By David Rutter
1. Rev. Pfleger, WTF?
Not to go totally Vatican on you guys, but WTF wonders why it took so long for Chicago’s Catholic cardinal to whap Rev. Michael Pfleger upside his head with an incense burner.
Bishops hate when parish priests tell them to go fly a liturgical kite. Pfleger stuck out his chin and dared the bishop to smite him. Consider yourself smited. Or is it smote? We have the smoting gun.
Pfleger, a morally upright person, just forgot he’s not a freelance public do-gooder with a catchy style on the pulpit. It’s worked for Jesse Jackson, but not for Pfleger. That’s because he has to live by rules. He’s a priest. He promised to submit joyfully to the authority of his church when he took the sacrament of Holy Orders. He didn’t promise a person or an organization. He promised God. Sorry, dude. That’s the rule. That’s the vow. You don’t get to be a priest without that promise, and it’s no bureaucratic trick. Pfleger forgot he’s not bigger than the faith he swore to uphold. The bishop just reminded him.
Whap! And smote!
And just as a reality check, the parish of St.Sabina does not belong to Pfleger. As a matter of history and law, it belongs to the bishop.
2. Oprah, WTF?
We might smirk at Great Britain for tolerating the extravagant self indulgence of royal households, but our royalty is just as preposterous.
Queen Oprah is going, alas, to the West Coast. She plays a Chicagoan on TV and uses the city as a prop. But she’s a Californian in all meaningful ways. God save the Queen.
Let us sum up the phenomenon that is Oprah with true wonder. Mostly we wonder WTF.
What is Oprah? But that we mean, what does she do that makes her a beloved mega-millionaire, adored by the masses who are sent into paroxysms of hysteria by the very mention of her name?
Has anyone in American cultural history – aside from Ronald Reagan and Howdy Doody – gotten more mileage out of modest acting talent than she has?
3. Donald Trump, WTF?
If Donald Trump actually is running for president – which we predict he isn’t – why did he give Rahm Emanuel $50 Gs for the mayoral run?
Seems an odd way to punish the president.
Or maybe this is a . . . wait, wait . . . WTF was about to think up an Obama plot where he gets Donald to make the batbleep crazy Tea Partiers seem even crazier and require “normal Republican presidential candidates” (whatever they are) to dip their ladles into the batbleep crazy broth, too? It made sense for about two seconds. But WTF’s skull can only hold so many plots.
4. Mitch Daniels, WTF?
A guess. Indiana governor is not running for president, either.
He can’t run on what he believes about economics because the country would just as soon buy a used Packard. Plus, he’s about the size of a hood ornament. Face it. America just doesn’t trust little people.
5. Crime-fighting, WTF?
Being a maven of electronic wizardry, WTF would be the last maven to question the value of the Internet, because, after all, it’s the only reason you’re reading this.
But have you noticed how often these days that crimes are “solved” by Internet info sharing? In North Africa, lifelong dictators are toppled by Facebook. Here, we get fairly obvious tragedies digitally cleared up when old-fashioned police work might have worked just as well. Here’s a case.
First, it did not take the Internet to inform Round Lake Park police that she died somewhere other than where her body was found. Her body was found in the back of her minivan.
Second, how long she had been dead is a timeframe to be inferred by crosschecking other people with access to the parking lot. When was the first time others with daily access to the lot noticed the van?
Third, since there were no signs of trauma and she apparently did not die of natural causes, even Inspector Clouseau could tell it was likely drugs and that someone had moved her body there.
Ask yourself, who moves the body of a person killed by illicit drugs? Someone who gave the drugs to her and doesn’t want to be blamed.
Also, based on the police response, here’s how to disappear in the 21st century with little chance of being found. Ditch your cell phone, credit cards and switch off Facebook for good. You become almost invisible.
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Comments welcome.
Posted on April 29, 2011