An American Pope? Never expected to see the day. One of my best friends is excited that he is from Chicago and apparently a Cubs fan and they both got their Masters of Divinity from Catholic Theological Union in Chicago. I even spent a few nights at CTU the first time I ever traveled to Chicago on my own while my friend was still in school. The real important question though is the new Pope a fan of deep dish or thin crust pizza? Edit: Apparently the new pope is more true to his south Chicago roots than originally reported as he is a White Sox fan.
Spring is springing 🌱
I think this op-ed well describes what is being done to the republic of the United States of America. If Congress is going to act against the Presidency it needs to terminate the National Emergencies Act of 1976 via a joint resolution. It is this act that the Presidency is using to build its dictatorship. We, the citizens of the United States need to be constantly telling our representatives to pass this joint resolution for the sake of saving our ability to self rule. Rescinding this act ought to be the singular cause of all federal elections going forward.
The question Christians should start with is, why does the knowledge of good and evil lead to death? (Hint: It’s not about obedience.)
The Cubs have just completed the first series of the season against the Pirates winning two of three games, a disappointing result considering that is a match up between first and last place teams in the division. As I wrote before the series started I wanted to see the Cubs sweep the Pirates or win 2 of three at a minimum. Winning two of three is not playing down to the opponent but they should have won the game last night and completed the sweep today. Next up is a weekend series in Wrigley north against the second place Brewers starting Friday night on Apple TV (sigh). We will learn a little more this weekend by whether or not the Cubs win the series.
By most reports the Chicago Cubs wrapped up their toughest two weeks of the schedule last night and enter the first series against divisional opponent Pittsburgh with a 17-12 overall record and a 1.5 game lead in the N.L. Central. In short, they exceeded expectations. However, for me, the upcoming month against lesser opponents will be more telling. Will the Cubs play down to their competition, which has been a problem in the past, and end May with just a few games above .500 or will they extend their overall record to well above .500 by dominating the lesser opponents? Good teams beat the teams they are supposed to beat, and they are supposed to beat Pittsburgh so I am looking for a sweep or at least win the first two for a chance to sweep.
The song for today: Working For The Weekend
BTW, the topic of posts without titles is important to me because nearly all my posts don’t have titles. In my mind when I create a title for an item it is because there are multiple paragraphs and I think of it as an essay rather than a blog post. In fact, I have a category filter in micro.blog that automatically categorizes (or should but doesn’t seem to always run) any post with a title as an essay.
I continue to to tinker with Wordland whenever Dave does something new and I continue to be puzzled by why it is so tightly coupled with Wordpress. If it were me, Wordland would be a self hosted app for creating and maintaining an RSS feed and I would make consumption of that feed dependent on other, perhaps external, services. Right now Wordland does not add an item to the RSS feed until it is published to Wordpress, which is why I am confused by why Wordland has its own feed when all Wordpress sites also have a feed. Pointing to the Wordland feed puts an external dependency on Dave’s hosting.
I read this post about the desktop computing metaphor and when I read the description of an itemized operating system my experience with the NewtonOS immediately came to mind. What I remember is that everything in NewtonOS was an object and data was separate from objects so that you didn’t need duplicate data. I am probably not doing the topic justice, but I do believe NewtonOS was the only “object oriented” operating system that I have ever personally used. Regardless, I really would like what is being described in the post because I agree that the desktop and window metaphor is no longer the best way for us to do personal computing.
Today Dave Farquhar wrote about the first computer I personally ever owned, the Timex Sinclair 1000. Dave includes a link to this post written by a guy who is reviving and upgrading a TS 1000. For a glimpse of what it was like to use this computer, look at the second to last picture on this page that shows the display of a game called Dungeon Crawling. One of the"official" games that one could buy was Frogger, which my buddy Ray renamed Wood Tick once he saw how huge the flattened frog became when “hit' by an object. This post triggered the selection of my Crucial Track for today.
I continue to be amazed that people don’t understand the purpose for due process. Yes, it’s purpose is to require the state to prove a charge against a person (and it must be a person because the state can and does make charges against all persons and not just citizens) but even more important than that is that it is fundamentally how liberty exists. Without due process there is no liberty, no freedom in the United States and it is for liberty that the Revolutionary War was fought and the United States exists. Remember give me liberty or give me death?
The 8th Inning Game
The Crucial Track for today, Another One Bites The Dust.
Today I start lap 60 around the sun. I took this picture yesterday, unfortunately the sky is not yet blue today.
My Crucial Track for today is Curious Thing by Amy Grant.
Jason has released his app, Crucial Tracks, which is a web app for journaling about music. The app is an add-on to his Crucial Tracks blog. I have signed up to create my own profile and RSS feed that you can subscribe to, or see my entries on my micro.blog or Bluesky profiles.
If ICE approaches you on the street and demands you prove that you are a U.S. citizen, what will you do? Further, since ICE nor the Executive Branch acknowledges the validity of Due Process under the U.S. Constitution those agents appear empowered to ignore the drivers license or, if you are lucky, passport that you provide and you could find yourself in a gulag in El Salvador.
“As the climax of Holy Week and the story of Jesus, Good Friday and Easter address the fundamental human question, What ails us? Most of us feel the force of this question—something is not right. So what ails us? Very compactly, egoism and injustice. And the two go together. We need personal transformation and political transformation.”
As in the time of Jesus so is it true today. Peace through violence (Pax Romana) is the norm human of civilization. We are just now realizing that the experiment of American democracy, which we have thought to be normal is really abnormal in the matrix of human civilization.
From: The Last Week - What the Gospels Really Teach About Jesus’s Final Days in Jerusalem by Marcus J. Borg 📚
Yesterday the Cubs sent rookie Matt Shaw, who had been playing first base, back to Triple-A Iowa. We don’t know if this is a short term thing due to the recent injuries, but did they make the right move? I saw no, particularly because he would have made that catch that Workman did not last night. Right now the Cub bats are not the problem and they need good fielding.
Despite the fact that the Chicago Cubs record at 11-8 is decent and their run production has been good the early returns are that they have the same old bullpen after it blew another lead in route to a 10-4 loss to the Padres last night. Frankly, the poor performance of the bullpen must be laid at Jed Hoyer’s feet as his approach of yearly rebuild using castoffs from other teams translates to every season being a crap shoot. The continual poor off season performance is why I think Hoyer should be replaced sooner rather than later.