A Name is No Crime - Unless You Come from Kerry

"I heard a County Kerry farmer interviewed on Irish Radio, ... and they asked him, "Do you believe in the Pookah yourself?"
And he said, "That I do not! and I doubt much that he believes in me either!"

~ Robert Anton Wilson


"A jug of wine, a leg of lamb and thou! Beside me, whistling in the darkness."

http://countykerrylogic.blogspot.com/





The FBI - Most Wanted List*:
Edward Eugene Harper
Usama Bin Laden
Jason Derek Brown
James J. Bulger
Emigdio Preciado Jr
Robert William Fisher
Victor Manuel Gerena
Glen Stewart Godwin
Jorge Alberto Lopez-Orozco
Alexis Flores

The FBI is offering rewards for information leading to the apprehension of Top Ten Most Wanted Fugitives. Check each fugitive page for the specific amount.
Notice: The official FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list is maintained on the FBI World Wide Web Site. This information may be copied and distributed, however, any unauthorized alteration of any portion of the FBI's Ten Most Wanted Fugitives posters is a violation of federal law (18 U.S.C., Section 709). Persons who make or reproduce these alterations are subject to prosecution and, if convicted, shall be fined or imprisoned for not more than one year, or both.

A couple of economists reported in Social Science Quarterly this week that there's a link between having an unpopular name and ending up in trouble as a teen boy.

To figure this out, Shippensburg University economics professors David Kalist and Daniel Lee (both of whom, it must be noted, have very popular names) gathered up four years' worth of boy names (15,000 in all) from one state's birth records and compared them with the first names of about half of that state's juvenile delinquent males born in those years. They found that the more unpopular the name, the more likely it was to be associated with kids who ended up with substantiated charges in the juvenile justice system.

Kalist and Lee take pains to point out that simply having an unusual name is not going to lead to a boyhood of crime. "It is not that the name is causing the crime," Kalist said.

Instead, he said, it looks like troubled families—the kind that tend to raise troubled kids who end up in the juvenile justice system—also tend to give those kids unusual names.

So go ahead and name your boy Rocky (No. 914 on the Social Security Administration's list of 1,000 popular names for 2007), Bentley (No. 990) or Blaze (No. 876). Your family's solid, right?

Naming a son can be a terrible problem for some parents. My own parents ( Pat and Ginny) found this out when they named my brother Kevin. You see, in Irish families especially those with roots in the Culchie(an old Gaelic term "cúl a' tí", meaning the back of the house.) ** West of Ireland ( Donegal, Sligo,Mayo, Galway, Clare, and the bogmen of the Kingdom of Kerry) where families tend to give boys the same name for generations; thus Michael Patrick, Michael Joseph, Michael John, and have Mickey Pat, Mickey Joe, & etc. or a family brand set of names like the Hickey Clan. The Hickeys of County Kerry can be distinguished by these male cognomens - Lawrence, Sylvester, Barthlomew, Patrick, John, and Michael with very few exceptions.

Last year I took My Love to a Hickey Wedding - an event of lavish welcomes and warm embraces by the women, who dance every dance, and the men to tend stand with hands and forearms locked at the groin and nod ascent or damnation to their male counterparts and dance when bidden to do so by their better halves. The young woman who holds my affections comes from Ohio and is unfamiliar with the Chicago Irish tribal subtleties. At one point in the evening, the band leader called into the microphone, 'Will Pat Hickey go to the photographer's set-up for a picture with the bride' and me and twenty of my cousins showed up.

The Hickeys tend to have waves of children and all the males bear the same names handed down for generations with multiples of given names spiced by the baptism names and the concomitant nicknames attached to weaknesses, foibles, quirks, sins or physical traits. Patrick the son of a Patrick might become the diminutive Padgin *** or 'Little Pat'( pronounced as Pat Sheen in Chicago dialect) and he may have seven to ten cousins bearing the exact same handle. Hence Red Pat, Paddy Piss-in-His -Britches, Paddy Mike, Larry's Pat, Paddy the Goat, Pig-eyed Little Sneak Paddy, Pat The Girl's Rump and Run, or Father Patrick,O.S.A. Who is Still in Orders e.g.

When my brother Kevin (Caoimhín in Irish and means 'fair begotten'), a very blond man, was born my mother and father named him Kevin after St. Kevin of Glendalough, which is no where near County Kerry. Lovely.

My Grandfather ( Lawrence) a genuine Kerry Bogman, roared in response 'Christ Jesus Almighty! And where did the two of them come up with a bollocks of a name like that, so?'-as if my parents had named the wee man Caligula or Adolph. Kevin is a rock-solid Union Man and gifted carpenter who has only generous bones to match his expansive heart.

Remember, it is for the deeds one does in this life that a name bears honor, shame ignominy or whatever the hell else follows in the wake of your deeds - Unless of course the Family are Kerrymen. ' I see no Sylvie, or Bateen or Mossy up above on the names in the FBI Listing, so.' Like the story . . .

* Please note that there are No repeats of the first name in the Ten Most Wanted List

**The term in Ireland is often a derogatory one used by those living in the capital (Dublin) for anyone who lives "outside of the pale" or "down the country"

In Hiberno-English, culchie is a term sometimes used to describe a person from rural Ireland. It usually has the pejorative sense of "country bumpkin", but is also reclaimed by some proud of their rural origin, and may be used by either side in banter between town and country people. Dublin GAA fans call supporters of any other of the county teams from Ireland as culchies, fans from counties in the north are called nordies. Dublin's fans are themselves called Jackeens in retort. In large cities such as Cork, Limerick and Galway, the term may be sometimes allocated to anybody who comes from outside an urban area. The same is true for Belfast and the rest of Northern Ireland, where the term is also popular.[1] Generally the term is more humorous than abusive in rural areas, as opposed to the more offensive term "muck-savage".

*** - Your humble correspondant was tagged Patrick Francis Hickey - My father is Patrick Eugene Hickey; thus, Padgin and subsequently as 'Dipshit,' 'Useless Amadaun (,Amadaun; Irish for 'fool'. It also refers to the court jester of the Sidhe - the people of the hills of Irish legend. The Amadaun is beautiful and graceful, but can kill with merely a thought.) and more than universally - Hickey,

Douce Saint-Valentin d'amour! Entre deux coeurs qui s'aiment, nul besoin de paroles -Two hearts in love need no words- Desbordes-Valmore.

A Woman's Poem:

Before I lay me down to sleep,
I pray for a man, who's not a creep,
One who's handsome, smart and strong.
One who loves to listen long,
One who thinks before he speaks,
One who'll call, not wait for weeks.
I pray he's gainfully employed,
When I spend his cash, won't be annoyed.
Pulls out my chair and opens my door.
Massages my back and begs to do more.
Oh! Send me a man who'll make love to my mind,
Knows what to answer to 'how big is my behind?'
I pray that this man will love me to no end,
And always be my very best friend.



A MAN'S POEM:

I pray for a deaf-mute gymnast nymphomaniac with huge boobs who owns a bar on a golf course and loves to send me fishing and drinking. This doesn't rhyme and I don't give a shit.

.

Get Your Blago Pez Dispenser - 'It Actually Feeds You!'

Given the significant financial set-back to Rod Blagojevich incumbent upon the conviction of said Rod Blagojevich by the Illinois Senate yesterday, this fund-raising novelty might have appeal to nostalgia buffs, political wannabees, community activists, tooth assassins and shrinking Blagojevich extended family.

Blago Pez - It Actually Feeds You! Charge My Heart, if this won't be a top seller!

SEIU Helped Create the Blago We All Know - Watch Them Now

Progress Illinois, SEIU's Junior Commissar Mikey Mouse Club, is huffing and puffing about more grassroots reform now that Blago has been 86-ed by the State of Illinois.

In our latest feature article, Adam notes that Rod Blagojevich's removal from office could clear the way for some far-reaching -- and much-needed -- campaign finance restrictions in Illinois. On WTTW's Chicago Tonight yesterday, former state comptroller Dawn Clark Netsch echoed that sentiment. She highlighted the "window of opportunity" created by Blagojevich's departure and cited caps on campaign contributions as "essential." Watch it: Netsch's observation that "it can't just be legislators" pushing these sorts of reforms is very important. Grassroots and institutional support is going to be crucial. And to that point, I want to highlight the fact that SEIU Illinois (which sponsors this website) is itself pushing for strict restrictions on campaign contributions, which bodes well for the cause.

Oh Heavens Yes, Gracie! Josh, you are a dilly!


SEIU you will recall was mired deeply in Blago's Honey-Dipping Governorship and SEIU figures in Federal Prosecutor Fitzgerald's Criminal Complaint against the only Governor in Illinois History Impeached and Convicted by the Legislature.

Andy Stern's SEIU will be there, to quote Tom Joad from Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath to troll for and make new Blago. Make no mistake.

Here is a lovely compilation of SEIU/Blago Bedroom Eyes from the World Socialist Website -published by International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI)them own selves!

In any event, Blagojevich and the SEIU have a lengthy and mutually beneficial relationship. The Wall Street Journal notes that the union “was an early and strong supporter of Mr. Blagojevich, backing him over several other candidates [for Illinois governor] in 2002.” As a condition of its support, the SEIU won a pledge from Blagojevich that once in office he would issue an executive order directing the state government to negotiate a union contract with home health-care workers.


Shortly after taking office, the new Illinois governor signed an order allowing as many as 20,000 such workers to unionize. They were signed up by the SEIU. Blagojevich also appointed Balanoff to the Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board, which approves hospital construction projects.


A second executive order, signed in February 2005, allowed collective bargaining for child-care workers. “The day after it received a letter from the governor’s office saying that a union election could be held, SEIU submitted 18,000 cards from workers it had signed up” (Wall Street Journal). The workers involved are highly exploited, suffering from low wages and a lack of benefits.


Officials of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) complained of the “special relationship” the SEIU had with Blagojevich. The latter union was the number one contributor to the governor’s re-election bid in 2006, donating more than $900,000, or some 5 percent of his total campaign fund.


The SEIU also has a close relationship with the president-elect. The union’s political action committee “spent at least $26 million on Mr. Obama’s behalf in the presidential campaign, making it by far the largest single PAC donor in the campaign” (New York Times).


The union, in the words of the Washington Post, has “become an omnipresent force in Democratic politics.”


An SEIU spokeswoman, Michelle Ringuette, defended the contributions. “Many unions make political donations to political candidates,” she told the Times, “in the interest of making sure we have elected officials who represent the interest of working families, men and women who get up and go to work every day.”


Neither Blagojevich nor Obama represent “working families,” although they may posture along those lines. Their policies defend the interests of big business and the corporate-financial aristocracy. The present corruption scandal provides a glimpse into the reality behind the rhetoric of Democratic Party politics: corrupt, well-heeled individuals pursuing their own selfish goals.


Moreover, the SEIU and the rest of the American union bureaucracy do not make use of their members’ dues money in the form of contributions to Democratic candidates to advance workers’ interests, but to safeguard their own incomes and privileges.


Stern and the SEIU have recently made a specialty of reaching contracts with governments and corporations that benefit themselves and the employers, at the expense of union members. (See Backroom deals by US service unions strip workers of rights)


The SEIU broke away from the sclerotic and discredited AFL-CIO promising a new brand of dynamic unionism, with a special emphasis on organizing the unorganized. As the WSWS noted last May: “However, this has nothing to do with defending or improving conditions, but involves colluding with employers to impose union membership on low-paid workers, who are denied the right to vote on union certification and in some cases don’t even realize they are joining a union.”


The union has set itself up as a kind of labor contractor, offering employers “labor peace” in exchange for the right to collect dues.


In its contract with California nursing home chains, reported the San Francisco Weekly, the SEIU agreed that workers would have no input regarding hours, vacations, pay, layoffs, staffing levels or any other matter concerning their jobs. The newspaper reported, “The employers may outsource work performed by union members, and speed up, reassign, or eliminate jobs at will. The employer may eliminate vacations, or any time off, as the employer sees fit.”


The SEIU went on to use this arrangement as a model for other “organizing” efforts in Washington and New Jersey.


At the time of his arrest Blagojevich was reportedly preparing to issue another executive order that would have allowed 1,200 workers who care for the developmentally disabled in Illinois to organize. Spokeswoman Ringuette told the Wall Street Journal that the SEIU “was aware of the executive order but didn’t know what role, if any, the union played in developing it.”

Illinois Chief Justice Tom Fitzgerald and Sen. Ed Maloney - Leo High School Heroes of Blago Battles

Here's 1964 Leo Grad State Senator Ed Maloney -who can still hit 3-pointers ( he nailed five in a row on his last visit to Leo) while wearing a suit and wing-tips.



Illinois Chief Justice Thomas Fitzgerald is a paragon of integrity - here he is with Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan, whose Old Man is a great pal of Leo High School.

Illinois Chief Justice Thomas R. Fitzgerald - Leo Hall of Fame; Leo Class of 1959

Thomas R. Fitzgerald is a native Chicagoan and attended Loyola University before enlisting in the United States Navy. After his tour of duty in the Navy, he graduated with honors from The John Marshall Law School, where he was one of the founders of the school’s current law review and served as the law review’s associate editor.

The son of a Circuit Court judge, Chief Justice Fitzgerald began his own career in the law as a prosecutor in the Cook County State’s Attorney’s office. When first elected to the bench in 1976, he was, at that time, the youngest elected Circuit Judge in Cook County. He served as a trial judge in the Criminal Court form 1976 to 1987 when he was assigned Supervising Judge of Traffic Court. In 1989, he returned to the Criminal Division as Presiding Judge. He also was appointed to serve as presiding judge of Illinois’ first statewide grand jury.

In April 1999, he was appointed by the Supreme Court to be a member and chairperson of the court’s newly-formed Special Supreme Court Committee on Capital Cases to assess and improve the administration of justice in Illinois death penalty cases. The Committee, under Judge Fitzgerald’s leadership, drafted innovative rules which were approved by the Supreme Court to improve the quality of justice in the trial of capital cases.

Chief Justice Fitzgerald was elected to the Supreme Court of Illinois for the First Judicial District in 2000.

His accomplishments on the Supreme Court include a recommendation to his fellow justices that the Court find a way to improve the delivery of free legal services to veterans in obtaining disability and educational benefits. The Court assigned the task to its Commission on Professionalism; and in September 2007, Justice Fitzgerald joined Director L. Tammy Duckworth of the Illinois Department of Veterans Affairs, officials of The John Marshall Law School, the Illinois State Bar Association and the Commission in announcing a broad initiative to help Illinois veterans with free legal services. With the support of the Illinois State Bar Association, the initiative was expanded to include legal help for the families of Illinois service members scheduled for deployment.

