Comparing apples and oranges and getting racism

In 2018, African American women were 50 percent more likely to be obese than non-Hispanic white women. 80% of Covid victims have been overweight or obese. They also have higher rates of hypertension, diabetes, and heart disease. But the higher rate of Covid among the black community is called--you got it, RACISM. 

Should the government step into the homes of black families and supervise what they eat? In 2018, African Americans were 20 percent less likely to engage in active physical activity as compared to non-Hispanic whites. Should the government step in and put blacks on treadmills and force them into jogging and running? Black female American children are 24.1% obese compared to 10.4% of white female children. Should the government step in. 10% isn't a good rate either--do we just want "equity" for this health problem?

My BMI is too high, also. I've been battling the bathroom scale since I was 21. I've probably lost over 100 lbs the last 60 years, and if you think losing weight at 25 is hard, just try it at 80! But I'm not asking the government to take over my life, and I certainly don't blame my ethnicity and ancestors (Irish-German American, whose ancestors arrived before the Revolution).

Here's how I would set up a health research project. If 50% of black women and 38% of white women had the same problem, I wouldn't rant about DISPARITY and RACISM to make the evening news. I'd look at what the 50% of the black women were doing who didn't have the problem and compare to the 50% who did. Income, education, marital status, personal life style, smoking, alcohol, drugs, number of children, religion, exercise, and so forth. That's how to do research. That's how to change lives. Adding an MSW to your research team and getting published in JAMA isn't worth it if you can't make some progress with the target group.

Joe Biden has saved many Black lives.

A total of 194 shooting incidents involving black victims occurred in New York City in June, a 177% increase from the 70 recorded in June 2019, according to the New York Police Department. The BLM movement and its liberal apologists in white suburbia are taking black lives, particularly young people, at an alarming rate. It sounds terrible, but the violence is still lower than in the early 1990s when the 1994 omnibus crime bill cracked down on violence, giving the states federal money for more police and equipment, and the streets of the major cities became safer by half. Violent crime rate was 757.7 per 100,000 in 1992, and 368.9 per 100,000 in 2018. That was an uptick from 361.6 in 2014.

Many people, both parties (and especially Harris and DeBlasio), have blamed Biden, who advocated for the crime bill. They don't give him credit for the thousands of black lives saved over a 30 year period, because the crime rate for blacks is about 6x higher than whites, therefore, the criminals incarcerated during those years, where not killing other black men. Also, the incarceration rate had been going up for many years before the crime bill. And "experts" (sort of like "scientists") don't agree on why the crime rate was halved. "Restorative justice" (i.e., ignore the crime based on race like the Parkland school shooting) people want to blame the law for high rates of black criminals in jail, but they don't want to credit it for saving black lives.

As Senate Judiciary chairman, Biden was a prime mover of the 1994 law, promising that "there will be fewer people murdered," and "fewer children will be turning to crime." (Politico) And he was. His efforts saved lives. But times have changed. His legacy must be denied to get him elected.

This is not to say that Joe Biden should be president for something that harmed/helped Blacks in 1994, only to say his party is a bunch of hypocrites who have so much hate for President Trump they will continue to lie, cheat and steal to get him out of office.

Summer School of Faith-Sixth, 2018-Charles Craigmile, Culture Lost, Culture Reclaimed

June 12:  The Crisis of Culture - How We Lost our Story https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smIAuenhqBw

June 19:  The Doctrine of Creation - A Subversive Theology https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Foz7_HYn3fo

June 26:  Liturgy and the Eucharist - Bridging the Gap
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=11&v=FdcejG3GcVI

July 10: The Church – “Called to Communion” https://gloria.tv/video/AtnhXhUUp3eG2R7AAGTjiod9n

July 17: Death and the Afterlife – “The Passage Home ”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGEXlsNjPlk

First week:  Many anniversaries in 2018. End of WWI in 1918.  Czar in Russia and family assassinated.  200th anniversary of Karl Marx’s birth. We have a sense our culture is in crisis. Catholics are experiencing closings of schools, hospitals, shortage of priests.
Uses “Introduction to Christianity” by Cardinal Ratzinger (Benedict XVI)

Week 2 uses Genesis—a radical text.

Week 3, the liturgy and mass, true worship of God

Week 4, The church, the call to communion, uses Ratzinger’s 1991 book, “Called to Communion,” compilation of his speeches

Week 5, Death. Uses “Eschatology,” 1997, by Ratzinger, his last major work as a theologian. The Kingdom of God is the fundamental teaching of Jesus—it is Christ. Eternal life starts now.  The door to mercy is through repentance.

Charles Craigmile holds an undergraduate degree in philosophy, with minors in Latin and Greek from the University of St. Thomas, an MA in philosophy from DePaul University, and an MBA from JL Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. Charles has also completed three-years’ course work toward a graduate degree in Theology at the University of St. Mary of the Lake in Mundelein. Over the last 25 years, Charles has taught Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults (RCIA) programs across the Chicago area, most recently at St. Mary's in Lake Forest.

Notre Dame Graduation 2017 and 2009

A few dozen students walked out on Vice President Pence at the Notre Dame Graduation in 2017. It's their right to leave history in the making. Obama also created an historic moment in May 2009 and used a Notre Dame graduation to slam the Catholic Church by announcing embryonic stem cell research would continue on our tax dollar, undoing Bush's executive order (and no one sued him). He was too late; the research had moved so quickly during the Bush years we no longer needed that death trap. Despite its availability (was never illegal or banned) embryonic stem cell research had never produced that first cure or break through. Obama was so rude and narcissistic he thought his pretty words on abortion and holding hands could undo Catholic dogma 2000 years old on the sanctity of life. All he did was make himself look foolish in his first year as president. And thereafter, in my view.

Why were women marching on January 20?

I had lunch with my friend Nancy at Houlihan’s today and on the way home turned on the radio.  Dennis Prager (talk radio) runs 12-3 p.m. and had been asking for comments about the Women's March of Jan. 20. Interesting—although I didn’t hear it all.

One woman said she is an artist, and she and her husband the only conservatives among their social set and have to be quiet about it. Dennis observed they are "Marranos" (Jews who pretended to be Catholics during the Inquisition). Most of the women she knows went to the march. Dennis' first question was, "Are they happy people." She thought a bit, and said, "Well, they're very well educated, and very deep." "That's not what I asked," he said. "Are they happy?" "No. For some reason they believe they are victims." "Of what?" he asked. "I don't know, and they don't either--I've asked but they turn on me if I ask for facts."  And then she went on.  “Most are not married, or if they are, they don’t have children.”  I think there has been research that single, Democratic women look to the government to take care of them since they don’t have a spouse or children.

Another woman called in who had been on public transportation in DC and watched large numbers of women headed for the march. She observed and heard the obscenities and the gross signs they were carrying. "How can they object to Trump being crude," she asked, "when they are behaving so badly in public?"