Dr. Spock

 

In the 1989 movie, “Field of Dreams”, Ray Kinsella (Kevin Kostner) hears a little voice in his head that said, “If you build it, they will come”.  He sees a vision of a baseball diamond in the cornfield and the great "Shoeless" Joe Jackson (Ray Liotta) standing in the middle. Ray believes if he builds a baseball field, Shoeless Joe, whom his father idolized, can play baseball again. Annie is skeptical but agrees to him plowing under part of their corn crop to build a baseball field, knowing the financial hardship it will bring.

As Ray builds the field, he tells Karin about the 1919 Black Sox Scandal. Several months pass, and just as Ray is beginning to doubt himself, a ball player appears one night, whom Ray recognizes as Shoeless Joe. Joe asks if others can play and returns with the seven additional Black Sox players. Annie's brother, Mark (Timothy Busfield), unable to see the players, warns that Ray is going bankrupt and offers to buy the farm for its valuable land. Meanwhile, the voice urges Ray to "ease his pain".

“Field of Dreams” was a great movie. In addition to being nominated for 3 Academy Awards, it was also a commercial success, earning over $84,000,000 at the box office, on a budget of $15,000,000. The field is located in Dyersville, Iowa, and our family stopped there on the way back to Illinois (from Minnesota) sometime in the 90’s.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Field_of_Dreams

This morning, I heard a little voice in my head. The voice didn’t even speak an entire sentence. It just said, “Dr. Spock”.

What?

Both of our kids are well into their adult years, so we no longer need any advice on hos to raise them, but the little voice in my head made me curious, so I researched Dr. Spock, and learned that he was a very interesting man.

Benjamin McLane Spock (May 2, 1903 – March 15, 1998) was an American pediatrician whose book The Common Sense Baby and Child Care (1946) was VERY popular. 500,000 copies were sold in the six months after its introduction, and 50,000 copies were sold by the time of Spock’s death in 1998. The book has been translated into 39 languages. The book's premise to mothers is that "you know more than you think you do”.

Both of Spock’s parents were educated people. His father attended Phillips Andover Academy and Yale University, and his son followed in his footsteps.

After graduating from Yale University, Spock attended Yale School of Medicine, but graduated from Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons, where he graduated first in his class.

In addition to his intelligence, he was also a very accomplished athlete. While at Yale University, he was on the rowing team that won a gold medal in the 1924 Olympics.

Two years before graduating from Columbia, he married Jane Cheney, who later assisted him in the research and writing of his book. After nearly 40 years of marriage, they divorced in 1976. Later that same year, he married Mary Morgan, who was 40 years younger than he was at the time.

Both of Dr. Spock’s wives were very liberal, and politically active. His first wife was active in Americans for Democratic Action, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the National Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy.

His second wife, Mary, was arrested numerous times for civil disobedience - and so was he. She introduced him to massage, yoga, a macrobiotic diet, and meditation. 

Doctor Spock always loved the water. He and his wife lived on boats for more than 20 years. During the winter months, they lived on “Carapace” in the British Virgin Islands, and in the summer, they lived on “Turtle”, which was moored in Maine. Amazingly, he won 3^rd place in a rowing contest at the age of 84, so the lifestyle encouraged by his wife kept him a very young man.

Starting in 1968, he began protesting the Vietnam War, and he also became active in other political causes as well. He ran for public office in 1972 and 1976, but never got elected. Although I haven’t been as politically active as he was, I’d readily admit that he and I are “on the same wave length” on a number of topics.

Since I was an insurance underwriter for a lot of years, and a teacher (full and part time) for close to 20, I long ago developed an ability (and an interest) in doing research – which is why I decided to dig a little deeper into Dr. Spock. One fact that I found especially interesting was that he died on March 15, 1998, exactly 4 days before my mom died.

When I was a college professor in China, I often told the classes that they could stop learning when they reached the age of 88, and I still believe that today. To do that, sometimes you just have to listen to that little voice in your head.