Since becoming Chief Justice in September 2008, Justice Fitzgerald announced a new Special Committee on Illinois Evidence, composed of a blue-ribbon roster of judges, practitioners, law professors and state legislators whose aim is to codify existing evidentiary law so it is available in a single source.

Also as Chief, Justice Fitzgerald announced an expansive and broad series of initiatives to improve the judiciary and public confidence in the state’s courts. Those initiatives include mandatory participation for the more than 900 Illinois Circuit and Associate judges in a Judicial Performance Evaluation Program, improvement to the New Judge Mentoring Program and New Judge Seminar; and a Statement of Expectations that was issued to all Illinois judges in December.

Chief Justice Fitzgerald is the recipient of numbers awards and honors.

On September 11, 2008, he received the prestigious John Paul Stevens Award. The John Paul Stevens Award, given by the Chicago Bar Association and the Chicago Bar Foundation, celebrates Illinois attorneys and judges who have demonstrated extraordinary integrity and service to the community throughout their careers.

Other awards and accolades Justice Fitzgerald has received include the Outstanding Judicial Performance Award by the Chicago Crime Commission; Celtic Man of the Year by the Celtic Legal Society; the Herman Kogan Media Award for Excellence in Broadcast Journalism. The Lawyers’ Assistance Program honored him in 2000 with the Hon. John Powers Crowley Award. He is the 2001 recipient of The John Marshall Law School Freedom Award. In 2003, Justice Fitzgerald was awarded the Joel Flaum Award by the Chicago Inn of Court, and the Chicago Kent College of Law Professional Achievement Award. In 2005, Justice Fitzgerald was named Catholic Lawyer of the Year by the Catholic Lawyers Guild of Chicago. He is a member of the Leo High School Hall of Fame.

Justice Fitzgerald has taught at The John Marshall Law School and Chicago-Kent College of Law, where he was assistant coordinator of the trial advocacy program from 1986 to 1996. He also has taught at the Einstein Institute for Science, Health and the Courts.

Justice Fitzgerald has served as president of the Illinois Judges Association, was a member of the Governor’s Task Force on Crime and Corrections, chairman of several committees of the Illinois Judicial Conference, member of the Chicago Bar Association’s Board of Managers and past chairman of the Chicago Bar Association’s committees on constitutional law and long-range planning.


Senator Ed Maloney (D-18th District) Leo Hall of Fame; Class of 1964

Illinois State Senator -Years served: 2003 - Present

Committee assignments: Sen. Comm. Whole; Higher Education (Chairperson); Labor (Vice-Chairperson); Approp I; Local Government.

Biography: Senator Ed. Maloney (D - Chicago)is an assistant principal and dean of faculty at Brother Rice High School in Chicago. He has also been a manager and professional development director for the Chicago Park District, and a teacher and school administrator. He served in the House for the last 4 months of the 87th General Assembly (1992-93). He has a bachelor's degree in political science from Lewis University, and a master's degree in education from Chicago State University.

When Blago did his Swan Song before the Senate and attempted to coax crocidile tears from some Ed Maloney responded with Leo Language ( Southtown Star item):

Blagojevich's address blended denial of wrongdoing, naked appeals for sympathy, circuitous asides, sudden biographical detours and out-of-left-field analogies - all delivered with remarkable conviction and fluidity.

"I stand before you in a very unique and lonely place," he said. He gave not an inch, admitting only to caring too much and "maybe pushing and prodding too hard."

Sen. Ed Maloney (D-Chicago) rolled his eyes at Blagojevich's attempt to tug at listeners' heartstrings with his tale of his immigrant parents' striving.

"My grandfather came over from Ireland at the age of 13, illiterate," the South Sider said. "Couldn't write, never did. This is not something that's unique to Rod Blagojevich."

Facta Non Verba! Go, Lions!

Click my post title for more Real Deal Leo Heroes!

Governor Quinn -Blago's Gone;Leave the Signs

The last thing the Governor of Illinois, Pat Quinn, needs to worry about is covering up the name of Rod Blagojevich - there ain't that much paint.

Governor Quinn, right the State. Get the Legislature on task to lower taxes and raise confidence in Illinois Government. Restore the State to the Land of Lincoln.

It will cost nearly half a million bucks to paint over the name of Blagojevich and that will be money wasted. No one should forget that an under-prepared egoist (megalomaniac?) was ushered into the chair, with a great deal of political help from many people, you now occupy.

Governor Quinn this is not the time for symbolism and rhetoric. You should be moving to rebuild Illinois, like scalded puppy. Leave the signs.

The controversial signs at Illinois tollway plazas announcing "Open Road Tolling—Rod R. Blagojevich, Governor" will soon be changed, a tollway spokeswoman said Thursday.

New signs, keeping the open-road-tolling message but covering Blagojevich's name, will be placed over the old ones, said Joelle McGinnis, spokeswoman for the Illinois State Toll Highway Authority, before the Illinois Senate voted to remove the governor.

The new signs will have the toll plaza's name and number, McGinnis said. They will not feature the name of Gov. Patrick Quinn or any other politician.

The 32 blue Blagojevich signs were erected in 2004 at a cost of $480,000. McGinnis estimated it would cost $15,000 apiece to change them. Crews probably will replace the signs at night to minimize disruptions.

Tollway News and Blago Signs = Pat Quinn, Leave the Blago Name Up!

Pat Quinn – Leave the Name; Maybe People Will Remember and Vote Thoughtfully in the Future - as If! This was in the Tribune yesterday:

Should the Senate vote to remove Gov. Rod Blagojevich from office, Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn said Tuesday that he would immediately begin erasing some of the imprints his former running mate made on the state.

One target would be the signs displaying Blagojevich's name over state toll ways, which Quinn called a symbol of "pompous government."

"The signs will go down, and we'll probably have a ceremony to do it," Quinn told the Tribune. "I might even ask some toll payers to help us out."

Speaking in his Chicago office with the Senate impeachment trial blaring in the background, Quinn said he would end a period of "imperial governorship" that began under Republican Gov. George Ryan and was continued by Democrat Blagojevich.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-quinn-sidebar28jan28,0,2666469.story
Okay Here's me -

Dear Governor To Be Quinn,

A painting contractor will be needed to remove the name of Rod Blagojevich on all those Toll Booths, Signs, and Stations throughout the Highway System of this great State of Illinois. It will mean work and maybe some over-time for many painters. That could amount to some hundreds of thousands of dollars in time and material. Let’s save a couple of bucks.
More importantly, Illinois just might need a daily reminder of the man that 1,118,000 and change voters helped to put into the Office of the Governor. Let’s leave the name Rod Blagojevich up on State of Illinois property for a while – a good long while.

Governor To Be Quinn, you are a Fenwick man who trained with the Order of Preachers – the Dominicans – ‘The Dogs of the Lord ‘– in the Latin pun – founded by St. Dominic. It was Dominic who said, wear humility rather than fine clothes. Signage is not clothing but I think that you get the idea. The People of Illinois and the citizens of the world will know that you are the Governor, thanks be to God and some solid voting in the Illinois Senate. Therefore, make your first act as Governor a completely splendid act – ignore the fact that Rod Blagojevich’s name adorns anything but the contempt of the people of Illinois and the world.
Do not make the mistake of willfully spending tax-payers dollars to obliterate the name that has so shamed this State. Let it sit out there – for years if need be – as a cautionary sign to every person who registers to vote. Your act of humility will do more to promote your name as Governor than any number of layers of paint.Thanks for the use of the Hall!
Sincerely, Pat Hickey

Read the wonderful Tollway News for an accurate accounting of Governor Auntie Nixon's loot speedway! Click my post title to begin your journey.

Pat Quinn Leave Blago's name up there for a good long while and let everyone who tosses in $.80, $1.00, or $ 1.50 as well as those great plastic window Expressway Bandits remember the goof who looted Illinois.

An Enchanted Encounter - from the Files of Max Weismann

Having already downed a few power drinks, she turned around, faced him, looked him straight in the eye and said, "Listen here good looking, I screw anybody, anytime, anywhere, your place, my place, in the car, front door, back door, on the ground, standing up, sitting down, naked, or with clothes on, dirty, clean... it doesn't matter to me.I've been doing it ever since I got out ofcollege and I just love it!"
Eyes now wide with interest, he responded,"I'm a lawyer too, what firm are you with?"

Cathy O'Connell Valentine's Day Concert

My first date with a stunning woman, who is herself a gifted jazz singer and choral music director, was for a Cathy O'Connell Concert at John Devins' Old World Music Company in Beverly on the south side of Chicago a year ago this February. The elegant and lovely young woman declined my offer to 'pick her up on the North Side' and instead took the Metra south to the 103rd street stop, not knowing whether or not I possessed a fully dressed family of five in my basement freezer as well a gift for chat. She was dressed in an elegant black ensemble and looked like the girl Dr. Zhivago would marry. I escorted her into John's concert hall and was met with admiring and curious eyes from friends of many years, who seemed as rattled by the delicate dark haired beauty in my company as I was myself.

Cathy O'Connell greeted my date and graciously ignored the litany of my epic sins, transgressions, vices and penchant for dining while bibbed in a drop cloth.

Cathy is a wonderful woman and brilliant artist. She performed with Irish musicians John Williams, who appeared in Road to Perdition and the fiddle genius Liz Carroll. My date was enchanted and reassured. In fact, she allowed me to drive her home, having secured hundreds of witnesses and easily verifiable cross references as to my intrinsic harmlessness. She even agreed to go out in public with me in the future. I am forever grateful.

Do yourself a favor this Valentines Day - take your Love to Old World Music Company and be carried off on the gossamer wings that wrap the voice of Cathy O'Connell!

Singer Catherine O'Connell grew up in Chicago and in love with Chicago. Her affection for performing was nurtured by her parents, James and Mary, who shared with her their passions for music and theater. Her father, a talented amateur singer, gave her this early advice: "Tell the story and sing the song with a tear in your voice. Her mother, an accomplished actress, offered this: "Enunciate or no one will understand you."

Catherine, who was the St. Patrick Day Parade Queen in 1976, later developed her distinctive style and dramatic stage presence by performing in dozens of pubs, saloons and cabarets in Chicago, New York and the Caribbean.

Leaving the club scene to raise three boys, she switched direction in her career to focus on more intimate spaces in the city and suburbs, where the emotional impact of her singing has gathered her a large and devoted following. Bill Fraher, director of music at Old St. Patrick’s Church, calls her "the best communicator" he has ever worked with and one friend said "I never thought I could live through my mother’s funeral and you made me sing."

The Chicago Tribune's and WGN's Rick Kogan says, "Catherine is an original, as gifted a singer and as sensitive a performer as I have ever heard and seen. She might easily have become a star in the New York scene but, God love her, she's tied to our town."

March 2002 Catherine released her CD entitled 'I Arise Today' and December 2003 released 'Songs From My Father' available at Irish shops around the city and catherineoconnell.com.

From saloons to Symphony Center, chapels to cathedrals, funeral homes to festival halls, Catherine has touched the hearts and lifted the spirits of thousands of Chicagoans. She is currently working on a Christmas CD.

Saturday, February 14th

~ One night only ~

Two (2) shows - 5:00pm & 8:00pm



Catherine O’Connell

and

The Usual Suspects

Jimmy Moore, Dennis Cahill and Kathleen Keane



at

The World Music Company

1808 West 103rd Street

Chicago, IL 60643

For Tickets call:
Tickets are $25.00

(773) 779-7059

POTUS Obama Stimulus Package Tosses Rubbers to the Road

The President's Economic Stimulus Package will go Sexually Unprotected as Congress fires Condoms from the Legislation. Thus,

Ahead of a meeting this afternoon with Republicans opposed to his $825bn economic stimulus plan, Barack Obama has asked congressional Democrats to remove a measure funding family planning for poor women from the legislation.

"While [Obama] agrees that greater access to family planning is good policy, the president believes that the funding for it does not belong in the economic recovery and reinvestment plan," the White House press secretary, Robert Gibbs, said.

The measure, which budget analysts estimate would cost an estimated $200m, provoked an outcry from Republicans who described it as wasteful spending.

"How can you spend hundreds of millions of dollars on contraceptives?" asked Republican congressional leader John Boehner of Ohio on Friday. "How does that stimulate the economy?"

Loaded question, that Congressman! I am hopelessly juvenile and offered these Euphemisms for Condoms for future reference and the gratification of all. My personal favorite is 'reliance appliance.'

To the Girls of Planned Parenthood. . .nice try ladies! Put a lid on it . . . sorry. Can't be done under the current Stimulus Package.

There are more childish sperms of endearment arrestors here than Jack Hurley, CPD might spout in under a New York Minute.

