Sun Times: Man Stabbed in Kennedy Park - Stop Gun Violence!

A 41-year-old man was stabbed Monday evening in the Kennedy Park neighborhood on the Far Southwest Side.
He was walking down the street about 5:50 p.m. in the 11100 block of South Washtenaw when an unknown person stabbed him, according to Chicago Police.  The man suffered a puncture wound to the abdomen and was taken to Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn in good condition, police said.Stop Gun Violence

Was the man Stabbed with a Gun?

The Sun Times casts great light on gun violence, but keeps the savagery of the individuals perpetrating the perpetual attacks on innocent people like toddlers, children, tourists and people walking near a Chicago park at 5:30 P.M. in any neighborhood.

This is because the Sun Times is all about making it possible for individuals to bring lawsuit against the society that protects their actions and give the lie to the pre-caste political narratives of the Chicago oligarchs. The Chicago Reader, owned by the Sun Times, calls the 19th Ward( especially Mount Greenwood)  the Upside Down.  

In short, dead fish would jump from the pages of the Sun Times, rather than be shrouded in lies.

Kennedy Park is in the Morgan Park neighborhood.  I live here.  The news media goes to great pains to portray this neighborhood as some kind of Celtic Copland-  Leave it To Beaver Oasis for White Flight Racists, where Rahm Emanuel counts upon and gets high voter turn-outs and matching Rahm Votes each election cycle.  In return, Rahm flips pancakes at Original House of Pancakes on Western, blesses a Blackhawks endowed Hockey Rink at Kennedy Park.  Rahm also solemnly nods with the news media about the people who live here, pay taxes, obey the law and call 911  more than they should.

People, white black, brown and yellow in this neighborhood as well as  Beverly and Mount Greenwood are robbed, burglarized, threatened, assaulted and mugged by thugs - frequently. With the great number of CPD, County, State and Federal law enforcement professionals residing here, one might think - The Bad Guys Know Us, But They Leave Us Alone.  No.  They get around.

Last week,  and off-duty cop was attacked by young thugs with pistols, a number of thugs came into The Upside Down to rob UPS, FEDEX and USPS deliveries.


Chicago is a Thug Comfort Zone.

A comfort zone denotes that limited set of behaviors that a person will engage without becoming anxious. Alternatively denoted as a "plateau" it describes that set of behaviors that have become comfortable, without creating a sense of risk. A person's personality can be described by his or her comfort zones. Highly successful persons may routinely step outside their comfort zones, to accomplish what they wish. A comfort zone is a type of mental conditioning that causes a person to create and operate mental boundaries that are not real. Such boundaries create an unfounded sense of security. Like inertia, a person who has established a comfort zone in a particular axis of his or her life, will tend to stay within that zone without stepping outside of it. To step outside a person's comfort zone, he must experiment with new and different behaviors, and then experience the new and different responses that then occur within his environment.

Following the thug murder of Leo High School Valedictorian, Golden Gloves Champion and college student Jason Riley in 2007, I wrote the following:

I accuse the news media of creating a Thug Comfort Zone here in Chicago. Only cases where Police can and will be accused of abuse based upon race receive any attention - the more ludicrous and outrageous accusations get tried in the public glare with the full support of cynical creeps who sit their milky fat asses on Editorial Boards.

I use cynical creeps because 1. - they are cynical - 'Let's get into it!' and sell some papers - easier than being good at your work and 2. creeps because only a creep would actively engage in 'criminal' enterprise to enrich lawyers and thugs, while bankrupting public monies and public confidence.

It is now 2017 and milky rumps remain on editorial boards and chirp about - gun violence.

Thugs feel very free to rob, steal, assault and use guns to kill people, because There's a 73% chance that Foxxx (Cook County States Attorney)won't charge you

• and another 78% chance you'll make bail, even on murder and hate crime charges
• and another 82% chance you beat the charge at court.  ( emphases and parenthetical my own) 

Thugs Kill People

Thugs Rob People

Thugs Terrorize People, because they can. 

Guns kill people, like pencils flunk tests.

