Leo High School Rookie Teacher/Coach Kimberly Hickey 5'/100lbs of Heart

Lisa Black of the Chicago Tribune visited Leo High School before the Christmas break and witnessed what I have been blessed to see every day - a school that matters to the students it serves.  Leo High School's eighty plus years of service to Church, city and country matters, because the focus is always on the young men who come here to learn.

Leo has been home to legendary teachers like Brothers Finch, O'Keefe, Birmingham and Coogan of the Irish Christian Brothers ( 1926-1990) and lay men and women like Jimmy Arenberg, Bill Hession, Bob Foster, Bob Swazt, Tom Joyce, George Cummings, Nancy Finn, Jay Standring, Jack Fitzgerald, Tom O'Malley,  Aurora Latifi and Mike Holmes.  There are hundreds of others, but I feel safe in saying the people listed are legends. A legend is someone who comes to work for the sake of other people.

Lisa Black spent a great deal of time in the halls of Leo where the unfiltered opinion of young men rings the truth of the old school's motto - Facta Non Verba.  Leo High School, from days of Bob Foster's leadership, never puts on a dog and pony show for visitors, much less for the probitive eyes and clear hearing of a professional news reporter.  In the words of President Dan McGrath, "Leo is what it is."  Leo is a home thick with family.  Dan is the Patriarch, Mike Holmes the protective older brother, Aurora Latifi the matriarchal Lion Queen, Board Member and boxing Coach Mike Joyce The Consigliere and Leo's Director of Development, the proud but crazy uncle who sleeps on the fold-out couch.  Well, I do get here early.   Our students spend the happiest hours of their days here at school.  I open the doors for many of them hours before the start of the class day.

Into this close-knit family stepped a pretty little girl at the end of last July.  Kimberly Hickey is all of 5' tall and weighs-in at a romping stomping 100 lbs,  after a George Foreman All You Can Eat breakfast. Miss Hickey teaches math and coaches boxing with Mike Joyce.  Read Lisa Black's story about a legend in the works.

Lisa Black's wonderful story of Leo's Miss Hickey will appear in the Chicago SundayTribune print edition in the Chicagoland section ( Dec. 29,2013).

Merry Christmas (prote egeneto) !!! While Quirinius Was Governor in Syria and Then Some

And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed.   (And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius (Quirinius) was governor of Syria.)3   And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city.” Luke 2: 1-3 (emphasis my own)

Merry Christmas!  I am at the age . . .no this is not a Viagra commercial . . .of grown kids at Christmas.  On Christmas Eve the oldest child was with her in-laws to be; the male child was at work and the baby child went out to dinner with her gentleman caller's Mom and Pop.  I had taken my lady love to O'Hare Airport for her flight to Florida and Christmas with her family.  I hit the early Mass.

I love the Christmas Gospel of Luke, always have, from the time that I was able put words together.  I had hours of time to enjoy the quiet and peace of Christmas Eve having already spent more than was prudent on gift cards and gift certificates for loved ones - also one of those 'You are at the age of . . .getting things done' harbingers aging male mandates - get something they will like.

Luke got me at Quirinius this year.  I recalled a social gathering a few years back that was peopled by folks of diverse opinion - out of the comfort zone one might say.  Such occasions test ones moral mettle with statements so outrageous that one feels compelled to respond, but decorum dictates a conversational moderation that would flummox St. Francis of Assisi.

As it was a Holiday gathering,  edgy wags found it necessary to challenge the spirit of the season.  A Cliff's Notes Know It All took to harping that Luke's gospel was a key contradiction in the synoptic gospels and further proof that Christianity, faith, the Bible, the Vatican, The Vienna Boys Choir and God His Own Bad Self are fabulous yarns crafted for squares, rubes, dummies and helots.  This particular tweedy-loud mouth exercised his gums with factoids gleaned from other clever agnostic Volvo owners - "If Quirinius ruled Syria in 6 AD, Hooowwwww does one explain the Nativity after the birth, marked by the Census of Augustus sooo necessary to the proof demanded by believers that the historical Jesus must be accepted?"

I knew about Quirinius, Publius Sulpiciius Quirinius.  He was a favorite of Emperor Augustus and distinguished Middle East hand for the Empire.  He served in Syria for many, many years and conducted not one census, but two.

I was under the very strictest of orders commanded by a diminutive woman of great charms and manners not to engage any person on any subject of a controversial nature . . .whatsoever.  My three score and change in size tens treasures readings of not only scripture, but also Tacitus, Suetonois, Dio Casius, Horace, Virgil, and the I Clausius novel of Robert Graves.  So, I had some ammo.  All of my bullets remained in my mental magazine on this occasion and I offered, " Hey, I like Christmas. You try these phlyo doughed shrimps?"  Q.E.D.

The tweedy goof held the floor. I take a back seat to no man, in being a confrontational pain in the rump, but I managed to choke down my prideful bile as well as a number of phylo dough wrapped goodies in deference to the season and the orders from herself.