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Spock

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

does your chewing gum lose its flavor on the bedpost overnight?

 

In 1959, a British singer named Lonnie Donegan released a silly song titled, “Does your chewing gum lose its flavor on the bedpost overnight”?

does your chewing gum lose itsflavor on the bed post overnight - Bing

I thought of that song this morning after reading about a new restaurant that will soon open in Phoenix.

https://www.azcentral.com/story/entertainment/dining/2021/03/17/new-restaurant-christophers-wrigley-mansion-phoenix-opening/4705300001/

Here’s the connection:

The restaurant is named “Christopher’s”, and it will be located in the former Wrigley Mansion in Phoenix. Headed by James Beard award-winning chef Christopher Gross, the restaurant will focus on eight-course tasting menus featuring dishes with names like "Spoonful of the Sea," "Foie Gras Candy from the Owner's Hand" and "Umami, Forest and the Ocean," according to a sample menu on the restaurant's website.

https://wrigleymansion.com/christophers/

The eight-course tasting menu will cost $250 per guest with the option to add wine pairings for an additional $230 per person.

Christopher's will be open Tuesday through Saturday from 5-10 p.m. to start with plans to add "Christopher's Classics on Sundays and Mondays, and a lighter tasting menu as our Bistro Lunch, Tuesdays through Saturdays," according to a news release. If you have even a passing familiarity with high end restaurants, you’ll recognize that pricing is similar to that of the “French Laundry” in northern California, where prices for the tasting menu are either $350 per person, or $450 per person – plus ad-ons, which are likely wines and deserts.

https://www.exploretock.com/tfl/

The Wrigley Mansion that the restaurant will be located in was designed by Architect Earl Heitschmidt of Los Angeles and cost $1.2 million (in 1932 dollars) to build. It has 24 rooms, 12 bathrooms, and over 16,000 square feet (1,500 m²). Much of the extensive tilework was shipped to Phoenix from Wrigley's own factory in Catalina, hauled by mule to the site.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wrigley_Mansion

The Wrigleys maintained other residences in Chicago; Philadelphia; Lake Geneva, Wisconsin; Catalina Island; and Pasadena, and used this, the smallest of their houses, for only a few weeks a year. William Wrigley died in 1932, shortly after its completion.

 

 

William Wrigley Jr. made his fortune selling a very inexpensive product – chewing gum.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Wrigley_Jr.

In 1891, Wrigley moved from Philadelphia to Chicago to go into business for himself. He had $32 to his name ($843 in 2018) and with it he formed a business to sell Wrigley's Scouring Soap. He offered customers small premiums, particularly baking powder, as an incentive to buy his soap. Finding the baking powder was more popular than his soap, Wrigley switched to selling baking powder, and giving his customers two packages of chewing gum for each can of baking powder they purchased. Again, Wrigley found that the premium he offered was more popular than his base product, and his company began to concentrate on the manufacture and sale of chewing gum. In this business, Wrigley made his name and fortune.

Wrigley played an instrumental role in the development of Santa Catalina Island, California, off the shore of Los Angeles, California. He bought a controlling interest in the Santa Catalina Island Company in 1919 and with the company received the island. Wrigley improved the island with public utilities, new steamships, a hotel, the Casino building, and extensive plantings of trees, shrubs, and flowers. He also sought to create an enterprise that would help employ local residents. By making use of clay and minerals found on the island at a beach near Avalon, in 1927 William Wrigley Jr. created the Pebbly Beach quarry and tile plant. Along with creating jobs for Avalon residents, the plant also supplied material for Wrigley's numerous building projects on the island. After the building of Avalon's Casino (see Avalon Theater (Catalina)) in 1929, the Catalina Clay Products Tile and Pottery Plant began producing glazed tiles, dinnerware and other household items such as bookends.

