Mass in Havana, Pity the CEO
Monday, September 21, 2015
Vol. 4, No. 264
Critical Mass: Pope Francis is scheduled to celebrate a second Mass today in Havana’s Revolution Plaza, the heart of the officially atheist country. Yesterday President Raul Castro was present for the Mass and the Pope later met with former leader Fidel Castro. The Pope gave several books and a copy of his encyclical on the environment to Castro, who is a voracious reader.
The often outspoken Francis veiled a political message in telling the story of the disciples arguing over which was the most important in a lesson about “those who would be chosen for privileges, who would be above the common law, the general norm, in order to stand out in their quest for superiority over others.”
Nation: Criticized for announcing the acceptance of only 10,000 Middle East refugees, the Obama Administration announced that the US would take 85,000 refugees in 2016 and 100,000 in 2017. That’s 30,000 more than the US takes now but still a small number compared to what’s being taken in by European countries. The US does not plan to relax its standards for background checks to ensure that terrorists don’t get in.
>A weekend Wildfire in California burned 162 homes, bringing the total of California homes destroyed by fire this summer to 1,600.
World: The Japanese Parliament passed a bill allowing the country’s military to take on overseas combat missions, overturning a policy that has stood since World War II.
Drachma Drama: Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, who was elected last January as an anti-austerity candidate, then lost his mandate when he accepted austerity, was re-elected yesterday as an austerity candidate. Despite accepting a financial chokehold by the European Union, Greeks seemed to think Tsipras deserves a second chance. In running a second time in one year, Tsipras managed to shed his coalition of its more extreme members who wanted to pull out of the European Union.
The Sports Page: Dallas quarterback Tony Romo was sacked in the third quarter of his team’s 20-10 win over Philadelphia, suffering a broken left collarbone. He could be out seven or eight weeks … minimum.
Statuary: Actress Viola Davis last night became the first black woman to win an Emmy Award for Best Actress in a drama series. She said, “Let me tell you something: the only thing that separates women of color from anyone else is opportunity. You cannot win an Emmy for roles that are simply not there.”
Jon Hamm finally won the Emmy for Best Actor for playing Don Draper in AMC’s “Mad Men.” HBO cleaned up with 14 wins for “Veep,” “Game of Thrones,” and the short series “Olive Kitteridge.”
The Obit Page: Jack Larson, who played cub reporter Jimmy Olsen in the 1950s television series “The Adventures of Superman,” has died in Los Angeles at age 87. Larson had wanted to be a stage actor and was afraid the Superman part would typecast him. He was right. After playing Jimmy Olsen from 1952 to 1958 he was frustrated with the roles offered to him and he quit acting to be a playwright.
PolitiSpeech: Republican candidate Ben Carson says no Muslim should ever be president. He told NBC News, “I would not advocate that we put a Muslim in charge of this nation. I absolutely would not agree with that.” A Seventh Day Adventist, Carson said he does not believe the Islamic faith is consistent with the US Constitution.
In the publicity material for his new book to be issued next month, Carson says, “And as someone who has performed brain surgery thousands of times, I can assure you that the Constitution isn’t brain surgery.”
Poll-itics: On the strength of her second debate performance, Carly Fiorina has leaped into second place among Republican presidential candidates, according to a CNN poll. Fiorina hit 15 percent, up from 3 percent just weeks ago. Donald Trump, in the CNN poll, still leads, but dropped 8 points to 24 percent.
Fiorina appears to be playing for sympathy for having laid off 30,000 workers while she was CEO of Hewlett Packard. Her now well-repeated defense is, “The hardest thing for a chief executive to do is to tell someone they don’t have a job anymore.” Did she personally fire all 30,000?
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