 I got me a huge thank you for allowing an opportunity to conversationally yank down the britches of a snotty dope.  Quirinius stayed in my guns.  You see, Luke was no slouch. Not only had the physician who attended to St. Paul written the gospel, but also the Acts of the Apostles, in which Luke clearly presents his knowledge of the Roman tax and census table of organization ( Acts 5:37).  It was also clear from my reading of scholars like Dave Miller, PhD, that Luke's use of the phrase prote egeneto (first took place) indicates that there was another census by Publius Sulipicius Quirinius in 6AD - there was a second census. Professor Miller's 2003 essay on the contradictions surrounding Quirinius concluded

In addition, historical sources indicate that Quirinius was favored by Augustus, and was in active service of the emperor in the vicinity of Syria previous to and during the time period that Jesus was born. It is reasonable to conclude that Quirinius could have been appointed by Caesar to instigate a census-enrollment during that time frame, and his competent execution of such could have earned for him a repeat appointment for the A.D. 6/7 census (see Archer, 1982, p. 366). Notice also that Luke did not use the term legatus—the normal title for a Roman governor. He used the participial form of hegemon that was used for a Propraetor (senatorial governor), or Procurator (like Pontius Pilate), or Quaestor (imperial commissioner) [McGarvey and Pendleton, n.d., p. 28]. After providing a thorough summary of the historical and archaeological data pertaining to this question, Finnegan concluded: “Thus the situation presupposed in Luke 2:3 seems entirely plausible”  (emphases my own)

Getting in the last word sure does stroke the old ego, but it sadly affirms the Viagra advertisement's  'this is age of getting things done' . . .artificially.

This is the Season of being better than we usually are three hundred and sixty four days of the yowling year.  Merry Christmas!!! Prote Egeneto - it was the First, but it certainly will not be the last.

Makepeace for Men of Gentle Will

My song, save this, is little worth;

I lay the weary pen aside,

And wish you health, and love, and mirth,

As fits the solemn Christmas-tide.

As fits the holy Christmas birth.

Be this, good friends, our carol still—

Be peace on earth, be peace on earth,

To men of gentle will.

            William Makepeace Thackeray (1811-1863)

Old Bill was the best of men. He died on December 23rd hours short of Christ's birth and the season for which he lived all year.  He was the single parent of two daughters and a very busy gent, but managed to maintain a kindness and genuine humanity every day of the year.

Gentleness is a tough commodity.  Sharp words, cross looks, snortin snouts seem our only responses to the current tempus et mundi.  The sleep of children, the warmth of the stove and the best blood coursing our hearts can reset our human thermostats. I'll give it a go.

Progressive War on Labor: Now, The Creeps Go After a Union Man Personally

“It’s a widely-accepted concept that you’re paid for work performed. It’s only in the Alice in Wonderland world of these crazy work rules that people are paid millions of dollars to do nothing,” Claypool said.

Gutless little twerp Forrest Claypool has Michael Pfleger and Dane Placko beat up a family man labor leader who actually can do his job.

Robert Kelly was elected as President/Business Agent of the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 308 in 2008. Mr. Kelly is responsible for protecting the collective bargaining rights of over 4000 active and retired Chicago Transit Authority workers who work on the rail side. Mr. Kelly serves as a Vice President of the Illinois AFL-CIO and is President of the ATU Local 308 Scholarship committee. He is the proud father of 11 children.

Fox 32 ran another in a very long string of nasty caricatures of citizens.  Dan Placko, is the Ron Burgundy heir to the throne once occupied by Andy Shaw ( ABC clown emeritus and BGA Boss).  Placko gets spoon fed stories by leaders if agendas - in this case Michael Pfleger acting as the sword and shield of Forrest Claypool's CTA.

Over the last few weeks the President of the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 308 has been the target of activist preacher Michael Pfleger.  Pfleger is the priest who answers only to the cameras and his legion of media elves, who owns plenty of Progressive political juice.  Forrest Claypool is the job hopping career grifter who presently draws a tax-funded salary in a political appointment at CTA President.  Claypool by my calculations has not held a political gig longer than five years.

Dane Placko of Fox 32 couldn't find a donut in a police station, but answers the call of his masters:

CHICAGO (FOX 32 News) -
The powerful head of Chicago's largest transit union, the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU), is coming under fire Thursday after FOX 32 learned his daughter won the union's top scholarship prize last year.
In addition to his daughter, the children of three leaders of the ATU local 308 won union scholarships worth up to $5,000 apiece.
Normally that wouldn't attract much attention, but in light of the fact that the union is now trying to kill a popular program that gives ex-offenders a second chance some African-American political leaders are incensed.

Incensed, I tells you! 

Now, Dane is only a highly paid suit who reads anything put under his nose, remember,  Placko is to reporting as marshmallows are to Kimchi.

Bob Kelly's daughter won a union sponsored scholarship, because Bob Kelly is and has been a member of the union for decades -

Robert Kelly has been a member since October 1, 1986. Employed by the "Authority" on August 27, 1986. Robert has worked the classifications of Conductor, Motorman, Flagmen, Foot Collector, Switchman and Towerman. Appointed a steward in 1997 until he was elected as President/Business Agent on December 16, 2008. Robert demonstrates vision, insight and tenacity in representing Local 308's priorities. Re-elected to a second term on November 15, 2011 winning over 55% of the votes against 4 other candidates

Bob Kelly has fought Forrest Claypool and best the job hopper, since Claypool's appointment (not election, mind you) by Mayor Rahm Emanuel in 2011.

