. Meanwhile, the court had been waiting 45 minutes. I pulled out my phone to check messages -- I didn't expect to find this man hiding in my voice mail, but there might have been a clue.

Instead, there was only a frantic message from Long Suffering Spouse. "Where are you? I've called your cell phone, I've called your office and I can't find you! There's some sort of animal in the house!"

Apparently I wasn't the only one Younger Daughter had texted. My wife keeps her phone off during the school day -- she doesn't trust the 'mute' button -- but she must have had a moment to switch it on during her lunch break yesterday. The message had just been left a few minutes before, though, so I tried to call my wife.

She answered. "Where are you? I've been trying to find you everywhere."

"In court."

"Oh. I'll hang up."

"No, I'm outside the courtroom now." (I'd gone back up on the elevator as I was dialing the phone.) "I already talked to Younger Daughter. It's not in the house. It's in the chimney above the fireplace. It can't get through the flue. Whatever it was stopped moving a couple of hours ago now."

"It probably died."

"That's what I said."

"Well, we can't use the fireplace!"

"We haven't used the fireplace in two years."

"Sure we have. Haven't we? Once?"

"Look, bottom line here is the noise is stopped. Whatever it was is dead or gone. Younger Daughter and the baby are going out on errands. We can figure out everything later."

I had to get back to the courtroom to report the outcome of my unsuccessful reconnoiter. Sometimes work intrudes on the steady stream of family phone calls.

Some people wonder why I long for the days when we weren't accessible 24/7/365. But, just once, I would like to start in on a project and work on it without interruption.

Do you know the surest way to get a client phone call? Start in on a different file. If you can start in on a different file -- if all the crises at home are being managed....

Late afternoon, early morning phone calls shatter your nerves as well

It is always a nervous time in the Curmudgeon home, don't get me wrong. A young Woody Allen would complain that we're all too neurotic, even for him. A young Robin Williams would complain that we're far too manic for him to be comfortable.

But we have been even more on edge than usual for the past several weeks because Older Daughter has tried her luck again with IVF -- a different doctor -- different medications -- same old roller coaster ride (for more about Older Daughter's past IVF experiences, click on the IVF tab at the bottom of this post).

Except.

Except maybe -- this time -- there may be a different outcome.

No, I haven't written about this latest attempt before. I've written about others and they all turned out badly. I won't write about the details now. I don't believe in tempting fate. But I have to mention -- to tell this story -- that, despite an inauspicious beginning, and some very dark moments along the way, things had progressed, as of yesterday, to the point where an ultrasound was scheduled and it was anticipated that a heartbeat would be clearly visible.

Older Daughter is in Indianapolis; the rest of us are in Chicago. We had to wait for her report. Nervously.

She got hold of her sister first. "Hello?" said Younger Daughter. "What's the news?"

There was silence on the end of the line.

"Hello?" repeated Younger Daughter. "Are you there?" (She wanted to ask, are you OK? but there was no way to frame that question in a way that would get a 'yes' answer if the news were bad -- and the continued silence was really getting to her.)

"I'm really pregnant," came the response, finally. Oh, so softly.

So understated that Younger Daughter had to consider an extra second or two whether the news was good or bad.

Long Suffering Spouse later reported a similar lull at the outset of her eventual conversation with Older Daughter. "I couldn't tell if it was good news or bad at first," she told me later. "But she's so happy -- and I'm so happy for her -- but, I have to tell you, if she said 'it's surreal' one more time, I was going to reach through the phone and strangle her, happy or not."

No, she wasn't really threatening her child; she was venting pressure. We all were. Older Daughter called six more times or so. Long Suffering Spouse had her on the speakerphone at one point as Older Daughter was talking about really wanting to eat salty foods and drink milk.

"Pretty soon you'll want pickles and ice cream," I said. No, Long Suffering Spouse never had bizarre cravings like that, but I've watched my share of sitcoms, back in the day.

"They both sound good," Older Daughter said, "but maybe not together."

"So is it official?" I asked. "Can I start drinking for two?"

"Well, my husband is," she said. "I bought him a bottle of 10 year old Bushmill's this afternoon on my way home from the doctor."

Older Daughter had told her husband she'd buy him a bottle of good whiskey when she knew she was pregnant. This was actually bottle number two -- she'd bought another one a couple of weeks ago when a prior ultrasound demonstrated a fetal pull (the precursor of a heartbeat). In her excitement at the time, she'd confided all this to the salesman who waited on her in the liquor store. She saw the same salesman yesterday afternoon, she told us.

"And he said 'so this means things are going well?' and I said 'you remembered?' and he said 'I told you I'd be praying for you.'"

"You have no idea how many people have been praying for you," Long Suffering Spouse interjected at this point. "So many."

Yes, there was a general lessening of tension in the Curmudgeon household yesterday evening -- great happiness and joy (and relief) for Older Daughter and her husband Hank.

And, then, this morning, at about 6:40 or so, the house phone rang. Long Suffering Spouse was already downstairs; I was still getting dressed. She beat me to the closest phone. I had no doubt about who was calling; I ran down the stairs half-dressed. Fortunately I did not trip on my untied shoelaces.

Long Suffering Spouse heard me coming and met me in the dining room.

"She's going to kill me," she said.

"What's wrong?" I asked. I didn't really want to know, but I knew I would have to listen.

"Nothing," my wife said. "She just called to say she hopes I have a nice day. I almost had a heart attack there."

"Me too. Was there anything else?"

"Well, yeah, she said she must have been so stressed yesterday that this morning she could hardly move."

"I'll just bet."

Younger Daughter stumbled down the steps a moment later. "Who was that, as if I didn't know? What happened?"

"Everything's fine," Long Suffering Spouse and I said at once. Long Suffering Spouse continued to explain about how Older Daughter complained about being unable to move this morning."

"At one point yesterday," Younger Daughter told us, "she told me her co-workers must all hate her. She kept looking at the clock. Six hours to go, she'd tell them. Five and a half hours to go. If even she realized that she was making everyone around her crazy, it must have been awful."

"How are we going to survive until May?" asked Long Suffering Spouse, but neither I nor Younger Daughter have an answer to that one.

