Thugs Kill Baby, Again! Trading Shots for Votes and Calling it Gun Violence

I got up this morning to a bold orange-colored sky, announcing a glorious Sunday in Michigan City, Indiana.

Mass is at 10 AM at St. Stanislaus, six blocks to the south of my home and up a paved street that was once a sand dune.

I read the news, beginning with Second City Cop, the only reliable source of news in Chicago and run by a mysteriously literate, witty and clear-thinking police officer.

The officer/writer included a Chicago media report of the slaughter of the baby and the wounding of his mother, while they returned home from a laundromat near 60th & Halsted in the Englewood neighborhood.  A car pulled up next to their car and seven to eight shots were fired, hitting the infant in the chest and grazing the mother.

Second City Cop knows all too well that no shooter will be brought to trial for this horror, but points directly at who is responsible:  Mayor Lori Lightfoot, Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle, her creature States Attorney Kim Foxx, Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart and Chief of Cook County Courts Tim Evans.

These pandering politicians are intellectual lightweights and shameless hucksters, concerned only with playing race-opportunity cards at every deal.

Tom Dart's press people paint him as a really WOKE and thoughtful agent of change, but he should act like a sheriff.  Hollywood actor John Cusack already grabbed the role that Dart insists upon playing to the advantage of no one but himself and his connected siblings. Dart has allowed the worst of the worst back on to Chicago's streets and preened before the likes of the oafish Mike Flannery and other propaganda spinners in Chicago's supine media.

Mayor Lightfoot proved herself to be a total incompetent this past May when she gave the green light to looters and Marxist agitators.

Toni Preckwinkle is a proven bigot and a vindictive power wielding oligarch.

Tim Evans is a career Democratic Party hack who parlayed his seat as a do-nothing alderman into a race-baiting grievance-policy autocrat who sends career criminals back to do havoc on Chicago.

The common shield used by each of these vote-sucking hacks is the strawman "Gun Violence."

The car used to drive up to the infant and his mother was driven by a thug.  The 7-8 bullets sprayed into the mother and child were helped along by the fingers of thugs.

Guns are inanimate objects.

Politicians and thugs know exactly what they are doing and they could care less about consequences.

I buried a score or more of bright and talented young men when I worked at Leo High School -1995-2016.  From Eric Ersery to Jason Riley to Antonio Collins, same old, same old - no one was caught, charged, tried, convicted, or imprisoned.  Hey, it's gun violence. No harm, no foul. 

I woke up in Michigan City, Indiana.  There are shots fired in this Indiana town, but they do not become part of a compelling narrative used to keep grifters elected to office.

I will go to 10 AM Mass at St. Stanislaus and say a prayer for the baby's mother. The child is home with Christ.

Chicago, Cook County and Illinois will do absolutely nothing for the grieving and wounded mother. 

Tom Dart will preen for Mike Flannery.  Lori Lightfoot will blame Trump. Toni Preckwinkle will raise taxes on everything and anything but her perpetual scowl and contempt for anyone not Toni Preckwinkle,  Kim Foxx will whine about police officers leading happy lives and she can't have that, and Tim Evans will open the iron bars and let more thugs out to exact more gun violence.

These politicians are not the only problem, however.

The other problem is that nice people will continue to allow Dart, Lightfoot, Preckwinkle and Foxx to hold public office,  Can't do a damn thing about Judge Tim Evans. He ain't going nowhere.

Neither is a former one-year old from Englewood.

The Merriest Springald in Our Pandemic, Part VI: March 25, 2020- Declan The Horse and Jimmy Bond

“To have compassion for those who suffer is a human quality which everyone should possess, especially those who have required comfort themselves in the past and have managed to find it in others. ”
― Giovanni Boccaccio, The Decameron

“‘All in’ is our anthem and point of pride. Illinoisans staying home for the good of each other and the good of our state . . . Be all in. ‘All in Illinois’ means we care about one another, we care about our communities. We are one Illinois, and we’re all in this together.” JB Pritzker

Recap of Parts I-V

Wesley Dioneo is the only son of Chicagoland real estate tycoon, Martin Dioneo and his society maven wife Allyson.  Martin Dioneo caught the COVID-19 virus from his Laplander personal trainer and is on a ventilator in Chicago's Northwestern Medical Center.  Allyson is holed up in the couple's massive east Lake Shore Drive apartment building a score of yards from the iconic Drake Hotel.
Allyson has sent Wesley Dioneo to the family get-away home at Stop 30 lake Shore Drive in Long Beach, Indiana. Wesley is a senior at St. Ignatius College Prep and had been since the school shut down on March 16, 2020.  Ally immediately sent Wesley to Long Beach, where he can be safe.
Wesley invites over his pals and trusted companions, the Nardo Bothers and Habib( Declan & Brian) and Habib Samer for a few days of social distancing, Super Smash Brothers and Pater Dioneo's Czech beer cellar.  The quartet do what young men do - eat, play and spirit up the atmosphere with verbal assaults upon cant and cowardice. They tire of Super Smash Brothers, if that does not stretch the imagination, wit and Wesley proposes a story telling contest with the prize of his high-end kayak going to the person declared the winner.