Wrigley’s other interest, of course, was the Chicago Cubs. In 1916, Wrigley bought a minority stake in the Chicago Cubs baseball team as part of a group headed by Charles Weeghman, former owner of the Federal League's Chicago Whales. Over the next four years, as Weeghman's lunch-counter business declined, he was forced to sell much of his stock in the ball club to Wrigley. By 1918, Weeghman had sold all of his stock to Wrigley, making Wrigley the largest shareholder and principal owner, and by 1921, Wrigley was majority owner. Wrigley Field, the Cubs' ballpark in Chicago, is named for him. The now-demolished former home of the Los Angeles Angels of the Pacific Coast League, at that time the Cubs' top farm team, was also called Wrigley Field. Wrigley purchased the Chicago Cubs from Albert Lasker in 1925.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wrigley_Field

Weeghman Field in Chicago was changed to Wrigley Field in 1927, but Wrigley Field in Los Angeles (since demolished) opened in 1925, two years earlier.

l.a. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wrigley_Field_(Los_Angeles)

At the time of his death in 1932, at the age of 70, William Wrigley Jr. was worth $34 million. That does not sound like a lot, but if corrected for inflation, that $34 million translate into $625 million in today’s dollars. Not a billionaire, but pretty close.

By comparison, Henry Ford was worth $200 billion at the time of his death in 1947 – in today’s dollars;

Another man who made a very good living selling an inexpensive product was   John Richard Simplot. At the time of his death (at age 99) in 2008, he was worth $3.6 billion. At the time of his death at age 99 in May 2008, he was the oldest billionaire on the Forbes 400

His product?

Potatoes.

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._R._Simplot

The message in the story of William Wrigley is that you don’t have to sell expensive products in order to make a lot of money, and that was a lesson that Ray Kroc learned early on. When the first McDonalds restaurant opened in Des Plaines, Illinois in 1955, hamburgers were 15 cents, cheeseburger were 19 cents, and        sodas were a dime

Ray Kroc was worth more than $3 billion at the time of his death in 1984.

 https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/62573/what-hamburgers-and-milkshakes-cost-mcdonalds-1955

 I have no idea if anybody has ever made a lot of money selling mousetraps, but all of the people listed above understood a simple concept:

Build a better mousetrap (or sell a product that people want) and the world will beat a path to your door.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Those darn Mexicans

 

Sharon and I read a lot of books. Typically, she will read more than 100 per year. Since I am still working most days of the week, I usually average about one a week. My total for last year was 61.

The vast majority of those books are fiction, rather than non-fiction or biographies. Although I have met people who considering reading fiction a waste of time, there are MANY advantages to reading them, and I’ve listed them in the link shown below:

https://tohell-andback.blogspot.com/2018/09/fiction-or-non-fiction.html

One of our favorite authors is J.A. Jance, who has written more than 60 books – and we have read most of them.

I just finished reading her latest book, “Missing and Endangered”, which is a real page turner. It took me a little more than a day to burn through 365 pages. (Barrack Obama’s latest book is 706 pages, and that took me more than a week to finish).

One of the FACTS that J.A. Jance mentioned on page 145 was the bracero program – which I had never heard of before, although (in retrospect) I was familiar with the concept.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bracero_program

During WWII, American farm families sent more than 1.8 million young men and women into the armed forces. At a time when the nation faced an unprecedented demand for food, farmers faced a shortage of farm workers, gas, and new farm equipment and parts. Despite the shortage of labor, more production was expected. Each day, eight million soldiers had to be fed in the U.S. military alone, as well as millions of civilians in Great Britain and Russia.

https://livinghistoryfarm.org/farminginthe40s/life_01.html

Farm labor was so short, in fact, that farmers (like my uncle Clem) were exempt from military service, but even that was not enough.

Despite the fact that Mexico had declared was on the Axis Powers in May of 1942, the country agreed to send agricultural workers to the United State.