Calls after midnight are the ones that are supposed to scare us, right? Nothing good happens after midnight? But now, we see, calls in the middle of the day -- and certainly first thing in the morning -- can be just as frightening.

And that was just the beginning of my day.

Tomorrow's post will cover the next crisis that arose -- all before I got into the office....

A very scary moment on an el platform

I've tried to come up with someone else to blame for this one.

Some of you may think that's the lawyer in me, locked by habit and temperament into a never-ending quest for a deep pocket. I think it's the human in me: Which of us wants to accept responsibility for our own shortcomings?

OK, granted, I was at a reception Thursday night and I spent a good deal of time talking to a man just a few years older than me, a retired Marine officer, who was telling me all about the ten marathons he was running this year -- 10! -- including some abomination he'd already run called the Old Farts Marathon, held in Michigan in the woods over what amounts to an obstacle course. Climbing walls, rocks to be scaled, and somehow the course seemed to be almost entirely uphill. I don't understand the idea of running marathons. Having at least a rudimentary classical education, I keep remembering what was traditionally reported as the fate of Pheidippides, the messenger who ran from Marathon to Athens to inform the city of the glorious victory over the Persians: He supposedly wheezed out news of the victory, then dropped dead. I know that I'd be winded running from the back of the house to answer the front door if the doorbell were ringing. I know that, so I can't blame the man with whom I that pleasant conversation for what happened.

It had been a pleasant gathering. I'd had nothing stronger than water, you understand, and it was a beautiful evening, not too warm, not too cool, humid, but not oppressively so. The reception was in the West Loop and I was planning to take the el back downtown, where I could pick up the family van and get home. I was under orders to buy jelly on the way. Still, because it was so pleasant (the rain forecast for the evening had so far held off) I was toying with the notion of walking back.

Then the phone rang.

It was Long Suffering Spouse. "You said you'd be home by now." I looked at my watch -- yeah, I know, I'm supposed look only at the phone, but old habits die hard. Long Suffering Spouse had a difficult day at school and she had to go talk to her principal about the behavior of the 8th grade boys. My wife didn't get out of school until around the time I was planning to leave for the reception -- so I started a half hour late. And I was leaving only a half hour later than originally planned -- not so bad, I thought. But Long Suffering Spouse had a different opinion. "I'm on my way," I told her -- and I was. I terminated the call and put the phone back in my suit jacket pocket.

It was at that point I noticed my umbrella was missing. I'd brought an umbrella to the reception because of the weather forecast. I'd been carrying it in a side pocket. I hadn't noticed when it fell out.

Maybe it fell out when I reached into my jacket for the phone, I thought, and backtracked a block or so looking for it, without success.

Well, that took some more time, didn't it? And my wife had already chided me for being late. So I abandoned any thought of walking back and started again for the train.

Still, I can't blame my wife for what happened -- or even the umbrella. I knew better.

The el station had been recently remodeled. It had all the modern doohickeys including the little screen suspended from the ceiling that says when to expect trains. The screen refreshed as I was looking at it -- and it said the Pink Line train to the Loop was due. I'd catch that train if I ran up the stairs. Lots and lots of stairs.

But I can't blame the sign. I knew better.

And yet... and yet... there I was charging up the stairs like Teddy Roosevelt up San Juan Hill. Without the horse, of course (a horse's ass, perhaps).

My legs became increasingly heavy and were largely useless by the time I was about a half dozen steps short of the platform. The train was in the station. I grabbed the railing and started pulling myself up.

Ding dong! came the noise from the train speakers, doors closing.

A couple of younger men passed me up as I huffed and puffed those last couple of stairs.

I let go of the railing, lurched onto the platform, and toppled over faster than a pagan idol at a missionary convention.

The thud stopped the young men who were heading into the train. One held the door while the other came back to offer assistance.

"Are you OK?" he said.

I tried to stand, but my legs would not work. "I can't stand up," I said.

He offered a hand, but I couldn't pull myself up. My legs would not work.

Doors closing, said the train speakers. The man's companion successfully blocked the doors again.

The train was only a few feet away. The doors were open right in front of me. I just couldn't get there.

My good Samaritan got down and gave me his shoulder. With his help, I got on my feet. I wasn't really walking, though. He more or less dragged me into the train. "Thank you," I managed and threw myself into a bench seat.

Two young women were sitting across from me, watching.

"I'm so embarrassed," I said.

"I didn't see anything," one said.

"Me either," said the other.

I spent the train ride silently calculating my chances of being able to stand unassisted when I got to my stop. Then I was wondering if I'd be able to walk to the parking garage. Then I wondered if I'd be able to sit in the car. I imagined myself calling from the Jewel parking lot. No, I didn't buy the jelly, I'd have to say, I can't get out of the car.

This was one of the first times I'd ridden in one of the CTA's new cars with mostly bench seats. I hate the whole idea of these cars -- but, on this one occasion I admit that the hanging commuter straps allowed me to hoist myself upright when my stop came. I must have looked like Frankenstein's Monster shuffling stiffly to the parking garage. I winced folding myself into the car. I took a deep breath and discovered I could drive, after all.

I even got the jelly.

But I had to tell my wife about what had happened. I had resolved to tell her even before I discovered that I had ripped my new pants at the knee when I crumbled onto the el platform. I knew I'd been bleeding. I didn't know about the tear.

Long Suffering Spouse and Younger Daughter tried not to call me an idiot, though they both thought I should have known better than to try and run up the stairs like that. And I did know better. Honest.

*Sigh*

After all that, I didn't have the heart to tell Long Suffering Spouse I'd lost an umbrella, too.

It's a rainy, autumnal day in Chicago...

It's a rainy, autumnal day in Chicago. The temperature is supposed to reach 82 this afternoon, but I doubt it will. There's more rain in the area than was forecast, I think.

The lawn, I noticed this morning, needs cutting again, so it's really not yet Fall, but there's the whiff of decaying leaves in the neighborhood these days, a smell magnified by the damp. The minutes are flying off the days now. Even if it's not entirely here, Fall is surely coming.