Merry Christmas, 2017! We Are Blessed!

Just finished shoveling the powdery precipitation.  For all of you Currier and Ives junkies, enjoy!

At Sixty-five and change, I tend to miss the glorious Yule beauties in expectation of greater, wetter and more back-challenging avalanches, but I must admit to this Christmas Day's wonder. sunlight and bracing blizzard bite on what passes for my nose.

Christ is smiling on Chicago, in spite of its secularist silliness and sanguine savageries.

As I completed my shoveling, I was greeted by my fireman neighbor and his puppy,  "Mass at Sacred Heart (8:30 with Father Gallager)?"

"Went last night. Couldn't sleep.  We had a family get-together with my Mom at Victorian Village in Homer Glen, so I popped in at St. Christina's on the way home." I replied.

My granddaughter ( 10 months old and all eyes and thighs) gave a detailed exhibition of all of her baby-ticks, vocal ranges and snuggles to my most appreciative mother and the baby's Great-Nana.  No other gifts required.  My kids burned up Snap Chat and their app numbers recording Christmas 2017.  I had to go give thanks to God, before my native sloth kicked in.

Cold, the fireman retorted

Bracing, said I.  I had been waiting for someone to offer that observation in order to quote the great Charles Laughton from the movie adaptation of O Henry's "The Cop and the Anthem (1:29)"

Small Christmas gifts like that do more for me than a gift certificate for  a full body massage from Salma Hayek, or a guest solo in CSO's Messiah.

This day is about hope, renewal and love.  I was gifted all three of the above and only a fireman showed up on my lot this morning. I can't wait until a cop and a Streets and San worker stop by - collect from all three!

Blessed.

Neighbors, Merry Christmas ! 2017 in the 19th Ward

I am blessed.  I live and work in this wonderful neighborhood.  I live in Morgan Park and work at Brother Rice High School.  Children grow up centered, respectful  and industrious.  This is a neighborhood of families.  It is strong.

The many churches are places where these families draw their strength - Quaker, Lutheran, Methodist, Unitarian, Episcopal, Baptist and very large Catholic parishes nurture what is learned in the home.

A very hateful article by the editor of the Chicago Reader - sponsored by the Sun Times News Group and edited by Jake Malooley, the author of the piece - took the opportunity to stir up race hate for Christmas.

The Chicago Reader is a free press and has been for as long as I care to remember. It's slant is far left of center.

The Chicago Reader is only following exactly what the Chicago Tribune, Sun Times, WTTW, WBEZ and the now dead DNAinfo Chicago have done for decades without challenge.

Why challenge people who are wrong, hateful, bigoted and wildly unfair.

People in this neighborhood are welcoming - that is how journalists ooze into the confidence of people.  They violate welcome.

A very pretty female journalist found welcoming bar stools and chatty drinkers in the saloons of Mount Greenwood, in order to make a case that this neighborhood's vote for Trump was solely due to race hate,

Her editor used her dubious report to do the same,  "No demogorgon roams this netherworld, but a majority of its electorate did back the man who's been called the swamp monster: President Donald Trump. Jake Malooley editor Chicago Reader"

Demogorgon?  Homage to Statius' Thebiad or Dungeons and Dragons?  I think the later, The last pretentious hypocrite to smear the neighborhood is a wife beater.

Neil Steinberg did so after breaking bred with a crowd of 19th Ward people.  After being made welcome he insulted and villainized his hosts as Aryan Nation racists, "But if I know you — and I do — about now you’re asking yourself: “Hey, wait a second. This guy’s a Jew. Why would a Jew be looking out for the best interest of the Iron Fist of Righteous White Anger, Mount Greenwood Corps?” Neil Steinberg Chicago Sun Times 2009"

 Steinberg was just joking, when I called him on it and his hypocrisy.  Steinberg is busy equating square dancing with cross-burning this Yuletide.

I have yet to read a news alert that young people from 60655 were stealing Christmas deliveries from UPS, FedEx and USPS routes in Roseland, Gresham, Englewood, West Lawn  or Garfield Heights.