• Pee Breaks 
• The Bombardier Wheel Scandal -now swept under the media rug
• Ventra
• The Elves crashing the Transit Car in Forrest Park
• CTA Seniority Rules slashed by Claypool
• More Ventra

Now, Michael Pfleger is doing his patented Hillary Clinton speech on the head of a genuine labor union leader.

Dane Placko is always handy.  I remember a few years back when  tried to ambush the Cardinal on his little Sunday chat show, when he made a BS report on two political enemies of Toni Preckwinkle that proved to be nonsense and now going to work for Pfleger Industries Coalition, LLC.

Fox 32 has learned Kelly's daughter was awarded the $5,000 union scholarship in 2012 for an essay she wrote on funding mass transit.
In addition, three other children of top union officials won scholarships in the past three years.
The union represents a total of about 3,500 CTA rail workers
In a phone interview, Kelly told FOX 32 he didn't even know his daughter had entered the contest.
"I was shocked (when she won). But I have no problem with it. I think it's a witch hunt they're engaged in," Kelly said.
He continued saying the essays are submitted without names to an outside panel for judging.
He said only 11 essays were submitted the year his daughter won, and all of those who entered got some scholarship money.
Kelly makes $134,000 a year as union president. The average CTA union worker makes about $60,000.
"She may be very, very smart and very, very talented, very gifted in writing essays and deserved to win. But monetarily, there are probably people more deserving to win," Trotter said.
But it's the 65 ex-offenders about to lose their jobs that has inflamed the situation.

" Fox has learned,"  because Pfleger wrote your copy, you mope. This has nothing to do  with jobs for felon emeriti otherwise Forrest would have placed them in high paying jobs by appointment - like his own bad self.

The only reason Mr. Kelly is taking any heat is because Claypool can't make change, let alone provide change. Nothing that goof has done in his career as grifter has saved a nickel or benefited anyone but Claypool.

Dane Placko slings out more crap than a backed-up Kohler.

Santa is a Soulman - Who Comes to the Back Door.

Do you think this little blue-eyed son of a Norwegian Swede cares if Santa is 'one of boys from Home' as Big Crosby claimed, or as Black as a Polk Brothers Santa, or a Turk from 4th Century Myra (which he most certainly was), or the cousin who has developed Dunlaps Disease* thanks to frequent flier miles on the barstool at Keegan's Pub on Western Ave. and snugs into the three score and three Santa Suit Uncle Jack bought when he and Hots Michaels had the nightclub?





Nah.

I'm a south sider born, bred and bonded-out.  No one ever good newses anyone by ringing the front doorbell, or knocking on the swell Claddagh Ring knocker.  Friends have and should come to back door - closest to the kitchen where the stove and icebox sit.  I don not care if Santa is Meth'd up Hillbilly from Black Oak Indiana, a Muslim rug-peddler doing seasonal work, a jolly rotund Teutonic Falstaff, or Louis Farrakhan's cousin Joe.

Santa is all about the kids. He's a good guy.  Santa comes to the backdoor**. By my template, Santa is a Soul Man who comes to and through the backdoor. Now, with apologies to the legendary Clarence Carter, enjoy BB King's cover of a true Christmas Classic.



* Dunlaps Disease - When Your Belly Dun Laps Over Your Belt

** Back Door Santa:
They call me Back Door Santa
I make my runs about the break of day
They call me Back Door Santa
I make my runs about the break of day
I make all the little girls happy
While the boys are out to play

I ain't like the old Saint Nick
He don't come but once a year
I ain't like the old Saint Nick
He don't come but once a year
I come runnin' with my presents
Every time you call me dear

I keep some change in my pocket, in case the children are home
I give 'em a few pennies so that we can be alone
I leave the back door open so if anybody smells a mouse
And wouldn't old Santa be in trouble if there ain't no chimney in the house

They call me Back Door Santa
I make my runs about the break of day
I make all the little girls happy
While the boys are out to play

That's what they call me, Back Door Santa
That's what they call me
They call me Back Door Santa
That's what all the girls call me

I give 'em all little presents
That's what they call me
They call me Back Door Santa
And I like for them to call me that
They call me Back Door Santa
And I like it and I like it and I like it

 

Margaret Sanger Would Hate This Video. I Love It!

I stand on these principles.



Everything else is just gravy.

H/T - Irish Independent

List-erine - America Needs Generous Mouthfuls to Fight Brain Decay

Two neat guys who had a way with polling and were tops with chicks.

I wrote about Lists and the American writer who tried his level best to debunk them.  To Jean Shepherd, the makers of lists were over-deadlined, untalented and nepostisticly employed  newspaper workers.  They were the , "Freddy, so long as your Dad owns this paper, you have a job.  Here it is; make lists lotsa lists" guys.

