I Have One Vote and It Will Go to Jeanne Ives

Tonight Jeanne Ives will join the Irish for Ives crowd at Reilly's Daughter Pub, in Oak Lawn.  Today, I will vote for Jeanne Ives.

I have one vote for Governor in this Illinois Primary Election and it requires that I take a Republican Ballot to cast this vote.   I am early voting today here in the 19th Ward at Mount Greenwood Park    3721 W 111th St, when it opens around 9AM.  First day is always delayed, but our judges and poll watchers do a terrific job.  Alderman Matt O'Shea will be on hand to make sure everything rolls-out smoothly. They usually do, here in a neighborhood Ward that takes voting very seriously.

This is the most important vote that I need to cast in years.  I normally take a Democratic Primary ballot, but not this time. This is a game changing vote.

Illinois is choking to death.

My neighbors, of whom the majority hold public service pensions,  agonize as they watch the IOUs passed to them from Big Jim Thompson to Bruce Rauner, turn into Confederate Money, or Illinois high-speed rail bonds. 

Squeezy the Python is doing very well. 

Hard working people worry about Jeanne Ives and believe the bilge given out by the media and the Rauner Campaign that she wants to take away their IOUs from Republican  and Democrat grifters and oligarchs.

Illinois Public Pensions are the ultimate Ponzi Pyramid.  If you worked for Illinois and have gotten out with your 85%, all is good.

The millions more of you - not so much.

Pensions were looted to make a very few people rich.

Public school teachers,cops, firemen and later AFSCME workers were treated to the following:

•Shorting pension payments to buy immediate budgetary relief. The nonpartisan Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability, the fiscal research arm of the General Assembly, concluded in 2013 that the largest cause of the unfunded pension liabilities was inadequate contributions from the state. Underpayments between 1985 and 2012 totaled $41.2 billion, the agency calculated.
•Enhancing pension benefits. Former GOP Gov. James Thompson agreed in 1989 to establish a compounding, 3 percent cost-of-living increase for retirees. Another round of benefit enhancements followed in the late 1990s. In May, the state Supreme Court ruled that those changes can't ever be revoked for tens of thousands of current and retired government workers.
•Clearing a bloated state payroll by letting workers retire early. A 2002 plan created under Republican Ryan and pushed by Democratic House Speaker Michael Madigan cost the pension systems at least four times more than originally billed and won't be paid off until after 2045, when early-century budgetary ills will be the stuff of history books. David McKinney in Crain's Chicago Business ( emphases my own) 

That is Bi-Partisan Suicide, neighbors.  The oligarchs found their solution - Soak the Rich, code for increase income and property taxes via a heavy progressive tax, or plank # 2 from the Communist Manifesto*.

I believe that Jeanne Ives intends to reform pensions.  She has a plan. None of the other's have anything, except legalize weed and increase Illinois progressive taxes, while feeding  empty pensions and killing off what remains of the middle class in this state for good.

Jeanne Ives is the only candidate who stands against the American Holocaust - abortion. America will never be great again, until this horror of slaughtering a babies is euphemized as health care ends.  Jeanne Ives stands against abortion and the Planned Parenthood abortion industry.

I you are fine with abortion, you are OK with anything.

Jeanne Ives does not pander for votes and understands that the word illegal
 means something.

I might be the only DNA in my vast family of hard-working skilled trades people to cast this vote, but I believe it will topple Bruce Rauner's place-holding tenure as governor.

Come the general election, Jeanne Ives can count on my solitary vote again.

If you stand for nothing, you will fall for anything.

Illinois has had a very long and perilous fall.


*Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, in the Communist Manifesto, advocated a heavy progressive tax as a means of despoiling the “bourgeoisie” and softening middleclass society up for the dictatorshp of the proletariat.

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!

Matt O'Shea Works for the Good and Fran Spielman Mocks the WorK

 

“I am proud of this effort which makes it easier for our City agencies to crackdown on illicit massage parlors as well as identify some of the most vulnerable victims in our communities. This ordinance reduces barriers to inspecting these illegitimate victims and mandates preventative measures. Not only will we make our communities safer, but we will also provide the opportunity for legitimate small business growth in Chicago,” said O’Shea.    

 Ald. O’Shea seeks to rub out massage parlor abuses: Fran Spielman Headline Sun Times

I know of no massage parlors in Beverly, Morgan Park, or Mount Greenwood and that is a pretty good sized chunk of Alderman Matt O'Shea's 19th Ward. Matt O'Shea wants to hurt human traffickers who supply some massage parlors with children.  Fran Spielman of Chicago Sun Times ridicules this good work.