I'm late arriving at the Undisclosed Location this morning. Oldest Son and Abby are on their way to Texas for a brief visit with her folks and then to Dallas for the Notre Dame - ASU game. I had to drive them to the airport. They were supposed to be at our house at 6:30 for their 8:30 flight. Oldest Son texted his sister (Younger Daughter is the nominal sitter for their dog, Rodent, who will be staying with us this weekend) fairly early, updating their ETA to 6:45. They showed up around 7:25. I got them to O'Hare, weather and all, in 10 minutes.

But the van needed gas and traffic into the City was incredibly snarled. What is it about rain that causes cars to spring up out of the expressway pavement like mushrooms in a low spot? I got gas and headed home for a few minutes before plunging back into the traffic. (No train today, not this late, and not when I'm planning to show up at a reception tonight, if only for a little while.)

Rodent greeted me at the door as if I were a conquering hero. It was all an act, you see; Rodent was trying to make Younger Daughter jealous. Rodent can't quite understand why Younger Daughter insists on paying any attention to her daughter when she has a perfectly lovely Shih Tzu dog to pet. Younger Daughter explained it all to me.

The Baby to Be Named Later needed to take a nap and Younger Daughter put her down just before I left. "Rodent looked so happy when I came down the stairs by myself," Younger Daughter told me. "She really doesn't like the baby. But she hates it when the baby cries, so she's not all bad."

We got the mail late yesterday, but today the mail came early.

Either way, there was no money.

And the rent is just about overdue. Again.

Like the advancing season, I continue to move ahead. There's no where else to go.

The Stupid Party strikes again

Congress passed the Affordable Care Act in 2010 by the slimmest of margins, securing the necessary votes by methods that were (at best) dubious, and without bothering to read the stupid thing. We have to pass the bill so you can find out what's in it, then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi famously said.

The process was so partisan and (arguably) so tainted that there was a backlash and Democrats were swept out of the majority in the House of Representatives in the 2010 mid-term elections. Speaker Pelosi was reduced to Minority Leader. But, just as it takes both the House and the Senate to pass a bill, it also takes both houses to repeal a bill.

The Republicans did not recapture the Senate. So despite the House Republicans' voting to repeal it nearly every other day since taking over the majority in 2011, the Affordable Care Act, now universally dubbed Obamacare, remained on the books.

Remains on the books.

You have to start at least from there in evaluating the current debacle in Washington.

Actually, you could go back a couple of decades and note that many of the key components of Obamacare have Republican roots, including the now-hated individual mandate. There are a number of Republicans in Congress today who were for individual mandates -- who viewed them as nothing more than a tax, just as Chief Justice Roberts would do much more recently -- before they decided they were unconstitutional abominations. (Repeat after me: The Supreme Court is not final because it's right, but right because it's final.)

Mr. Potter would have loved the Affordable Care Act

And you can see why many Big Business Republicans might have been for Obamacare at one point: It looks like it was designed by a committee of the most cold-hearted, miserly MBAs ever assembled.

Let's see... health insurance for an employee's family generally costs $10,000 to $15,000 a year. And businesses have to hire people to assist with employee claims (when the insurance company inevitably messes up) and negotiate with the insurance company on annual rate increases and benefits provided. Or, under Obamacare, they can pay a tax -- ooooh, a penalty -- of $2,000 an employee and let the workers fend for themselves. Gee, that's a hard one. Hmmm. Save as much (or more) than $10,000 per employee and avoid the hassles of dealing with insurance or pay a negligible penalty? Now, of course, penalties will go up -- so give everyone $6,000 (for example) and send them into the exchanges to fend for themselves.

Obamacare was designed to fail. Do not kid yourself otherwise. Private insurers will benefit in the short term (idiot MBAs again, lured by the fool's gold of government subsidies) but when the dust clears the government will be paying most of the nation's insurance tab, whether through income-based subsidies or as the insurer of last resort.

Many Democrats want this to happen because, they believe, the nation will then demand a more "equitable" single payer system instead.

Meanwhile, many large companies -- Big, Big Business -- have applied to the Obama Administration for waivers for a year or more before assuming the burdens (and -- for them -- the benefits!) of Obamacare, and the Administration has granted most of the requests. Some unions and some states (apparently even some "Blue" states) have requested waivers of certain Obamacare provisions as these apply to them in whole or in part.

But there is one group that has definitely not been granted any sort of waiver: The Little Guy. The currently uninsured. They must plunge into the exchanges (ready or not) and fend for themselves.

Instead of shutting down the federal government, the Republicans might have highlighted the unfairness of this: Giving breaks to Big Business while throttling the Little Guys' necks.

Of course, a lot of Republicans (just like a lot of Democrats, apparently) think that sort of thing is just fine.

So... the Republicans decided to play "chicken" with the Senate and shut down the government.

Except... Obamacare implementation is not affected by the shutdown! It continues, while tourists are turned away from museums in Washington and campers are turned away from our national parks.

All the Republicans had to do was call press conferences to read constituent complaints about Obamacare. There'd be a lot of press conferences. But, no, the Republicans decided to shut down the 'gummint.'

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Another guest post from the Baby to Be Named Later

The following post was found underneath the baby's high chair this morning. My granddaughter's printing isn't the greatest, but I think I've been able to faithfully transcribe it....

-- Curmudgeon

Grandpa C found out that I know all about his blog back in April when I left my first guest post. But I haven't blabbed to anyone. It's good to have something I can hold over the old guy... just in case.

Just in case of what, I'm not sure.

And, speaking of not sure, I'm not exactly sure about what's been going on around here the last couple of days.

Mommy got some balloons from the store -- they're huge! -- and they stay up in the air all by themselves. One is giant number 1 -- I know this because I watch Sesame Street videos these days on everybody's phone or on Grandma's iPad.

I don't know why it's Grandma's iPad. Grandpa always seems to have it. He thinks he can play word games when I'm in the room, but I soon put him straight.

Anyway, the other balloon is a giant cupcake. I didn't know about cupcakes before but Mommy baked up a whole bunch of them, and I got to eat some of them. They're pretty good. She puts frosting on some of them, too. That's even better -- but every time I eat one with frosting, someone takes my picture.

The last couple of days my picture has been taken so many times; I'm getting pretty concerned about it. Has my appearance suddenly changed? I know my hair has grown in some -- Mommy puts bows on me now -- but that's been pretty gradual and doesn't explain all this sudden activity.