 The Bracero Program grew out of a series of bi-lateral agreements between Mexico and the United States that allowed millions of Mexican men to come to the United States to work on, short-term, primarily agricultural labor contracts. From 1942 to 1964, 4.6 million contracts were signed, with many individuals returning several times on different contracts, making it the largest U.S. contract labor program. An examination of the images, stories, documents and artifacts of the Bracero Program contributes to our understanding of the lives of migrant workers in Mexico and the United States, as well as our knowledge of, immigration, citizenship, nationalism, agriculture, labor practices, race relations, gender, sexuality, the family, visual culture, and the Cold War era.

https://www.labor.ucla.edu/what-we-do/research-tools/the-bracero-program/

From 1942 to 1947, the program only a small number of workers were admitted. From 1948 until 1964 (the year the program ended) the number admitted averaged 200,000 a year. In 1951, President Truman signed a new agreement (Public Law 78) that made the United States government, not the growers, the guarantors of the labor contract. During the negotiations on the new contract, the Mexican government wanted sanctions on employers who employed illegal immigrants.

Although the new contract did not contain sanctions on employers, Congress, in 1952, approved a bill that made harboring an illegal immigrant a felony.

By that time, the number of illegal immigrants from Mexico had increased dramatically, so Congress passed “Operation Wetback” in 1954. Between 1954 and 1962, when the program ended) 3.8 million immigrants were sent back to Mexico.

Working conditions for farm workers, both legal and illegal, were far from ideal, which led to numerous strikes between 1943 and 1946, and it also led to the creation of the United Farm Workers Union, led (in part) by Cesar Chavez in 1962.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Farm_Workers 

Joe Biden is a strong advocate of unions. As a result, he has a bust of Cesar Chavez behind the Resolute desk in the Oval Office.

https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2021-01-20/joe-biden-cesar-chavez-bust-oval-office-desk

 

For much of our country’s history, immigrants have been a thorny issue, and the link below goes into more details:

https://tohell-andback.blogspot.com/2014/10/those-darn-immigrants.html

When Trump launched his presidential campaign in 2015, he said this about immigrants from Mexico:

"They're sending people that have lots of problems, and they're bringing those problems with us,” he continued. “They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists. And some, I assume, are good people."

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/400196-trump-says-calling-mexican-immigrants-rapists-was-peanuts-in

Trump has pushed for stricter immigration policies since the start of his campaign, including building a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border. In August of 2018, he threatened a government shutdown unless Congress passes funding for the border wall. In December of 2018, he did exactly that, and the shutdown lasted for 35 days – and NO ADDITIONAL FUNDING for the wall was approved. 

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/paulmcleod/trump-government-shutdown-end-wall-money

Like many of Trump’s “facts”, Trump’s assertion that illegal immigrants cause more crime is simply NOT TRUE.

https://www.factcheck.org/2018/06/is-illegal-immigration-linked-to-more-or-less-crime/

 There are still far too many people in this country who do not like immigrants from Mexico, and they’re never going to change their minds. For the rest of us, though, we need to remember that we live in the UNITED States of America, and that we need to respect the cultures of ALL the people that live within our borders.

Adios.

 

 

I'm getting married in the morning

 

The Washington Post recently published an article about a new Netflix show titled “Marriage or Mortgage”.

The reality show involves a friendly competition between a wedding planner, Sarah Miller, and a real estate agent, Nichole Holmes. In each episode, the Nashville-based professionals help couples decide between the wedding of their dreams and their dream home.

The author of the article, Michelle Singletary, wrote “my husband and 25-year-old daughter watched “Marriage or Mortgage” with me. About 15 minutes into Episode 8, my daughter couldn’t take any more. She grabbed the remote to fast-forward to the end to see whether one couple, together eight years and living in a two-bedroom apartment, would choose to spend $20,000 on a wedding, including $4,900 budgeted for a bridal dress.