On Sunday, I chatted with the Alderman as he directed a blood and bone marrow drive at St. John Fisher Parish for two year old Beau Dowling.  As I read the questionnaire for donating to Life Source, O'Shea assured me that he would help me with the more difficult words like "injections and vaccinations" - He went to Mount Carmel, by the way. We did not discuss his proposed ordinance to levy greater fines and fees upon operators of massage parlors who benefit from human trafficking.

Human trafficking is slavery.

When I worked at Leo High School in late 1990's, the now abandoned and massive motel on the east side of Halsted between 83rd and 79th Street was home to a score of 15-18 year old Eastern European girls enslaved by pimps, drug dealers and the politicians who protect them.  These girls worked Racine, Vincennes and Halsted and were at death's door.  They were carefully guarded by armed men.  Leo Principal and President Bob Foster made some powerful noise with the 17th Ward and the command at District 6.  The Hotel was shut down.

Enslaved girls, very few Caucasians, continue to work Racine, Vincennes, Halsted, Ashland, Loomis & etc in Zip code 60620.  No central headquarters. The clientele continues to be a Rainbow of diversity - white working men, black entrepreneurs, Hispanic Padrones and I have even spied the odd Asian gent 'looking for love in all the wrong places.'

The massage parlor seems to be more of a suburban phenomenon to me. Where I live, high school romances blossom into families connected to a house of worship. The 19th Ward is pretty unevolved and not very HBO.  I have no doubt that various sins of the flesh get sampling here and there, but for the life me it is not a norm.  Mr. Spaulding, Mr. Talman, Mr. Washtenaw and Mr. Rockwell don't frequent sex spas; they go to Hinky Dinks, Cork & Kerry, Harte's, Dingers, McNally's, Hippos and TR's.  Horizontal refreshment, not so much; liquid refreshment - Hell, yes.

However, people who live around a church seem to appreciate children from birth and very often through adulthood.  All children matter- black, Asian, challenged, boys, girls and uncertain.    That is why Matt O'Shea had a more than husky crowd of blood donors this past Sunday.

Human trafficking pisses off parents.  Matt O'Shea introduced  this City ordinance even though the 19th Ward is a Massage Parlor Desert.  Matt O'Shea is what an elected official should be - a hard working neighbor who respects the people who vote for him.  He is a vanishing breed.

Why would Fran Spielman and the Sun Times editorial board make a sophomoric joke of O'Shea's ordinance?

Massage Parlors where the happy endings take place are hilarious?  Dreamers forced into prostitution and drugged numb make great snark?  The concerns of a Breeder Catholic whose Ward does not even have a massage parlor are ludicrous?

All of the above.  The same giggling snobs who have crashed journalism into the loam and made Donald Trump more than palatable to traditionally Democratic voters like me, get approval in hipper quarters of the City.  Here are some comments found in DNAinfo Chicago:

  abby1997  May 22, 2017 "Nothing else better to go after"

  con-man  May 22, 2017 "Damn it, gone are some of my favorites. I was so "happy" with their service!!!

  jackie-rose  May 22, 2017 "This is stupid, I doubt anyone working there was being trafficked. But the definition has been expanded to include consenting adults. Doesn't bother me if it's happening behind closed doors."  

SteveTheCubsFan  May 23, 2017 "This is definitely not a priority for our city.  What a complete waste of police manpower.  We would be better served if they went after all the idiots that endanger people's lives everyday, while trying to drive and use smartphones.  Better yet, how about the gangs, guns, and theft that is so rampant throughout the entire city?  Go back to Beverly.  What a grandstanding a**.

How about them gangs, guns and theft, SteveTheCubFan?  Sounds like this tulip is all aboard for that Textalyzer ordinance.  Tres Hip!

That was from  DNAinfo Chicago, mind you.

The Sun Times ditched commentary long ago.   They give opinion - they do not require yours.

Matt O'Shea is a very good Alderman.  He is a great elected official.

Fran Spielman works for the Chicago Sun Times.

Corporatist State- Owned Whole Foods and Starbucks! Englewood is Kennilworth!

 

The Rahm Smoothies - a little ginger, a little honey and maybe more than a little Hal Baskin, maybe?

