Sunday, February 26, 2006

Carol Marin Bashes Lura Lynn Ryan for Helping Her Husband: Was Marin complicity to and FBI Frame-up of a Chicago Couple While at NBC? Just Asking.

Carol Marin of the Chicago Sun Times raked the wife of former Governor George Ryan over the coals in Sunday's Sun Times

Marin, a news icon for boldly refusing to go on air with an alleged news drip, has a reputation for fair and balanced coverage. Mrs. Lura Lynn Ryan went on TV last week and linked the attacks on her husband to his 'fight against the Death Penalty.' I don't buy that, but I respect the tactic.

It might work. Gov. Ryan might walk. I would be glad if he did. My days and nights will be more affected by the monsters George Ryan helped out of the joint. How many have made a return to the steel Sheraton?

But Carol Marin's acid-in -the- face to Lura Lynn is uncalled for. I won't repeat or post any of the column. Instead, I will post an interesting passage from The Blanket a website dedicated to a united Ireland. Two Chicagoans, Mary and Chris Fogarty, had their life's savings depleted in an attempt to defend themselves from the FBI, IRS, MI-5, and other acronymic agencies with the complicity of NBC 5's Carol Marin.

I remembered the case, because one of the murdered people was related to a girl who taught at Bishop McNamara in Kankakee ( funny how that town dovetails ( George & Lura Lynn & etc.), and I remembered how much storm the story had around the time of the Good Friday Peace Accords and the horrific Omagh bombings.

There should be a 'Follow-up' story to this - but the News media rarely do that when a story goes south on them. Carol Marin, how about some answers?

Reader, read on:
From The Blanket:


Why Ireland is Unfree; Continued
Chris Fogarty
MICHAEL McKEVITT is in Portlaoise Prison for the last two years awaiting a Brit-type, non-jury trial. Ireland’s Justice officials evidently know what everybody else knows; that the RUC, British Army Intelligence, MI5 and Chicago FBI converted an IRA property damage bomb into the Omagh massacre, and because they know it they cannot charge McKevitt with it. Instead, they have adopted a clever ruse: they have charged McKevitt, not with murder of the Omagh innocents, but with Directing the Real IRA (RIRA). They then get Ireland’s news media to add “The RIRA bombed Omagh” to all reports of McKevitt’s impending trial. Thus, though the gov’t cannot charge McKevitt with that crime, it fosters the belief that he will be convicted of it. McKevitt’s wife, Bernadette, was arrested along with him; but being a sister of internationally-revered Bobby Sands (RIP), the smears necessary to frame an innocent would hardly adhere to her. She was soon released, uncharged. At first glance McKevitt appears to be facing a Soviet-era show trial; but it is far more: it is the latest of a series of MI5 crimes that began in Chicago over a decade ago. Michael McKevitt has been framed by the self-same MI5/FBI criminals who framed me twice and wrongfully charged and incarcerated my wife Mary and me by similarly coordinated felony crimes. Here’s what happened in Chicago.
Chicago
THE WARNING came from FBI Agent Joe Doyle. He informed Mary and me that some of his fellow agents were bribed and subverted by MI5 and planning “dirty tricks” crimes against us to stop our human rights and media watch work for the Occupied Irish. (MI5 evidently fears truth-tellers more than funders of the IRA, as it never attacked Irish Northern Aid.) Though Doyle spent a few hours describing the forms of MI5’s bribes and much other detail we ultimately doubted him and his warning when, despite the absoluteness of his Oath to uphold the law, he said there was nothing he could do to stop the crimes. Later, he proved too fearful of his fellow agents to testify that he had warned us. The proven accuracy of his warning of impending crimes now alarms us - as he has more recently re-contacted us to warn that the FBI will murder us if we continue to expose their crimes.
THE LANGERT FAMILY was massacred in the Chicago suburb of Winnetka a few weeks after Doyle’s first warning. The murder weapon was FBI agent Lewis’ 357 Magnum; the shooter was 16-year-old David Biro. Local detectives met and each wrote on a card the names of possible suspects and placed it onto a pile. The cards contained only one name; David Biro. Also, a detective had spotted Biro near Langerts’ home the night of the murders. He had previously shot others with his BB gun and poisoned a carton of milk in his own family refrigerator. His ambition was to be a hit-man.
FBI AGENT PATRICK “ED” BUCKLEY promptly arrived and took charge. He ordered investigators away from Biro and sent them on nationwide pursuits of phantom perpetrators, particularly the IRA. As head of the Chicago FBI’s new “Irish Terrorism” unit, Buckley was the leader of the MI5-bribed traitors about whom Doyle had warned us. During the six months that Buckley shielded Biro, Biro would impress his classmates by taking them on tours of the murder site. They kept mum. Agent Lewis never reported her gun, the murder weapon, missing.
CORRUPT NEWS MEDIA personified by TV anchorwoman Carol Marin in my case, abetted the MI5/FBI criminals the same way they abetted the Omagh perpetrators - by blaming it on the RIRA and, by extension, McKevitt. Within days of the Langert massacre Buckley got Marin to announce on prime-time network TV that “the IRA are linked to Langert murders.” When I phoned her the next day to learn the basis for her “scoop,’ she told me that her source was “an FBI agent.” When I asked her how she had met her responsibility to verify it she said she had not done so but had accepted the uncorroborated word of the FBI. She never issued a correction; and the rest of the news media parroted her lies.
BUCKLEY THEN FRAMED ME. Having gotten the news media to do to me what it has been doing to McKevitt, Buckley took his next step; he inserted into a signed police murder investigation report “my” words that doubly nailed me. Of all of Earth’s population, “my” info could be known first hand by nobody but the murderer and the first investigators on the crime scene. I was headed for Lethal Injection; but Buckley didn’t arrest me - yet. It suited MI5 to wait; as memories fade, while murder has no Statute of Limitations. Besides, his protégé Biro’s blabbing was becoming problematic; it eventually demolished Buckley’s frame-up of me. Nobody other than Biro was ever arrested for these crimes, and he was arrested only after fellow students informed police of his plan to rob the local bank and murder its entire staff.
BUCKLEY’S 2ND SERIES OF CRIMES were against my wife Mary, two others and me. He began them soon after Biro demolished his previous attempt to have me executed. He falsely arrested us and incarcerated us in the Federal Correctional Center at Clark and VanBuren streets. We barely bonded out after three days and spent the next fifteen months defending ourselves with seven attorneys. We were doomed had we been poor. We eventually proved in federal court that the FBI’s only evidence against us, an audiotape, was a criminally altered version of the original demanded by the judge.