On Halloween thousands of residents strolled with their children along the 111th Street business route.  Last week they did the same for Santa's Visit - all sponsored by local businesses and Aklderman Matt O'Shea.

No violence , as in Hyde Park.

No hate.

Christmas lives here every day, unless a few reporters manage to misquote and misrepresent the good people of this neighborhood.

Merry Christmas, everyone and everyday!

Merry Christmas, Maya and Jake!

The First Nativity Breakfast - Joe's Getting It Ready

When the shepherds, the drovers and the innkeeper's guests had gotten a good look at the young girl and her baby, the one the star pointed out,  and some time before the three gents from the east showed up with gifts, they took off with their bleating lambs their lowing cattle and their curiosity for the  stuff of everyday life.

Joseph too left his wife and child, for a very short while. No abandonment, you see.  Joe was being Dad.

The girl snuggled her baby, like the lovely young girl in the painting by Irish artist Adam Pomeroy, with protective love only a woman knows, while the baby's father went about in search of nourishment for his family.

Joe's Family was broke.  Remember, the innkeeper let them stay in stable, but no where does it say he let them bunk for free. Joseph, Mary and the little guy were in town to buck up some taxes.  This was not a vacation. Joe had to use his wits.

The First Christmas Breakfast was being put together by Joseph.

What would they have?

Scholars tell us that sugar was non-existent and that honey was only in homes of the wealthy. Dried fruits, nuts and grains were the staple diet of people in Roman occupied Judea.

 Bread was made by women who also ground the grains.  Joseph would have to buy bread, or try and get someone to offer up a few crusts.

I think that he beat it out into the wild and did some foraging for figs and olives to go with the curdled milk that was probably stored in the stable with the goats.  He could dig up some wild onions to flavor up the crushed olives.

While his exhausted bride and son slept to gain strength, Joseph threw together a meal. That is what Dad's do on Christmas mornings.

Maybe it wasn't pancakes, bacon, eggs and sausage, or an egg casserole with mushrooms, onions and peppers, but would guess that the man who put his wife on donkey to Bethlehem, watched with agonized joy as his son was born, while Mary endured the many hours of sustained torture thanks to the apple eaters, made the first meal for his family something very holy.

Our everyday lives have seemed to eclipse the sacred.  Maybe the mundane, quotidian and dull things we do out love can help restore the mystery and glory of sacred.

Our Ramparts: Chicago Trib and Sun Times Share Trump-Thumping Headline

Note the diversity at Tribune Tower!


Great minds think alike . . .and so do very small minds.

Today, after President Trump's Tax Cut, both Chicago rags offer identical headlines warning that, like the internet, we are all in peril, doomed I tells Ya!  Get to the Ramparts!

The ramparts are usually the defensive walls of castles, but in Trumpophobic America it refers to the Washington Post, newspapers that hate Trump in general, or so our later-day Henry Fonda, Tom Hanks, would have us believe.

"I would not have been able to imagine that we would be living in a country where neo-Nazis are doing torchlight parades in Charlottesville and jokes about Pocahontas are being made in front of the Navajo code talkers. And individually we have to decide when we take to the ramparts.” Tom Hanks -on not bringing the projector to the White House

You see, he has taken to the ramparts against Trump and refuses to be part of a showing of The Post at the Trump White House.

Like the Olympic snow bunny who took a Brody last week after say that she will not represent Trump in Seoul, was as good as her word.  Captain Phillips will not be taking Wilson to the White House.

Here on Chicago's sandbags and barbed wire, Bruce Dold and Tom McNamee have planted their ink wells - like their master Rahm Emanuel: No Trump Here!

Voila!

Chicago Tribune - Triumphant Trump celebrates tax win — but some fear backlash

 Chicago Sun Times - Triumphant Trump celebrates tax win, but some fear backlash

With one grammatical shift - the words are identical, as are the authors of said piece: Stephen Ohlemacher and Marcy Gordon | Associated Press

Cut and Paste, approved memes, pre-caste narratives and thin-gruel opines from lightweights like Neil Steinberg, Lynn Sweet, Steve Chapman, Rex Hupke and  Mary Schmich are what has replaced Nick Von Hoffman, Ray Coffey. Dorothy Collins and Mike Royko, in this hick burg.

