When Owl Chatter throws its weight around, there’s no limit to what can be accomplished. Happily, our recent story excoriating the LA Dodgers for caving to right-wing pressure and dropping the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence from their Pride night lineup helped the team see the error of its ways.
After a vehement backlash from LGBTQ+ groups, their allies, and Owl Chatter, the Dodgers reversed course — re-inviting the Sisters’ LA chapter to be honored for its charity work and apologizing to the LGBTQ+ community. Bravo team!
In a brief ceremony held on the field, the Dodgers gave a Community Hero Award to the Sisters. The public-address announcer said the group supports meal programs in the LA area and cited “their outstanding service to the LBGTQ+ community.”
The team was lambasted in a statement from Archbishop José Gomez of LA, Cardinal Timothy Dolan of NY, and the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Archbishop Timothy Broglio. They asked Catholics to pray on Friday “as an act of reparation for the blasphemies against our Lord we see in our culture today.”
“A professional baseball team has shockingly chosen to honor a group whose lewdness and vulgarity in mocking our Lord, His Mother, and consecrated women cannot be overstated,” the archbishops said. “This is not just offensive and painful to Christians everywhere; it is blasphemy.”
Cannot be overstated! Owl Chatter questions where the outrage was when children by the hundreds were sexually abused by the Church whose consistent response was a wide-ranging cover up. Are you kidding me? That these f*ckers still pretend to hold any moral office is chutzpah with a capital chutz.
But don’t get me started on the Church, puh-lease.
Sister Jeannine Gramick, has ministered to LGBTQ+ Catholics for more than 50 years and is a co-founder of New Ways Ministry, which advocates on their behalf. She publicly shared a letter she wrote to the Dodgers, welcoming the re-invitation. “I believe that any group that serves the community, especially those who are less fortunate or on the margins of society, should be honored.”
Let’s leave the last word to Mike Milligan of West Hills, CA, who wrote to the LA Times. He reassured the right-wing haters that there was no way the Dodgers sold their soul on Pride night. If they had, he reasoned, they would have come out of it with a much better bullpen.
Amen to that, right Mookie?
Crossworld is all in a snit over the developments in Russia. How the hell is YEVGENY PRIGOZHIN going to fit into a grid? There’s a reason why Mstislav Rostropovich never shows up — these f*cking Russians are impossible to cross clue.
Yevgeny — where is the anger coming from? Use your calming tools. Breathe. Breathe. He’s damn photogenic, though — I’ll give him that. The eyes aren’t smoky, but they’re knockout eyes. You nailed him Philly.
Maybe we should slip into some YOGA PANTS to calm down? A pair was in the puzzle today at 19A, clued with “Relative of leggings.” Girl! — Where your mat at? That floor doesn’t look very forgiving.
The puzzle had two nice 15-letter answers that spanned the grid. One was clued with “‘Elvis has left the building,’” and the answer was EVERYBODY GO HOME! The other was “Words accompanying a snap, perhaps,” and the answer was QUIT DAYDREAMING! (I’ve been there. I live there.)
Also, it was a “pangram,” which means all 26 letters of the alphabet were contained in the grid. That only happens a handful of times during the year, it seems to me. As a point of pride, I was the first commenter on Rex’s blog to point that out today. And if you’re thinking I have to dig pretty low to score a point of pride these days, I can only say — you got that right.
Poet and essayist John Ciardi was born on this date in 1916. Some of you may remember him (as I do) from his short segments on the language on NPR in the mornings, a long time ago. His 1959 book How Does a Poem Mean? is still used in high school and college English classes.
Born in Boston, Ciardi touched some Owl Chatter bases, earning his graduate degree at U. Mich, and living for many years in Metuchen, NJ. He once said: “The reader deserves an honest opinion. If he doesn’t deserve it, give it to him anyhow.”
Back to the Church, favorably, for once. The Times reported on a goodwill meeting between the Pope and a bunch of artists from various parts of the world to mark the 50th anniversary of the opening of the Vatican’s art collection, which includes works by Matisse, Van Gogh, and Marc Chagall. The Pope called on the artists to strive for social justice.
Among the invitees was the American Andres Serrano whose photo “Piss Christ” is an image of a plastic crucifix submerged in a tank full of urine. It was considered blasphemous when it debuted in 1987. Yet on Friday, as reported by the Times, “Francis blessed Mr. Serrano and gave him a cheery thumbs up.” Serrano was delighted and said he was sure the Pope knew exactly who he was. “It was a great, mischievous smile,” he said.
Owl Chatter’s Phil was one of the honored invitees, of course, and he managed to catch the Serrano moment.
According to the Times today, a federal judge in Florida, Gregory A. Presnell of Orlando, essentially called DeSantis a hateful idiot in blocking one of his ridiculous anti-gay laws: the one penalizing businesses that allow children in to see drag shows. Is that really where Florida is these days? Sheesh. Florida has also been busy restricting the discussion of personal pronouns in school — clearly a life-and-death matter — and forcing people to use certain bathrooms.
The State filed a complaint against a theater that hosted a Christmas drag show that had three kids attending with their parents. But undercover agents found no lewd behavior occurred. So there.
Hamburger Mary’s, a restaurant that hosts drag shows, sued the state claiming the law violated its right to free speech. Anybody remember that one? It’s, like, the first. The judge agreed, and noted that existing obscenity laws were sufficient to protect children from whatever the state was worried about. Of course, there’s a lot of hate out there — who knows what will happen on appeal.
Here you go, DeSantis: Public Enemy Number One.
This is from Met Diary this week, shared by Lenny Shine. It took place on Broadway and 19th.
Characters: Me, walking north in a hurry while eating a sandwich, and a woman walking south at a quick pace, also eating a sandwich. We make eye contact.
Me: “Two fried eggs on a toasted roll, no meat, no cheese.”
Her: “Ham, egg, and cheese on a roll.”
And on we went.
I was on a walk once and was on a long stretch where you can see the people coming towards you for quite a distance. A couple was down the way a bit walking towards me. They were in their 40’s, and had a nice look about them. Suddenly, the wife turned and punched the husband on his arm, quasi-playfully. When they got up to me, I said to the wife: Don’t hit him! And the husband said to me: Tell her!
Rex noted that PRIDE FLAGS was in the grid today, but that there was also (probably unintentionally) a British gay slur: PONCE, clued as the Puerto Rican city. Apparently, it’s a derogatory word for an effeminate male. One commenter took umbrage at Rex for “advancing the gay agenda.” But Weezie shot back: “There’s no such thing as ‘the gay agenda.’ There’s just human rights, and we’d like to have the same ones as everyone else, thanks very much.”
See you tomorrow! Thanks for putting up with the rants today.
The Wellington Files 