In The Shadow Of Mt Hollywood

I've been hesitant to post about the new pontiff, not least because just about everything that's come out of Rome since the passing of Francis has been hackneyed and unreliable. Cardinal Parolin, for example, was the sure front runner. But just as important, I'm a Catholic convert of about a dozen years standing, and the one thing I want to avoid is taking the attitude that Rome has gotten it all wrong, and I know how to straighten things out. With that preface, the big hackneyed headline I've seen for the paat 24 hours has been AMERICAN POPE! But as best I can tell, although he grew up and went to Catholic schools in the Chicago area, then Villanova University, and then an MDiv from Catholic Theological Union in Chicago in 1982, after this, at age 27, he appears to have spent nearly all of his career in either Rome or Peru. He is a US citizen by birth but also a naturalized Peruvian citizen. It's difficult to know if he's been in touch with US life for ...

There seems to be a high-level campaign to put Joe Biden back on the public stage : Former President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden will join ABC's "The View" on Thursday for their first joint interview post-presidency. The couple will join the show live in-studio to discuss life after the White House, the Democratic Party's election losses in 2024, and the current political landscape following President Donald Trump's first 100 days, ABC News reported. The former president had his first post-White House interview with the BBC on Wednesday, in which he criticized President Trump's foreign policy, saying his peace deal between Ukraine and Russia would be "modern-day appeasement," and slammed the Republican president's threats to obtain Canada, Greenland, and the Panama Canal. Via Politico this morning , In a sign of Biden’s intent to remain engaged publicly, his inner circle tapped Chris Meagher, a former Biden deputy press sec...

In his Oval Offixce meeting with Canada Prime Minister Carney, Trump simply restated in slightly different words what his negotiating position has been ever since Justin Trudeau paid him a visit last November at Mar-a-Lago. MEDIA: “Is there anything the Prime Minister can say to you today to change your mind on tariffing Canada?” … “Is there anything he can say to you, in the course of your meeting today, that could get you to lift tariffs on Canada?” TRUMP: “No.” MEDIA: “Why not?” TRUMP: “Just the way it is.” He expanded in a Truth Social post : “We don’t need their Cars, we don’t need their Energy, we don’t need their Lumber, we don’t need ANYTHING they have, other than their friendship, which hopefully we will always maintain. They, on the other hand, need EVERYTHING from us!” he went on. “That will be, most likely, my only question of consequence,” the president wrote. The implication is that if Canada wants to remain a separate country, there will be tariffs if...

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has been somewhat in the US news lately, since she announced lowering the bar on allowing citizen initiatives to be put on the ballot, which would inevitably bring the question of Alberta leaving Canada to a vote. This in turn was prompted by Mark Carney's win in last week's election. Yesterday, she addressed Albertans on how she plans to navigate the province's conflicts with Ottawa. The full text of her address is here. I can't help but put this in the context of my post here Sunday on the message Justin Trudeau brought to Trump at Mar-a-Lago following Trump's victory in the 2024 US election, that if President Trump were to make the Canadian government face reciprocal tariffs, open the USMCA trade agreements to force reciprocity, and/or balance economic relations on non-tariff issues, then Canada would collapse on itself economically and cease to exist. What Premier Smith proposes to do is renegotiate the relationship betwe...

Yesterday, Trump posted on Truth Social , REBUILD, AND OPEN ALCATRAZ! For too long, America has been plagued by vicious, violent, and repeat Criminal Offenders, the dregs of society, who will never contribute anything other than Misery and Suffering. When we were a more serious Nation, in times past, we did not hesitate to lock up the most dangerous criminals, and keep them far away from anyone they could harm. . . . That is why, today, I am directing the Bureau of Prisons, together with the Department of Justice, FBI, and Homeland Security, to reopen a substantially enlarged and rebuilt ALCATRAZ, to house America’s most ruthless and violent Offenders. According to the US Bureau of Prisons , The U.S. Army used the island for more than 80 years--from 1850 until 1933, when the island was transferred to the U.S. Department of Justice for use by the Federal Bureau of Prisons. The Federal Government had decided to open a maximum-security, minimum-privilege penitentiary ...

First, all the YouTubers were sure Poilievre was going to win the Canadian election. Once that didn't happen, they're all now sure this means Alberta is gonna have a plebiscite and vote to become independent, or join the US, or maybe become a territory on the way to becoming a state, or somethong like that. And after all, once Saskatchewan and Manitoba join Alberta, there are lots of conservatives in BC, right? Of course, nobody even knows what kind of supermajority Ottawa will want to see in such a vote, and right now, polling suggests there's not all that much support, but hey, it's gonna happen! A post by Sundance at Conservative Treehouse suggests the whole Alberta question is irrelevant and goes into the real origin of Trump's "51st state" proposal: Following the 2024 presidential election, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau traveled to Mar-a-Lago and said if President Trump was to make the Canadian government face reciprocal tariffs, open ...

I seem to be finding a lot of material at The Atlantic lately. Alan Lightman, who has been a professor at both Harvard and MIT and appears to be nothing if not a member of the academic establishment, has recently sounded the alarm: The Dark Ages Are Back . Since April 22, more than 500 leaders of America’s colleges, universities, and scholarly societies have signed a statement protesting the unprecedented interference of the Trump administration into higher education, interference that included external oversight of admissions criteria, faculty hiring, accreditation, ideological capture, and, in some cases, curriculum. As the statement says, higher education in America is open to constructive reform. However, “we must oppose undue government intrusion in the lives of those who learn, live, and work on our campuses.” Especially targeted by the administration have been international students. Here's where his argument starts to lose momentum. In this post , I looked at so...