It was so funny how frustrated my daughter became, struggling to understand how a sales operation specialist and an Uber driver would choose a pricey wedding celebration instead of taking the $20,000 and using it as a down payment on a four-bedroom home with a spacious backyard for them and their two young sons. Saving that much money couldn’t have been easy for them, my daughter fumed.

My husband left the room at the same point, muttering: “Crazy concept. It’s a no-brainer. I’m out.”

 

“In the interest of full disclosure, I bought my wedding dress at a consignment shop for less than $200. There was no open bar. I told guests who complained that they could go home and drink their own liquor.

 So where do I stand on “Marriage or Mortgage”? 

I think it will delight romantics and disgust penny pinchers.”

 If you want the answer to Michelle Singletary’s question, you’ll probably have to watch the series on Netflix.

 https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/03/05/netflix-marriage-mortgage-series/

Marriage or mortgage? At my age, it’s an easy choice – but it’s not the right answer for everyone.

Marge and Dick Lennartson had three daughters (one of whom I married) and all three of them had traditional large weddings in a Catholic church.

The Brennan side of the family took a different path.

When Mary Brennan married Michael in 1976, it was in front of a justice of the peace someplace in Virginia.

Tom and Sharon had two kids, Brian and Kelly.

When Kelly and Chris got married in December of 2016, it was in front of a Justice of the Peace named Paul Simon in a courthouse in downtown Tucson. You can read about the wedding at the link below:

https://tohell-andback.blogspot.com/2016/12/going-to-court-can-be-fun.html

When Brian and Kim got married last November, it was also in front of a Justice of the Peace. Although the official was at the courthouse in downtown Tucson, Brian and Kim weren’t there. They were in a motel room in Oro Valley, and the entire wedding was done on Zoom.

Here’s the details:

https://tohell-andback.blogspot.com/2020/11/zoom.html

Although I’ve attended numerous traditional weddings, the ones that were the most fun were the ones that were “non-traditional” – and Thom and Alex’s wedding in the San Gabriel mountains in September of 2011 would probably be at the top of the list. Here’s the details on THAT wedding:

https://tohell-andback.blogspot.com/2011/09/wedding-of-year.html

Around the time the Thom and Alex got married, Kim Kardashian and her new hubby got married in an elaborate ceremony is a town not far from where Thom and Alex got married – and the marriage lasted less than 90 days. A few years later, Kim married Kanye West in Italy “where their daughter was conceived” – and they are currently in the process of ending their union.

Prior to their “traditional” wedding in October of 2015 (after Obergefell V. Hodge changed the law of the land), Mary and Fran had a “commitment ceremony” on October 27, 2007, and it had many of the elements of a regular wedding. Lots of guests, music to dance by, and LOTS of beer. At the church, daughter Alex gave a great speech at the pulpit, but daughter Lauren “brought down the house” when she sang, “Like a Rose” which brought tears to the eyes of many of the folks in the audience.

Even today, the song still gives me goosebumps:        

The Rose (2015 Remaster) - YouTube

The song in the title shown above was performed in the 1964 movie, “My Fair Lady”, and you can listen to it at the link below:

Stanley Holloway Get Me to the Church on Time MY FAIR LADY 1964 - YouTube

The film was the second highest grossing film of 1964, and it won eight Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Actor, and Best Director.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Fair_Lady_(film)

When my cousin Kay married Willy, it was on a sailing ship in the Caribbean, and the ceremony was performed by the ship’s captain.

My cousin Mike and his family recently went to a family wedding in Hawaii, which is probably the best place in the entire world to have a wedding. Here’s the clan pictured below:

 

 

 Marriage or marriage”

That, my dear, is entirely up to you.