The Sheath File
Euphemisms for a Condom
pole lock- peckerwouldn't - feltcher squelcher -
Purple Warrior Armor - ferret sock - Coney Island whitefish -
no overflowed choad load sowed - indicktment - Don Johnson -
hickory dickory dock - peterfied cast - milk miser -
Wrinkle Chapeau - bearded blood sausage - Nub pneumatic
fetus filter - der weiner fits-all - life saver
wet suit - ball blinder - groin cloth -
fiveskin - corn husk - clam dam -
poon balloon - tool topping - geyser cork -
package protector - sperminal terminal- dong depot
detour - stop sign picket line -
cock cloak - Bismark barrier - penis shroud
scabbard - Horse hanger - gent tent -
manhood shell - banister canister - party favor -
peter pouch - rod rind - corn cob husk -
burrito poncho - swaddle - protein packet
crash helmet - condom - banana peel -
sheath - dong sarong - willy wrap -
third leg trouser - membrane - canyon slicker
masthead - peanut shell - pen top -
shrink wrap - wand wallet - bang bottle -
chicken charriot - noodle nylon - member muzzle -
jock jacket -caulk valve cover -
seed sack - sugar cone - eel envelope -
Depends defender - dunce cap - wrapper -
love capsule - pump cover - John Thomas overcoat -
trunk bark - boner bucket - goose noose -
hefty sak - hot juice balloon - sperm breaker -
cream collector - slip cover - hard hat -
pork cork - giz dam - cock frock -
DNA dashiki - squirt shirt - ejaculation station -
crank tank - missile silo - head shed -
peter parka - pregnot - Pressure Cooker -
pickle jar - cum cathador - stuff sack -
spunk trunk - bullet bag -ink well -
chromosome dome - wiener receptical - dog house
chicken coop - rail pail - feed bag -
natural leaf wrapper - wacker laquer - iron matin' -
cum catcher - head veil - rubber
fence - hard again cardigan - vein vale -
pin cushion - restrictive headgear - weenie beanie
one-eyed beret - flesh flute boot - load bearing pud stud -
sperm dam - dick dike - lover cover -
swell casing -she squealed shield - he stick hindrance -
rod retardant - boner binder - beanie my cecil -
mister log's sex hat - spunk spittoon - throbben hood -
she shell - peacekeeper - paternaway
giz fizzler - rally cap - soap dish -
bone blanket - batting glove - pony stable -
cloak for dagger - nub cap - French letter
man cream screen - nookie nook - Siemon Block
Jock Lock - Breeder's Cup - emergency brake -
Clap cap - Laytex Safety Nut -
Dust Cover - Parachute - Jack Rack
salami skin - sleeve - pudding packet
pud pod - snakeskin glove -
hogleg stocking -sperm bag - sausage casing -
stick suit - snatch guard -insecurity blanket -
hose wrapping - prophylactic - boxing glove -
Johnson jacket - tapioca tupperware - doggie bag -
sperm aside - penal pullover - loin luggage -
oven mitt - hog holster - sword shield -
manhole cover - submarine surprise - full latex jacket -
missile mask - shlong shed - hot dog bun -
wank tank - body armor -dixie cup -
raincoat - shower cap - swim suit -
embryno - Jimmy hat - pork rind -
pigskin - hump hindrance - spunk stopper -
dick dam - sleaveland - meat tenderizer -
wood hood - dipper slipper - worm womb -
banana bandana - whore bore - baby block -
zuccini beanie - cyclops eye patch - straightjacket -
fill-er-up - back pack - bird feeder -
seapage keeper - check-the-oil - bag lady -
muscle muzzle - trouser trout -salad sandwich -reliance applicance -
fornication filtration - sperm lance-a-not - no-drip faucet -
conception redirection - acorn shell - hub cap -
third testicle - goo-be-gone - jiffy lube tube -
quicker picker upper - jewelry box - trouser trojan -
carrot top - peter purse - go between -
prostitute chute - gender guard - child proof lid -
quif thief - tunnel funnel - spiral binder -
boa contricter - runt stunter - tool shed -
screw top - egg beaters - man quart thwart -
heir alter - anti proliferation device - family crisis -
dead end - inconceivable - milt kilt -
knock-me-knot - knob swab - cameltoe noflow -
python pocket - gonad girdle- parenthood -
muff moat - oil pan - gas tank -
candleabra - pillowcase - galloshes -
casino worker - knob knot - silly puddy -
pine tar - shaft shell - windmill -
dick partition - continental divide - rain fly -
distributor cap - vacuum bag - head light -
hood ornament - tire pump - bitch glitch -
dink tank - water buffalo balloon jissim prison
Quaker moat - indickitive - Brooke Shields
ground crew - cup o' soup -spunk mug
throbber thermos - blockaides -h.i.v. net -
fish ladder - mis-direction - sleave it to beaver
snail shell - slug housing -muzzle loader
wad wallet sleeper car dicktionary
wet bar - cell block DNA lounge
knot from concentrate tie one on hereditary halter
gene pool milt filter cum cup
cummer bun wanger hangar meat locker
corn dog cock dock pencil tip eraser
Catholic cathador - bulge grudge - loaded question
scrot coat -kiddie lidder crown
flesh fedora - cumbrella - baby buffer buggy
pit stop sperm worm birth berth
the ump - chromosome tombstone - offspring sling
relative preventive - phone sex booth blast casket
cum crypt - side winder binder - baby strainer -
semen hammock - conceivable receivable - rod pod
juice jar - cock cap - gland gate -
prick pouch - shot glass - jister holster -
turkey neck tourniquet - salami stop - dork cork
baggie - saran wrap - rope restricter -
slut safety

Wear them Mittens, Kittens!
http://www.rollerfeet.com/etrigan/wu/fluff/The_Sheath_File.html

EU Chick Magnets 'Help' President on Gitmo Sleepover Rules

Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg, right, talks with Austria's counterpart Michael Spindellegger as they arrive for an EU Foreign Ministers meeting at the EU Council in Brussels, Monday Jan. 26, 20 - Taking a break from fending off scores of Euro -Babes these gents got hot to work on dithering about solving President Obama's Gitmo Executive Order Cart Before the Hearse.

That Michael Spindellegger is Dreamy!!!! Google him girls!

While released Gitmo inmates mock the President, the debt to the looney Left world wide must be honored by the American President.

“We can’t give a quick answer,” Schwarzenberg told reporters after the meeting.

European leaders have had contrasting positions about what they’re ready to offer. Portugal, France, and non-EU member Switzerland have said they’ll consider taking prisoners on a case-by-case basis, while Italy is open to the idea but wants a common EU position. …

Germany hasn’t decided whether to take prisoners, while the Dutch government has refused on the grounds that the U.S. should handle the situation. The U.K., which has accepted six of its nationals and four residents since 2004, will “offer our experience” to EU allies, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said.

Gitmo will close and the residents - lovely chaps one and all - will be harbored . . . MMmmmmmmmmm let's see . . . we'll get back to you on that.

Steve Rhodes & NBC Live Blog Exposes Boy Impersonating Illinois Governor

Leno laughs at Chicago Police Department and Geraldo Stalks the View to chat with Milorod, but the real expose of the day is Steve Rhodes, publisher of Beachwood Reporter, and his Live Blogging of the Impeachment Trial in the Illinois Senate. Rhodes exposed the pre-adolescent boy who has impersonated the Governor of Illinois since 2002.

Click my post title for the link up to the wee lad's impeachment. I got to pop in for the show yesterday, during a break in my day and it was wonderful to see the sharp insights and clever turns of phrase as Illinois scrapes the gum off its shoes.

Well done, Brother Rhodes!

Planned Parenthood's Heroes of Eugenics - Slobodan Milošević ,President of Liberia Charles Taylor, Bosnian Serb President Radovan Karadzic

Planned Parenthood wants you to know that making this planet a little less populous is everyone's concern - like Global Warming* - let's get behind heroes of Eugenics like these great fellows!

Distinguished Eugenics Community Activists and Planned Parenthood Honorees in the Making!

Slobodan Milošević
Charles G. Taylor
Radovan Karadzic

Why, only the other day the gals at Planned Parenthood chirped,

“With the stroke of a pen, President Obama has lifted the stranglehold on women’s health across the globe. His repeal of the global gag rule ends eight long years of policies that have blocked access to basic health care for women worldwide. No longer will health care providers be forced to choose between receiving family planning funding and restricting the health care services they provide to women. ( Real Choice - Abort AND Win Valuable Prizes!)

“Expanding access to family planning is not only good, basic health care; it saves women’s lives. In some parts of Africa, women have a one-in-10 risk of dying in childbirth, a sad fact only exacerbated by the gag rule. Women’s health and well-being are the bedrock of freedom and independence for individuals, families, and entire communities. Avoiding disease, having access to clean water and nutritious food, deciding whether and when to have children, and being safe in pregnancy and childbirth make women stronger and improve the quality of life for families and communities. ( Give African Kids A 100% Chance of Being Murdered!)

“Planned Parenthood thanks President Obama for taking immediate action on this critical health issue. With President Obama, women in the U.S. and around the world have a president who puts protecting and strengthening women’s health first. Just a few days after he’s taken office, we can clearly say that thanks to President Obama, it truly is a new day for women’s health.” ( Gosh -YES!)

Source: Planned Parenthood Federation of America

Former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milošević was brought to trial for war crimes and genocide, but died in custody on March 11, 2006, before the trial could be concluded.
Former Liberian President Charles G. Taylor was also brought to the Hague charged with war crimes; his trial was provisionally scheduled to begin in April 2007, but was postponed until June 2007 to allow the defense more time to prepare, and is now ongoing.
Former Bosnian Serb President Radovan Karadzic was arrested in Belgrade on 18 July 2008 and brought before Belgrade’s War Crimes Court a few days after. He was extradited to the Netherlands, and is currently in The Hague, in the custody of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. He has not yet entered a plea; his next appearance was on 29 August 2008.


The above mentioned Eugenics Heroes are pikers compared to the Harpies of Planned Parenthood -

*WORLDWIDE INCIDENCE AND TRENDS
• The number of induced abortions declined worldwide between 1995 and 2003, from nearly 46 million to approximately 42 million. About one in five pregnancies worldwide end in abortion. [1]

• For every 1,000 women of childbearing age (15–44) worldwide, 29 were estimated to have had an induced abortion in 2003, compared with 35 in 1995.[1]

• The decline in abortion incidence was greater in developed countries, where nearly all abortions are safe and legal (from 39 to 26 abortions per 1,000 women aged 15-44), than in developing countries, where more than half are unsafe and illegal (from 34 to 29).[1]

• Most abortions occur in developing countries—35 million annually, compared with seven million in developed countries[1]—a disparity that largely reflects the relative population distribution.

• On the other hand, a woman’s likelihood of having an abortion is similar whether she lives in a developed or developing region; in 2003, there were 26 abortions per 1,000 women aged 15–44 in developed countries compared with 29 per 1,000 in developing countries.[1]

Planned Parenthood to Honor Congolese Community Activist ? Probably.

Planned Parenthood will be delighted to honor former Congolese warlord Thomas Lubanga charged with recruiting and training hundreds of children to kill, pillage and rape in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo between 2002-2003. Maybe a Margaret Sanger Award - the Hookey - or some such schnoze related title! Now, that International Abortions Worldwide will get U.S. Tax Dollars the Harpies of Planned Parenthood can celebrate a plenty!

When asked about the too real possiblity of becoming the the darling of Planned Parenthood Abortion cocktail and canape set, the 48 year old Community Activist with a smile that could 'light up' a village replied, "We have Bunia in our grip and they will not wrestle it from us," Another media rock-star in the making! Call Nancy Pelosi! Get Thomas's People together with Your People! Nancy, get Thomas on Bill Maher and The View - Oprah first! Oh, would that he were for Gay Marriage! Meow, Girls!

Community Activists like Mr. Lubanga helped the world economy in by-passing the G.W. Bush ban on U.S. aid to fund abortions* world wide. Undeterred Mr. Lubanga, put kids to work and affected change in his own country to keep world population low.

Planned Parenthood is happy. The World Court at the Hague is trying to convict Thomas Lubanga - that could have a chilling effect upon world abortions.

The court's chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo said some of the child soldiers recruited by Lubanga's group are now using drugs. Others are engaged in prostitution or are jobless or orphans.

Dozens of witnesses are expected to be heard in the case, which is the first trial by the war crimes court since it was established in 2002.

Eastern Congo as a whole has been torn apart by fighting from various rebel groups and militias for years. In an unprecedented move last week, Congo and Rwanda joined forces to rout the groups. So far, this has led to the arrest of one top rebel, ethnic Tutsi leader Laurent Nkunda.

The Hague must be working with that damn Vatican again.


*Induced abortion is the main cause of maternal mortality in the People's Republic of the Congo. Few statistics are available on the extent of induced abortion in the Congo, but in 1975, 1413 induced abortions leading to 40 maternal deaths were identified, while in 1977 1 hospital registered 345 induced abortions and 429 spontaneous abortions and another registered 402 induced and 328 spontaneous abortions. The average age of the women was 21-23 years. The main causes were undesired births, births too close together, family size too large, conjugal problems, refusal of parenthood, school attendance, infidelity, and medical causes. Traditional procedures such as introduction of caustic substances or use of knitting needles may lead to mortal complications. Immediate complications of abortion may include hemorrhage leading to shock, perforations, and death. Late complications may include infection or longterm bleeding, and very late complications may include sterility. Among 737 women hospitalized in 1 institution in 1976, 53 had adnexitis and secondary sterility. Induced abortion is not legal in the People's Republic of the Congo, but is tolerated in some health areas. There is some pressure to liberalize abortion law under certain conditions. Apart from its medical consequences, abortion has numerous consequences for society, the family, and the couple. Because of the alarming abortion situation, the government signed an accord in 1979 with the UN Fund for Population Activities for contraceptive assistance. 4 information seminars have been held to inform the population of the risks of induced abortion. It is recommended that a sex education program and moral aid be provided in cases of unplanned pregnancy as measures to help reduce the incidence of induced abortion.

Woman world-wide demand the choice of an induced abortion! It's the Truly Nuanced thing to do.

http://www.popline.org/docs/0632/023783.html

Blago and Kipling Celebrate Diversity

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools

R. Kipling

Blago quotes Kipling! Bloody Marvelous! The Jig's Up; Brass It Out, Old Man!
Kipling, Old Man, was the poet of Empire! Bash the Wogs! Hang Paddy! Ulster will Fight and Uster will be Right! Show 'em Good British Steel!

What? What? Haw, Haw. See here, now.

Governor Blagojevich celebrates the Poet of Diversity; here is Rudyard Kipling's American Notes:

The Chinaman waylays his adversary, and methodically chops him to
pieces with his hatchet. Then the press roars about the brutal
ferocity of the pagan.

The Italian reconstructs his friend with a long knife. The press
complains of the waywardness of the alien.

The Irishman and the native Californian in their hours of
discontent use the revolver, not once, but six times. The press
records the fact, and asks in the next column whether the world
can parallel the progress of San Francisco. The American who
loves his country will tell you that this sort of thing is
confined to the lower classes. Just at present an ex-judge who
was sent to jail by another judge (upon my word I cannot tell
whether these titles mean anything) is breathing red-hot
vengeance against his enemy. The papers have interviewed both
parties, and confidently expect a fatal issue.

Now, let me draw breath and curse the negro waiter, and through
him the negro in service generally. He has been made a citizen
with a vote, consequently both political parties play with him.
But that is neither here nor there. He will commit in one meal
every betise that a senllion fresh from the plow-tail is capable
of, and he will continue to repeat those faults. He is as
complete a heavy-footed, uncomprehending, bungle-fisted fool as
any mem-sahib in the East ever took into her establishment. But
he is according to law a free and independent
citizen--consequently above reproof or criticism. He, and he
alone, in this insane city, will wait at table (the Chinaman
doesn't count).

He is untrained, inept, but he will fill the place and draw the
pay. Now, God and his father's fate made him intellectually
inferior to the Oriental. He insists on pretending that he serves
tables by accident--as a sort of amusement. He wishes you to
understand this little fact. You wish to eat your meals, and, if
possible, to have them properly served. He is a big, black, vain
baby and a man rolled into one.

A colored gentleman who insisted on getting me pie when I wanted
something else, demanded information about India. I gave him
some facts about wages.

"Oh, hell!" said he, cheerfully, "that wouldn't keep me in cigars
for a month."

Then he fawned on me for a ten-cent piece. Later he took it upon
himself to pity the natives of India. "Heathens," he called
them--this woolly one, whose race has been the butt of every
comedy on the native stage since the beginning. And I turned and
saw by the head upon his shoulders that he was a Yoruba man, if
there be any truth in ethnological castes. He did his thinking
in English, but he was a Yoruba negro, and the race type had
remained the same throughout his generations. And the room was
full of other races--some that looked exactly like Gallas (but
the trade was never recruited from that side of Africa), some
duplicates of Cameroon heads, and some Kroomen, if ever Kroomen
wore evening dress.

