A potpourri of comments and quotes on topics in the news. . .
Were President Reagan and Pope John Paul II, though geographically apart, working off the same sheet of music? Now it can be told. A friend in the mid-1980s had an audience with the pope. Working the small group (containing almost no other American) with the skill of a master pol, greeting and glad-handing each attendee, the pope at last reached our friend. The pope grasped his hand, thanked him for coming, learned he was an American, looked him squarely in the eye, and said, "God bless Ronald Reagan."
XXX
And speaking of God, six traditionalist Episcopal churches in Connecticut - resisting the direction of the American church on (principally) homosexuality - have stopped paying their diocesan dues. Their pastors face possible defrocking and removal from their pulpits. One of the six pastors, the Rev. Christopher Leighton of St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Darien, notes while he awaits word on his fate from his bishop: "I may be out of step with the times, but I'm not out of step with the majority of Christians." His views on some of the divisive issues: "They're the Ten Commandments, not the Ten Suggestions." And: "I don't see gay marriage as part of God's plan."
XXX
Pay approaches the X-rated in the loftiest corporate reaches. A December New York Times table for 2003 showed average annual CEO earnings at $8.1 million. Comes now an Associated Press account of a Pearl Meyer & Partners report for 2004 showing an average compensation of $9.97 million, excluding stock options, among 180 top CEOs. Correspondingly, last year pay for the average U.S. worker rose by a mere (inflation-offsetting) 2.6 percent. Whatever happened to pay-for-performance?
XXX
The American Society of Hand Therapists has issued a consumer-alert warning that handheld electronic gizmos are causing higher rates of tendinitis and carpal tunnel syndrome. One variation of the overuse syndrome, particularly affecting thumbs, may be "BlackBerry Thumb" derived evidently from the soaring rise in small-keyboard, thumb-operated BlackBerry portable e-mail devices. Perhaps CEOs are being paid at obscene levels to enable their BlackBerry addictions and to finance treatment for the consequent afflictions of those unable to go cold turkey.
XXX
Vice President Dick Cheney got it exactly right regarding many of those most hostile to John Bolton, the nominee to become ambassador to the U.N: "If being occasionally tough and aggressive and abrasive were a problem, a lot of members of the U.S. Senate wouldn't qualify." Continued... |