Only John Kass writes with independence of thought, wit and courage.



The rest of the ninnies are stringing tinsel for barbed wire and piling Kit Kats for sandbags!  Get that helmet on McNamee!  Watch for Cops, Bruce; they might be sixth col-yoom- nists!

When the shelling is over, let me know how Tom Hanks' new flicker is doing at the box office.

Got me a tax cut.

Chicago Tribune Gins Up Police Hate for Christmas

Just a few bullet points:

• There is no Police Omerta - Code of Silence was invented by Commie Ambulance Chasers to bully more money from cowardly City Mayors.

• Veteran Police Officers return fire on offenders - they do not shoot boys/girls/children/babies/toddlers & etc.
• Chicago Tribune is goofy

G. Flint Taylor, a toxic Marxist opportunist, shameless showman and plutocrat, coined the media's over-used phrase, police code of silence. 

When fat-slob with a badge, Anthony Abbate beat a tiny Polish woman tending bar, where Abbate was all but sucking on bar rags, G. Flint Taylor took the opportunity to make hay at Huffington Post  -the kiosk for Kooks, Commies and Hollywood D-listers to pen nonsense.  G. Flint rolled the usual Marxist Meatball ingredients of Race, Class Envy Police Brutality and Jeremiad:

Editorial Boards captained by ninnies like Tom McNamee of the Chicago Sun Times and Bruce Dold of the Chicago Tribune were wowed by this social justice warrior's words and mimed the meme at every opportunity.  That was five years ago.

Today, the Chicago Tribune again  joins G. Flint Taylor's drum circle of jerks: City to pay $20 million to settle code-of-silence lawsuit over fatal crash caused by drunken Chicago cop, sources say

The Chicago Police have no Code of Silence. In fact, Chicago Police Officers are more than chatty about clouted, politically connected, slugs, mopes and bullies on the job.  Cops want them gone and the political creeps who wedged them into the ranks investigated.  Ask a cop.

More idiotic is Bruce Dold's editorialized banner rhetoric - Off-duty Chicago cop shoots armed boy trying to carjack him in Bronzeville, police say:

Around 6:30 p.m. Monday, an off-duty Chicago police officer was sitting in his personal vehicle in the 3600 block of South Prairie Avenue when two suspects approached him on both sides, according to Chicago Police Sgt. Cindy Guerra.  The suspect on the passenger’s side tapped on the window to distract the officer while the one on the driver’s side, a boy, announced a robbery, Guerra said.


The officer, an 18-year veteran assigned to the city’s 11th District, fired one shot striking the juvenile suspect in the abdomen. The boy was taken to Northwestern Memorial Hospital, where his condition has stabilized. The other suspect ran away and is still at large.

The officer was also taken to Rush Medical Center for stress-related reasons, but is listed in good condition.

Please note that BOY is not in quotation marks.

Police did not say boy.

Tribune say Boy.

What say you?

Merry Christmas, G. Flint!

Merry Christmas, Bruce!

Sure hope there will not be a need for media omerta, when such idiotic bleed leading headlines inspires an idiot savage to open fire on a police officer - just in time for the Holidays,

Want to Get Illinois Out of Stupid? Pay Attention and Vote Erika Harold for Illinois Attorney General.

Erika Harold for Illinois Attorney General *- ASAP!

If are happy with your tax burden and the endless parade incompetent, larcenous and creepy elected officials in this City, County and State, vote the way you are told by the Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun Times, WTTW, WBEZ, Crain's  NBC, WBBM, FOX 32, WGN, Chicago Business, The Reader and all of Fred Eychaner's Free Newsstand. 

Vote like Eric Zorn, Steve Chapman, Andy Shaw, Mike Flannery, Dane Placko, Chuck Goudie, Phil Ponce, Carol Marin, Mark Brown, Bruce Dold and Neil Steinberg.