The American does not consider little matters of descent, though
by this time he ought to know all about "damnable heredity." As
a general rule he keeps himself very far from the negro, and says
things about him that are not pretty. There are six million
negroes, more or less, in the States, and they are increasing.
The American, once having made them citizens, cannot unmake them.
He says, in his newspapers, they ought to be elevated by
education. He is trying this, but it is likely to be a long job,
because black blood is much more adhesive than white, and throws
back with annoying persistence. When the negro gets religion he
returns directly as a hiving bee to the first instincts of his
people. Just now a wave of religion is sweeping over some of the
Southern States.

Up to the present two Messiahs and a Daniel have appeared, and
several human sacrifices have been offered up to these
incarnations. The Daniel managed to get three young men, who he
insisted were Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, to walk into a
blast furnace, guaranteeing non-combustion. They did not return.
I have seen nothing of this kind, but I have attended a negro
church. They pray, or are caused to pray by themselves in this
country. The congregation were moved by the spirit to groans and
tears, and one of them danced up the aisle to the mourners'
bench. The motive may have been genuine. The movements of the
shaken body were those of a Zanzibar stick dance, such as you see
at Aden on the coal-boats, and even as I watched the people, the
links that bound them to the white man snapped one by one, and I
saw before me the hubshi (woolly hair) praying to a God he did
not understand. Those neatly dressed folk on the benches, and
the gray-headed elder by the window, were savages, neither more
nor less.

What will the American do with the negro? The South will not
consort with him. In some States miscegenation is a penal
offence. The North is every year less and less in need of his
services.

And he will not disappear. He will continue as a problem. His
friends will urge that he is as good as the white man. His
enemies--well, you can guess what his enemies will do from a
little incident that followed on a recent appointment by the
President. He made a negro an assistant in a post-office
where--think of it!--he had to work at the next desk to a white
girl, the daughter of a colonel, one of the first families of
Georgia's modern chivalry, and all the weary, weary rest of it.
The Southern chivalry howled, and hanged or burned some one in
effigy. Perhaps it was the President, and perhaps it was the
negro--but the principle remains the same. They said it was an
insult. It is not good to be a negro in the land of the free and
the home of the brave.

Actually, Rudyard Old Cock, the Colonists made one President, much like that Paddy some years before . . . Fitzgerald Kennedy something.

I voted for the other chap McCain, but stand damn proud of my country. Now, as to the well-coiffed Governor who spouts your verse - shackles and irons by year's end Old Top.

Sentiments, dear boy, sentiments. Kipling was a Progressive Clean Government Lad. Quite.

As IF!

Click my post title for Kipling's American Notes.

Soupe, or Potage? The Grace of Feasting With Yours Truly!

The issue of gracious dining came to light as a the result of John Rubery and Anne Leary's Illinois Blog Tag.

One wonderful Chicago Blogsite - The Chicago Bungalow - presented me with an opportunity to address the vanishing civility and grace of dining en compagnie.

re: Cream Soup Spoons -4. 'I place a lot of stock in knowing the difference between a cream soup spoon and a regular soup spoon. Too bad they only make regular soup spoons in my everyday silverware. So much for manners.'

This may help!

Here on the south side, the wonderful wooden flat spoons that came with Dixie Cup ice cream* make splendid additions to my cutlery collection and it is fun to watch guests shovel away at a nice steaming bowl of Le velouté or La bisque - determined by my guests preferences for fresh vegetable or shell fish, n'cest pas.

Dining alone, ala Le Gavroche, it is my custom to encircle the tureen with my powerful right arm's tender embrace and launch the ladle in at full gallop! Man, that's good eatin'!

Bon Appetit!


*

Dixie Cup ice cream
Posted: Thu Feb 28, 2008 11:00 am Central Time

Why was it that eating a chocolate and vanilla twist Dixie Cup in school was the best treat ever?Any thoughts or memories?



This was the best during my younger elementary school days, I loved those little wooden spoons that came with the ice cream.I also think half the magic was eating the ice cream in school with all your friends in the cafeteria.
_________________
Far better it is to dare mighty things than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much,because they live in a grey twilight that knows neither victory or defeat....T.Roosevelt

http://www.retroland.com/retrotalk/viewtopic.php?t=17746

I Always Get Tagged - Anne Leary Tagged Me!

I'm slower than a roomful of morbidly obese Earth Science majors at an Indiana Community College and Anne Leary tagged me - no sweat.

It's January in Chicago--how can we amuse ourselves?


Following the brilliant and impala-like Leary required my jumping over many yard fences here in Morgan Park and negotiating many over-turned blue -barrel re-cycling dumpsterettes. I lost her at Artesian and she seems to have darted north on Western Ave. so I stopped in at Keegan's Pub at 10618 S. Western to re-charge.

The rules:
1. Link to the person who tagged you (done, above)
2. Post the rules on your blog (you're reading them now)
3. Share six non-important things/habits/quirks about yourself (see below)
4. Tag six random people with a link.


1. Non-important thing: I get up and write at 4AM. - novels, screenplays, essays, hack-pieces, indictments of declining civilizations and pornographic epics with a widowed, middle-aged, sunny-dispositioned poetic rascal in the driver's seat.

2. Quirk: I believe that people are a blast - Get to Kean Gas in the AM for coffee as proof of a wealth of diverse, alive, and profound insights and giggles from American Patriots - cops, firemen, ComEd linemen, burial vault cement finishers, teachers, nurses and the odd lay-about.

3. Quirk: I am a sucker for babies - if Carla Gugina flirted with me, I'd opt instead to play with the kid in the stroller and ask the pre-verbal child questions about The False Decretals and the hegemony of Lombard over the Papal States in the early renaissance - kids love it.

4. Non-important thing: I jingle the change in my pockets when nervous about the economy.

5. Habit: I never call a bartender Chief and always over-tip. No Dukie - No Go-Outey!

6. Quirk: I need to have my daughters look me over prior to dates with the supremely talented, diminutive, gorgeous and elegant young woman who deigns to be seen publicly with me.

The links:
http://chicagoray.blogspot.com/
http://secondcitycop.blogspot.com/
http://www.beachwoodreporter.com/
http://www.tomroeser.com/
http://wapellarocks.blogspot.com/
http://www.philly.com/dailynews/columnists/christine_flowers/

Mayor Daley Goes Ward Bond! The Searchers Meets the Press

In John Ford's iconic 1956 film The Searchers, Ward Bond as Rev. Capt. Samuel Johnston Clayton; preacher and Texas Ranger captain, shouts to a young cavalry officer:

'Reverend Clayton: Mount! M-O-N-T-E! Mount!

2nd Lt. Greenhill: Can't I stay? Please?
Reverend Clayton: Oh, all right. But you watch me, boy! I'm the hardcase you're up against out here, not them childish savages! And if you don't hear my first holler, you better read my mind 'cause I don't aim to raise no two hollers on any subject at hand!
2nd Lt. Greenhill: [salutes with his sabre and nearly decapatates the Reverend] Yes sir!
Reverend Clayton: Boy, watch that knife!

A wonderful moment in film!

Yesterday, Mayor Daley treated us all to Ward Bond Goes Government!

The Tribune first reported that Daley's health commissioner cited the loss of $1.2 million in state funding in ordering the Feb. 1 closures. Public health advocates have blasted the move as unnecessary, but Daley said it wasn’t his fault.

"We didn't cut. It was the state of Illinois that didn't fund us," Daley said. "See, you've got the facts wrong. The state of Illinois funds those centers. We did not cut. They have cut state mental health facilities all over the state. That is state money. Underline that. S-A-T-E [sic] money. It’s called state money. Let’s get the facts. These facts are not correct, so you have to correct people."

The mental health centers receive about $13 million in funding annually, with $7 million coming from the state.

Another great moment in Illinois!

'Praise Song' by Alexander - 'Dis Prose' by Me

Studs Terkel could have done this . . .of course it would be somebody else's words that he recorded and transposed, but same thing.

Meandering thoughts . . .I used to get the same thing from panicked and lazy students who missed the deadline - 'It's a prose poem and much better than the five page essay, with MLA citation, that you assigned Mr. Hickey.'

YEAH RIGHT!!!!!! You still have Welch's Grape Jelly from your morning's breakfast muffin,Sweetheart! You got some on your collar too. Hand it in and F ain't a Zero.'

'You suck Hickey!'

'This we all know.'


Now, How 'bout this loose change from Poesy's Dresser?

Praise song for the day.

Each day we go about our business, walking past each other, catching each others' eyes or not, about to speak or speaking. All about us is noise. All about us is noise and bramble, thorn and din, each one of our ancestors on our tongues. Someone is stitching up a hem, darning a hole in a uniform, patching a tire, repairing the things in need of repair.

Someone is trying to make music somewhere with a pair of wooden spoons on an oil drum with cello, boom box, harmonica, voice.

A woman and her son wait for the bus.

A farmer considers the changing sky; A teacher says, "Take out your pencils. Begin."

We encounter each other in words, words spiny or smooth, whispered or declaimed; words to consider, reconsider.

We cross dirt roads and highways that mark the will of someone and then others who said, "I need to see what's on the other side; I know there's something better down the road."

We need to find a place where we are safe; We walk into that which we cannot yet see.

Say it plain, that many have died for this day. Sing the names of the dead who brought us here, who laid the train tracks, raised the bridges, picked the cotton and the lettuce, built brick by brick the glittering edifices they would then keep clean and work inside of.

Praise song for struggle; praise song for the day. Praise song for every hand-lettered sign; The figuring it out at kitchen tables.

Some live by "Love thy neighbor as thy self."

Others by first do no harm, or take no more than you need.

What if the mightiest word is love, love beyond marital, filial, national. Love that casts a widening pool of light. Love with no need to preempt grievance.

In today's sharp sparkle, this winter air, anything can be made, any sentence begun.

On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp -- praise song for walking forward in that light.

Welch's Grape Jelly?

Get a load of John Rubery's consideration of Poetess Alexander's Offering at Marathon Pundit - too funny.

http://marathonpundit.blogspot.com/2009/01/my-inaugural-poem.html

President Obama's Speech - Irony - Changes Mean Return to Old Truths

What will be changed will be seen in the days to come. What will be enacted by President Obama, today and in the days to come, might determine the course for the Nation for decades.



America is behind you. However, your words did not so much reflect change as they did the words and values of the man you defeated. Change seems to require that America cling to John McCain's message.

President Obama defeated John McCain on September 15, 2008 when he stated that the fundamentals of American capitalism were still sound and that sound byte allowed the Obama Campaign to cascade an avalanche of change rhetoric on his crippled shoulders. That's politics and this now is government leadership.

On September 15, 2008 McCain said this, "You know, there's been tremendous turmoil in our financial markets and Wall Street and it is -- people are frightened by these events. Our economy, I think, still the fundamentals of our economy are strong. But these are very, very difficult time. And I promise you, we will never put America in this position again. We will clean up Wall Street. We will reform government."
I promise you we will never put America in this position again."

John McCain also said, "This is a failure. We've got take every action to build an environment of robust energy supplies, lower inflation, control health care costs, access to international markets, low taxes and reduce burden of government to allow people to move forward toward a future of prosperity."



The irony being - what McCain said and meant on September 15, 2008 is reflected in President Obama's inaugural speech:

Our challenges may be new. The instruments with which we meet them may be new. But those values upon which our success depends — hard work and honesty, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism — these things are old. These things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history. What is demanded then is a return to these truths. What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility — a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation, and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task.

Hope floats. The Ship of State must sail true.

God Bless your efforts, Mr. President

A Catholic Prayer for President Obama

God of power and might, wisdom and justice,
through you authority is rightly administered,
laws are enacted, and judgment is decreed.
Assist with your spirit of counsel and fortitude
the President and other government leaders of these United
States.
May they always seek
the ways of righteousness, justice and mercy.
Grant that they may be enabled by your powerful protection
to lead our country with honesty and integrity.
We ask this through Christ our Lord.

God Bless Our President and God Bless the United States of America!

Senator Caroline Kennedy -Schlossberg on the President

We need a President who is not afraid of complexity, who believes in an open and tolerant society, and who knows that the world can be made new again - and that President is Al Gore.
Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg

'Uh, er, Uh . . .I think , er Uh . . .( Kennedy-esque patois), er, em . . .'

Now, Just Wait a Doggone Minute. Oh, that was BEFORE she got Hip to Hope.

"Hail Chicago Cardinals!" - Thanks New York Times and Vince Banonis!

The hard character on the far-right is Chicago Cardinal Vince Banonis! The Bidwills could pick them!


Hail Chicago Cardinals, crimson and white,

We’ll back you ever, down the field, we’ll fight, fight, fight.

We’ll whip the Green Bay Packers, Rams and the Bears,

We’ll take Detroit and Pittsburgh, and do it fair and square.

Yea, Cardinals!


This John Branch story in today's New York Times is pure Grantland Rice!

The burly old two-way player, a center and linebacker who is now 87, is one of the few people alive to know how it feels to be on the Cardinals and play for a championship.

For Vince Banonis, 60 years and another title tilt with the Eagles were reasons enough to break out the old fight song. He and some teammates recorded it back in another time, another place.

Over the phone from Southfield, Mich., Banonis sang:

Hail Chicago Cardinals, crimson and white,

We’ll back you ever, down the field, we’ll fight, fight, fight.

We’ll whip the Green Bay Packers, Rams and the Bears,

We’ll take Detroit and Pittsburgh, and do it fair and square.

Yea, Cardinals!

Like his surviving Chicago Cardinals teammates, Banonis has long cheered the Arizona Cardinals from afar. Now there is increasing curiosity, even suspense, six decades in the making.

The Cardinals play the Philadelphia Eagles in Sunday’s National Football Conference championship game. Millions will watch on television. A handful of viewers will see it differently than anyone else.

“It’s kind of a reminder of the games we had with the Eagles, oh, 60 years ago,” Banonis said.

Before they moved to Arizona, and before they moved to St. Louis, the Cardinals were Chicago’s team — or its other team. They played mostly at Comiskey Park, mostly in the broad shadow of George Halas’s Bears, who played at Wrigley Field.

But for one season, at least, the Cardinals outshined everyone.

“In 1947, we had a good run,” said Charley Trippi, now 86, then a nimble halfback from Georgia in the first year of a Hall of Fame career.