Lists parallelled polls. Polling is the adjunct faux science of the social sciences, spawned by John Dewey and the pipe-smokers at the University of Chicago. Polling is conducted with great . . .self-importance . . . and like weather forecasts, gets it wrong, late, or whatever. Dopes love polls and attach great importance to their weight and then attach them to their articles. or blogs.


Illinois was told that Same Sex marriage was a civil right via a poll conducted by Carbondale's Paul Simon Institute.  Named for Garrison Keiller of American political life in the late 20th Century ( Senator Paul Simon a Party hack who had the good sense to be a Lutheran and wear bow-ties) Paul Simon Institute is the incubator of Illinois Policy.  It (PSI) ain't no gall darn 'think tank,' why it's a sho' 'nuff DO TANK!

The Institute's Purpose
Founded in 1997 by Paul Simon (right), a former two-term U.S. Senator from Illinois and one-time candidate for the Democratic Party nomination for President of the United States, the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute differentiates itself from similar organizations by working directly with elected officials and others to fashion and implement change in public policy. Mike Lawrence (left), was the institute's second director.
Many of these organizations are considered "think tanks," which is not a title that aptly describes the Simon Institute. Paul Simon spoke of his institute as a "do tank" because it seeks--and achieves--positive results and concrete actions based on its work.
Paul Simon established the nonpartisan institute to maintain this fundamental difference from virtually all other organizations of its kind. It does so by asking two important questions:
• Can anything be accomplished by our taking on this project? . . .YES!!!!!
• Is our involvement differentiated from other organizations' work on this subject?  Who Cares, Voters are Stupid Cattle!!!!!
By asking these questions, the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute determines its potential to make a real difference in society before taking on the responsibility to address any given issue.( Emphases and intrusions my own)

Got that?  It's a done deal before it gets polled! Potential, no apologies necessary  to Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas,  determines its own bad self!

That's Polling.  Hard to take it seriously.

Lists are like crossword puzzles and people who live by lists are like doers of cross-word  puzzles - pains in the ass who can not wait to tell you how quickly and deftly they take down the New York Times Crossword Puzzle; thus eliminating cancer, childhood disease, brain tumors and Oscar nominations.

• Ten Disney Characters Who Are not Gay Sub-Texts
• Five Little Explained Notions About Lady Gaga
• Six Reasons Not to Ask Winnie Mandela on a Date . . .besides the necklace and the machete
• Ten Famous People Who Constantly Say "Yoots" from Cousin Vinny
• One Movie Wortha  $12 Entry in the Last Twenty Years

Lists help people without the gumption. Those who refuse to put on their reading big boy pants and tackle Hesiod, Balzac, Thackeray, MacCauley, Tennyson, Arnold, Clausewitz, Lao Tze, or Robert W. Service; go out and talk to people outside of their comfort zones, eat a perforated coal shovel placed over a roaring campfire full of roasted pink Kankakee River craw fish pealed and dipped  a coffee can of melted Land O' Lakes butter, or catch, gut batter and fry a net full of Lake Michigan smelt in late March at Jackson Park Boathouse -them's List Aficionados.

Every time I open a paper, a magazine, or a website, I am confronted with lists.  It little concerns me who is the sexiest man alive. . . you're reading him!

Lists and Polls are for Donkeys -Jean Shepherd Pray for Us!

"I was new to New York, and I suddenly became aware that New York is almost entirely a city that really does run on lists.  . . . has it occurred to you that these lists are compiled by mortals and that they are human just like you are and, in fact, they have many more axes to grind than you?" Jean Shepherd Not on the Top Ten Famous Guys List

If it is not on the list it does not exist?  I once asked a used book store clerk on Milwaukee Ave.  in the Wicker neighborhood for a copy of J.P. Donleavy's brilliant The Compleat Unexpurgated Code. The tatooed twenty something with multiple piercings sneered,  "Ginger Man?  You mean Ginger Man?" I assured the fiery hipstress," No, this is a work of non-fiction Humor. " She checked the publication directory and the screen of computer and assured me " Jay Pee Donnelly wrote fiction. He ain't on the list."

He is.  J. P. Donleavy wrote fiction and non-fiction. In the ironic patois of the trendy and Kathleen Sebelius, "Whatever."

Consult -

The New York Times Book of Lists
Forbes List of Richest People ( World, Nation & etc.)
10 Best Mexican Recipes
!0  Best Mexican Restaurants
10 Best Mexican Bandits
10 Best Muslim Comics
10 Best Forrest Claypool Salaries

Yep, Lists - Capitalists, Communists, Journalists, Franz Liszt and Socialists -all kinds O lists. From Noah to the Southern Poverty Law Center, list makers jot down names and doom others. Lists; they are not on the lists!!!!!  Power mad creeps tend to love mking lists and cehcking them twice -Marc Antony, Santa, the IHSA, Stalin, Mao, Al Hitler, Organizing for America and Nielsons.

Who cares?  Rather, let's make this a declarative sentence;  its seems to me- Who cares most about lists would be people who do not get out much, don't read much, don't know much, and rarely contribute much.
I can name twenty great eating stops within a mile of Leo High School that would never be listed by professional Wicker Park liberals on the staffs of Chicago, or Chicagoist. . . , but Im not gonna.

