After her father’s death when she was ten-years-old, Tracy Edwards began to get in trouble and fail academically – especially after her mother remarried and the family relocated from England to Wales. By age sixteen, she had been expelled from school, trekked across Europe and signed on as a stewardess (the title in the 1970s) on a luxury yacht; she learned navigation and worked her way from deckhand to first mate. She came to worldwide prominence in 1989, when she recruited the first-ever 12-woman crew and captained the 58-foot yacht Maiden through the 27,000 nautical mile Whitbread Round the World Race; the Maiden finished first in its class and second overall.

Why are you a bystander in your own life?
You’re supposed to be a star in your own life.
Tracy Edwards

Pity the poor people of Idaho – one of the least vaccinated states in the nation!

It’s bad enough that their state’s major hospitals must now ration health care – meaning ICU beds will be allotted only to the patients most likely to survive.

Truth-tellers have never been popular with would-be tyrants – including more than a handful of American politicians - and their derriere-canoodlers.

A Tennessee state legislator is a COVID coward who gives new meaning to the idea of betraying his family, those he represents and his very self.

Alexander Schmorell was a hero; today he is a saint.

In the era of the Great Lie of a stolen presidential election, the words of Sophie Scholl should resonate through the corridors of Congress and the streets of America:

“How can we expect righteousness to prevail
when there is hardly anyone willing to
give himself up individually to a righteous cause….”

It is rare that a man is prepared to pay with his life
for such a minimal achievement as causing cracks
in the edifice of the existing order.
Inge Scholl

Forty-five years after Germany’s defeat in World War II, Gustav’s son asked the Simon Wiesenthal Center to investigate his father’s past.

We’re flummoxed trying to find a word to describe him as an adolescent. He sounds, at that age, like too many American politicians.

The newest (but truly old) big lie: They’re gonna come into your house, tie you to a chair and stick a vaccine into your arm and, while they’re invading your private space, they’ll confiscate your bibles and guns.

Our father was the quintessential man of his times – member of The Greatest Generation, salesman, man of family and faith. I don’t think we ever heard him utter anything stronger than “damn.” His greatest insult: “Too stupid to come in out of the rain.”

It’s tempting to say “The world can use more men like Robert J. Schadewald.”

Tempting.

And true.

The greater truth would be to say “As self-proclaimed ‘Christians” continue to attack LGBT children and adults, the world could use new versions of Mr. Schadewald.”

Remember “the good ole days” when some “trolling-the-gullible” politicians and “religious leaders” preyed (definitely not “prayed”) on their victims’ fears with the catchy accusation “They want to bring Sharia law to America”?

The following is the eulogy/homily offered by Father Skip Flynn at the Memorial and Mass of the Resurrection for his mother, Mary T. Flynn, on Monday, June 14, 2021 at Epiphany Church, South Miami. Mrs. Flynn died on Thursday, June 3 at age 102.

Don’t cringe!

Please!

We promise we’ll tell you when to cringe.

The Vienna General Hospital was one of the largest in the world; its massive maternity unit was divided into two wards – one for male doctors and their male students and one for female midwives and their female students…

“…Evil is threatened by the love it cannot bear…”
Ursuline Sister Larraine Lauter,
Speaking of the torture of
American Ursuline Sister Dianna Ortiz in Guatemala in 1989

It’s almost impossible to joke about anything this utterly ignorant, but…

What do you do when members of Congress appear ready to sign onto – or actually authorized - a document that reads “The treasure trove of data they have collected from Americans have given them powers….”

“Racism is a virus that quickly mutates and, instead of disappearing,
goes into hiding, and lurks in waiting.
Instances of racism continue to shame us,
for they show that our supposed social progress is
not as real or definitive as we think.”
Pope Francis

We’re sorry. But someone has to say it: If “blah, blah, blah” were a meal, many of America’s “religious leaders” would be master chefs. Instead, most simply remain silent while bigots, racists and political cowards promote the Big Lie and attempt to deny millions of Americans of their right to vote.

After the American counselor finished a lecture on “The American Way of Death” at one of China’s most prestigious medical schools, he asked a simple question: “As doctors and nurses, how do you tell a patient that he or she has a terminal illness and there is nothing more you can do for him?”

As the crow flies, it’s at least 80 miles from Bethsaida to Jerusalem and, although the Days of Unleavened Bread were still some time away, the urgency of the journey was palpable. The Teacher had said there was still much to share with his followers; yet the crowds - even in the tiniest hamlets - demanded to see him and his heart seemed filled with the pain of the widows and orphans, the lepers who had been rejected by their families, and the most physically and emotionally broken.