It never occurred to anyone that the Cardinals’ championship victory — a 28-21 defeat of the Eagles on Comiskey’s frozen and slippery field — would be the last that most of the franchise’s coaches, players and fans would live to see. No current N.F.L. franchise has gone longer without a title. The Cardinals have not even played for a league or conference championship since 1948, when they were 11-1 and lost a rematch with the Eagles.

“I didn’t think it would be forever, which it has been,” Jimmy Conzelman Jr said. He was 10, a “locker-room pest,” when his father, a gregarious future Hall of Famer with a shock of silver hair named Jimmy Conzelman, coached the Cardinals to the title.

This is a great story . . .and it is in the New York Times. John Branch is almost as good as Chicago Tribune's Dan McGrath - almost.

Click my post title for the full story.

My Dad, who could not be more happy about the Cardinals and for the Bidwill Family ( 'I knew Old Charley and the two kids, Billy and Stormy, - he was a hell of a nice guy and great to Veterans') called to remind me of the old Bidwill Stadium that served as a great Chicago Women's 12" Softball stadium over east in the South Shore neighborhood which brought me to this great South Shore Neighborhood Site - Shouth Shore Newspsot:

http://bradwell66.org/SouthShoreNewsSpot/NewsSpots/2006/November%202006.html


Nota Bene!!!! I deleted e-mail addresses from the excerpts.



BIDWELL UPDATES

Regarding Bidwill Stadium, it was the home stadium for the Bluebirds who were in the Chicago area women's baseball league. They played with a 12" and hard baseball. They had played with somewhat oversized gloves since the 12" ball is larger than the smaller ball used in the major leagues. Jerry Barich Hyde Park HS 1956



Bidwell stadium and it was named after Charlie Bidwell. It was also the home stadium for the Women's fast pitch (12" not 16") league during and immediately following WWII. There was another stadium around 76th St and Loomis called Shewbridge Stadium, another home stadium for the league. I recall one team was the "Bloomer Girls" and the other was the "Blue Jays". My father was part owner of one of the teams (the one that played @ Loomis Ave) but we used to go to Bidwell to see games in the late 40s & early 50s. John McNeal, Asst. Atty. Gen. (ret), originally from 73rd & Luella, Graduate of Mt. Carmel 1960 J



I remember going to Bidwell Stadium to watch DONKEY BASEBALL! Does anyone remember that? Also, I think they used to hold carnivals there. My brother and I and the neighborhood kids used to walk along the railroad tracks to get there. We all lived on East End Avenue between 73rd and 74th Street. Sara Zaremberg



I wrote back to Sara asking her if the donkeys played baseball and here is her reply.



Hi Caryn, your response really made me laugh! The GUYS ran the bases riding on the donkeys and of course, the asses didn't always want to cooperate! I don't remember if the BATTERS were on the ASSES when batting. It was an advertised event if I remember correctly. It was generally used as a softball field. Sara



All of my life I've pronounced the name of the stadium Bid-well and spelled it that way. In fact it's actually Bid-will. Still, nice to know some of the old time memorabilia is of interest to some people. Don Turner



Don Turner's recollection of Bidwell stadium is correct. The "Bluebirds" played there during the early 1940's. The Bluebirds was a woman's baseball team. I saw a baseball game there that was played on donkeys. That was quite a sight. The Bidwell family still owns the Cardinals. They are now the Arizona Cardinals. I would appreciate any pictures of the stadium that you might have. I made a slide-show of Chicago pictures. Any additional pictures would be a welcome addition. My wife, Gail Miller class of 1954, and I, class of 1953 enjoy your newsletter very much. Joel Wolff



I spent a lot of time at Bidwell Stadium growing up. The Bidwell family still owns the Cardinals, the Arizona Cardinals. I will send you some expansion of details on the area bounded by the B&O tracks, Jeffrey and 75th Street. Also some information on the "Stone Factory" in the triangle bounded by the B&O tracks, 77th Street and Chappell. Ronnie and Kennie Sone lived north of the tracks on Chappell. Their father was a doctor or dentist, I believe. Jim Gibbons /blockquote>

Bidwill's Bonanza - Cardinals Carry Charley's South Side Dreams to the Top Floor!

Mario 'Motts' Tonelli Italian American Hall of Fame Member, Bataan Death March Survivor and Chicago Cardinal


The Cardinals are America's oldest Professional Football franchise -founded in 1898 and they are based in Glendale Arizona outside of Phoenix, but the root of Cardinal Mystique is the south side of Chicago. They began as the Morgan Athletic Club and played on Racine Avenue and were owned by Chicago painting contractor Chris O'Brien. In 1932, the Bidwill family bought the Cardinals. Charley 'Blue-Shirt Charley' Bidwill, a former VP for the Chicago Bears, worked to build a Chicago Powerhouse. He did just that by the end of World War II.

Elmer Angsman,Paul Christman, Pat Harder, Marshall Goldberg, and Charlie Trippi were members of the Million Dollar Backfield. They took down the Philadelphia Eagles in 1947. They were brought together by Charley Bidwill after World War II. In 1947 the Cardinals won the NFL Championship and in 1948 a Division Title for the south side football franchise that began as the O'Brien Cardinals playing at what is now Morgan Park Academy in the 1920's. Charley Bidwill died in April of 1947, before his Dream Team coached by the great Jimmy Conzelman could realize their potential.

Charley's sons Charley and Bill took command. The Cardinals moved to St. Louis and eventually to Phoenix. The Bidwill Family retain their ties to Chicago and are powerful but quiet participants in all Chicago Philanthropic initiatives. Stormy Bidwill runs Sportmans Park racing track and helps poor kids at Leo High School get an education.

The Bidwill Family always seemed to take the high road. When Notre Dame running great Mario 'Motts' Tonelli* returned to Chicago from the Japanese Death Camps from Bataan to Japan after being captured in the siege of Bataan, Charley Bidwill, though putting together a Million Dollar backfield, signed the skeletal Tonelli and had him carry the ball against the Green Bay Packers:

Slightly more than one in every three men captured on Bataan returned home. But few did so to recognition of their peculiar ordeal. In the flush of V-J Day, Americans yearned for their antebellum status quo. In just such a spirit Cardinals owner Charley Bidwill** asked Tonelli, home not even a month, to rejoin the team. It was a publicity stunt, but one in which all parties eagerly conspired. War hero Tonelli, The Chicago Sun declared, had been "nursed back to full strength and health." Tonelli played along. "My weight is back up to 183 pounds," he told the papers, though he weighed more like 140. He still had malaria. Since that day his wife, Mary, and his parents had met him at Chicago's Union Station, doctors had twice cut him open to treat his intestines.

Bidwill's gesture was well-intentioned, but football doesn't run on sentiment. Three days after signing in front of the cameras, Tonelli carried twice against the Packers in Green Bay, each time for no gain, and so ended his NFL career. The next morning's Chicago Tribune carried both news of the Cardinals' 33-14 loss and the headline WAR VETERANS RETURN AND GO HOUSE HUNTING.

Click my post title for Toneli's heroic saga.

The Football Chicago Cardinals remain the south side team, along with Charlie Comiskey's White Sox and our Holy Mother's Notre Dame, due to the Bidwill Family. Their franchise might be in Arizona, Missouri, or Lower Slobovia, but so long as they are running the show, the Cardinals are the south side's team.


*Star fullback for Notre Dame who survived the Bataan Death March during WWII. He was best known for a 77-yard run that helped Notre Dame beat the University of Southern California. At the beginning of the death march, a Japanese guard ordered him to remove his Notre Dame graduation ring only to have the ring returned moments later by a Japanese officer who said in perfect English that he had attended the USC game and watched the famous run. He spent 42 months as a POW and saw his weight drop from 212 pounds to only 92 pounds. He is a member of the National Italian American Sports Hall of Fame.


**

One man Tonelli holds dear to him is Charles Bidwill, the owner of the Chicago Cardinals. Bidwill came to Motts in the hospital after the war and said, "Motts, before you left the Cardinals, you still had a three-year contract. We expect you to honor it." By renewing the contract, he provided Motts with a wonderful opportunity because, under the rules of the NFL, you had to play both before and after the war to get credit for your pension. They both knew it was nearly impossible for Motts to play again but he was determined to do his best. On one Sunday in October of 1945, after a few practices with his coach, Motts earned his pension. Mario "Motts" Tonelli has become a hero on both the battle field and football field.

http://und.cstv.com/sports/monogramclub/spec-rel/122604aaz.html

Brian Dennehy and Robert Falls - Serious Play

Goodman Theatre Artistic Director and American Actor Brian Dennehy Play well together.

Play is serious stuff - it is what we call Art. Only Man takes earth and makes a world of it - that is eventually what gets to be called Art after much play and hard work. These two men have taken play to the very serious levels that become Great Art.

Since 1986, when Robert Falls directed Brian Dennehy in the Goodman Theatre production of Bertold Brecht's The Life of Galileo the two men have collaborated to create the greatest examples of Theatre Art in modern Time.

This week the Goodman Theatre opened production of Eugene O'Neill's Desire Under the Elms

Desire Under the Elms
Directed by Robert Falls
Featuring Brian Dennehy, Carla Gugino, Boris McGiver, Daniel Stewart Sherman and Pablo Schreiber

Tony Award-winning Artistic Director Robert Falls' Desire Under the Elms starring the acclaimed, Tony Award-winner Brian Dennehy will be the centerpiece of an exploration of Eugene O'Neill in the 21st century.

Master American playwright Eugene O’Neill conceived Desire Under the Elms as he slept one night, imbuing it with the emotional pitch of a fever dream. Ephraim Cabot returns to his remote New England farmhouse with his third wife—the alluring, headstrong young Abbie—launching his three grown sons into a bitter fight for their inheritance. When Ephraim’s youngest son sets his sights on Abbie, the resulting tempest brings tragic consequences.

In 1986, I saw the Dennehy/Falls Magic on the stage of the old Goodman Theatre with Galileo. It was overpowering.

Dennehy was exuberantly graceful, witty and brilliant. I recall this wonderful passage ( Galileo has built a telescope and shows the moon to his disciple and confounds human thought and assumptions with this discovery):

GALILEO: How do you explain those luminous spots?
SAGREDO : It cannot be.
GALILEO: But it is. They are mountains.
SAGREDO : On a star?
GALILEO: Giant mountains. Whose summits are gilded by the rising sun,
whilst all around night still covers their slopes. You see the light descending
from the topmost peaks into the valleys.
SAGREDO: But that contradicts all astronomy for the last two thousand
years.
GALILEO : Yet that’s how it is. What you see has never been seen by any
man besides myself. You are the second.

That's how it is. Get to the Goodman!

Sully - Hero of the Hudson

With a handle like Chesley B. Sullenberger, there was no way the Hero of the Hudson River could have been anything but just that.

America salutes Sully! This gentleman was the last person off the sinking jet that the cool,calm and collect Chesley sailed onto the Hudson River.

Capt Sullenberger, 57, who ditched US Airlines Flight 1549 safely into the Hudson River in New York, has over 40 years of flying experience and heads his own safety consulting business.

The former US Air Force fighter pilot from California has served as an instructor and as an Airline Pilots Association (Alpa) safety chairman and accident investigator.

He has taken part in several USAF and National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) accident investigations.

According to the New York Times newspaper, Capt Sullenberger is also a certified glider pilot.

Search for passengers

Capt Sullenberger has been widely praised for his "masterful landing", which was a "miracle on the Hudson", according to New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Less than a minute after his Airbus A320 to Charlotte, North Carolina, took off, Capt Sullenberger reported a "double bird strike" and asked to return to the ground, an air controllers union spokesman said.

HERO PILOT
Chesley B 'Sully' Sullenberger III
Age 57, from Danville, California
Former Air Force fighter pilot
29 years with US Airways
Has own consulting business, Safety Reliability Methods Inc
Based on agency reports


Tale of miraculous escape
In pictures: New York plane crash
'We knew we were going down'

Both engines had apparently been disabled by a flock of birds.

According to air traffic controllers, an "eerie calm" defined their communications with the cockpit as their options dwindled and the pilot decided to ditch into the Hudson, a union official told Reuters news agency.

Incredibly, Capt Sullenberger managed to land the aircraft safely on the water.

Mayor Bloomberg said that the pilot told him that the captain then "walked the plane twice after everybody else was off and tried to verify that there was nobody else onboard".

Capt Sullenberger's wife, Lorrie Sullenberger, a fitness expert in Danville, California, said she learned of the crash when her husband called her on Thursday afternoon.

"He said, 'There's been an accident'," she told CNN.

"At first I thought it was something minor, but then he told me the circumstances and my body started shaking and I rushed to get our daughters out of school," she said.

One of their neighbours, Candace Andersen, said the right pilot had been in charge at the time of the accident.

"You look at his training, you look at his experience - it was the right pilot at the right time in charge of that plane that saved so many lives," she said.

When America needs heroes there never seems to be any shortage of quiet professionals.

Thanks Sully for reminding all of us that heroes are not found imposing themselves into the public imagination - they emerge from the fog of terror and confusion to calm the waters.

Henry Waxman - Be My Wingman!

This guy's strictly MGM; ain't he Margie?!!!! 'En he plays the bagpipes too, I think - an ardent female fan was heard to say.

Congressional Climate Change Torquemada - California Rep. Henry Waxman (D.30th) has vowed to end this cycle of 12" of snow and -30 Degree temperatures afflicting my planet at 108th & Rockwell in Chicago Illinois!

"Our committee will be acting quickly and decisively to reduce global warming and end our dependence on foreign oil," Waxman said.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has indicated that reining in climate change is among her top priorities. And Waxman deposed Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.) as chairman of the committee in part because of his aggressive approach on the environment, which he billed as more in line with President-elect Obama's view.

Waxman made the announcement at his first hearing as chairman, which featured the heads of manufacturing companies that support new climate change rules.

Henry, get this polar-like ice cap off my street!

Also, when in town, Brother Waxman, join me and the lads for Cokes and Jokes up at Keegan's Pub. Our widowers and divorced Dads can use a Wingman!

PineLeaf Boys: Screw The Salt -Thaw Cajun!

Ca viens? Mais, jamais d'la vie! Pas a pomee!' Fait pas une esquandal! Clique mah post title! Je t'aime toujours, Patrack Hique

Snowbound in Morgan Park: Chicago Idle - Well, I am anyway.

Within our beds awhile we heard
The wind that round the gables roared,
With now and then a ruder shock,
Which made our very bedsteads rock.
We heard the loosened clapboards tost,
The board-nails snapping in the frost;
And on us, through the unplastered wall,
Felt the light sifted snow-flakes fall.
But sleep stole on, as sleep will do
When hearts are light and life is new;
Faint and more faint the murmurs grew,
Till in the summer-land of dreams
They softened to the sound of streams,
Low stir of leaves, and dip of oars,
And lapsing waves on quiet shores.