There is more, a great deal more to this story. As of Friday, RTE the Irish national broadcasting company reported that the FBI, MI-5, and other intelligence agaencies had information about the Omagh Bombings weeks before thirty-six people were killed. Let's see that's six times the number of children George Ryan is to have had complicity in the deaths of. . . . As I recall it was a piece of a hitch that fell off the truck and collided with the Willis's van and caused the deaths of those six babies. Maybe George Ryan is guilty of that, but some one is sure guilty of helping frame a Chicago couple.

Friday, February 24, 2006

As American As Thomas Nast's Cartoons

One of America's greatest political cartoonists, Thomas Nast, the man who first depicted Santa Claus as we know him to be, found a home in American Progressive thought. Like Lyman Beecher, Samuel Morse, Margaret Sanger, Frances Willard, William Garrison, and John Quincy Adams, Thomas Nast believed that the Catholic Church was an evil institution dedicated to world domination and sexual perversions of all manifestations. This cartoon from Harpers Weekly seems suitable to today's climate.

There is a great old American tradition of vilifying the Catholic Church. In the 19th Century, immigrant Catholic children attended public schools where they learned how horrible the 'faith of their fathers and mothers' was to them. Pretty soon Catholics built their own schools. Today, those schools dominate post season athletics 'because they have an unfair advantage over Public Schools.'

The ministers of the Catholic Church are monsters; in the 19th Century they were recruiters for the Pope's Vatican Army and today they are sexual predators. The trouble is - the American Catholic Bishops are leading supplier of fuel to the fires raging in today's headlines.