And I've been standing more, lately, too. Crawling is still faster, but when I stand I can get at anything they leave on the coffee table in the den -- food, glasses, phones. You'd think they'd discourage this -- they're so picky about my picking up their glasses, for example -- but they cheer me on. Last weekend Mommy and Daddy got me shoes. Grandma and Grandpa and Mommy and Daddy all wear shoes when they go out of the house. At night, Grandpa will come home and take his shoes off just as soon as he can. They must affect his hearing because when he takes them off he says something about dogs barking. They also keep you awake: Grandma takes her shoes off and promptly falls asleep. But now they want me to wear shoes -- and in the house, too.

But this standing and edging along the furniture has been pretty gradual. The shoes are recent, but, like I said, that was the weekend. And all the pictures and all this other strange stuff started towards the end of the week.

My first guess was that it had something to do with teeth.

I have got to tell you, growing these things are murder. I know grownups walk around with whole mouths full of these things, but I can't imagine how you can stand the pain of getting them all.

It's soured my disposition, let me tell you. It's given me fevers and I wake up at all hours and Mommy and Daddy say some of my diapers are terrible.

Growing teeth hasn't hurt my appetite, though, and I can eat bread now.

Grandpa says I beg for table scraps worse than any puppy he's ever seen. He tells me that he doesn't try to take any of the food off my plate when I eat -- so why should I be trying to take food off his plate?

Grandpas are so silly, aren't they? Have you seen the mush Mommy and Daddy try and palm off on me?

Anyway, after Mommy got me those two giant balloons, Daddy came home with an Elmo balloon, too.

I'm a big Elmo fan, which Grandpa says is kind of creepy. I don't think I want to know what he's getting at. I'd rather watch Elmo sing the "Elmo Song" with Big Bird and Snuff -- Snufflup -- Snuffleupagus -- you know, that's a pretty big word for a little kid to write -- and I like Elmo and the Ducks and Elmo singing with Adam Sandler, too.

Yesterday, Abuela came over and she brought some more balloons. No more Elmo balloons though. Grandpa came home last night and said he's figured out that we're the cause of the helium shortage. He's always saying strange things like that.

After thinking about it, I couldn't figure any connection between this flurry of activity and my teeth. Now I'm afraid something much more sinister is going on: Last night, after strapping me into my high chair, Mommy gave me a cupcake -- with frosting -- just like I like it -- but this time she set it on fire. And everybody, Mommy, Daddy, Grandma, Grandpa -- they all sang some sort of song at me.

I started crying. I don't think a kid my age can be a heretic. Why, then, are they trying to burn me at the stake?

And there's something else, too: Usually, when I crawl around and find a magazine or a book or a newspaper on the floor, I like to open them up and read it. That's what Grandma and Grandpa do with these things; I've seen them. They can turn pages without tearing them, though, and they seem to get upset with me when I tear pages out. I try and quickly eat the evidence so they won't notice, but that only seems to get them more upset. I've gotten picked up and carried out of the room unceremoniously more than once for doing nothing more that that, I can tell you.

So... what is going on with these people?

Yesterday, they gave me boxes wrapped in paper and they told me to tear it up. (They still wouldn't let me eat it, though.)

And here's the scary part: They let me tear the paper but they kept taking pictures.

Are they setting me up for something?

Arrogant or tone deaf? Regardless, the new pastor is brave

We begin this morning's exercise by giving a name to our new pastor. In his case, for reasons that will shortly become apparent, we will have to give him a first and last name.

As always, this is not the pastor's actual name. Nobody that appears in these essays is called by his or her actual name.

I do this to protect my own anonymity -- and, more importantly, my family's. In this particular case, the need for anonymity takes on a special relevance because my wife teaches in the parish grade school. Her job provides our health insurance benefits; there have been months where hers is the only income we've had. Too many months, lately. So -- while I'm not saying retaliation would be likely were I unmasked -- I live in fear. My last tenuous toehold on the middle class could be lost, at least for awhile, if I make my identity, or the new pastor's identity, too obvious.

In providing a name, I have searched the Internet, confirming (as best as I am able) that there is no person named Fr. Timothy X. Warnn. That said, I hereby dub the new pastor, Fr. Timothy X. Warnn. I apologize to anyone named Timothy X. Warnn, living or dead, and assure you that I'm not talking about you personally.

Heck, I even apologize to our new pastor. I know I'm not being nice. I much prefer to be nice. But I think I'm being fair. You, dear readers, will not be able to judge whether I am being fair, because you only know my side of the story. You can only decide if you like the stories.

And, so, without further ado, today's stories....

Attendance at Saturday's 8:30 a.m. Mass was larger than usual because the school football players were in attendance, along with at least some of their parents.

It is a tradition in our parish to have the junior varsity and varsity teams attend Mass on game days, when possible.

In the old days (when Oldest Son was playing) this was easy: All the games were on Sunday, and the teams attended 9:00 a.m. Mass, with all the boys in uniform, and the widgets (what we called the JVs then) in their jerseys and pads because their game was played first and they would go directly from church to pregame in the school gym or (if it was a road trip) possibly to the park where the game would be played. The kids all sat together in the front pews, on either side of the center aisle, the widgets on one side and the varsity on the other. Coach Gallagher and all the assistants would be in attendance, too.

Over time, this became complicated. Coach Gallagher had children of his own. As each new little one came along (Coach's oldest is a year older than Youngest Son), the logistics got harder and harder and, eventually, the 9:00 a.m. Sunday Game Day tradition had to be scrapped.

But it all worked out. Conference alignments changed and games were sometimes played on Saturdays instead of Sundays. One memorable weekend, when we had a Sunday game, we had a special anticipatory Mass on Saturday afternoon in the Monastery next door to the church. It was a very nice, intimate service... until one of the kids, who'd been battling a flu bug but didn't want to tell anyone lest he not be allowed to play, suddenly -- and dramatically -- lost the battle.

The real virtue of the kids coming to a regularly scheduled Mass, however, was that the parish could see the boys and feel a tie to the parish school (which the parishioners have so generously supported over the years). It never hurts to renew and reinforce those ties.