John Greenleaf Whittier

Wittier Than Whittier? -Naw It's Too Cold.


The snap and crackle on sidewalks white
Signal colder fingers all through this cold night,
And Dawn's Toes that froze all the way from the car,
Do now warn the brain-pan -'Tis Cold out Th'yar!'
Stiffer than Wanstead when given the Slip,
By Mrs McCaskey through Angelo's Lip;
Bears that care do not maul the foe,
And all of Chicago nods,'Wanny Must Go!'-
Lovie-Like snows once froze the Hydrant's pipe
And Water Department guys mended it Right,
On Rockwell 108th just the other day,
And Obam's Transition had nothing to say.

Sub-zero Factors ride Big Shoulder's gelid wind
And close Ord's Runways -Extended Stay Inn.
The Short Man on Five wants new kinds of salt
For Streets and San Men to cast from the Vault
Of Horded Plenty white crystals that melt
Nature's cold spittle with Taxpayer's gelt.
North Wind and Sun did Battle in Aesop's Fable
To tell all and sundry who better was able
To get Man to strip his garments gay and bright
The Sun, it was, proved who could get the thing Right.
Sol/Boreas, Madigan/Blago, contend in like manner for Public Approval
The Sun heats all Truth -watch Blago's Removal.

Boreas blew like the Bears' Recent season
And forced ice and wind on Jim chilled by all Reason.
But Man yanked his duds tighter 'round his shivering bones
And warded off North Wind until Jim he got home,
Where the Missus and kids thawed Dad's Polar Limbs
And Souped, Peoples Gassed, hugged, thawed tired Jim.
Sol did much better with gradual heat
Last Summer than Boreas the North Wind Sol Beat.
Jim stripped his Drapes in easy gay layers
To his Banana Hammock as a willing and gradual player
Witched to the whispers of persuading fellow
Warm Sol's Barrelhouse invite 'Get Naked and Mellow!'

Persuasion gets Man to do as might,
While Blowy Dictums pull Drapes around tight
The Freezing Man. Who endures Boreas and Daley
And Blago, and Taxes frozen pipes daily.
Warm Sol and persuasion and brotherly chat
Get more peels of raiment's and Taxpayer Fat
For the Fires that energize Government Bunnies
Who gobble your clothes, your cabbage and monies.

This Thursday is Cold, Frost-Hoary and Mean!
North Wind and Sun do battle on Man. Lean
Government like Orange rhymes with no word
The Thaw is coming. Peel dollars clothes-ward.
That Rhyme was forced, like a bartender's treat.
Screw it. Must scrape the clogged ice on my street.

Stand With Our Jewish Neighbors -'How Come Cole Porter Never Wrote A Song About Rosh Hoshanna?'

Steve Miller Reporting
WBBM Newsradio 780


(WBBM/AP) - Both the American Jewish Committee and the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee issued statements renounced the recent vandalism of several Chicago-area synagogues.

Police say vandals who set fire a fire at a prominent Chicago synagogue last month may also have sprayed "Death to Israel'' on the north suburban Lincolnwood Jewish Congregation over the weekend.

The head of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee of Chicago says he needs to speak out now.

"I don't think we can speak out against any desecration of any mosques or churches in our community and then stand idly by and not speak out against desecration of religious institutions in other communities."

Well said, Pal! Let's take it a little further along the sidewalk.

The other day I remarked on the brilliant book/essay by America's greatest essayist, Joseph Epstein, on Fred Astair as part of the American Icon Series published by Yale Press. The book is prose writing at its best.

Joseph Epstein wrote a profound passage asking why American gentile song writers like Cole Porter never wrote a song about Rosh Shoshana or Purim. Given that the best Christmas Songs, White Christmas by Irving Berlin and Christmas Song by Mel Torme were written by Jewish Americans and Berlin also wrote Easter Parade.

It appears that American Jews celebrated their American neighbors and their traditions while remaining on the outside.

In our Celebrate Diversity, Happy Horse-shit Culture it would be nice to see a little return on this investment of the heart.

Loyola Man, Rabbi Elisha Prero*, confronted the vandalism done to his congregation over the weekend. His East Rogers Park Congregation was vandalized by idiots or anti-Semites - the roles are reversible. I wanted to see how many other ethnic groups stood in solidarity with our Jewish Neighbors.

One of my best friends growing up in Little Flower Parish on the south side - the Irish Catholic Riviera - was the late Danny Levi. Danny was one tough guy who poured out mounds of help to his Mick neighbors whenever anyone got sick or kids found themselves without parents. Danny Levi owned and operated the Irish Temple Pub which had a logo of a Shamrock in the Star of David.

I'll never forget Danny Levi's goodness to his pals and their families.

I hope that I never forget. Danny's relatives were tossed into ovens by people who went to Mass every Sunday and attended Protestant services with sober regularity.

Let's let Rabbi Elisha Prero know that his neighbors here in Chicago - Catholic, Protestant, Muslim, Buddhist and Atheist understand what 'Never Again' means.

We don't need to write songs. We need to stand up once in while; let's let them know we do just that.


Young Israel of West Rogers Park
2706 W. Touhy Ave.
Chicago, Illinois 60645
(773) 743-9400


* Rabbi Elisha Prero

Rabbi Elisha Prero graduated with a B.A. in philosophy, Magna Cum Laude, from Loyola University of Chicago and received a J.D. from the University of Michigan Law School. He studied at Kerem B'Yavneh and Yeshivat Har Etzion in Israel and received his Rabbinic Ordination from Rabbi Ahron Soloveichik at Brisk Rabbinical College. Rabbi Prero joined the law firm of Schuyler, Roche, Zwirner, and has been a partner since 2001. He is a member of the CRC, the Youth Commission of the Midwest Region of the NCSY, the musical group Evën Sh’siyah and has been rabbi of Young Israel of West Rogers Park for the past 10 years.

Chicago Tribune and Chicagoist Cover Vandalism of Chicago Jewish Congregations

HUGE HAT TIP to the Crews Chicago Tribune and at Chicagoist!

http://chicagoist.com/2009/01/11/pro-israel_rally_photos_local_synag.php?gallery0Pic=6#gallery"Free, free Palestine," thousands of marchers chanted. "Hey [Israeli Prime Minister Ehud] Olmert you can't hide, we charge you with genocide."

http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/2009/01/pro-palestinian-march-to-close-loop-streets.html

That was Friday night.

This was Sunday Morning:

Late Sunday morning, Talmud classes were under way at Lubavitch Mesivta of Chicago, a rabbinical school and synagogue at 2756 W. Morse Ave. in Chicago. Spray-painted on the brick wall facing California Avenue was the same phrase, "Death to Israel."

"We continue on," Rabbi Shalom Halberstam said. "We do our thing. Studying. Learning. We didn't shut school down. We keep the faith."

Over at the Young Israel Congregation of West Rogers Park, 2706 W. Touhy Ave., head of security Stuart Singal was putting tarp over two smashed windows Sunday morning.

Rabbi Elisha Prero said synagogue officials believe the "Jewish response" to the defacement of their building was to make something positive of it. They would use the bricks thrown into the window in the cornerstone of the synagogue's library.

"We want to turn this disgusting act into a redemptive one," Prero said.

alwang@tribune.com

jjlong@tribune.com

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-synagogue-rally-12-jan12,0,3703577.story

Gaza is in the Mideast - Palestine/Israel but it sure as hell is not here in Chicago, Skokie, or Lincolnwood.

Catch the vandals. Charge them. Save all the 'Profiling' nonsense on the part of the Peoples Law Office and Lefty Lawyer League. This is an American Criminal Act. Show it the American Justice System.

God Bless the Congregations and the great Jewish People who had to endure this affront! Got a beef with that?

President Elect Obama -Everybody’s Going to have to Give. Ludacris?

"Well, right now, I’m focused on a pretty heavy lift, which is making sure we get that reinvestment and recovery package in place. But what you described is exactly what we’re going to have to do. What we have to do is to take a look at our structural deficit, how are we paying for government? What are we getting for it? And how do we make the system more efficient?"
"And eventually sacrifice from everyone?" I asked.

"Everybody’s going to have to give. Everybody’s going to have to have some skin in the game," Obama said.

Obama Spokesman and early supporter of the President Elect,Christopher Bridges AKA Ludacris had this to say -

'You can’t stop what’s bout to happen, we bout to make history
The first black president is destined and it’s meant to be
The threats ain’t fazing us, the nooses or the jokes
So get off your ass, black people, it’s time to get out and vote!

Paint the White House black and I’m sure that’s got ‘em terrified
McCain don’t belong in any chair unless he’s paralyzed
Yeah I said it cause Bush is mentally handicapped
Ball up all of his speeches and just throw ‘em like candy wrap
’cause what you talking I hear nothing even relevant
and you the worst of all 43 presidents

Get out and vote or the end’ll be near
The world is ready for change because Obama is here
’cause Obama is here
The world is ready for change because Obama is here, yeah
cuz Obama is here'

Well, Christopher Old Son, My wrinkled Skin's well in the Game and My Pale Skin is already Sizzlin'! As a rapper of the last century put it, Chris, 'Commitments the voters don't know about can't hurt you.' Tru Dat, Playah!

Joseph Epstein's 'Fred Astair' - 'A bit of color at the throat'

"I have always thought,that if one wants to be a writer, he must first make himself incompetent in everything else." Joseph Epstein

"In his essays, Epstein possesses a wealth of apt, obscure and effortless knowledge. In person, he is a man of anecdotes: conversation with him invariably anchored here and there by winsome, real life accounts. Indeed it seems nearly every story in this new collection has behind it an anecdote of equal charm." Doug Wagner from his interview with Joseph Epstein

Joseph Epstein is arguably America's best essayist. The litany of Professor Epstein's essays is a trail of delight:

Divorced in America: Marriage in an age of possibility (1974)
Familiar Territory: Observations on American Life (1979)
Ambition: The Secret Passion (1980)
Middle of My Tether: Familiar Essays (1983)
Plausible Prejudices: Essays on American Writing (1985)
Once More Around the Block: Familiar Essays (1987)
Partial Payments: Essays on Writers and Their Lives (1988)
A Line Out for a Walk: Familiar Essays (1991)
Pertinent Players: Essays on the Literary Life (1993)
With My Trousers Rolled: Familiar Essays (1995)
Life Sentences: Literary Essays (1997)
Narcissus Leaves the Pool: Familiar Essays (1999, paperback 2007)
Snobbery: The American Version (2002)
Envy (2003)
Friendship: An Exposé (2006)
Alexis de Tocqueville: Democracy's Guide (2006)
In a Cardboard Belt!: Essays Personal, Literary, and Savage (2007)
Fred Astaire (2008)

Fred Astair was a Christmas gift to me. It is an Apollonian dance, a hard-crafted drift of breeze made warm and wonderful by the magic of practiced attention to detail. In pointing to Fred Astair's imaginative dress habits, Joseph Epstein's prose hovers above the dusty floor's saw-dust words of lesser craftsmen attempting a similar literary two-step on the subject:

' Astair was also good at throwing together what might appear normally discordant colors but which on him worked well. Brown suede loafers, say, with a taupe blue double breasted suit. Or, a buff colored, slightly beaten up fedora with a tuxedo. A French semiologist could doubtless do a lengthy and jargon-laden study of the colors of his socks. The point is that he made the normally discordant seem not in the least discordant but instead interesting, striking. Elegant is as elegant does.

Lots of people think Astair's sometimes wearing a necktie in place of a belt a fine flamboyant touch, but I am not among them. I thought it went over the line of flair and into the land of fey. He didn't do badly, though, with colorful silk bandanna's tied loosely around his throat. In later life, he understood that a bit of color at the the throat, along with covering over the sagging skin at the neck, enlivens an older face. His pocket squares were never too showy. He looked good in bathrobes, too though on him they were elevated to dressing gowns' Epstein (40-41).

Joseph Epstein is the Fred Astair of the essay. Though Fred tapped, waltzed, fox-trotted, and, sadly, assented to boogaloo at the end of his long career, Joe Epstein river-dances an endless but controlled shower of sound and sense from the wealth of his experiences and insights.

Though a book for the Star-struck guzzler of Hollywood fabulae and fauna, it is more of a treat to the audience of discerning readers and deep drinkers of the Pyrian Spring. Aunt Myrt will love the stuff about the back-stage life and servings of 'dish,' but lovers of prose will delight to witness Joe Epstein's graceful glides through the pages.

http://januarymagazine.com/profiles/jepstein.html

Governor Alfred Lord Blagojevich Repsonds to Impeachment

YouTube - Animal House: Germans Bombed Pearl Harbor: ""

Click this link!

Andrew Breitbart's 'Big Hollywood' - A Voice for the Traditional

I got me WOW Cable service here in Chicago, which was Wide Open West, which was Ameritech, which was Illinois Bell in the Book of Genesis.

WOW Cable costs a lung each month for basic and HBO. That means my kids get to watch One Tree Hill, Disney Stuff, and Laguna Beach. I get Turner Movie Classics (TCM). I can not watch American Movie Classics (AMC)as there is more censorship and many more commercials than when Channel 9 ( WGN) had Lynn Burton selling cars during Old Movies.

The History Channel explains UFOs, Gangs that I meet 'n greet on an almost daily basis over near Leo, the DaVinci Code and the smelly basements of the World in History.

There are hundreds of channels and generally nothing to watch. Most Movies getting made and played for our Mall Theatres ( Kerasotes & etc.) stink on ice, but that does not prevent Hollywood from churning out soy-heavy political/social/moral opinion on HBO or Arianna Huffington's Pravda.

Films with real substance are almost non-existent and Film industry professionals who hold opinions and values that are not stridently counter-culture are blacklisted.

Andrew Breitbart, a young guy born during my senior year at Little Flower High School (1969) has opened Big Hollywood and alternative to the America bashing, 'Seth Has Two Daddies and Loving It,' Isreal is Facist, Catholics are Evil and Drugs Are Health Food points of view.

Breitbart is a writer who helped Arianna Huffington develop Huffington Post - named for Arianna with the handle of her husband who was decidely man-directed in his sexual inclinations, but loaded with gelt. Huffington Post is the Hollywood Squares of third tier talent and 40 Watt Political thinking.

Andy Breitbart wrote,"[Left-leaning Hollywood personalities] are uninteresting, they’re vicious, they’re vitriolic, they’re really, really not good people. I’m willing to say that on the record. You could probe them scientifically and anthropologically and prove that they’re not good people....[The Hollywood left] is a stale group of people who are recycling the same old bad ideas that don’t work. Why else would those people go to the stinky side?"
—Meet Andrew Breitbart, self-proclaimed rebel-king of L.A.'s underground conservative movement (interview), 2008.