I attended Catholic grammar school, high school, university and graduate school. In high school I attended a seminary in Holland Michigan ( all male) the only nuns were Mexican Hermanitas who cooked for us. We played football, basketball, baseball, and boxed.
We lived in a barracks-like dormitory. I was there for three years ( 1966-1969).
I had daily classes, athletics, and punishments under the supervision of priests and brothers. I was never approached, courted, flirted with, touched ( other than clouted for the best of reasons; I was a jerk) , much less sexually molested. I'll admit that I ain't much to look at.

I received a magnificent education and learned charity from some
wonderful people. What did I miss?

Back home, my Dad asked if I wanted to finish at Leo with my buddies from the neighborhood, but I had missed the allure of feminine company; I finished at a co-ed Catholic high school - Little Flower. There were nuns in control again but they were not as prone to violence as the grammar school sisters had been. Parish priests, including the guy who called for Cardinal George to resign, filled out the theology staff. One priest Father Charles Ruby spent what seemed like every hour of the day with us punks from Wood Street.

Father Ruby opened the gym for us during his 'free time;' talked to us about racial change and our obligations to civil rights as Catholics; counseled draft age guys about military service; warned us about Irish arthritis - getting stiff in a different joint every night; and bailed out malefactors from the lock-up at Gresham. He did not grab boys.

The only abuse from the clergy, aside from eight years of clouts in grammar school, that I have ever experienced was being hit by Cardinal Cody's driver while running across Chicago Ave. when I was late for a class at Loyola. I got a 'Watch where the hell you're going!' from Louisiana Fats, yelling from the rolled down window of his Limo. The Progressives loved Louisiana fats, who spent his early tenure in Chicago undoing the great works of Card. Mundelein and Bishop Sheils.

As a baby teacher at Bishop McNamara High school in Kankakee, IL, I witnessed Father Ken Yarno C.S.V. courageously report sexual abuse of a boy in the 'care' of another priest and that was in 1979. It's in the public record.

Boys and girls are and have been abused by priests, as well as some laymen from what I understand. It is a horror. The bishops of the Catholic Church and their chancery office spin-doctors have screwed the pooch and with the arrogance of people who have been 'right and correct' all of their lives have dismissed the charges of abuse against the clergy like so many used votive candles.

Punish the sexual predators; I have no problems with guy who shanked Geoghan in Massachusetts. Each man's death diminishes me and I can stand to drop a few pounds.

But, let's try to keep our eyes open. There are people who have made a cottage industry from the clergy abuse scandals. What is going to be left when ever person who has passed a stiff collar on the street brings a charge of abuse? Class Action suits. Remember the Children! Well, remember the children when they no longer have a Catholic school to attend. Remember the Poor! Well, remember the thousands of Catholic employees who will not see their pensions. Remember the Hurting! Well, remember the hurting when there is no Catholic Charities! Remember Justice! Well, remember justice when people like Bishop Joseph Imesch of Joliet, are tried and convicted in the court of public opinion. If Bishop Imesch is guilty of a crime, bring a case against him and convict him based upon evidence.

We , the fair minded American People, would burst the back-side out our Depends, if any Bishop had fired an openly GAY priest ten years ago. If a charge of homosexuality were leveled against any priest how soon would it have taken for the ACLU and Gay activist lawyers to sue the diocese? As quick as a lawyer can say, "40%." How long would an issue like "PRIVACY" been not taken for granted?

We want it now! We want it to go away. Well, things do go away. The money. The services. The schools. The opportunities.

Let's remember that the man who gave use Santa Claus, 19th Century cartoonist Thomas Nast, also HATED the Catholic Church and Catholics in particular. His sentiments are an American tradition. Faith is larger than tradition and so are the laws of Cause and Effect.

Thursday, February 23, 2006

Donal O'Kelly's Catalpa





An add appearing in Chicago's Irish American News February edition ( page 10) announcing the February 22nd opening of Donal O'Kelly's One-Man Play Catalpa, presented by the Irish repertory of Chicago noted that "His script is the true tale of The catalpa, an American whaling ship hijacked at sea and forced to sail to Australia is rescue a group of Irish political prisoners."

That note is misleading, neither the good ship Catalpa nor playwright/actor/director/film star O'Kelly is forced into the rescue or presenting that skewed bit of history. Donal O'Kelly and composer Trevor Knight present the mission of the Catalpa with attention to historical detail.