I have yet to eat at a restaurant gushed over by Chicago Magazine, placed on a list in Chicagoist, or hit upon by dint of a second hand reader of lists. Seek and you shall find. Like Cliffs Notes, so-called educated and cultivated folks do not bother to read the urban, suburban, or rural landscapes in full and opt to be spoon-fed verities concerning where eat, what to think, what to read, what to believe, and whom to love.


One the most literate and under-read writers, was the disc-jockey Jean Shepherd. Shepherd is now only recognized as the author of Christmas Story.  I read my first Jean Shepherd tome, while a freshman at Loyola.  I read Wanda Hickey's Night of Golden Memories, the Hammond genius's collection of eight great short stories that introduced me to Scut Farkas, the Old Man, Schwartz and Flick long before my bride and I caught the Holiday movie as it played in Kankakee, IL at the Meadowview Theatre.  The creator of those wonderful people from Hohman ( Hammond) Indiana living in the actual Hessville neighborhood along Kennedy Avenue had been a disc jockey in New York City which is the national shrine of all lists.  Mr. Shepherd, like your humble correspondent, had a cordial hatred of lists. In fact he concocted a hoax born of this passion.  Jean Shepherd created a besst-seller, without writing a jot - I Libertine!




People listened to his radio show and began to talk about the book that never was.  It became a best-seller, because people who made lists said so.  People who live by lists believe anything e.g. Toni Preckwinkle, Sheila Simon, Mike Quigley, Forrest Claypool, Pat Quinn, Bruce Rauner, Marque Kirque, Judy Baar Topinka were all given birth by procreative act of making lists.  People accept comedy from Tyler Perry.  Religion from Jim Wall, Thought from Bill Moyer, and Happiness from Dan Savage.  No legislation comes to Gov. Pat Quinns desk without having passed the smell test of Paul Simon Institute polling.

A poll does exactly the same thing as a pole, though they differ.



O, List to the lay of this bold Irish Harper . . .

Chicago's Progressive War on Labor - Watch CTA Assault on ATU Local 308

Forrest Claypool and Rahm Emanuel have a real problem with people who actually know how to fix a rail that has come loose due to miscalculated gauges and neglected grading, folks who meet a shift in any kind of weather and start up a bus that has not been overhauled due to cut-backs and pick up angry, cold, wet impatient commuters who can not use cash anymore, nor the efficient and easy to use pass cards, or start up a rail car and maintain a safe level speed, in a sober and serious state of mind and body, while moving thousands of souls to and from stations, and  members of the Chicago community from all neighborhoods who maintain a careful watch over routes with aid of complicated technical gadgets, monitors and headsets.    They have a real problem with these people because they, like many Chicagoans, belong to a union of skilled trades persons with an elected leadership comprised of skilled trades persons.

CTA President Forrest Claypool has not held any tax-funded public job longer than five years by my simple empirical estimation and has managed to have his patrician shanks appointed to comfy chairs by Progressives, or dinosaur Democrats foolish enough to trust Forrest Claypool with or about anything.

If a CTA electrician's tool bag were dumped out on Forrest Claypool's desk, I would Ventra to say that this CTA President would be hard pressed to identify any of the items. "Well," one might say, " Forrest Claypool is far too important a media created Reform Minded Champion of the Working Poor to bother with such minutia. He is a macro-manager of all things micro."

True.  However, one might just suggest that such a puffed-up pinch of an oligarch might fain respect for the people who can and do know the nomeclatures and applications of such items.  He most certainly does not.

Forrest Claypool, appointed to the plum political posting of CTA President by Rahm Emanuel,  has displayed nothing but very public contempt for all CTA workers and the trade union local, Amalgamated Transit Union # 308 and its President, Robert Kelly, from the moment Claypool began collecting huge public pay checks and Robert Kelly has always proven to be the class  cat of the many exchanges - only concerned for the rights and safety of his fellow union members.

Forrest Claypool is a creature of the media and the Illinois Progressive oligarchy that controls city, county and State of Illinois government.  Bob Kelly is a working stiff elected by the rank and file membership to lead Local 308 - most members are proud African American heads of households.  I know the CTA workers who come in to pay tuition wearing their CTA uniforms, whose sons at Leo High School might follow them into the trade of their mothers and fathers.  They are Local 308.

This week, after months of having his head handed to him by the forthright Mr. Kelly, Claypool enlisted Chicago's Progressive pan policy preacher and public person assassin Michael Pfleger to cast a union man in the role of racist power broker.  Mr. Kelly, as I recall, from the March 2013 declaration of released convict employment with CTA, had no part in the initiative for which he is portrayed as some union Simon Legree, nor a place at the public podium with Pfleger, Clapool and Emanuel.  Claypool promised ex-cons jobs with his CTA. The jobs require membership in Local 308.  Did anyone mention this to Local 308 ?  ? ?

