Erie's Trautman gets bobblehead bishop

Dana Massing reports in the Erie Times-News.

"Now Erie Catholic Bishop Donald W. Trautman is among those immortalized in miniature with a bobblehead.

"Trautman said the likeness is 'pretty close.'"

No indication whether he wished there were a shorter, simpler term for "bobblehead".

A-Rod and D-Grubs

At the A.V. Club, Matt Wild reports that Aaron Rodgers and David Gruber would like to talk to you about auto insurance.

"Yes, the man who took home a Super Bowl XLV ring can now be seen with the man who took home a 2010 'Shepherd Express' Readers’ Choice Award for Best Personal Injury Lawyer."

Antichrist, not that there's anything wrong with that.

Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod president Rev. Mark G. Schroeder on ecumenism via ignorance, in a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel op-ed.

"The WELS position on the anti-Christ has been portrayed as a prominent doctrine in our church. In reality, it is not a topic of daily discussion or a regular theme in Sunday sermons."

Bachmann climbs out of WELS

Those who cannot remember the past are bound to appear to have slept through Sunday School.

Presidential candidate Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), caught unaware in a 2006 debate that the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod professes that the papacy is the anti-Christ, has now left her WELS congregation. Somehow she and the reporters and even the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights seem not to know why there have been Protestant churches for going on 500 years.

I am surprised Rep. Bachmann and her staff did not follow up on this issue after the 2006 controversy.

At least there's schadenfreude for Catholics if she is an indication that WELS catechetics have deteriorated from even more rigorous standards to what we now find in our own Church.

Maybe next Catholic candidates will be accused of anti-Protestant bigotry based on the anathemas of the Council of Trent.

See Nobody expects the snappish inquisition

Brown-out

Anthony Daniels' review of Gordon Brown's memoir in The New Criterion notes approaches you might notice used elsewhere.

Regarding his role in the recent financial crisis, "His technique of self-exculpation is to aggregate the predicaments of all countries as if they were the same in all respects. His basic rhetorical strategies, employed consciously or not, are suppressio veri and suggestio falsi. Of course, aggregation without distinction implies that the financial crisis was more like an unforeseeable natural event than an event caused by human conduct; or that, if there was fault, it was shared equally by all leaders. If I am guilty, Mr. Brown says, I am no more guilty than anyone else. And I was the one who saved the world from its (not my) folly."

Linda K. Knutsen R.I.P.

Published in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on July 13, 2011, now at Legacy.com

"Knutsen, Linda K. Age 61. Of Bristol, WI, formerly of Milwaukee. Beloved wife of the late Harold, Jr. Loving mother of Reneta Stephen and Rhonda (Chris) Beucher. Fond sister of Mary Lee Hierlameier, Lois Lisowe, Jeff (Karen) Hierlameier and Jim Hierlameier. Dear grandmother of 7 and aunt of many. Memorial service 4 PM Friday, July 15, 2011, at Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church, Hwy 45 ½ mile south of Hwy 50, Bristol, WI 53104. Interment is private. Arrangements by Strang Funeral Home of Antioch, IL. INFO: (847)395-4000 or www.strangfh.com"

Never lost a fair fight

The Economist reviewed Among the Truthers: A Journey Through America’s Growing Conspiracist Underground, by Jonathan Kay. "The idea that some shadowy group or other is running things for their own benefit, not that of the ordinary working man, is, after all, the constant solace of the unsuccessful."

Cost comparison in todays dollars STS vs. Saturn V

Discussion at NASA Spaceflight on the relative cost if the Saturn V had been used for the missions of the Space Shuttle.

Results of Book Sale Finder Survey

"Book Sale Finder has released the results of its comprehensive survey concerning people who attend or organize charity used book sales in the United States and Canada."

The Church bell curve

Bill Keller reviews Absolute Monarchs: A History of the Papacy, by John Julius Norwich, in The New York Times. Among 265 popes over almost 2,000 years, "The popes who achieved greatness ... were outnumbered by the corrupt, the inept, the venal, the lecherous, the ruthless, the mediocre and those who didn’t last long enough to make a mark."