John Devoy, New York's exiled Irish Republican Brotherhood leader paid for the services of the Bedford Mass. Whaling ship, its Captain, Crew, and voyage, in order to bring about the escape of the Freemantle Six - Irishmen in the British Army found to have taken the oath of the IRB, sentenced to Life in Penal Servitude in Her Majesty's Western Australia Colony.

I attended the opening night performance in The Getz Theatre of Chicago's Columbia College. From the opening chords of Trevor Knight's musical adaptation to the final sounds of O'Kelly's child persona the packed house was made the willing participant of the sea saga about infidelity, patriotism, courage, skill, desperation, and hope.

The premise of Donal O'Kelly, a familiar face in the Celtic Tiger's cinema roll call, is of a man coming out of a failed movie pitch to Hollywood Producers. This fictional pitcher tries one more time and strikes one across the letters of O'Kelley's audience. Applying sound and sense from a palette thick with experience, O'Kelly and Knight treat their audience with the respect and the audio-caresses the Hollywood Players missed out on.

Verbally visualizing every shot, sound and mood O'Kelly's would-be movie maker takes the audience on a sound-voyage and verbal cruise through the adventures and psychological peculiarities of every character in 'the movie' to be.

Yankee Ship owners, West Indian Harpoonmen, Irish Icons, French chambermaids, A Sea Bird, Australian spies, Fenian Prisoners, an andry Wife and the angrier ghost of the Captain's mother-in-law pour from the soul and talents of Donal O'Kelly. One of the great lines of dialogue comes from the Yankee Ship owner who agrees to the Catalpa's place in the Fenian plot - for a handsome price of course states as his reason, ' We may at some time run out of whales to hunt, but we will never run out of Irish Americans!"

I had the pleasure to speak with the author/ performer after the thrilling two hours vanished like the Australian sea storms - Howling, Blasting, and Surging - now calm - assured - and trusting.

We met in the dark and chilly backstage of the Getz Theatre.

MY TALK WITH DONAL O'KELLY - 2/22/06 at Columbia College's Getz theatre

Pat Hickey for Wild Geese Today - PH

Donal O'Kelly - DO'K

PH - I am with the author and performer of Catalpa, Mr. Donal O'Kelly. We are at the Columbia College Theatre ( Getz Theatre) and you put on a brilliant performance. It's a remarkable piece as its a presentation to some movie producers 'gone south.' Would you talk about that a little bit?

Do'k -Well the whole idea is of a man writing a screenplay who can never really pitch the idea to producers - he always makes a mess of it. So, my idea of Catalpa is to present the idea to the audience as this guy sees it in his mind. We can theatrically and with live music recreate what the man wants to get across that a film might not allow and the audience is invited in to experience what this man wants to get across.

PH - The language of this play is remarkable - its sights and sounds and cadences. It's remarkably rhythmic.

DO'K - It's sort of our ( performer and audience) little short-hand -so that -unwittingly -the audience participates they get the images very vividly in their minds. Its economic use of language - At least in theory ( laughs)

PH - Well it works. This magnificent story presented in such an inviting manner. You had a packed house enthralled.

D"OK - We try not to draw a certain amount of attention the mechanics of the language so much as visualize through the sounds - rather than say 'Oh, isn't that such wonderful writing - as a distraction to them - try to be too clever. So what the audience gets is the features in their heads.

PH- Trevor's work picked up on your cadences and Language - particularly in the whales care of its child and how it merged with George Anthony's thoughts of home.

D'OK - Well Yeah, George has a bit of Mother Fixation or should I say the Ghost of a mother-in-Law Fixation. Throughout the play George ( Capt. of the Catalpa) is haunted by the ghost of his mother-in-law for breaking his vow never to go to sea again - its was a death-bed promise.

PH - You kept the historical background intact without drumming away at it too much. Here is Chicago the IRB was a great influence.

D'OK - Quite right for the sake of theatrics we did not include John Devoy's rival Goff of Chicago. As theatre piece we had to leave Chicago's part out of it.

PH - Well you must be exhausted and I'll get out of your hair. Let me thank you for bringing this play to Chicago.