So it was on Saturday that the teams were in church for the regular 8:30 a.m. daily Mass, sitting down in front (just where, you'd think, the new pastor would want them) with their coaches. Yes, they were wearing their game jerseys.

Fr. Timothy X. Warnn, the new pastor, presided at this Mass and, to no one's surprise, he mentioned the boys sitting down front in his Homily.

What surprised, and angered, the kids' parents was how he mentioned them.

I never liked football, Fr. Warnn told the congregation. It's just one group of thugs beating on another group of thugs.

Oh, my.

There have been priests before in our parish who were not great football fans. They were easy enough to spot. But they had enough sense to offer a few words of encouragement for sportsmanlike behavior, cooperative teamwork, determined effort -- all the positives that football -- or any organized team sport -- can provide. At the very least they offered a prayer for the safety of the boys and for their opponents.

When we heard the story, we asked our informant about any qualifications (as above) that might have been offered by the new pastor. Nope, we were told, none whatsoever.

"How arrogant!" I fumed. "Well," said my wife, "maybe he's just a little tone-deaf." (Blessed are the peacemakers.)

But there was no making peace with the next person we ran across who mentioned Fr. Timothy X. Warnn.

She is, shall we say, a lady of a certain age. And she knows her own mind. Sometimes rather forcefully.

I think this is characteristic of many women of a certain age. Take my mother-in-law the other day. She was livid that someone had had the temerity to tell her what she should, or should not do (it was in regards to a social matter). "I will not be told what to do," she fulminated. "I'm 80 years old and I can do what I please."

And you'd better let her, that's all I can say.

Anyway, this other woman of a certain age said she'd come up to Fr. Timothy X. Warnn after Mass to ask him about something or other.

She addressed him as "Fr. Tim." In our parish we have traditionally addressed our priests as Fr. [First Name]. You've read here about our last pastor, Fr. Ed, for example. (Having a touch of the anti-clerical about me, I will often address a priest by his first name alone, dropping reference to his occupation. After all, I am not generally referred to as Lawyer Curmudgeon.)

But this lady of a certain age called the new pastor "Fr. Tim."

The Sun went behind the clouds. The temperature dropped 20 degrees. The pastor actually bristled. "You will call me 'Fr. Warnn,'" he said.

The lady of a certain age told us all this and asked if we knew yet of any petition drives to get rid of this new pastor. "I'll sign," she said.

Well.

Our new pastor may be un-American. He certainly is a control freak. And he may be either arrogant or tone-deaf -- but no one can deny that he is b-r-a-v-e.

Deliberately ticking off the ladies of a certain age? The core constituency of any parish ever? He must be brave.

The new pastor preaches an un-American sermon

Despite my best intentions, I've developed a deep and abiding dislike of our new pastor.

When my mother-in-law declared that she couldn't stand the new man, I defended him. Well, that was only his first week on the job. First impressions are hard to undo... but you have to give someone more of a chance than that, especially when it isn't going to be easy to get rid of him.

Because I wanted to keep an open mind, and form my own opinions, I wanted to hear the new pastor himself. I wanted to hear him preach; I wanted to take his measure from his own words, not from disgruntled parking lot rumors.

This turned out to be more difficult that you might think: My wife and I go to the early Mass on Sunday; the new pastor has offered that Mass exactly twice since he started in July. (Gosh, I wonder if my 7:00 a.m. Mass might be on the chopping block? Eh?)

But when he was there, I was prepared to listen.

The first time was inoffensive. Indeed, although he didn't cite his source, the first Homily I heard the man preach drew heavily on Book VIII of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics (on friendship). Ah, I thought to myself, here is an educated man, one who has had some exposure to -- and is influenced by -- the Classics. That, I thought, counted in his favor.

But then came last Sunday.

I suppose I should have taken notes, but I'm not in the habit of bringing a pen to Mass. And I had no idea, coming in, what I was in for.

Sunday's Gospel reading was from Luke, the Parable of the Dishonest Steward. And, again, the pastor started out innocently enough -- and with a take on the tale I'd not considered before: When the shifty steward called in his master's debtors and allowed them to write down their notes (in the hopes that he'd be welcomed in their houses after his pending dismissal), the pastor said, he was probably doing no more than writing off his own commission. Well, I thought, that would explain the master's almost bemused take on discovering his steward's actions on his way out the door ("the master commended that dishonest steward for acting prudently").

I won't pretend to remember exactly how we got from that to the statement that sent me through the roof. But, somehow, he got from this interpretation to this flat statement, "For a Catholic, there is no separation of Church and State."

What?!?

Of course there is -- that is a bedrock principle of the United States of America, one of the things -- and I'd argue it's the single most important thing -- that has kept us from importing the world's religious wars even as we've imported citizens from every corner of our sorry globe. It is one of the things that makes -- and keeps -- America an exceptional nation (sorry, Mr. Putin, but it is so).

Now, if you want to say that a person should operate in the public sphere according to the morals and values he has learned from his church, I will agree. A person who pretends to profess one set of values at church and who jettisons them on exiting the parking lot of said house of worship is, at best, a hypocrite. That has always been my problem with the "Born Again" crowd of some other Christian sects -- "accepting Jesus Christ" can't be a free pass to Heaven, especially if one proceeds, despite being "saved," to lie, cheat and steal thereafter.

In fact, as I have argued before, it is how we live our lives, not what we preach, and certainly not what our priests and bishops preach, that attracts converts.

I listened carefully to see if the pastor would walk that statement back -- as I have just tried to do -- but he did not.

A priest who doesn't understand that church and state are separate is an Osama bin Laden wannabe. The late, unlamented Osama and the various "Islamist" sects are also contemptuous of the concept of separation of church and state. Religion (according to their own twisted lights) is the ultimate authority. Persons are not free to act in the public sphere according to their consciences which have been formed by their religious beliefs, but, rather, must act according to the dictates of their religious leaders.

That may not be as dangerous as it sounds for most Muslims because Sunni Muslims, the largest sect of that faith, do not have a rigidly structured clerical hierarchy -- although adherents of any number of 'schools' can do (and have done) terrible things, allegedly in the name of their religion, spurred on by the leaders of those 'schools.' But Shiites have imams and ayatollahs that parallel, in many ways, bishops and cardinals in the Roman Church. Thus, with no separation of church and state, the person acting in the public sphere must be guided in all things, not by his conscience, but by the current whim of the Ayatollah -- or of the Cardinal. Or of the pastor?