That will ensure that, Sneedless to say, the buckshot, the upshot and the bullshot for Illinois will be JB Pritzker, Rahm Emanuel, Toni Preckwinkle and Kwame Rauol  in control City Hall, the County, the Governor's Mansion and, most importantly - Illinois Attorney General.

With 13 weeks till the primary election and Attorney General Lisa Madigan’s surprise decision not to seek re-election, Illinois voters have a crowded field of eight Democratic and two Republican candidates to choose from.

Though the Cook County Democratic Party last month crowned State Sen. Kwame Raoul, D-Chicago, as their choice, former Gov. Pat Quinn has secured the top ballot spot via a state lottery, which might help get him some votes. Raoul and Quinn are perhaps the most familiar names on the Democratic primary ballot.
In the Republican primary, Erika Harold — a Harvard-educated attorney and former Miss America who has the backing of the state’s Republican Party — faces Gary Grasso, a DuPage County Board member.  Sun Times

I don't know a thing about Mr. Grasso - probably a very nice gent. But, I know a little about Erika Harold.

This might be the only time you read about Erika Harold, Sneedless to say. Lisa Madigan was an access ticket for our lazy Illinois media and she had fourteen years of unexamined performance protecting Illinois politics from scrutiny.


Lisa Madigan has done nothing in her fourteen years as Attorney General but become the first woman to hold that office. 

Ms. Madigan argued successfully before the United States Supreme Court in Illinois v. Caballes," where the court reaffirmed the ability of police officers to use specially trained dogs without a search warrant or probable cause to detect the presence of illegal drugs during traffic stops."  Not exactly groundbreaking.

Ms. Madigan raised her profile by speaking out on many issues and accepted awards.

Illinois cork-screwed deeper into the rich soil of this State.

Kwame Rauol and Pat Quinn are equally challenged human beings, in fact the Lake Zurich Patch called them 'an unbeatbale ticket 2014.'  They lost, huge.

Now they face each other in duel of the challenged for Attorney General.   Pat Quinn secured the top spot on the ballot, but Kwame nailed imprimatur of the State Democratic Party.

The Illinois Attorney Generalshould not be a security blanket for crooks, cons, conniving creeps and cretins. Instead the States Attorney General's homepage reads like programming from NPR

• Advocating for Women
• Protecting the Environment
• Safeguarding children
• Advocating for the Older Citizens

Name one crook sent to the Illinois Corrections System by Lisa Madigan. Name one investigation of corporate collusion in the explosion of Pay Day/Car Title Loan industry in Illinois during Madigan's tenure.  

These Usury Utilities prey on the poor, but the Attorney General's Consumer Affairs site offers this advise to the desperate: 

Consider Other OptionsWith their extremely high interest rates and many charges and fees, small consumer loans, payday installment loans, and payday loans can quickly transform a short-term financial crisis into a long-term debt problem. You should exhaust all possible resources – family, church, friends – before you even consider taking out one of these high-cost loans.

Should you exhaust all possible resources -family, church, friends - turn to gun violence on yourself after you have been taken to court by the good folks at PLC Illinois.

Thanks Lisa!

Like President Obama, Erika Harold is Harvard Law Alumna and, unlike POTUS 44, a practicing attorney in Illinois with a list of legal achievements.

• When she was blessed with the opportunity to attend Harvard Law School, she was thrown a curveball. She couldn’t afford the tuition.
• But Erika didn’t give up. Lacking the funds to pay for school, she got creative. She decided to compete in the Miss America Organization to attempt to earn the scholarship money necessary to pay for law school.She won. And she used her platform to not only pay for school, but also to give back.

• As Miss America 2003, Erika became a national leader in the fight to end youth violence and bullying, sharing with more than 100,000 students her own experience of overcoming bullying. Erika was named one of Fight Crime, Invest in Kids’ “Champions for Children” and received a leadership award from the National Center for Victims of Crime.