Why are all those Hollywood Lefties named Seth?

For a look at Underground Hollywood, friends and neighbors, get thee to Big Hollywood.

Newman (from Seinfeld) for U.S. Post Master General!

I heard a guy call in to WLS -Don Wade & Roma this morning with a comment on the designation of Dr. Sanjay Gupta for U.S, Surgeon General: 'Why not Newman from Seinfeld for Postmaster General?'

Brilliant, Sober, Consistent and Change I Believe In! Hell, He can't can't screw up a trainwreck that is in progress. Why Not?

Newman is a U.S Postalworker, which never work in the rain for obvious reasons, this came in conflict when george castanza made a deal with him for him to by a calzone for him from a place which he was thrown out of. he has been involved in many plots with the four main characters, while also being adversarial to jerry; they are famous for saying eachothers names in an despicable voice upon meeting. 1 scheme where newman is involved is where he, elaine, and kramer kidnap a dog that was really annoying to elaine. newman's love is elaine, and this is shown when he recites poetry about her. Newman recieved a birthday wish when he suddenly got a convertable, and a hot new girlfriend who is interested in the mailing system. kramer and newman,who are close friends, tried to travel to michigan on mothers day with a mailtruck full of empties of which he wanted to cash in for the 15 cent payback. when kramer was in debt, betting on arrivals and departures at the airport, newman came in with Son of Sam's mailbag to give as collateral, newman said that he once double dated with son of sam. Newman hates keith hernandez, of which he called "pretty boy" for making a crucial error that made the mets lose, and in retaliation, he was spit on along with kramer by what jerry calls a magic luggie.

Retrieved from "http://seinfeld.wikia.com/wiki/Newman_%28Seinfeld%29"http://seinfeld.wikia.com/wiki/Newman_(Seinfeld)

The Song of Roland - Not Burris; The Song of Burris -Not Roland

Ah, the poetic soul is enriched by the exploits of men whose names deserve chisled honor in the granite of human imagination!

Roland holds off the waves of Saracens for his Lord Charlemagne! Roland Burris holds off the disgust of millions!

One guy blocked a pass and Senator We had his pass to the Senate blocked! Epic!

Voila! Chansons de Rolande!


2215 The count Rollanz, when dead he saw his peers,
And Oliver, he held so very dear,
Grew tender, and began to shed a tear;
Out of his face the colour disappeared;
No longer could he stand, for so much grief,
2220 Will he or nill, he swooned upon the field.
Said the Archbishop: "Unlucky lord, indeed!"

CLXV

When the Archbishop beheld him swoon, Rollant,
Never before such bitter grief he'd had;
Stretching his hand, he took that olifant.
2225 Through Rencesvals a little river ran;
He would go there, fetch water for Rollant.
Went step by step, to stumble soon began,
So feeble he is, no further fare he can,
For too much blood he's lost, and no strength has;
2230 Ere he has crossed an acre of the land,
His heart grows faint, he falls down forwards and
Death comes to him with very cruel pangs.

CLXVI

The count Rollanz wakes from his swoon once more,
Climbs to his feet; his pains are very sore;
2235 Looks down the vale, looks to the hills above;
On the green grass, beyond his companions,
He sees him lie, that noble old baron;
'Tis the Archbishop, whom in His name wrought God;
There he proclaims his sins, and looks above;
2240 Joins his two hands, to Heaven holds them forth,
And Paradise prays God to him to accord.
Dead is Turpin, the warrior of Charlon.
In battles great and very rare sermons
Against pagans ever a champion.
2245 God grant him now His Benediction!
AOI.

CLXVII

The count Rollant sees the Archbishop lie dead,
Sees the bowels out of his body shed,
And sees the brains that surge from his forehead;
Between his two arm-pits, upon his breast,
2250 Crossways he folds those hands so white and fair.
Then mourns aloud, as was the custom there:
"Thee, gentle sir, chevalier nobly bred,
To the Glorious Celestial I commend;
Neer shall man be, that will Him serve so well;
2255 Since the Apostles was never such prophet,
To hold the laws and draw the hearts of men.
Now may your soul no pain nor sorrow ken,
Finding the gates of Paradise open!"

CLXVIII

Then Rollanz feels that death to him draws near,
2260 For all his brain is issued from his ears;
He prays to God that He will call the peers,
Bids Gabriel, the angel, t' himself appear.
Takes the olifant, that no reproach shall hear,
And Durendal in the other hand he wields;
2265 Further than might a cross-bow's arrow speed
Goes towards Spain into a fallow-field;
Climbs on a cliff; where, under two fair trees,
Four terraces, of marble wrought, he sees.
There he falls down, and lies upon the green;
2270 He swoons again, for death is very near.

CLXIX

High are the peaks, the trees are very high.
Four terraces of polished marble shine;
On the green grass count Rollant swoons thereby.
A Sarrazin him all the time espies,
2275 Who feigning death among the others hides;
Blood hath his face and all his body dyed;
He gets afoot, running towards him hies;
Fair was he, strong and of a courage high;
A mortal hate he's kindled in his pride.
2280 He's seized Rollant, and the arms, were at his side,
"Charles nephew," he's said, "here conquered lies.
To Araby I'll bear this sword as prize."
As he drew it, something the count descried.

CLXX

So Rollant felt his sword was taken forth,
2285 Opened his eyes, and this word to him spoke
"Thou'rt never one of ours, full well I know."
Took the olifant, that he would not let go,
Struck him on th' helm, that jewelled was with gold,
And broke its steel, his skull and all his bones,
2290 Out of his head both the two eyes he drove;
Dead at his feet he has the pagan thrown:
After he's said: "Culvert, thou wert too bold,
Or right or wrong, of my sword seizing hold!
They'll dub thee fool, to whom the tale is told.
2295 But my great one, my olifant I broke;
Fallen from it the crystal and the gold."

CLXXI

Then Rollanz feels that he has lost his sight,
Climbs to his feet, uses what strength he might;
In all his face the colour is grown white.
2300 In front of him a great brown boulder lies;
Whereon ten blows with grief and rage he strikes;
The steel cries out, but does not break outright;
And the count says: "Saint Mary, be my guide
Good Durendal, unlucky is your plight!
2305 I've need of you no more; spent is my pride!
We in the field have won so many fights,
Combating through so many regions wide
That Charles holds, whose beard is hoary white!
Be you not his that turns from any in flight!
2310 A good vassal has held you this long time;
Never shall France the Free behold his like."

CLXXII

Rollant hath struck the sardonyx terrace;
The steel cries out, but broken is no ways.
So when he sees he never can it break,
2315 Within himself begins he to complain:
"Ah! Durendal, white art thou, clear of stain!
Beneath the sun reflecting back his rays!
In Moriane was Charles, in the vale,
When from heaven God by His angel bade
2320 Him give thee to a count and capitain;
Girt thee on me that noble King and great.
I won for him with thee Anjou, Bretaigne,
And won for him with thee Peitou, the Maine,
And Normandy the free for him I gained,
2325 Also with thee Provence and Equitaigne,
And Lumbardie and all the whole Romaigne,
I won Baivere, all Flanders in the plain,
Also Burguigne and all the whole Puillane,
Costentinnople, that homage to him pays;
2330 In Saisonie all is as he ordains;
With thee I won him Scotland, Ireland, Wales,
England also, where he his chamber makes;
Won I with thee so many countries strange
That Charles holds, whose beard is white with age!
2335 For this sword's sake sorrow upon me weighs,
Rather I'ld die, than it mid pagans stay.
Lord God Father, never let France be shamed!"

CLXXIII

Rollant his stroke on a dark stone repeats,
And more of it breaks off than I can speak.
2340 The sword cries out, yet breaks not in the least,
Back from the blow into the air it leaps.
Destroy it can he not; which when he sees,
Within himself he makes a plaint most sweet.
"Ah! Durendal, most holy, fair indeed!
2345 Relics enough thy golden hilt conceals:
Saint Peter's Tooth, the Blood of Saint Basile,
Some of the Hairs of my Lord, Saint Denise,
Some of the Robe, was worn by Saint Mary.
It is not right that pagans should thee seize,
2350 For Christian men your use shall ever be.
Nor any man's that worketh cowardice!
Many broad lands with you have I retrieved
Which Charles holds, who hath the great white beard;
Wherefore that King so proud and rich is he."

CLXXIV

2355 But Rollant felt that death had made a way
Down from his head till on his heart it lay;
Beneath a pine running in haste he came,
On the green grass he lay there on his face;
His olifant and sword beneath him placed,
2360 Turning his head towards the pagan race,
Now this he did, in truth, that Charles might say
(As he desired) and all the Franks his race; --
'Ah, gentle count; conquering he was slain!' --
He owned his faults often and every way,
2365 And for his sins his glove to God upraised.
AOI.

CLXXV

But Rollant feels he's no more time to seek;
Looking to Spain, he lies on a sharp peak,
And with one hand upon his breast he beats:
"Mea Culpa! God, by Thy Virtues clean
2370 Me from my sins, the mortal and the mean,
Which from the hour that I was born have been
Until this day, when life is ended here!"
Holds out his glove towards God, as he speaks
Angels descend from heaven on that scene.
AOI.

Here's Senator 'We'! Ouis! Sing this ditty to the tune ofRawhide, Kids!

Roland, Roland, Roland - though the streams are swollen & etc.: "I intend to be sworn in"

Roland, Roland, Roland: "I will present myself to the Senate tomorrow afternoon or tomorrow morning"

Roland, Roland, Roland: "And should they turn me away, I will then proceed to leave"

Roland, Roland, Roland: "If that happens, my lawyers will decide on next course of action"



Keep Roland, Roland, Roland . . .Roland, Roland, Roland! Good Vitals, Gals and Kissin' are waitin' at the end of your Ride!

Officer John Knight Benefit at Cullinan's Stadium Club January 9th

Huge Hat Tip to Second City Cop - click my post title.

Police Officer John C. Knight
Chicago, IL Police Department
Age: 38, Tour Of Duty: 10 Yrs. Badge#: 5119
E.O.W. 9 January 1999
Cause Of Death: Gunfire

The 10 year anniversary of the untimely death of Officer John Knight is coming up Friday, January 9th. We are having a get together at the Stadium Club, 116th and Western, where all of John's friends can get together, enjoy some good food, and trade your favorite stories of working with him. Food is being donated by the bar owner, Danny Cullinan, and we are going with a "Feed the Kitty" system for paying for the refreshments (everyone drops $20 in the bucket by the bar, and the bartenders pull from there to pay for refreshments. If money runs out, the hat gets passed around for an extra $5- 10 to cover more refreshments and/or tips for the bartenders).

Count on a very good time, and please be kind to the people working there. They are always FANTASTIC to us.

Please contact Sgt Dawn Melchert (022 Tact) at 773-218-5066 to RSVP. We need to give the Stadium Club a good headcount to know how much food to prepare.

United States Senator Roland W. Burris, ( D.IL)

On November 5th Governor Rod Blagojevich publicly stated that we would begin the process to appoint a replacement to the U.S. Senate for President Elect Barack Obama.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 5, 2008

Governor Blagojevich Congratulates President-elect Obama and Discusses U.S. Senate Seat
To fill President-Elect Barack Obama’s Senate seat, Governor will use deliberate process to select suitable replacement

CHICAGO – After congratulating President-Elect Barack Obama on his decisive victory, Governor Rod R. Blagojevich announced today that he will take his time and use a diverse senior staff made up of key members of his administration who will assist him in selecting a suitable replacement for Obama.

“Last night’s victory was bittersweet for Illinois - as we gain a great President, we lose a great Senator. And it goes without saying that our next Senator has big shoes to fill. Because it’s important that the best person for Illinois is selected, I want to be clear that the calendar won’t dictate our search. Instead, I want to ensure that Obama’s successor will understand and fight for the needs of average Illinoisans,” Governor Blagojevich said.

Governor Blagojevich will be looking for candidates that will:

Support the President-Elect’s agenda for the people;
Effectively represent the interests of the state of Illinois in the U.S. Congress;
Work with my administration to achieve our shared goals of ensuring access to affordable healthcare, rebuilding Illinois’ infrastructure, improving the economic security and livelihoods of Illinois workers, and caring for our most vulnerable; and,
Prioritize the average Illinoisan who is too burdened by taxes and economic hardship.


The U.S. Constitution, 17th Amendment, provides that a state legislature may empower the executive of the state to make the appointment.

http://www.illinois.gov/PressReleases/ShowPressRelease.cfm?SubjectID=72&RecNum=7260

Yadda-yadda-yadda . . .

On December 9th Federal Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald ordered that Governor Rod Blagojevich be arrested at his home.

December 9, 2008 at 2:11 PM | Comments (123)
Gov. Rod Blagojevich and his chief of staff, John Harris, were arrested today by FBI agents for what U.S. Atty. Patrick Fitzgerald called a "staggering" level of corruption involving pay-to-play politics in Illinois' top office.

Blagojevich is accused of a wide-ranging criminal conspiracy, including alleged attempts by the governor to try to sell or trade the U.S. Senate seat left vacant by President-elect Barack Obama in exchange for financial benefits for the governor and his wife. Blagojevich also is accused of obtaining campaign contributions in exchange for other official actions.

Blagojevich was taken into federal custody at his North Side home this morning--one day shy of his 52nd birthday.At a news conference late this morning, Fitzgerald said Blagojevich "has taken us to a truly new low" and went on "a political corruption crime spree. We acted to stop that crime spree."

Fitzgerald also accused Blagojevich of attempting "to sell the U.S. Senate seat" that President-elect Barack Obama vacated.
Robert Grant, FBI special agent in charge of the Chicago office, said the arrest of Blagojevich should serve as notice that "business as usual will no longer be tolerated. That selling your office for personal gain is a thing of the past."

Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn today called on Blagojevich to step aside, at least temporarily, because the governor is "seriously impeded from carrying out his oath of office."

"I think that should certainly be considered by the governor today. I think he knows what he needs to do for the people," Quinn said at a news conference this afternoon.

Quinn would assume control of the governor's office if Blagojevich were to step aside under the Illinois Constitution.

Obama told reporters he was "saddened and sobered" by Blagojevich's arrest.

"I was not aware of what was happening," Obama said. "I had no contact with the governor or his office and so I was not aware of what was happening."Tribune Editor Gerould W. Kern said today that the newspaper delayed publishing some stories at the request of the U.S. attorney's office during the course of reporting on the accelerating investigation of Blagojevich.

http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/2008/12/source-feds-take-gov-blagojevich-into-custody.html

And Yadda-yadda-yadda . . .

On December 30th Gov. Blagojevich, as portrayed on Saturday Night Live & etc., appoints former Illinois Attorney General Roland Burris to replace President Elect Obama as U.S. Senator from Illinois.