Actually, Jesus Himself provided a basis for the separation of church and state when He wriggled out of a trap that the Pharisees had set for Him. Matthew and Luke both tell the story: The Pharisees and Herodians (in Matthew's account) asked Jesus if it was lawful to pay taxes to the Roman state. The Roman occupation was not popular (the Jews frequently rebelled, ultimately resulting in Rome's decision to destroy Jerusalem, and the Jewish Temple, in A.D. 70). If Jesus said that paying Caesar's tax was not lawful he was preaching rebellion against Rome -- and could be dealt with as a political enemy. On the other hand, the Pharisees and Herodians, who collaborated with the Romans, at least when it suited their purposes, calculated that Jesus's popular support would instantly vanish if he said that paying taxes was lawful. You remember how it all worked out: Jesus asked for a coin and, when one was provided asked whose image is on this coin? That is an image of Caesar, came the response. And Jesus said, well, "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's and unto God the things that are God's." (The Catholic Bible uses "repay to" instead of "render unto," but however faithful that translation may be to the original text, "render unto" just sounds so much better in English, at least to my ears.)

Anyway, careful listening to the new pastor's sermon merely drove up my blood pressure. And it occurred to me: The wholly wrongheaded idea that church and state are not separate, and all the picayune, entirely unnecessary changes he's imposing on the distribution of Communion, or at the Sign of Peace, and the meat cleaver he will shortly take to the Mass schedule (despite the pretense of publicly welcoming 'input') -- it all fits together. This man is an Authoritarian-on-Steroids, drunk on his own Authority.

He can either sober up -- or go away -- or watch his large parish become small overnight.

More tomorrow.

Pope Francis gets it; new pastor doesn't

Back in March, when we were awaiting the election of a new Pope, I said that it was all rather exciting, but not particularly important.

Far more important, in my opinion, was the sort of new pastor we'd get at my home parish in Chicago. We've just become an Archdiocesan parish; the order of priests that served our parish for over a century has abandoned us because of the increasing age and infirmity of its dwindling membership.

Although I'm a Curmudgeon, I was not reflexively predisposed to dislike the new man; there would be changes, I knew, but I was ready to welcome the new priest. I wanted him to succeed. I was worried not just about him, but for him, too, when the rumor circulated that he would be the only priest assigned to our large parish, a parish that had been served by three priests until just a few years ago. Then we went to two priests. Last year, with the departure of the religious order imminent, we had our long-time pastor, Fr. Ed, and an octogenarian who volunteered to help out as much as he could. Even so, between them, we had our three weekday Masses almost all the time (four on Holy Days) and six weekend Masses, including an increasingly popular 6:00 p.m. Sunday Mass that brought people in from around the area.

Well, the rumor was that the new man would want to cut back on the Mass schedule. And, much as most of the parishioners thought that would be a shame, there was, I think, an understanding that one man alone could not keep up that schedule and do all the other things that the pastor of a modern Catholic parish must do.

Then came the good news! We'd get a curate -- a younger man, fresh out of Mundelein, newly ordained.

Things were looking up.

But the new pastor is still looking to cut back the Mass schedule, even though the cumulative age of the new man and his newer assistant probably don't add up to the age of the senior citizen priest who helped Fr. Ed maintain the supposedly 'grueling' schedule this past year.

The parish bulletin has been running some self-serving gibberish about why we need to cancel Masses. Some examples (rather freely translated):

• It's all the Cardinal's fault (the new guy manages to blame both Cardinal George and the late Cardinal Bernadin -- unless the church is 50% full, the Mass should be axed);
• Fewer Masses = better, even 'inspired' homilies (actually, if a priest would prepare a sermon just once it could be repeated two or three times that same day -- it's not as if the readings have changed);
• People sit too far apart -- they should gather 'round the altar (but have you ever seen how people 'fill in' seats on buses, trains, anywhere, really, where people gather? -- they leave as much space as possible) -- and, besides, wasn't it the Pharisees who crowded down front, beating their breasts, while the truly devout widow stayed in the shadows? God could see her, too.
• They should all sing (that sounds suspiciously Lutheran, but I'm willing to let that one slide since my wife likes to sing in church).

Now that the new pastor has had his say in the Bulletin our feedback will allegedly be appreciated -- but the word on the street is the new schedule, which is already set, goes into effect on the First Sunday of Advent regardless.

We have a big church -- not too big on Christmas or Easter, of course, when the joint is filled to overflowing -- but, according to the new pastor's statistics, there is no normal weekend Mass that even comes close to meeting the 50% "requirement" he has repurposed for his own selfish ends.

He can cut the weekend Masses down to one or two -- and he still won't fill the church. Most of the parish (yes, the ones who come out on Christmas and Easter) won't notice anything until Christmas anyway. That's when they'll show up and find the doors locked. Then they won't come back at all.

In the movies, Fr. O'Malley sang,
"I hope you're going my way, too."
In my parish, the new pastor
has quite a different approach.

The only thing our new pastor is going to accomplish by this wrong-headed scheme is to drive his regular parishioners away. My wife and I are already looking around.

But isn't that the exact opposite of what the Church says it wants to do?

Pope Francis, God bless him, has likened the Church to a field hospital, treating the spiritually wounded. He gets it; our new pastor doesn't. Do we close hospital ERs because the Chief Resident would like to get a couple hours more sleep on Saturday nights?

Fr. Robert Barron, now the Rector of the Archdiocesan seminary at Mundelein, is launching a new video series on evangelization this month. What would Fr. Barron say about our new pastor?

Evangelization involves filling empty seats, not cutting back on the opportunities to fill the seats. And how do we fill up the seats?

One thing we should do is welcome people -- and provide as many opportunities as we can for that purpose.

Frankly, the offering of the Mass, while it is something that only a priest can do, is among the less demanding tasks that a Catholic pastor is called upon to perform.

When the new guy sends up clear signals that he is hell-bent (and I use the term advisedly) on messing up the easy part, how can we expect anything but disaster from him on the tough stuff?