God, country, and Notre Dame

 

 

One of the publications that I read on a regular basis is The National Catholic Reporter. Although its intended audience is the Catholic population, I have found that the articles it prints are well written, and it covers a range of viewpoints, from liberal to conservative, and some that are entirely neutral.

https://www.ncronline.org/

This is how Wikipedia describes it:

“The National Catholic Reporter (NCR) is a progressive national newspaper in the United States that reports on issues related to the Catholic Church. Based in Kansas City, Missouri, NCR was founded by Robert Hoyt in 1964. Hoyt wanted to bring the professional standards of secular news reporting to the press that covers Catholic news, saying that "if the mayor of a city owned its only newspaper, its citizens will not learn what they need and deserve to know about its affairs". The publication, which operates outside the authority of the Catholic Church, is independently owned and governed by a lay board of directors. “

NCR has won the "General Excellence" award from the Catholic Press Association in the category of national news publications six times between 2008 and 2014. The Catholic Press Association in June 2017 awarded former NCR editor and publisher Tom Fox its highest honor for publishers, the Bishop John England Award.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Catholic_Reporter

A few days ago, the Reporter printed two articles that highlight the difficultly inherent in discussing a very controversial topic – abortion. The article below goes into more detail, but the short version is that some of the folks at Notre Dame University do not want to invite Joe Biden to attend this year’s commencement because he is a Democrat. As we are all well aware, the Democratic Party believes that abortion should be safe, legal, and rare.

Somehow, that makes the Republican Party “pro- life”, even though the majority of Republican Party favor the death penalty.

Sister Joan Chittester provides us with the best possible description of the “pro-life” Republican Party:

 

"I do not believe that just because you’re opposed to abortion, that makes you pro-life," she shared. "In fact, I think in many cases, your morality is deeply lacking if all you want is a child born but not a child fed, not a child educated, not a child housed." Chittister continued by noting those views aren't "pro-life" at all. "That’s pro-birth," she said, adding that society could benefit from a broader, more complex conversation on the subject.

 

Before Roe v. Wade became the law of the land, a Republican governor, Ronald Reagan, signed one of the earlier liberal abortion laws. Even though he later came to regret his decision, the fact remains that he DID sign the bill into law.

Joseph Biden Jr. is a devout Catholic, and carries a rosary with him every day. Even he personally is opposed to abortion, he believes that laws (even ones you disagree with) should be obeyed.

On occasion, the president has been denied communion because of his position.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/29/politics/joe-biden-denied-communion-south-carolina-catholic-church/index.html

Some religious leaders have gone as far as saying that “you can’t be a Democrat and a good Catholic”, but the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops takes a more nuanced stand:

On Nov. 7, president Jose Gomez issued a statement congratulating Biden and recognizing him as only the second Catholic president in a country that’s one-fifth Catholic. “Catholics have a special duty to be peacemakers, to promote fraternity and mutual trust,” Gomez said. Then, 10 days later, after hearing concern from some of the Conference’s other leaders, Gomez wrote a new statement, announcing a working group to deal with the “difficult and complex” situation of a Catholic president promoting policies including abortion access and broad civil protections for LGBTQ people.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2020/12/09/biden-catholic-president-jfk-kennedy-bishops/

In October, Judge Amy Coney Barrett, a Notre Dame alumna and faculty member, was confirmed to the U.S. Supreme Court. Nearly 20 Notre Dame faculty members attended a White House ceremony Sept. 26 announcing her nomination, which was criticized as a COVID-19 "superspreader" event.  Notre Dame President John Jenkins was spotted there not wearing a mask, a decision he later apologized for after contracting COVID-19 himself. At the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, among the Trump flags and "Stop the Steal" banners, a "God, Country, Notre Dame" flag could also be seen on display.

(On a trip to Colorado last fall, we saw a billboard that read “LGBT = Liberty, Guns, Bible, and Trump).

Given the recent spate of unwelcome scrutiny, Notre Dame may decide to punt on or postpone another national controversy. Yet should Biden receive and accept an invite to campus, whenever that may be, it's likely that some of the very individuals and groups present in the White House Rose Garden last fall will be the very ones protesting his arrival, reflecting both a divided church and campus.

https://www.ncronline.org/news/people/will-biden-be-invited-notre-dames-commencement

More than 200 years ago, our Founding Fathers strongly felt that religion and state should not be mixed, but that’s easier said than done.

