Italian Family Loyalty and Mamma’s Boys

Italian Family Loyalty and Mamma’s Boys

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In the book Elements of Italy, the author notes that family in Italy means much more than grown up children taking trays of cakes specially wrapped to the parental home for Sunday lunch or major holidays. The family relationship in Italy is unique. The family represents the network of the most important relationships of Italian society. The relationship of loyalty is so strong that it can be rightly called the basic building block of Italian society.  The most stable of…

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Mexico’s Hero Fr. Miguel Agustin Pro Juarez -“Viva Cristo Rey”

Mexico’s Hero Fr. Miguel Agustin Pro Juarez -“Viva Cristo Rey”

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In my readings I came across a short account of Miguel Agustin Pro Juarez. Curious to learn more about this Mexican priest and martyr I found a home page about him. He was born in 1891 in Guadalupe, Mexico and entered the Jesuit seminary in 1911. However, the Mexican revolution had begun in 1910 and the fighting lasted until 1921, killing some 900,000 people in the process. After studying in Mexico he was forced to leave when the tidal wave…

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Seattle Needs an Independent Review Process of the Activities of the Seattle Police Department

Seattle Needs an Independent Review Process of the Activities of the Seattle Police Department

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The front page headline in the Wednesday Seattle PI was "Chief blasts oversight report." Seattle police chief Gil Kerlikowske was angry at a report from a civilian review board report critical of his involvement in an internal investigation of a controversial drug bust. But, the conclusion of the report was that police officers should not police themselves and the current system Seattle has for monitoring police behavior may not be working. I agree. As the attorney for the Judson family…

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Rags to Riches and Other Famous Race Horses

Rags to Riches and Other Famous Race Horses

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I’m not much of a horse racing fan, but I admire the courage of jockey’s and the competitive spirit of the horses. The recent record setting win at Belmont by Rags to Riches brought this to mind. Only two fillies before Rags to Riches had ever won the Belmont one, Ruthless, in 1867 and the other, Tanya, in 1905. The June 139th Belmont stakes was an amazing win for this great horse. When reading about the race, I thought of…

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Eddie Bauer Pays Another Sweet Heart Package to Their New CEO

Eddie Bauer Pays Another Sweet Heart Package to Their New CEO

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The Seattle PI reports that the new CEO of the Eddie Bauer Company will be paid over $3 Million dollars for his three year contract even though it is a financially failing company. I previously commented on the company’s payment of a golden parachute of $8.4 million to it’s departing CEO. (2/7/2007). This was an overpayment by a company that was fighting going under to a departing CEO even though his job performance was below expectations and the company was…

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The Hound of Heaven & Amazing Grace

The Hound of Heaven & Amazing Grace

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Some poetry is inspiring and some tell a story of a life. Francis Thompson (1859-1907), who wrote the famous poem Hound of Heaven, was born into a well to do Roman Catholic family. He studied for the priesthood, but then left. He attended medical school only to please his parents but failed the examinations three times. In dispair he went to London where he tried different occupations, but was a failure at everything he tried. He became destitute and an…

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Cell Phones Users Are A Pain

Cell Phones Users Are A Pain

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I think I am getting old and grouchy. On a recent trip I was struck by how intrusive into one’s own zone of privacy cell phones can be. I know this is not something unique for me and is probably overly sensitive on my part, but for some reason it was particularly bothersome on this trip. It started the evening before I left, when a woman decided to use some kind of cell phone with a two way communication device….

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Hpocrisy and Robert Bork

Hpocrisy and Robert Bork

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Hypocrisy is one of the chief human faults Jesus condemned and which American’s universally hate. Which brings us to Robert Bork who was once nominated for the United States Supreme court as a darling of the conservatives. He stood for all that was conservative. He advocated tort reform and what he saw as the horror of frivolous lawsuits flooding the civil justice system. He had written that "juries dispense lottery like windfalls" and compared the civil justice system to "Barbary…

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Overpaid CEO’s and Blackstone Group

Overpaid CEO’s and Blackstone Group

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I’ve repeatedly complained about the outrageous amounts of money paid to CEO’s of corporations even when their service has been a failure. (3/21/07) There is no end to this insanity and we have another example in the case of Blackstone Group LP who just announced that their CEO Stephen Schwarzman was paid $400 million last year. That’s almost double the combined compensation for the CEO’s of Wall Street’s five biggest investment banks. Not only that, he can cash in as…

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The Grub Worm & Heaven

The Grub Worm & Heaven

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Jesuit spiritual writer Mark Link S.J. has written a number of spiritual mediations in booklet form that are inspiring as well as informative. In his Jesus 2000, a contemporary walk with Jesus, he tells the story of the grub worms at the bottom of a pond who couldn’t understand why those who climbed up the stems of the water lillies never returned to tell them what they found. They selected one who was to climb up and then come back…

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