Our new pastor is a control freak that makes me -- a lawyer, and therefore a control freak myself, by definition -- look tame.

He's decided people reach too far with their Sign of Peace (a greeting ritual, usually a handshake, during the Liturgy of the Eucharist). The new pastor decrees that this should be only be given to the person immediately next to, or in front of, or behind. Don't wave at someone across the aisle, or nod across the church (you should be sitting next to each other anyway!) and, whatever you do, don't stretch across a pew to shake hands with someone. Oh, and those Eucharistic Ministers, the ones who help distribute Communion? Don't come up to the altar until the priest has concluded leading the prayer immediately before Communion ("Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof...) and, for God's sake, don't greet your fellow ministers! And no more Eucharistic Ministers may be dispatched to the back of the church (we have a central aisle which my church architect son-in-law may or may not consider a modern transept), even if Mass is crowded. (You don't want those people coming back anyway! We only want people who want to sit down in front.)

I could go on, but I think I've conveyed the gist: Rules, Rules and more Rules! Bing Crosby's fictional Fr. Charles O'Malley asked if we were going his way; our new pastor says 'Go My Way or Hit the Highway.' Compare this attitude to the one conveyed by Fr. Barron in the video below.

Which Church would you rather belong to?

And it's all the same Church!

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Readers will have to indulge me for one more post about this new pastor, which I'll hopefully get out of my system tomorrow. I told you that I wanted to give this guy the benefit of the doubt -- so I really wanted to listen to his Homily last Sunday. What he said outraged me, as a Catholic, yes, but also as an American. But that's tomorrow, real world permitting.

Fr. Robert Barron on evangelization

This video has been out since February 2012 but it strikes me as particularly applicable to the situation in my home parish these days -- a parish in transition, as some readers may recall. I'm working on a post about it -- hopefully even general readers may find it amusing, even if it is quite serious to me.

But this nine minute (or so) video by Fr. Robert Barron stakes out the position I'd like to advance. Even as I try to be humorous.

Does it make a difference to your opinion on Syria that President Obama is seeking authorization from Congress before acting?

It makes a difference to me.

I'm still far from enthusiastic about what I'm convinced will be another well-intentioned, ill-fated and ultimately-helpful-to-al-Qaeda misadventure in the Mideast.

If I were in Congress I'd be asking the brass hats and policy wonks how any proposed action won't help al-Qaeda as much or more than it hurts the Assad regime. I'd need to be persuaded. I don't know that I could be persuaded on this one.

But, for all that, I'm really encouraged that the President is asking.

As the United States stumbles into Syria...

We'll be at war any day now with Syria. The Assad regime has (again) crossed that 'bright line' that Mr. Obama warned about: gassing his own citizens.

Probably. Apparently.

I mean, Syrians were gassed -- murdered in carload lots -- and the government has been blamed. There are witnesses and everything.

Britain's Parliament voted yesterday not to join us in this new adventure. The Obama Administration has no plans to give Congress a chance to take a position one way or the other.

I have just one question: Who does our government think we'll be helping when we launch our missiles or unleash our bombers?

There are, in the uneasy coalition of forces arrayed against Assad, persons with whom we in the West could do business. Tolerant, reasonable, democratic people who are just naive enough to think that they may have a say in how Syria will be run after Assad goes.

They can be referred to as Dead Men Walking.

No, when we attack Assad, we will be helping out al-Qaeda. Al-Qaeda sympathizers and even operatives have taken leading roles in the anti-Assad coalition. The professional jihadis intervened a long time ago, back when the United States and Europe were just starting to dither. They know an opportunity for expansion when they see it. For western media consumption, al-Qaeda will keep a low profile. But, locally, al-Qaeda will loudly condemn every bomb and every missile and exploit every civilian death, furiously fanning the flame of anti-Americanism among their Syrian allies -- and when Assad is driven from power, with the aid of the aforementioned bombs and missiles, they will rush in like a flood tide, kill their moderate allies and assume absolute control of poor, doomed Syria. The once-vibrant Christian community in Syria will be quickly and completely dispersed (or eliminated).

Frankly, I wouldn't put it past al-Qaeda to have provoked or even to have staged (via infiltration into Assad's own forces) the gas attack that now has forced President Obama to back up his unfortunate promises. I know how cynical that sounds.

But it's a cynical world, especially in the Middle East.

As Americans, we think of "good guys" and "bad guys." Westerns were the most popular entertainment when the good guys wore white hats and bad guys wore black hats and you could tell, at a glance, who should win the inevitable showdown. And, of course, the good guys always won. Westerns went out of fashion when shades of gray were introduced. Bad good guys. Good bad guys. Indians who just wanted to keep their lands as promised to them by solemn treaty.

Unfortunately, much as we wish it were otherwise, the real world is not black and white. Assad is a bad, bad guy. And while there are some arguably good guys who are fighting to see him gone, they have made common cause with guys who are arguably worse than Assad on his worst day. And it's a safe bet that some guys we think are good guys are really pretty bad guys who are just pretending, awaiting their chance.

What are we doing getting involved in this? Has America learned nothing in 20 years of involvement in the Middle East?

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I think sometimes The Onion must be on the verge of putting itself out of business. It's supposed to print humor -- sarcasm -- satire. This fake column by Bashar al-Assad, for instance. But if you follow the link and read it, you'll see: It's really not funny -- because it's absolutely right. When The Onion analyzes foreign affairs better than our elected geniuses in Washington, we have ourselves a real problem.

The nation remembers a "dream;" Curmudgeon watches a nightmare

Yesterday the nation remembered the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington, the occasion on which Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his memorable "I Have A Dream" speech.

Anniversaries provide opportunities to measure, to assess, to evaluate. How have we progressed, or failed to progress, in the area of civil rights?

Some answers are obvious: The legal barriers that barred African-American progress began falling within a couple of years of the 1963 march. We have an African-American President now.

But I went to a deposition yesterday afternoon and encountered a world so alien from my own, and so very different from the promise and the progress shown yesterday on the National Mall that I am compelled to write about it this morning.

I can't tell you details of the case, of course, but our deponent yesterday was a 19-year old African-American woman. Pretty. Soft-spoken.