DO'K - On the contrary it was through the support of Irish report Theatre and their sponsoring agencies - I will say this that they were an intelligent and responsive audience. They got the punchlines to the jokes set early on in the play. It was a great pleasure to bring them in.

Along with Knight and O'Kelly, Ms Sorcha Fox did a great job of balancing the lighting to meet the many moods created by the sound and sense of O'Kelly's presentation of Catalpa.

Thursday, February 09, 2006

Chicago Tribune Finds Joliet Bishop Guilty

The Chicago Tribune, from its earliest days as Chicago's best fish wrapper, has had a tradition of joyfully condemning the Catholic Church and Catholics. As a Whig and later Republican paper, the Chicago Tribune has never missed an opportunity to hit Catholics and the Archdiocese of Chicago as foreign, criminal, puritanical, clannish, racist, anti-semetic, Poilitical Machine driven, drunken, licentious, corrupt, and devious. From Medil, through McCormick, to its current Board of Directors, the Chicago Tribune never misses an opportunity to bash the Catholic Church, its ministers, and its congregants.

But Chicago is a Catholic city and Catholic make up a heavy portion of the Tribune's readership. I do not and have not bought a Chicago Tribune in years, but I read it. My neighbors always throw it out and itis available on-line. Today's editorial is another such example.

America's leading clerical-abuse ambulance chaser, Jeffery Anderson of Minnesota, is hard at work in Illinois to rake in millions of dollars from people who claim to have been abused by priests. The Chicago Tribune's tack on Herr Anderson is that he is a fearless dragon-of-Babylon slayer and champion of helpless victims. That's nice. I read the news. Amderson is always in the News - CNN, Times-Picayun, Boston Globe, and etc. Lawyer Anderson was broke in the early eighties until he took up the case of a drifter who wandered into a Catholic Church in order to relieve himself. Anderson won a huge settlement by portraying the Catholic Church as hostile to the homeless and deflecting the the charge of unlawful entry. Sharp guy.

From there it was gravy. Taking cases that allowed huge settlements from individual dioceses around America, Anderson amassed millions of dollars in fees and with the sexual abuse cases pouring in, Anderson made more millions.

Let's pause there . The Catholic Church in America was devastated by the size and scope of priest sexual abuse cases that were swept aside by Chancery nit-wits and monstrous asses like Boston's Cardinal Law - who skulked off to the Vatican. The Catholic Conference of Bishops convened to combat abuase and with their usual aplomb screwed the pooch by an inability to understand the anger of the Catholic laity. Nevertheless, sexual abuse cases began to see the light of day. But I am no lawyer and can only imagine the dent that reform will make in the coffers of a pettifogging crumb like Anderson. So after a breather - it's full charge against the Church.

The Chicago Tribune has decided to bring its artillary down on Bishop Joseph Imesch of Joliet. They don't have the grapes to opennly criticize Chicago's Cardinal George but at least they can get a few licks in on the Bishop of Joliet.

I detest the the Tribune. When it wants someone 'dead' in the media, it takes the leash off its dogs. Sheriff Michael Sheahan was a frequent target but he punched back and theTribune yelped its way back under the couch. The Tribune wanted to destroy Sheahan professionally and personally in the press and when the Tribune's orchestrated Cook County Jail assault straw-man went to the jury , it only took the sober judgment of 12 good people to toss the charges in twenty minutes. I hope that Bishop Imesch diplays the same toughness as Mike Sheahan. When asked by reporters from the balance of Chicago's mediums about the quality of Chicago Tribune investigative powers, Sheahan succinctly and accurately summed up ' Tribune invesitgative journalism is BS.' Chicago agreed.

