He’s a Jesuit, natch.  I was taught by Jesuits.

A quote to the gladden the heart of any modern Catholic:

“Pope Francis is warning that the Catholic Church’s moral edifice might “fall like a house of cards” if it doesn’t balance its divisive rules about abortion, gays and contraception with the greater need to make the church a merciful, more welcoming place for all.

Six months into his papacy, Francis set out his vision for the church and his priorities as Pope in a remarkably candid and lengthy interview with La Civilta Cattolica, the Italian Jesuit magazine. It was published simultaneously Thursday in other Jesuit journals, including America magazine in the U.S.

In the 12,000-word article, Francis expands on his ground-breaking comments over the summer about gays and acknowledges some of his own faults. He sheds light on his favourite composers, artists, authors and films (Mozart, Caravaggio, Dostoevsky and Fellini’s La Strada) and says he prays even while at the dentist’s office.

But his vision of what the church should be stands out, primarily because it contrasts so sharply with many of the priorities of his immediate predecessors John Paul II and Benedict XVI. They were both intellectuals for whom doctrine was paramount, an orientation that guided the selection of generations of bishops and cardinals around the globe.

Francis said the dogmatic and the moral teachings of the church were not all equivalent.

“The church’s pastoral ministry cannot be obsessed with the transmission of a disjointed multitude of doctrines to be imposed insistently,” Francis said. “We have to find a new balance; otherwise even the moral edifice of the church is likely to fall like a house of cards, losing the freshness and fragrance of the Gospel.”

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It’s brilliant.

I love the use of funny graphics (although not the crypto-racist “gypsy” designation, dating one of the Romani people, as I do).

Personally, I acknowledge that I had totally amazing parents, and was given plenty of opportunity.  But I still was required to work at McDonald’s at age 15 if I wanted spending money, and I still had to take out lots of student loans to get through university.

My Dad also gave me great career advice, free of charge, which I heeded.  If you are deciding on a career for yourself – and I was, eyeballing law and/or journalism at the time – do your best to make sure they aren’t career paths leading to a dead end, he said.  So, after putting in some time at the Calgary Herald and Ottawa Citizen (and not because I foresaw the Internet or whatever), I figured the traditional media was an industry going down, not up.  Same with law: the law schools were handing out way too many diplomas, and – from my perch at the Toronto and Ottawa law firms where I toiled – lawyers weren’t heeding the complaints clients were making, increasingly, about huge fees.  Too many lawyers, not enough clients: not good.

Generation Y, here’s my advice to you, gratis: you are indeed special, but that does not relieve you of the obligation to work your ass off.  Nor should you ignore the warning signs all around you: that is, if something seems like it’s too easy, that’s because it probably is.

Do what makes you happy, and do what you’re good at.  That way, you’ll be happy to come into work, and you’ll frankly be amazed that someone wants to pay you to do something you love.

Oh, and get your head out of your ass, too.  It’s a tough old world, and it doesn’t take prisoners.

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Quote:

“…Described by publisher Harper Collins as a “candid memoir,” the book is just one part of a carefully planned year-long strategy developed by Chow and her advisers to win the next mayor’s race and oust Rob Ford from office.

 

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Wanna feel old?

Read these grafs, from the column I’ve filed for Sunday.  TWENTY YEARS AGO TODAY THE RED BOOK CAME OUT.

Holy crap, do I ever feel old.

“…So we put out the Red Book. It was 112 pages long, it was bursting at the seams with ideas, and it provided an effective rebuttal to the Conservatives’ nasty insinuations. “I’ve got the team, I’ve got the plan,” Chretien would say, over and over, at every whistle-stop along the way to a massive Parliamentary majority. 

 The debate about when to release the thing went on almost as long as the writing of it. All at once? In pieces? Before the election? In week one? In Ottawa, or elsewhere?

 Chretien made the final decision, appropriately. The Red Book would be released on September 19, 1993, eleven days after the campaign began. We printed up thousands of copies, and they were all gone by lunchtime. Bureaucrats figured we were going to win, and they wanted to get a head start on their homework.” 

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Pere Ubu’s, that is.  Been listening to them since I was 15 years old (which, if you are familiar with their oeuvre, should tell you plenty about how truly odd Yours Truly is).  I would’ve posted ‘Blow Daddy-o,’ which I want played at my funeral, but I couldn’t find a good version for you.

Anyway, seeing them tonight with Lala, and am plenty pumped about it.  Here’s their biggest ‘hit,’ which really wasn’t one.  I love how cranky and miserable he looks.  Fits.

PERE UBU / Final Solution, live @ Ypsigrock Festival 2011 from Giacomo Triglia on Vimeo.

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Here. It’s kind of boring, so suggestions about how to make it more useful to you guys would be gratefully accepted.

If nothing else, it’s an offset to what a lunatic in Ottawa did on Wikipedia. Check that out, and ask yourself who might have written it.

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They get knocked a lot. But on this occasion, they acted swiftly and in the right way. Her family has suffered enough.

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…and other things, too. The first confirmation, here:

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Full disclosure: we at Daisy Group have been working with the plaintiffs in this historic case for years, always focussed on getting to this day. We are very confident that these children (now adults) will – after a long, long wait – finally receive the justice they deserve.

Stay tuned. The trial starts at 10 a.m., and we will be there.

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