Al Smith was the first Roman Catholic to be nominated for president of the United States by a major party. His 1928 presidential candidacy mobilized both Catholic and anti-Catholic voters. Many Protestants (including German Lutherans and Southern Baptists) feared his candidacy, believing that the Pope in Rome would dictate his policies. Smith was also a committed "wet", which was a term used for opponents of Prohibition; as New York governor, he had repealed the state's prohibition law. As a "wet", Smith attracted voters who wanted beer, wine and liquor and did not like dealing with criminal bootleggers, along with voters who were outraged that new criminal gangs had taken over the streets in most large and medium-sized cities. Incumbent Republican Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover was aided by national prosperity and the absence of American involvement in war, and he defeated Smith in a landslide in 1928.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Smith

The second Roman Catholic to be nominated for the presidency was John F. Kennedy in 1960. Like Al Smith before him, he was opposed by at least some voters strictly because of his religion. Kennedy decided that the best way to fight the religious bias against Catholics was to address the problem directly. On September 12, 1960, he addressed the Greater Houston Ministerial Association, a group of Protestant ministers, on the issue of his religion. You can read his entire address at the link below:

 

Here’s a key paragraph:

 

“I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute, where no Catholic prelate would tell the president (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote; where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference; and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the president who might appoint him or the people who might elect him.”

 

https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=16920600

 

In November of 1964, noted conservative Barry Goldwater had this to say about the Religious Right:

 

"Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the [Republican] party, and they're sure trying to do so, it's going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can't and won't compromise. I know, I've tried to deal with them."

 

Barry Goldwater also was “pro-choice”:

 

“A woman has a right to an abortion. That’s a decision that’s up to the pregnant woman, not to the pope or some do-gooders or the Religious Right.”

 

For the record, Donald Trump was “pro-choice” most of his life, but became “pro-life” in 2012 when it became politically expedient to do so.

 

What’s truly illogical is the religious right’s devotion to Donald Trump.

 

A notable fact in 2016 was that exit polls showed about 80% of white evangelical Christians supported Trump in spite of his unfamiliarity with the Bible, his divorces, his vulgar rhetoric and his association with porn stars. Trump's reputation in moral terms hasn't changed all that much during his time in office, but there is little evidence of slippage among these faith voters.

 

Once upon a time, conservatives stood for ideas and values that mattered and so did the Republican Party that gave them a political home. For example, in recent years, at least since the Obama presidency, our conservative Catholic friends have been keen to champion the rights of conscience. They have done so at a time when too many liberals have abandoned their birthright as guardians of the rights of conscience. Even if I have thought our conservative friends at times were excessive or worse in their claims, at least conscience is a principle worth fighting for.

Then along came Trump. He does not, as Obama did, confront conservatives with a challenge to conscience on this point of policy or that. They are expected to abandon it altogether if it conflicts with fealty to their liege lord. The proceedings in Orlando last weekend would be sad if they were not so frightening. What has happened to conservatism and to the once great party of Lincoln? And how will we, as a culture, retrieve the parts of conservatism that balance the whole?

https://www.ncronline.org/news/opinion/distinctly-catholic/trump-still-golden-calf-gop

You’ll never convince a Trump supporter that they should “switch sides” due to the fact that millions of Americans believe that God made Trump president.

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/01/27/millions-of-americans-believe-god-made-trump-president-216537/

What we are witnessing literally is a Trump cult, much like the one that Jim Jones led in 1978: 

https://tohell-andback.blogspot.com/2018/11/forty-years-later-history-repeats-itself.html

If you don’t believe me, why else would there be a “golden calf” at the recent CPAC convention?