She dropped out of her Chicago Public High School in the middle of her 10th grade year, three years ago. Since then, according to her testimony, she has held exactly one paying job, lasting for about three months, earlier this year.

Her "best friend" is now in jail on account of a fatal accident. Our witness yesterday and her BFF (also a young African-American woman) were with an older man -- he's in his mid 50s -- at the time. Both our witness and her BFF had a sexual relationship with the older man. The young woman yesterday insisted that she "was sexual" with this man only on the first day she met him. (She would have been 17 at the time, just like her BFF.) Her BFF had "intercourse" with him, but it was not a relationship. The older man installed our witness's friend in an apartment; our witness stayed over four or five times a week. The older man stayed over, too, two or three times a week.

No, our witness said, the older man did not pay her and her friend for things they did (allegedly, they sometimes helped clean the building where the BFF was staying and another one that the man appeared to own). But the older man would take them shopping, buy them clothes, take them out to eat.

The older man had a number of young girlfriends. Sometimes our witness would hang out ("just kickin' it") with her BFF and some of these other girls. Once, after the BFF got into trouble, our witness went to a wedding reception with the older man -- and two other young women. They all stayed together in the same hotel room.

He bought them marijuana. Our witness yesterday had a lot to say about getting "fried" and how a high progresses; she and her BFF often smoked marijuana with the older man.

She stated that she stayed friendly with this older man because he was so good to her and her family, "a big help."

I could go on, but I might stray too close to the relevant facts of the case or inadvertently supply potentially identifying information. Suffice to say, I was cringing, even queasy, when left the other attorney's office yesterday afternoon.

The thousands who marched on Washington in 1963 wanted to make freedom ring for all Americans. I saw yesterday how some Americans are using that freedom.

I might feel better if I could believe that I have only stumbled on an isolated instance, that there are very few people who are living life this way. But I don't think I can believe that.

Long Suffering Spouse heads back to school in "the Year of the Parent"

Duplex comic by Glenn McCoy, image obtained from Yahoo! Comics.

The Chicago Public Schools are starting up today. Even if you're not in Chicago, you may have heard about this because of our school strike last year, the controversial closing of 50 schools this Spring, and the creation of alleged "Safe Passage" routes for CPS students to follow as they wend their way to new schools this morning. It's not surprising, perhaps, that policemen have been detailed to these routes, some of which traverse hotly contested street gang borders, but the City has also assigned firemen to these routes, and employees of Streets and Sanitation, and employees from other City departments, too. Oh, and there are 'paid volunteer' escorts -- an oxymoron on the level of military intelligence -- armed with government-issued phones. They can call for help if the gangs start shooting. Unless, of course, the gangbangers are shooting them.

And all of this -- somehow -- is supposedly saving taxpayer money.

Oh, to be a child again! Not that I'd be anxious to re-live my school days, mind you. Once was surely enough. But, if I were as innocent as a young child maybe I could believe such a ridiculous claim.

Meanwhile, some of the Catholic schools in these parts are also starting up this morning. Long Suffering Spouse's school opens for business today.

In the Catholic Archdiocese, this is Day One of "the Year of the Parent."

Now, you had better believe that parental interest and involvement is integral to the success of Catholic education. If all parents were as interested and involved as your typical Catholic school parents, there would be far less need for saturation of "Safe Passage" routes. There might not be any street gang borders to cross.

And parents of Catholic school children make a tremendous sacrifice to send their kids to Catholic schools. A determined parent can find less costly options for his or her child than a Catholic school. By many metrics, several Chicago Public High Schools (the 'college prep' schools -- North Side, Payton, Jones, Whitney Young etc.) are better than anything the Catholic high schools can offer. And there are some excellent 'magnet' schools for CPS students in grades K-8 as well. No, parents who choose Catholic education want a sound foundation in both intellect and character and they want their traditions passed along to their children.

So the Archdiocese had darn well better cater to the men and women who dig deep into their wallets to send their kids to the parish school.

But....

You knew there would be a 'but,' didn't you?

Perhaps you read my Priscilla Pigdahl post earlier this year. If you didn't, maybe you could read it now.

Some well-meaning parents value success for their children more than real learning.

It's a terrible, terrible mistake. But young parents don't always understand that a kid who flounders now can flourish later. It's better for a kid to fail in 5th grade than to fail in life. We learn from our mistakes more than we ever do from our successes. So let's get those mistakes made sooner rather than later.

But it's easy for teachers and administrators to become cynical. It can happen to anyone. I certainly am cynical. Look at the start of this essay: I couldn't be more jaded. I think something similar has happened to the principal at Long Suffering Spouse's school. I'm speculating now about what's may be in her head:

Enrollment is the lifeblood of the Catholic schools. If enrollment goes down, the school fails. It closes. If it goes up, the school succeeds. Test scores don't really matter -- tests can be taught -- high school performance doesn't really matter -- the struggles of our graduates are not necessarily going to be blamed on us. Really, grade school doesn't matter. Pass everyone through, make them feel good about themselves and hopefully they'll learn something in high school when they're more mature.

Meanwhile, my wife teaches. She has standards. Some of her kids struggle. Some struggle mightily.

And then they go to high school.

The good ones, the successful ones, are placed in honors courses, a full year ahead of their peers. They wind up in AP classes.

Some of the kids who did just OK in my wife's Spanish classes breeze through their placement tests anyway and wind up in accelerated Spanish I or even Spanish II.

And the ones who struggled? Even the ones who struggled mightily? Those who start over in Spanish I find that it's easy; they were well prepared. They get A's and B's. My wife hears from them; they are grateful.

This should be the model in English, in Math, in Science, in History -- and it's not.

Because the principal gets complaints.

She hears complaints about Long Suffering Spouse from parents who have one child or whose oldest child is one of those struggling. If my wife gives a C to a student who gets (undeserved) A's in every other class... who looks like the outlier? My wife's principal doesn't hear complaints from the parents who have multiple children once their oldest begins succeeding in high school. But any complaint is one too many.

There has been friction.

No junior high kid is dreading the start of this school year more than my Long Suffering Spouse. The Year of the Parent? My wife feels she's in danger of losing her job because she's too good at it.

Some days, I just hate the world.