Anything but politics:
Our friends in the Catholic Church have created 22 new Cardinals. Each was chosen by the current Vicar of Christ for his faith, his loyalty and, most of all, his ability to keep civil authorities from arresting his priests. Among the chosen is that chubby, jovial, smiling, wouldn't you love to share a Heineken with, Timothy Dolan, Archbishop of New York. Dolan laughed and charmed his way through a 60 Minutes profile and made all of New York forget the sewer that runs just below St. Patricks Cathedral.
In case you were counting, the current score is:
Number of cases of sexual abuse by priests worldwide----- 100,000+
Amount of Church money paid in claims------------------- $2.6 billion
Number of priest turned over to civilian authorities
by the Church or any of its Cardinals or Bishops.--------------- 0
In case you are having trouble understanding that last number, it's zero; none.
So for the record, any Catholic who drops five cents in a collection plate is paying for the continuation of this atrocity. Moving on...
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Just when you think that all religion is a joke and genuinely righteous people are harder to find than a book in Sarah Palin's house, along comes the story of Dolores Hart. Maureen Dowd's column in today's NY Times highlights the fascinating tale of the woman who was presumed to be the next Grace Kelly back in 1959. Having given Elvis his first screen kiss in King Creole, Dolores starred in several popular boy/girl features like "Come Fly with Me" and "Where The Boys Are". A role in "Francis of Assisi" with Bradford Dillman must have had a profound effect. (Oddly enough, none of the animals talk. Paging Walt Disney.)
After a run in "The Pleasure of His Company" on Broadway, Ms. Hart visited a Benedictine Abby in Connecticut to rest. Three years later she returned to the Abby and has remained there for the last fifty years. A documentary about her remarkable life is scheduled for April on HBO and Ms. Hart has committed to attend this year's Academy Awards.
With the death of a deeply troubled Whitney Houston in the news all week, a story like this deserves more attention that it will get. It's nice to know that not all fame is corrosive. We all want to think that for every Judy Garland there's a Robert Downey, Jr; for every Russell Crowe a George Clooney. Being a star might be fun but being a nun in Connecticut is...well...OK maybe not as much fun but at least she never had to be in another Elvis movie.
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Good news from Foxconn!
No, Foxconn is not Rupert Murdoch's latest on-line right-wing bullhorn. Foxconn is the Chinese factory complex that spits out millions of cell phones, tablets and laptops using workers for whom slavery would be a major step-up in pay grade. The factories employ over one million workers. The people who made your ipads and droids work twelve hour days, perform mind-numbing routine tasks and live in dormitories that would make migrant grape pickers in California strike for better conditions. Suicide was so pervasive that the government was forced to take decisive action. Counseling?...No. Longer weekends? Ridiculous. That action was to install giant nets around the dorms to catch the jumpers (and apparently dock their pay for taking an unauthorized break).
Bad publicity and a light nudge from the folks at Apple and HP have forced the Chinese to address the terrible conditions at Foxconn beyond upgrading the quality of toilet paper in the rest rooms. Salaries have been raised to about $400 a month (Lebron James makes approx. $6,000 per point). In addition, the benevolent folks in Beijing have promised to limit overtime (hey, it's not like the little buggers have anything else to do) and adhere more closely to Chinese labor laws. ("Chinese Labor Laws" being our newest oxymoron). Apple stock is soaring and the last thing they need in Cupertino is a worm. Visions of millions of hazmat-clad Asians chained to a work station in an Orwellian sized clean-room is enough to drive America to a newsstand or, God forbid, a library.
Still, if Americans want to know why unemployment is high and we hear cries of America doesn't make things anymore, consider the factory worker in China. Well, at least they get health care...a a first-rate team of firemen to free them from the nets and send them back to work.
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Carnival Cruise Lines has offered the survivors of that little mishap off the coast of Italy a whopping 30% off their next cruise with Carnival. Really? 30%? That's about the same number of degrees that the Costa Concordia is currently listing to starboard. I'm sure that the 3,200 passengers who were abandoned by their captain and forced to leave their possessions and swim for their lives from a sinking ship are lining up to avail themselves of that 1/3 off sale.
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