Abortion is a VERY COMPLICATED TOPIC, and the article below explain why:

https://tohell-andback.blogspot.com/2018/07/roe-v-wade-is-in-news-again.html

https://tohell-andback.blogspot.com/2011/01/roe-vs-wade.html

The Republican Party is determined to close as many clinics (like Planned Parenthood) as possible, even though the closures do not reduce abortions because women can no longer get birth control.

Venezuela provides the best example of this phenomenon:

As oil prices have declined, the economy in Venezuela has rapidly gone downhill, resulting in widespread poverty.

One of the casualties of declining income is birth control.

When Hugo Chavez led the country, birth control was subsidized and widely available - but that is no longer true.

Around Caracas, the capitol, a pack of three condoms costs $4.40 — three times Venezuela’s monthly minimum wage of $1.50.

Birth control pills cost more than twice as much, roughly $11 a month, while an IUD, or intrauterine device, can cost more than $40 — more than 25 times the minimum wage. And that does not include a doctor’s fee to have the device put in.

With the cost of contraception so far out of reach, women are increasingly resorting to abortions, which are illegal and, in the worst cases, can cost them their lives.

María Ferreira, 23, and her husband, Joseph Cordova, 25, carefully plan their sex life around the number of condoms they can afford each month.

Many women who grew up believing that Mr. Chávez’s political movement, known as Chavismo, would springboard them out of poverty, offering them education and career opportunities, now face the task of raising four, six or 10 children at a time when the basics of family care — food, soap, diapers — arrive intermittently or not at all.

As Venezuela’s economy — long buoyed by its vast oil reserves — began to tumble in 2014, the result of plummeting crude oil prices and poor financial management, the government’s purchasing power dove.

By 2015, contraceptives, once free at government hospitals and broadly affordable at private pharmacies, began to disappear. And women who could once plan their futures — thanks to contraception — began to lose control.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/20/world/americas/venezuela-birth-control-women.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage

There is no easy solution to the crisis in Venezuela. At the moment, the only possible ways to help are higher oil prices, a more diversified economy, and better government oversight - and none of those things are likely.

The United States CAN help - but only in a limited way.

The Mexico City policy, sometimes referred to by its critics as the global gag rule, is a United States government policy that blocked U.S. federal funding for non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that provided abortion counseling or referrals, advocated to decriminalize abortion, or expanded abortion services. When in effect, the Mexico City policy is a U.S. government policy that requires foreign non-governmental organizations to certify that they will not "perform or actively promote abortion as a method of family planning" with non-U.S. funds as a condition for receiving U.S. global family planning assistance and, as of January 23, 2017, any other U.S. global health assistance, including U.S. global HIV (under PEPFAR) and maternal and child health (MCH) assistance.

The Mexico City policy was first implemented on January 20, 1985 by the second Reagan administration.

Since that time, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has enforced the policy during all subsequent Republican administrations and has rescinded the policy at the direction of all Democratic administrations.

After its initial implementation by Republican President Ronald Reagan in 1985, the policy was rescinded by Democratic President Bill Clinton in January 1993, re-instituted in January 2001 by Republican President George W. Bush, rescinded in January 2009 by Democratic President Barack Obama, and reinstated in January 2017 when Republican President Donald Trump took office. In an address to the World Health Organization (WHO), Dr. Anthony Fauci, Chief Medical Advisor to the President, confirmed that President Joe Biden would rescind the policy, as with his Democratic predecessors; the recission occurred later in January 2021.

Research shows that by reducing funding for family planning organizations which use abortion as one of many methods of family planning, the Mexico City policy has had the inadvertent impact of increasing unintended pregnancies and abortion.

That last sentence best explains the paradox of Republican thinking. By reducing the number of clinics in a state, in an effort to reduce abortion, MORE abortions become likely due to the reduced availability of birth control. As a reminder, the last time that the number of abortions increased from one year to the next was in 2006, when George W. Bush was president.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexico_City_policy

It remains to be seen whether Joe Biden gives the commencement speech at Notre Dame in May, but my guess is that he will – and that’s a very good thing.