• Upon graduating from Harvard Law School, Erika worked as an attorney in the litigation groups of Sidley Austin LLP and Burke, Warren, MacKay & Serritella, P.C.

• Erika represented businesses in commercial disputes and advised religious institutions in matters involving First Amendment protections. She also was active in the law firms’ respective legal education efforts, teaching students about the U.S. legal system as part of the Lawyers in the Classroom program and coaching a team of high school students in the City-Wide Mock Trial Competition. She was also part of the teaching faculty for Harvard Law School’s 2017 Trial Advocacy Workshop.

• In 2015, the Illinois Supreme Court appointed Erika to serve on the Illinois Supreme Court Committee on Equality.

• Erika is also a member of Trinity International University’s Board of Regents, and serves as a Commissioner on the Illinois Supreme Court Commission on Professionalism.

• Erika currently serves on the national board of directors of Prison Fellowship, the world’s largest outreach to prisoners and their families. In that capacity, she advocates for criminal justice reform.  She was also recently selected to the 2017 Emerging Lawyers list and was recognized in the categories of commercial litigation, civil rights/constitutional law.Erika Harold works as an attorney at Meyer Capel, one of Champaign County’s largest law firms.  

I doubt if Erika Harold will receive the Caroline Kennedy New Frontier Award, like Lisa Madigan, because Ms. Harold is not a child of nepotism, but she is willing open the books on Lisa's Dad and his minions, because, " Erika Harold knows that home is worth fighting for. That’s why she’s stepping up to take on Mike Madigan’s political machine."

Jeanne Ives should be linked arms with Erika Harold, ASAP.  Jeanne could point out all of the bones in Springfield graveyard of deals. 

That is something worth bucking the trend. 

Let's see if Illinois is ready to grow a pair. 

* My apologies - I had earlier confused States Attorney with the office of Attorney General.  My error was pointed out by a kind soul.  I am nothing, if not flawed.

Chicago Oligarchs

The globalization of cities and their elites often comes at the expense of many of the people who live there. Forced to compete with foreign capital and immigrant workers, native-born residents of cities from Los Angeles and London to Singapore often feel displaced, becoming strangers in what they thought was their own place. . . .in this era of powerful oligarchs and growing inequality, these planetary centers are less places for upward mobility than most other cities. This is clearly true in the United States, where its premier global city, New York, as well as its prime competitors for international standing, Chicago, Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area, rank among the 10 most unequal cities in the nation. Joel Kotkin - Forbes

 This is a formidable moment. Chicagoans can best negotiate it by placing their faith in Rahm Emanuel and his ethos of dogged effectiveness. No other candidate combines Emanuel's candor about the threats facing Chicago with the will to take necessary steps -- some of them unpopular -- to tame those threats.
Specifically: We're hugely impressed by Emanuel's forthrightness about the overarching crisis in city finances. He alone is frank about the immediate need to reform a pension system that otherwise will implode on city retirees and everyday taxpayers alike. Chicago Tribune - Rahm endorsement

Response, Citizens?  Mine is blue. Real blue. Not that I am against colorful language, but there just might be a sensitive soul scanning the web.

 Steven Colbert, the Chicago Tribune, WTTW, The Sun Times, WBEZ and Crain's Chicago Business are friends of Chicago Oligarchs.

Colbert, an ersatz satirist, offered Mayor Rahm Emanuel a national sound byte, echoing the drone of the Cook County and Illinois Democratic Party mantra - Trump is evil.

Candidate for Governor JB Pritzker offers only Trumpophobic nonsense, but offers no hope for this choking State, other than fight Trump.

The laughable Chicago Tribune acts as the MiniTru for City Hall and the County Building, with daily feature feed of Trump Thumping howlers from Rex Hupke, Stephen Chapman,  Eric Zorn, Mary Schmich and farmed-in pieces from WAPO, NYT, Salon, The Nation and VOX.

Not only that, but the Chicago Tribune continues its Bizzaro-world assaults on Chicago Police officers in full communion with Rahm Emanuel's creepy suppression of his role in burying the Laquan McDonald video.