Well, Preacher Pfleger does what he wants, where he wants, and to whom he wants.  The facts matter not.  This is an orchestrated campaign of character assassination ( the two Chicago paper editorial boards, Planned Parenthood, the Chicago Urban League, Midnight Basketball, The GDs/Vice Lords/ Four Corner Hustlers and UICC will all have something to say), because Pfleger, unlike Claypool, never draws an uncalculated breath.

Did anyone speak with President Kelly?

Nope.

Skilled trades set the standards for membership and not merely the payment of dues  Can the applicant pass a test?  Can the applicant provide a valid drivers license with and accurate address, can the applicant pass a drug test?  Has the applicant ever been convicted of a felony?  Progressives hate skilled trades unions and want all labor to come under the aegis of the State government.  Skilled trades unions do not have massive memberships, because membership requires skills and accountability.  Blind kids do make great high beam walkers with the Iron Workers.  A guy who can ot tell 1/8" from 1/32 should not cut anything.    Now, given the litany of crimes perpetrated aboard CTA vehicles by non-members of Local 308 as passengers, does it make any sense to have criminals emeriti add to the mix?

Progressives believe so and demand that everyone of the unevolved people* who work for a living also believe so.

Pfleger, Claypool, Rahm Emanuel and their media creatures will heap scorn and lies about Bob Kelly for a while.  How that will end?  I do not know. . .I can guess.

Know this - this is about a public character assasination of working man, because Forrest Claypool is a trainwreck for CTA, but the Progressive coalitions have too much invested in Forrest Claypool to admit that.  No Republican has ever threatened organized labor as much as the Progressive.

More importantly, this is opening act for a tragedy.  Once again, Progressive Grifters will seek to destroy Labor autonomy and stewardship of apprentice programs in Illinois. If the skilled trades unions of Chicago do not support Local 308 and Bob Kelly in this battle, you can expect Illinois labor to lose the war.

* But the Progressive coalition eventually became a victim of its own success. The economic difficulties of the Depression and the costs of World War Two were followed by the relative comfort and security of the late forties and the 1950s. Political pressures began to shift, and the Progressive concern moved away from wealth and toward other indicia of hardship, such as race, extreme political, social or religious views, indigent criminal defendants, alienage, and eventually gender, affectional preference and disabilities. Although Brown v. Board of Education and the Civil Rights movement were essential steps to fairness, they came at a very high price: the new Progressive concerns tended to divide rather than unite the coalition. Since the 1960s welfare liberals have increasingly played the game of recognizing new groups as disadvantaged, while risking the allegiance of others. At its best, the Democratic coalition has been barely held together by its fear of the political alternative. At its worse, it has been a set of bickering groups struggling for recognition as disadvantaged so that its members can also become the beneficiaries of government largesse. Meanwhile, government entitlement programs such as social security and Medicare began to move up the social scale until their principal beneficiaries became, not the poor and unemployed, but the employed and relatively affluent middle class.
The kind of "boutique" liberalism that has characterized the 1970s and particularly the 1980s has found political unity almost impossible to maintain. Each new group brought into the coalition is marginally less attractive to those already in than the previous group had been. For example, bringing in abortion rights and gays came at a heavy price in terms of loss of support from the Catholic and evangelical working classes - indeed, the political losses were almost certainly greater than the gains.
The result has been disjointed, fragmented governmental policy that has had an extraordinarily difficult time presenting a coherent ideology. Against this background, the classical vision of the market looks pretty good, particularly to those who see themselves as the financial contributors rather than the beneficiaries of this unfocused Progressive largesse.
Today, the legacy of Progressive legal thought is important but no less controversial than it was a half century ago. For more than thirty years Progressivism's critics have railed on its distrust of markets and the naivete of its faith in government. Ronald R. Coase's famous article on "The Problem of Social Cost," published in 1960, was thought to describe a common law system that inevitably produced efficient results. But the last ten years has seen substantial scholarship challenging the robustness of the Coase Theorem and limiting its domain. As a result, our once-firm belief in "deregulation" is gradually giving way to a belief that faith in unregulated markets can be carried too far, and that there are numerous areas where carefully designed government intervention can make things better. The concern for equal treatment to people of every race has perhaps suffered from a period of neglect, but concerns for equal treatment for others continues to carry political momentum. Legal Progressivism continues to produce its greatest successes, when it focuses on bread and butter issues related to wages, employment and economic equality and security. In the final analysis, it seems, escaping the legacy of Progressive legal thought is much more easily said than done.

ATU Local 308 Accused of Discrimination? No, ATU Local 308 Keeping Grifters Hands Off the Controls

What came first?  The activist Reverend, or the political grifter?

Neither.  What came first was a historical drama that began in the 19th Century over the power and the integrity of organized labor between working tradesmen and progressive radical dilettantes.  One historical fact that has been buried by the academic allies of the progressive radical dilettantes is the betrayal of the 1904 Strikers by Jane Addams and her cadre of women activists.  The strike was deadly and created the the endless animus between African Americans and ethnic white workers and the perpetual mythology of systemic racism.  Racism has always been a one way street - beginning and always ending in affluent homes, parlors and communities of thought.