But that does not stop the paper that declared Dewey a Winner! Take a look at what the Chicago Tribune's editorial brain-trust opines:

Bishop Imesch, in his wordsPublished February 9, 2006
Americans curious about the failure of many Roman Catholic bishops to report sexual abuse by clerics owe gratitude to Joliet Bishop Joseph Imesch. During a deposition given last August and unsealed by a judge last week, the bishop put words to the code of silence that insulated his subordinates--if not the innocents they allegedly exploited:- In one deposition excerpt, attorney Jeffrey Anderson quizzed Imesch about a deacon's report to diocesan officials in 1985 that a Woodridge priest, Rev. Edward Stefanich, might be having an improper relationship with a 14-year-old girl. Did Imesch contact police? "I would not do that," the bishop said. "There is no verification. There is no hard evidence that this was happening. And I'm not going to go say, `Hey, police, go check on my priest.'"Anderson: "If you had reported this to the police in 1985 to investigate the suspicion ... this girl wouldn't have been raped?"Imesch: "I'm not going to go to the police and say I've got a suspicion that one of my priests is dating a young girl. I'm not going to do that."Anderson: "She was a 14-year-old girl."Imesch: "We didn't know that at the time."Anderson: "You didn't ask."Imesch: "We didn't know who to ask."The deacon, sensibly, did go to the police. Stefanich pleaded guilty in August 1987 to criminal sexual abuse and was sentenced to 6 months in jail. He also left the priesthood.- Anderson asked about Rev. Larry Gibbs, accused of abusing boys in Lombard. Imesch said Gibbs acknowledged skinny-dipping with the boys and playing games while they were nude--conduct Imesch called "inappropriate." Imesch moved Gibbs to a Lockport parish, where he again was accused. When Anderson asked Imesch if he considered the 1980 Lombard allegations against Gibbs credible, the bishop replied: "Well, I think what happened happened. It was not considered a crime or a criminal activity so there was no reason for me not to transfer him."- In the late 1970s, a Michigan priest confided to Imesch that he had sexually abused an altar boy there. The admission came after the priest, Rev. Gary Berthiaume, had been arrested, but before he was convicted of molesting the boy. Why hadn't Imesch reported Berthiaume's admission to Michigan investigators? "Well, I don't think that was my responsibility," the bishop said. "He is charged with a crime. He has to be given a trial. My going to the police doesn't have anything to do with whether he's guilty or not." Years later, Imesch invited Berthiaume to work at a retreat house in the Joliet diocese.Imesch's words eloquently explain why this abuse crisis is not a matter for the church alone to resolve. Many of the bishops who covered up crimes, and who enabled predators to hurt new victims, still face no formal consequences.Imesch said in a weekend letter to his flock that these incidents occurred "before psychologists recognized that behavior of that kind was indicative of a severe problem that could not be adequately treated." The diocese now notifies civil authorities of any abuse allegations, he said. "The media reports tend to portray me as someone who doesn't care about the safety of children. Nothing could be further from the truth. All of us can look back on our lives and find things we should have done differently."No, it's not the news media that portray Imesch in a troubling light. His words suffice.A diocesan spokesman told the Tribune that Imesch, who is 74 and plans to retire at 75, has asked the Vatican to look for his replacement.So Bishop Imesch, it appears, will be allowed to leave on his terms. How convenient for him.The people molested by criminals he didn't report will continue to live with the consequences.And the many honorable, selfless priests of the Joliet diocese can soon begin rebuilding the trust that Bishop Imesch has destroyed.
Copyright © 2006, Chicago Tribune

I am stopping at DiCola's for some cat-fish after work. I know I'll find a Trib in the parking lot there.

Wednesday, February 08, 2006

Spike O'Donnell - Da Real M'Coy

Edward 'Spike' O'Donnell lived in the Auburn-Gresham neighborhood at about 83rd and Loomis - near Foster Park. He died there - with several trips to Englewood and later Little Company of Mary Hospitals, where he recovered from gun-shot wounds and assorted broken limbs due to the nature of his vocation. Spike O'Donnell was a Slugger, A Tough Guy, A Hard Egg, A Bootlegger, A Crime Czar, A Hitter, A Burglar, A Strong Arm Guy, A Lecturer . . . yes, a lecturer.

In his varied career spanning four decades Edward J. O'Donnell managed to stay one-step ahead of the undertaker and two steps ahead of the G-Men. He is the original American Hood - The Real M'Coy. George Raft tried to emulate him no actor could duplicate him. Humphrey Bogart was scared to death of him.

In the next couple of weeks I plan to put together some points of reference and reprint some Chicago Tribune newscopy. I would like to learn more about this guy from the neighborhood Hood.
February 8m 2006 1:28 PM

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