Into this subjective yarn tossing arena will arrive six LaPorte County lovelies: Addison Pawliak, Paisley Ewan, Aaliyah Justice, Genesis Mullen, Kennedy Lynch, and Amy Kinsley Briddlestone.  Wesley decided to allow Declan Nardo the opportunity to tell his tale about beating Chicago Bulls 1993 Title winning Myrmidon John Paxson at a game of horse, when the aging NBA star visited La Lumiere's Marsch Gym, a few years after that school own the national high school basketball title.   Addison Pawliak, Paisley Ewan, Aaliyah Justice, Genesis Mullen, Kennedy Lynch, and Amy Kinsley Briddlestone arrived at the Stop # 30 address of Wesley Dioneo at different times and by different modes of transportation.

Part VI - March 25, 2020

On this Wednesday, while the COVID-19 plague gave elected officials all over the nation an opportunity to exercise executive authority over the people who elected them - shutting all business, mandating a universal stay-at-home order, stopping travel and dominating the very compliant news media.

No one rebelled, but some tried to exercise common sense and were immediately arrested and hauled into court.  Essential businesses, like the vitamin factory where this writer works remained open and employees were mandated to wear masks, gloves and maintain a social distance of 6-12 feet from one another. People shrugged and went about shipping Gummie Vitamins for Women, Men, Children, Stressed, Sleepless, or WOKE Americans.   In Chicago 12 people were gunned down; Governor Pritzker and Mayor Lori Lightfoot extended the stay-at-home-order to well past April 7, 2020. What can you do?  Get a haircut?  Well, only you if you are the Mayor. 

But our tale about tales is set in Indiana!  Most definitely.  Northwest Indiana is a part of the Chicagoland market for media, politics and consumption.  Smart Chicagoans buy homes in this lake front region, because the quality of life is far superior to the Big Windy.  Kids do not get gunned down every three hours, as they do in Chicago and Indiana is not a bankrupted oligarchy run by a Governor who waddles with penguins and traffics in marijuana. 

The waddling oligarch of an Illinois Governor put Illinois on its knees and under house arrest. 

The Governor of Indiana responded to the threat of the mystery virus with far more common sense.  Therefore, citizens felt more at ease walking, riding bikes and visiting friends and loved ones. 

In Long Beach, Indiana  ten young people, high school seniors, ate submarine sandwiches from Jimmy Johns and began a story-telling contest.  Jimmy Johns sandwiches all tasted the same, be it turkey, beef, ham or vegan.  The taste was secondary to the filling of the maw and bags of Salt and Vinegar Chips overcame whatever disappointments the purchase might allow to creep into the smart and savvy minds of early adults. 

Wesley Dioneo had a disarming smile and a thick head of brown, uncombed hair over a wide forehead that indicated a broad intellect and inquisitive nature. His dark brown eyes radiated warmth and inviting membership to people with good hearts, but also acted as an early-warning system for frauds and bunkum-slingers. 

After eating half of an erstatz Italian sub from Jimmy Johns, Wesley intoned, " Let the contest for the Old Town Sportsman Minn Kota begin !  Remember.  Each story must fulfiill each of the five following requirements


1. The story must amuse
2. The story must teach a lesson
3. The story must reveal the character of the person telling that story
4. The story must be something to bring people together

5. The story must acknowledge our own mortality 

Ladies, Declan has a yarn that would reignite a campfire on the plains of Wyoming long cooled by the Western Winds.  Declan Nardo, ladies and Gentleman!"

A round of enthusiastic catcalls and faux fanfare greeted the thick-set basketball star of La Lumiere ( local teams only and not the national tour squad, mind you - Declan was good but not destined for D-1, D-2, or D-Zed college teams. ) Basketball. 