For years the Reds ( let's just say, for the sake of argument, Progressives are trained, funded and pushed into the streets or the polling place by followers of Karl Marx and not Jesus of Nazareth) have wanted to control American labor.  They are getting there.  Big Labor always means SEIU and other monster political PACS like the teachers unions and any and all manifestations of the public service unions.  The skilled and industrial trades played ball with massive memberships SEIU managed to organize into slave labor unskilled, low-skilled, or temporary necessity skilled workers into life membership.  Government is required to set standards for membership and placement.

This is all about the conflict between Authority ( a person or person skilled with some competency) and Power ( We Can and We Will).

Here in Illinois Emil Jones made failed attempts to wrest control of union apprenticeship programs away from the trades and palm that power in the mitts of government grifters.  The State would control requirements and standards.  No drug testing, no residency requirement, no back ground check, no examination of skills and aptitude, because those are said to be the tools of systemic racism.   Rather, jobs and income will be equally distributed among the political class - the Party who controls government.  Pat Quinn learned these ideals at the knees of Dr. Quentin Young, MD, so you can expect his looming support for this power grab.   When that happens, what is left of the middle class in Illinois will wander the roads like Tom Joad.

Today, both of Chicago's limping newspapers reveal the spark set to burn down Labors house - an Op Ed Piece in Chicago Tribune  by Michael L. Pfleger (citizen)

The Chicago Transit Authority's Rail Car Servicer Apprentice Program — a vital and unique initiative that helps nonviolent ex-offenders, people who've overcome drug addiction, victims of domestic violence and other hard-to-place individuals re-enter the workforce — is unfortunately set to be killed off by Amalgamated Transit Union Local 308 President Robert Kelly.
It is particularly disturbing that this incredible resource faces its demise on Dec. 31 after having provided job opportunities for more than 800 people — most of them African-American — since its creation in November 2007.
From their first day as CTA employees, these apprentices have completed job readiness training provided by referring social service agencies. As apprentices, their jobs are to help clean CTA rail cars. They are ATU Local 308 dues-paying members. For that reason, the program cannot exist unless Mr. Kelly agrees.
For reasons he refuses to explain to CTA officials, the media or the public, Mr. Kelly has decided to push 65 apprentices back into unemployment. In short, Mr. Kelly is discriminating against his own members, insisting that they be laid off, treating them as second-class citizens in his own union. He takes their dues money, but he won't represent them.  Michael L. Pfleger

More social engineering ( placing criminals in jobs that might just benefit families who work without robbing or peddling flesh and dope) in the name of Social Justice, which translates to Render Unto Rahm/Quinn/Burke/Clyapool/Preckwinkle et al 24/7, because God's doing just fine,

 Then we have  a Sneedling Gusher Dontachknow in the always daffy Sun Times.
A choo choo boo boo at Christmastime?

◆ Translation: Sneed hears activist Catholic priest Michael Pfleger wants to clean up a CTA janitorial mess impacting ex-offenders trained to clean trains.
◆ Explanation: Pfleger is said to be infuriated with the unwillingness of union chief Bob Kelly to extend a second chance initiative; a CTA apprenticeship with pay program ending Dec. 31 that also trains recovering drug addicts and spousal abuse victims.
◆ Buckshot: Watch for Pfleger to lead a protest outside Kelly’s office at noon Thursday.
◆ Backshot: “[Pfleger] has had multiple conversations with Kelly, who represents CTA train employees as head of the Amalgamated Transit Union’s Local 308, about what he considers a wildly successful apprenticeship program in developing job skills,” said a source.
◆ Upshot: “Kelly’s approval could save 65 positions, but Kelly has rebuffed the CTA’s requests to extend it past Dec. 31,” the source added.

This bespeaks an orchestrated campaign that was begun weeks ago.

Now, let's consider that the CTA is run by Rahm Emanuel and Forrest Claypool, born of the same DNA as Rev. Citizen Pfleger and the Coalitions That Have Begat the Cook County Democratic Party ( formerly known as 'The Machine."

Rahm and Forrest have the run the CTA like Valeria Jarret has run the White House - the wheels don't fit the tracks, the workers want a pee-break and the Ventras don't roll out.  The CTA should be run by 'someone' who has worked on a railroad car, driven a bus, routed passengers, avoided collisions and the like, but is not Progressive.

Robert Kelly is President of Amalgamated Transit Workers Local 308 and within its charter are tthe people who clean up stations - janitors.  These janitors are not under the control of SEIU Reds in Purple.  President Kelly has magnificently represented his sisiters and brothers much to the chagrin of Claypool and Emanuel.

Rev. Citizen Pfleger's press gambit and noon demonstration is not only political payback for Kelly's Stewardship of ATW 308, but also a signal for the media and the clowns in government to go after all the trades unions, not run by Reds in Purple.

Bob Kelly and ATW Local 308 will be given the gun-shop treatment for the next few months. Other Union Leaders can expect the same very soon after.

Harvey Weinstein, Planned Parenthood and Progressive Fatwa on a Defender of Catholics

I heard the NPR interview with creator and co-Star of Philomena.  It was the typical low decibel stuff shirt chit-chat frosted with piously Progressive calls for civility, forgiveness, understanding and total hostility toward Roman Catholics.

