Jon Stewart on Obesity and Fast Food (and Commercials to Make His Point)

So, I'm watching Jon Stewart's "Daily Show"--the 13 July episode--and he has a segment on the alarming obesity rates in the U.S. now.  This mentions two new studies that show obesity at epidemic levels all across the U.S.  One of these has to be, I think, F as in Fat, a report just released by Trust for America's Health, which is on my radar screen because I've just written a grant proposal for a group trying to combat obesity-related diabetes through nutrition education.  And F as in Fat notes the imperative need for nutrition education as the U.S. copes with the rise in obesity.

Scandal Breaks on Scandal: Vatican Accepted Murdoch Money for Papal Visit

Pope Benedict and James Murdoch on Papal Visit to Britain

As if the Vatican hasn't had enough trouble to deal with this week, while the Cloyne report elicits blistering criticism of what's been called Vatican-engineered evasion by Irish bishops of laws requiring the reporting of child abuse and as the Irish foreign minister has called the papal nuncio on the carpet and demanded that the Vatican respond to the report:

Conservative Catholic and Evangelical Preoccupation with Gender, and Ironic Subversion of Gender-Based Orthodoxies

Jim McCrea has forwarded a group of his e-friends an interesting essay by a blogger who calls herself Pentimento, and who writes at the Vox Nova site about the sola skirtura controversy now swirling around in certain Catholic circles.  (And who knew?  Who knew that a half century after Vatican II called us to creative dialectic engagement with secular culture, the portentous issue on some American Catholic plates AD 2011 would be to assure that Catholic women wear the kind of skirts Our Blessed Mother used to wear?

Rick Perry Wants Us to Hand It Over to God

And speaking of crazy and the current crop of Republican presidential wannabes, as Justin Elliott notes at Salon today, Rick Perry wants us just to hand it all over to God to make it right.  Perry says,

Paul Krugman Calls Out the Media for Facilitating Crazy

In his inimitable way, Paul Krugman calls out the crazy-facilitators in the mainstream media who have shamelessly pandered to made one excuse after another for a Republican party that has long since gone off the deep end:

Herman Cain, Michael Irvin, and Debates about the Future of African-American Voting Patterns

South Carolina GOP Debate, May 2011

I had lunch today with two of my high-school classmates.  Well, actually, one of the two was a class ahead of the other two of us, I believe.  We try to get together as often as possible, and always have a great time when we do.

Cloyne Report Appears, and Commonweal Blog Discussion Develops

Pope Benedict with Bishop John Magee of Cloyne

 

The much-anticipated Cloyne report, the Irish government's report on its findings in its investigation of sexual abuse cases in the diocese of Cloyne, has now been released, and is gaining much attention.  Since I haven't yet read the report, I won't comment on it at any length now.  I plan to do so in the near future.