" Last November, when we getting ready for the season, JohnPaxson, the old GM of the Chicago Bulls came to talk to us about team building and trusting your teammates. Paxson went to LeMans Academy in Rolling Prairie - the schools that's now a priest school for some Mexican Catholics.  He went there knew all about La Lumiere and followed the Lakers when we won the national title,

I play on the local squad, me and Brian.  My left-handed shots suck donkeys.  Brian is way better than me.  Anyway, Paxson went on and on and on and everyone wanted to get to the main house for dinner with boarders, but I liked him and stuck around.

He asked me, " How 'bout a game of HORSE?"  Now, he is number 5 and scored the winning basket in 1993.  None of us were even born, but you know . Anyway, I figured he's an old guy and how good a shot can he have now. "

The game of HORSE is played between two people and called shots are the courtesy.  If you call your shot, Hook, Set, Jumper, Backboard, In with Rim, Nothing But Net, that is what counts. If one makes the basket, the opponent must make the exact same shot and from the exact same position on the floor.  If one misses he gets a letter, until the first player with HORSE totals out.

" So, Paxson gave me first shot.  I went to the top left side of the Key and called Set Shot - Nothing But Net.  Missed.  Paxson went to half court and called Jumper - Backboard - nailed it. 

We shot back and forth for twenty minutes, and Paxson called Under Hand from Free Throw Line SWISH and Nailed it.

I did the same and nailed it.  

Then he says Left Hand Set Shot -Back Board!

I am so screwed. I am dead!

He missed. 

I called Shot from the left top of Key Swish.  Dropped like a bad habit!  John Paxson Missed.   HORSE!!!!!!  I beat Number 5!

John Paxson shook my hand!"

At that, a weak round of applause nodded a nice bit of approval for Declan Nardo's true account of his victory over a legend.  He was only "dead" for a moment. 

Wesley called up the lovely Amy Kinsley Briddlestone. 

Amy tossed her golden locks and chirped, " Mine is a tale of struggle and courage in the face of circumstances of birth.  Jimmy Bond owns the great Jamaican Restaurant and Pub over on Route 12 near the old Knoll Brothers gas station.  Jimmy is half Chinese and half English.

He was born in Jamaica - a Jamaican Woman's Detention Center called Fort Augusta.  Portmore, Jamaica.   His mother had been a secretary to British Colonial Governor in Kingston in 1962.  She was a beautiful bi-racial woman whose father had been a drunken Hong Kong police man and mother a gorgeous Irish prostitute. Her name was Moira Taro.  

Miss Taro was enthralled by Dr. No, a nuclear engineer who bedded the young Moira and put her to work spying on the British.

She was told to study the actions of a British MI-6 agent James Bond and to intercept any reports she may have filed concerning Dr. No's radioactive wave experiments on his private island at Crab Key.

Miss Taro invited Bond to her mountain cottage for a tryst - that's a date, boys - and try and get him killed by Dr. No's many agents on the island nation.

They did the deed.

Miss Taro secretly enjoyed her dalliance with handsome James Bond, but she was betrayed by him and arrested as a terrorist. 

After Dr. Julius No died in an explosion that destroyed Crab Key, Miss Taro was tried in a colonial British Court to ten years at hard labor.

She was pregnant by Bond. In August 1962, Jamaica became a Commonwealth Nation, but Miss Taro was still considered a dangerous enemy of the Crown. 

Her son James was born in 1963, on the same day that JFK was assassinated. The lovely, but vile Moira Taro died of uterine cancer in January 1964. 

Jimmy was handed over to a Jamaican family by the child courts one year after his birth.

They had a Jerk Chicken cantina and huge following.  Jimmy Bond learned to jerk meats, as well as run a restaurant.  He was not a black man, but grew long dred locks and learned to play the bass guitar. For a while he had hoped that Michael Manley would improve the lives of Jamaicans, but he was just another Communist gangster and his policies ruined the business of Jimmy's adopted parents. 

When Manley was re-elected as Prime Minister in 1989, Jimmy Bond moved to Miami and applied for United States Citizenship. 

Jimmy played bass for Jimmy Buffet on two national tours and bought in on a Jerk Chicken restaurant in Bonfield, Illinois.   Jimmy Bond's became a regional hotspot with great food and hot music. 

In 2010, Jimmy Bond bought his restaurant on Route 12 and moved to Michiana Shores. 

Life had not treated him well but hard work and a sunny outlook made Jimmy Bond, Shaken but Unstirred!"

Habib spilled Russian dressing out from his Jimmy John's sandwich all over the carpet.  " Sorry, Dude!  My bad. Amy, that's the Bond Movie.  Is that plagiarism?  Besides, Cool Runnings is way better food.  Dude, I got the spill.  God. "

Wesley began cleaning up the Russian dressing. 


Part VII - Russians and Hamlet