NPR is a platform for the abortion industry, the redefinition of marriage voices and those who think completely without consideration of other people who just might not see things their way.

Hollywood is no longer the home of the stars,  but a computer of faux animations wrapped around very bad writing.

Harvey Weinstein is Hollywood. Harvey was hurt because the movie Philomena tagged for what it is -

 “Philomena” is about Lee’s quest, in the company of a former BBC journalist played by Coogan, to learn what happened to her son after she gave him up for adoption at a convent in 1952 Ireland. The movie makes this particular Irish Catholic institution look about as pleasant as Abu Ghraib.I found the film lazy, contrived, with a dull odd-couple road-trip structure dabbed with insipid humor (Coogan, in a discussion of busty 1950s pinups Jayne Mansfield and Jane Russell: “They were very big. They were huge! Their careers”) and smack-you-in-the-nose dialogue like “What they did to you was evil” and Coogan’s crowd-pleasing, film-defining cry, “F – - – ing Catholics!”). I could see no reason for the movie’s existence other than to soar overhead in the guise of the sweet bird of comedy, then drop a surprise load of guano on Catholic institutions (and, in the second half, the US Republican Party). Kyle Smith New York Post

A Fatwa on the critic who dared to object to yet another shower of power poop from the Hollywood Monkey House on Catholics.

All of the films attesting to the Hollywood doctrine on the Roman Catholic Church of the last twenty years have helped keep Kermit Gosnells in greenbacks and redefined marriage in the sixteen States with the demographics who will swallow anything.

To those deaf ears, Kyle Smith answers - 

Film critics tend to give a free pass to obvious, trite, heavy-handed movies that light up the correct political-pleasure circuits in their brains. I’m used to disagreeing with them. That is because I am, as far as I know, the only conservative film critic in the entire United States who writes regularly for a general-interest newspaper or magazine. I see things all the others miss.

Mr. Smith should go to Washington.

It Took me Only Five Minutes to Scrape the Ice Off the Windshield This Morning!

It's airish

Sharing Rides With Clyde , Leo High School Freshman

Clyde and the X Country Team - The Man is Dead Center Front Row Tossing the Leo Lion "L"

I pick up ten guys every morning along a route that comprises Englewood, Grand Crossing and Bronzevill neighborhoods. My first passenger is a freshman named Clyde B@@#$^% who lives in the concrete pocket that intersects the Metra line, the Skyway and Vincennes/Wentworth along the Dan Ryan.

Leo freshman Clyde is a perfect gentleman, mature beyond his years, thoughtful, tough and suffers from no self-esteem issues, whatsoever. Clyde is unarguably the shortest man at Leo High School, but stands much taller than some of classmates.  He ran cross-country and is a member of the freshman basketball team now playing .500 ball with a victory over Calumet (Perspectives) and a tough loss to the Fighting Irish of Bishop McNamara on Friday.  Clyde can steal and handle the ball, but can not shoot to save his life and neither can his team mates. They'll get there.

I take the grey van from the lot on Sangamom each morning and drive north on Halsted to 74th Street, make a right to south bound Stewart, a left on 75th Street and quick left at Normal.  I am at Clyde's in less than six minutes.  His Mom is a nurse raising two boys in Englewood and paying Catholic school tuition.  She is a valiant young woman.  Clyde's brother attends a Chicago public grade school.  He too will attend Leo High School.

Clyde emerges from the warmth of this home promptly at 6:30AM, climbs in to the passenger seat next to me with genuine,   " Good Morning, Mr. Hickey!"  Morning Clyde! We begin the morning dialog.

We then talk all manner of things from stray dogs in the neighborhood, to Josh  McCown's rightful place as Bears QB, to basketball practice, to the glorious Chicago architecture between 63rd and 35th Street along Dr. King Drive. We pick up Chris A##$%^^ in the project homes still called South Park at 66th.  Chris is a classmate of Clyde's and a profoundly serious guy who keeps his own counsel.  For the last couple of weeks, construction projects on King Drive required us to detour through Washington Park to 55th Street.  This was grist for the Columbian Exposition narratives mill and Burnham's far-sighted development of the south side from the Lake west to State Street.

As I mentioned, we take in the beautiful homes and apartment buildings on Dr. King Drive.  My favorite is on the north east corner of  43rd Street. 

Clyde prefers the Chicken and Waffle House at 39th & King Drive for more than just the aesthetic but culinary graces bestowed beyond its portals.

We pass the Victory Monument of the Fighting 8th Illinois Regiment and arrive at 35th & and Dr. King Drive, take a right and quick left into the strip mall for the Dunkin Donuts Munchkins that will tide over the seven to eight gents who will join my two passengers for the journey to another day in Catholic education. Clyde's appearance in the door is cause for excitement among the early morning Coffee Anne  crowd,  Roy the mall maintenance manager and Miss Marie get greeted by the young man and then query Clyde's doings as he places the order for his fellow travellers. This fourteen year old gentleman is one of the best examples of what Leo High School is all about.

I look forward to my drives with Clyde.