Fitzgerald has not indicted Blagojevich. Governor Blagojevich has not yet been impeached. Roland Burris is the Senate Replacement according to the 17th Amendment of the United States Constitution and the Illinois Constitution.

United States Senator Roland Burris ( D. Illinois).

Now, just what a genius like Harry Reid will do between now and Tuesday when Congress returns to session should be fun to watch.

Reid released a Dec. 30 statement saying that Burris would not be seated.

"It is truly regrettable that despite requests from all 50 Democratic Senators and public officials throughout Illinois, Gov. Blagojevich would take the imprudent step of appointing someone to the United States Senate who would serve under a shadow and be plagued by questions of impropriety," the statement said. "We say this without prejudice toward Roland Burris' ability, and we respect his years of public service. But this is not about Mr. Burris; it is about the integrity of a governor accused of attempting to sell this United States Senate seat. Under these circumstances, anyone appointed by Gov. Blagojevich cannot be an effective representative of the people of Illinois and, as we have said, will not be seated by the Democratic Caucus."

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=6570544&page=1

President Elect Obama endorsed Roland Burris for Governor over Paul Vallas and Rod Blagojevich. Fitzy needs more time . . . you think?

Everything seems to be in order.

The Party of Ideas!

Arianna Huffington Responds to Queries Re: Bill Ayers @ HuffPo

Arianna Huffington - 'Gude Af-tar Nune! Beel Ay-arhs Hes Joyn'd Da Mony Gude and Tahlented Peoples uf My Blug. Beel Ay-arhs Hes Hed Mony Bed T'ings Sed a'bout Heem 'en Hees Wy-fe Bern-ahdeen. Na-ow det Press-a-dent O-bama hess ben Helected . .. Aye hef dis to say . . .Ay gamisou GEDDAOWDA MY SSSSSSSSPAISE!!! Fur Aye Tro -Haht Water on Alla Yew! .EEEEEYEIEEEEEE!

As to thialo , malakas poustis



Seth! Seth, vlakas! Cal dee Kops Hon 'Em! GEDOOWD! Fila mou to kolo !!!!!!!!!!!!!

Dead White Man - Gaius Sallustius Crispus - Speaks to Voters About Yamheads in Elected Office

( Photo of Two Political Yamheads - Chicago Sun Times)


'We are the Senator!'

WASHINGTON -- Roland Burris, being Roland Burris, put it to me this way Friday when we talked: "We are the senator."

We are? We are not impressed.

http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/blagojevich/index.html

It appears that not only is Roland Burris prone to the Royal/Papal We, a sure sign that an American is prone wearing crowns and gowns without the Mental Health Professionals in attendance, but also is another Lame Ranger: Todd Stroger, Junior Jones, Caroline Kennedy& etc.

Well, Milorad might have picked worse, but he sure as hell could not have selected a more worthy micro-head on which to place the Senatorial laurel wreath- which will fall down onto Roland the First's tiny shoulders sometime on Monday when he intrudes himself into the U.S. Senate.

Roland will pal up in short order, no doubt, with another Lame Ranger - Princess Caroline Kennedy .

A dead white guy, who went by the handle Sallust back in Roman Times, wrote a preface to his study of the Jugarthine War* and it is a pretty solid study of what solid people in political life need to understand.

Sallust is no Maya Angelou, but then again who is?

I. Mankind unreasonably complain of their nature, that, being weak and
short-lived, it is governed by chance rather than intellectual power;
for, on the contrary, you will find, upon reflection, that there is
nothing more noble or excellent, and that to nature is wanting rather
human industry than ability or time.

The ruler and director of the life of man is the mind, which, when it
pursues glory in the path of true merit, is sufficiently powerful,
efficient, and worthy of honor, and needs no assistance from
fortune, who can neither bestow integrity, industry, or other good
qualities, nor can take them away. But if the mind, ensnared by
corrupt passions, abandons itself to indolence and sensuality, when
it has indulged for a season in pernicious gratifications, and when
bodily strength, time, and mental vigor, have been wasted in sloth,
the infirmity of nature is accused, and those who are themselves in
fault impute their delinquency to circumstances. Emphasis my Own


If man, however, had as much regard for worthy objects, as he has
spirit in the pursuit of what is useless, unprofitable, and even
perilous, he would not be governed by circumstances more than he would
govern them, and would attain to a point of greatness, at which,
instead of being mortal,he would be immortalized by glory.


II. As man is composed of mind and body, so, of all our concerns and
pursuits, some partake the nature of the body, and some that of the
mind. Thus beauty of person, eminent wealth, corporeal strength, and
all other things of this kind, speedily pass away; but the illustrious
achievements of the mind are, like the mind itself, immortal.

Of the advantages of person and fortune, as there is a beginning,
there is also an end; they all rise and fall, increase and decay.
But the mind, incorruptible and eternal, the ruler of the human race,
actuates and has power over all things, yet is itself free from
control.

The depravity of those, therefore, is the more surprising, who,
devoted to corporeal gratifications, spend their lives in luxury and
indolence, but suffer the mind, than which nothing is better or
greater in man, to languish in neglect and inactivity; especially when
there are so many and various mental employments by which the highest
renown may be attained.

III. Of these occupations, however, civil and military offices,and
all administration of public affairs, seem to me at the present time,
by no means to be desired; for neither is honor conferred on merit,
nor are those, who have gained power by unlawful means, the more
secure or respected for it. To rule our country or subjects by
force, though we may have the ability, and may correct what is wrong,
is yet an ungrateful undertaking; especially as all changes in the
state lead to bloodshed, exile, and other evils of discord; while
to struggle in ineffectual attempts, and to gain nothing, by wearisome
exertions, but public hatred, is the extreme of madness; unless when a
base and pernicious spirit, perchance, may prompt a man to sacrifice
his honor and liberty to the power of a party.

IV. Among other employments which are pursued by the intellect, the
recording of past events is of pre-eminent utility; but of its merits
I may, I think, be silent, since many have spoken of them, and since,
if I were to praise my own occupation, I might be considered as
presumptuously praising myself. I believe, too, that there will be
some, who, because I have resolved to live unconnected with political
affairs, will apply to my arduous and useful labors the name of
idleness; especially those who think it an important pursuit to court
the people, and gain popularity by entertainments. But if such persons
will consider at what periods I obtained office, what sort of men[13]
were then unable to obtain it, and what description of persons have
subsequently entered the senate, they will think, assuredly, that
I have altered my sentiments rather from prudence than from indolence,
and that more good will arise to the state from my retirement, than
from the busy efforts of others.

Gaius Sallustius Crispus - The Jugurthine War

*

Sallust's Jugurthine War is a brief monograph recording the war in Numidia c.112 B.C.. Its true value lies in the introduction of Marius and Sulla to the Roman political scene and the beginning of their rivalry. Sallust's time as governor of Africa Nova ought to have let the author develop a solid geographical and ethnographical background to the war, however, this is not evident in the monograph despite a diversion on the subject because Sallust's priority in the "Jugurthine War", as with the "Catiline Conspiracy", is to use history as a vehicle for his judgement on the slow destruction of Roman morality and politics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sallust#Jugurthine_War*

Beachwood Reporter Details Blago T'aint as Much Tainted as Illinois - The Besmeared Realities of Progressive Politics

Steve Rhodes did a real nice summary of the Obama Internal Whitewash - 'We did NOT inhale'- the fumes of Stinky Politics. But Illinois has been Smoke Free for a Year Now! Progressive Nanny Staters sent Old Man Tobacco the Way of Demon Rum and Effective Government!

That is Progressive. You see Progressive Political Reality is this - 'We can not win an election more than three hundred yards from the Lakefront without the 'Old Timey Saloon Keeper' methods, but we like to stand far and away from them and allow the Machinery to get us in.' Take politics out of the smoke-filled back rooms of the saloons and a Commonwealth akin to Sesame Street ( brought to you by grant from the MacArthur Center for Justice) will grass-root itself and make Teutopolis, Carmi, Rock Island, Ottawa, Papineau, and Coal City, IL virtual Hyde Parks.

Prohibit the rights of citizens by legislative fiat and Free Illinois!

Reform Crusaders, like Mike Quigley, Joe Moore, Ed Smith love to Prohibit and yet they always require old school Ward operatives of the smoke filled room variety to get out the vote and then Mike, Joe, and Ed can sink their Progressive incisors deeply into the hands that passed out the palm cards on election in the Chicago Media, once re-elected.

President Elect Barack Obama's political life was made possible from a grant of the local Ward Committeemen.

Now the chickens have come home to roost. No one within spitting distance of local Chicago politics is shocked or surprised, but propriety and the solemnity of the up-coming Change is Hope Inauguration on January 20th dictates a whiff a smelling salts in public. 'Saul, Saul why have you forsaken us!'

Beachwood Reporter's Steve Rhodes offers a nice redaction and commentary on the explosively obvious Obama Whitewash - 'We're Okay!'

"Obama also said 'he had no interest in dictating the results of the selection process and he would not do so, either directly or indirectly through staff or others,' the report said, adding that Whitaker relayed that information to Peters."

*

But we know that Obama indeed did try to influence the selection process.

*

Then again, if Jarrett bailed because the process was dirty, why this?

"After Jarrett removes herself from consideration from the Senate seat, Obama discusses other qualified candidates with Emanuel and Obama adviser Axelrod, including U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky, U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., state Comptroller Dan Hynes and Illinois Veterans Affairs Director Tammy Duckworth. Obama understands that Emanuel will relay these names to Blagojevich's office."

And again, if Obama "understands" that Emanuel will relay these names to Blagojevich's office, how is that not trying to influence the selection process?

*

"But the report, when meshed with allegations in Blagojevich's criminal complaint, portrays Jarrett as being far more involved in seeking to be appointed to the Senate than has been previously known," the Sun-Times reports. "She removed herself from consideration after a conversation with a union official who had spoken with Blagojevich."

*

Emanuel listened to at least one recording, according to an AP report.

*

"Blagojevich, the complaint indicates, met with Balanoff around Nov. 5, at which time the governor understood Balanoff 'was an emissary' to discuss Jarrett's interest in the Senate seat."

*

"'Though their conversation would seem to suggest that Blagojevich - who holds the sole power to appoint Obama's replacement - was seeking a quid pro quo, 'Ms. Jarrett did not understand the conversation to suggest that the governor wanted the cabinet seat as a quid pro quo for selecting any specific candidate to be the President-elect's replacement,' the Obama report states."

*

"Obama, who has downplayed his role in the Senate selection process, 'believed it appropriate to provide the names of multiple candidates to be considered," according to the report."

*

"Unlike other contenders, who went hat-in-hand to Blagojevich - under an ethics cloud even before he was arrested Dec. 9 on public corruption charges - Jarrett did not approach the governor directly. I can see why. Would have been off message," Lynn Sweet writes.

*

In other words, don't taint the image with reality.

Thank God and Greyhound the Obama linens are unsoiled!

Rod Blagojevich is the Governor of Illinois. He was keel-hauled immediately after the election of President Elect Obama by Federal Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald - the all purpose bleach of the life political in Illinois. I feel that Fitzy might have pulled the trigger too quickly on Gov. Rod.

The Guv is the same guy who appeared to be as nutty as a Stuckey's Log when he ran against Paul Vallas in 2002. In fact, he just might be a little more restrained these days; however, the politically expedient in Illinois took a shine to young Milorad:

Here's my 'guy who gets the news with the other guys at Kean Gas at 5AM' political scratch sheet from Wikipedia:

In 2002, Blagojevich ran for his party's nomination to become governor. Blagojevich won a close primary campaign against former Illinois Attorney General Roland Burris, whose base was largely African-American voters,[citation needed] and Chicago Public Schools Superintendent Paul Vallas, who ran well in the suburban "collar" counties of Chicago.[citation needed] Blagojevich finished strongly in southern Illinois, winning 55% of the primary vote downstate, enough to win a primary victory by a thin margin.[16]

During the primary, state Senator Barack Obama backed former Attorney General Burris, but supported Blagojevich after he won the primary at Burris' suggestion,[21] serving as a "top adviser" for the general election.[22] Future Obama senior adviser David Axelrod had previously worked with Blagojevich on Congressional campaigns, but did not consider Blagojevich ready to be governor and declined to work for him on this campaign.[22] According to Rahm Emanuel, he, Barack Obama, Blagojevich's campaign co-chair David Wilhelm, and another Blagojevich staffer "were the top strategists of Blagojevich's 2002 gubernatorial victory," meeting weekly to outline campaign strategies.[22] However, Wilhelm has said that Emanuel overstated Obama's role in the sessions, and Emanuel said in December 2008 that Wilhelm was correct and he had been wrong in his earlier 2008 recollection to The New Yorker.[22] ( emphasis my own - to point out the incidental 'well-lookee here' on future U.S. Senator Roland Burris of Illinois - The Land of Linens)

In the [general election, Blagojevich defeated Republican Illinois Attorney General Jim Ryan.[16] Blagojevich's campaign was helped by his connected father-in-law, Chicago alderman Richard Mell.[16] Ethics scandals had plagued the previous administration of Republican George Ryan (no relation to Jim), and Blagojevich's campaign focused on the theme of "ending business as usual" in state government.[23] Polls prior to the election found that many Illinois voters were confused about the names of George Ryan and Jim Ryan, a fact Blagojevich capitalized on.[24] He asked, "How can you replace one Ryan with another Ryan and call that change? You want change? Elect a guy named Blagojevich."[24] Blagojevich won with 52% of the vote over Jim Ryan.[24] On election night, he said: “Tonight, ladies and gentlemen, Illinois has voted for change.” [23]

A Cornucopia of Progressive endorsements hailed Blago into the Governorship. SEIU opened its huge wallet! Progress Illinois! Hail Rod! Hail Progress! Hail Storms!

Yep, Change one set of soiled linens for the breezy fresh Progressive new ones - Oh, wait them undies is soiled as well!

Walp!

1. Gov. Rod Blagojevich is the Governor of Illinois and he is Constitutionally ( large 'C' as in Illinois Con and not small 'c' as in capable)empowered to appoint the next U.S. Senator.

2. Roland Burris will be the next the U.S. Senator.

3. None of this stuff is new or shocking.

4. Blagojevich will most likely be impeached, but will probably waltz on the charges brought on by Fitzy.

5. Politics needs to be purged of Progressive influence and returned to effective career politicians.

6. Smoke-filled back rooms are essential to the conduct of good government and effective government services - time to lift the smoking ban. Either that, or require that Lisa Madigan, Barbara Flynn-Curry, Mary Flowers and the the other solid women in politics take up dipping Copenhagen and gnawing chaws of Red Man.