There is absolutely no mention of the Forrest Claypool scandal, much less an incisive inquiry to his altering of documents and cover-up which to the reading public appears to be a Rico ready case.

Steven Colbert made no mention of this Rahm-an noodle bowl of worms.

Sadly, Chuy Garcia appears to have taken the path of least resistance and the coin as well as the Congressional seat of the larcenous Luis Gutierrez ll only days before Forrest Claypool fell on his silver spoon.

Trump-look-alike Bob Fioretti, a practiced stalking horse, is already out of the gate, clearing the way for the Chicago City Council Black Caucus to Raise-up Rahm!

The Oligarchy will continue - Trump a Lump!

Illinois voters will paint themselves into the already assigned corners and idiots like former governor Pat Quinn will step into Lisa Madigan's seat, Michigan Ave. Fats Pritzker will take Rauner's warm and comfy seat after months of editorial screeds painting Jeannie Ives as some kind of Trump Tranny and clown judges will return to County and State benches.

Get ready for it neighbors!  You thought the last eight years were burdensome?  Hold the phone.

Would God Like Me ? One Never Knows, Do One?

Simple Question: Would God Like You? Would God like me?

God Loves us all, that is why he created the universe, but I wonder if God would get along with me.

I am prepping my students for their final exams next week here at Brother Rice High School in Mount Greenwood.  I have four sections of Juniors taking a Christian Morality Class and one section of Freshmen in an Old Testament Class. All are very fun, challenging and sobering for me the instructor.

In the junior classes we cover morality

• Natural Moral Law  - the Unitarian Canon - we are all alike
• Old Testament Moral Law - God's contract with Man and Israel in particular
• New Testament - Christ's Challenge to Live Drudgery and find Happiness
• The Precepts of the Catholic Church The Magnificent 7: 1.Go to Mass, 2.take the Sacraments, 3.Study for Confirmation, 4.Observe Marriage Laws, 5.Support the Church - make that drop, 6. do penance and 7. be an Apostle - make Catholic Christianity attractive
• Canon law - The quotidian web of laws, teachings about worship, Church property, and role of laity - buck up, folks. 

We just finished a Unit on the the Sixth Commandment - Thou Shalt Not Kill and the lads were astonished to see what is covered under that:

• Do not Offer Scandal - If the Kids see me coming out of Pole Katz, or hookers popping in and out of Casa Hickey along the tracks, I have 'killed' their innocence by saying adultery is acceptable. I am a teacher and a Theology teacher at that.  More so, if I stay in bed on Sundays and ditch Mass, my kids learn to do the same.  Not on this fat boy's watch.
• Give People Their Dignity from Womb to Tomb - if you are OK with abortion, you are OK with anything. Likewise if you help prey on the poor by placing Pay Day Loan and Car Title Loan stores in Zip Codes of poor people, if you  are a State Legislator/Senator who helped enact the growth of predatory lenders you have sinned against the 6th Commandment.
• If you eat like hog and act like one as well, you might be committing suicide of the installment plan.
• There is a difference between 'killing' and a Homicide.
• Bullies are killing peoples' dignity 

The Freshmen have studied the LAW of God.  The Old Testament is great literature and the inspired Word of God written by some very talented people.

We have Covered Genesis & Exodus; Deuteronomy, Judges, Samuel 1 & 2 and the Book of Kings.

The guys learned that God wants us to listen to Him and the We ignore Him until the shit hits the fan.

The God hears our cries and 'raises up' flawed, scared and doubtful men and women to get our lard out of the frying pan.

Adam, Eve, Cain Abraham, Issac, Lot, Noah, Moses, Joshua, Gideon,  Samson Deborah, Ruth, Hannah, Saul David and Solomon all go their own ways ,after God has promised them His full support.  Even after God delivers, the OT people try to go their own way - just like all of us. 

What I have been blessed with is a nagging question - Would God like Hickey.  Would Jesus immediately kick my ass upon meeting? Has my life merited a sound beat-down? Would my ass be smote?

In the words of the great Fats Waller, One never knows, Do One!"