Whole Food shoppers you are subsidizing Englewood
Eggs are $1.99 in Englewood vs $3.099 in Lincoln Park
Milk is $1.99 vs $4.19 in Lincoln Park
Gallon of vanilla ice cream $3.99 vs $5.99 in Lincoln Park
When you shop at Whole Foods ask for the Englewood prices. Comment from Chicago Tribune Editorial

        

And if you go chasing rabbits

And you know you're going to fall

Tell 'em a hookah-smoking caterpillar

Has given you the call - Bruce Dold Editor Chicago Tribune

When Bruce Dold is told to get excited about something by the powers that be in this Rube Berg of a Banana Republic* he fairly micturates until he pounds out a mirthful tittering of gleeful Alice in Engelwheel hop about . . . whatever.

Today's cheer leading exercises is an especially hoydenish delight!

It's been said of Deerfield, Sauganash and countless other communities: This must be a nice place since it's got a Whole Foods and a Starbucks.
So what happens when you plunk down two of the country's most culturally powerful brands in impoverished Englewood? Do these stores become just a sideshow to the violent crime, or can they change perceptions about the quality of life in one of Chicago's most beaten-down neighborhoods?

Yes!!!!!! Number 2, Bruce !!!!!!!!!       Perceptions stop the trajectory of bullets!

I live in the 19th Ward, racially diverse but no Whole Foods. Would Dold et al opine a la Betty Davis from Beyond the Forest?



You bet!  This is Urbs in Horto, Dude!

 We got a Starbucks over by the 103rd Street Station and CVS, but more people go to Kareem's Dunkin Donuts on 104th & Western, even though it has not the culturally powerful brand-age cache of Starbucks, but then again at Double D's you don't need to pick Arabica coffee grounds out your gums after a few swallows.

Aside from my snide remarks, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?

Is a neighborhood only a fit place to live because two of the country's most culturally powerful brands plump their rumps within its confines?

Or, is neighborhood a place where most, if not all of the people look out for one another, respect one another and behave like citizens.

Well, Whole Foods and Starbucks are political players and 63rd Street has been a Development mess for Chicago's Planning & Development Department for more than twenty years.  Elder Hal Baskin has his mitts wide open to all venture opportunists and get-out the vote - for a wad of cash surety at the Ward level of the 3, 6, 15, 16, 17 and 20 Wards.  Six, count 'em six Wards for one Neigh. . .  (sorry) Community - an impoverished, delapidated, dangerous and gang-infested Community.

Much like Hyde Park?  Could be?  Really,Bruce?

My 19th Ward encompasses Beverly, West Beverly, Morgan Park and Mount Greenwood. Huge difference.  Hal Baskin, a Democratic Party legitimized activist and Gangster Disciple Emeritus has 'reached out to touch' every community development project.

I have had the pleasure of waving bye-bye to a handcuffed Hal in the back of a 6th District Chicago Police squad car, when he and the Englewood Task Force tried to shake down Leo High School.

Lord knows the trouble I've seen!

Activist arrested at school protest
September 02, 2004 

Community activist and former gang member Hal Baskin was arrested for allegedly shoving a police officer Wednesday during a protest outside Leo High School on the South Side, authorities said.
Baskin, who has run for alderman several times and was once an associate of convicted Gangster Disciples kingpin Larry Hoover, was charged with misdemeanor battery, mob action and obstruction in the incident shortly before noon near the Catholic school at 7901 S. Sangamon St., police said. 

Two patrol officers confronted Baskin and several others after they saw a group of people with signs step off the sidewalk and obstruct traffic on 79th Street, Chicago police spokesman David Bayless said.

Baskin, released from custody at Gresham District police headquarters about 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, said the protest was a peaceful appeal to the school to hire two neighborhood men for a construction project. He denied shoving the officer and said the group was on the sidewalk but was forced onto the street at times by police.
"Common sense would tell you that I've been doing this for 25 years. I know not to lay hands on a police officer," he said. "Why would I do something idiotic like that?"
Police alleged that when the officers asked the group to get out of the street, Baskin responded by shoving an officer. Three others also were arrested. Attempts to reach school officials were unsuccessful.  Chicago Tribune

Not really, we said plenty and none of it printable, this a few years before Corporatist Mayor Daley and his boy Rahm pulled all of the teeth out CPD.  Imagine cops putting the bracelets on Elder Hal today?

Well, just because Hal Baskin tried to pry open construction wallets universal in Englewood for more than thirty years, does not necessarily mean that he still has his huge mitts dug deeply into the britches of two of the country's most culturally powerful brands.  We won't know that, because the newspapers will never tell.

Bruce Dold is now editor of Chicago Tribune and he takes orders from City Hall and the most culturally powerful brands (Disney, Starbucks, Whole Foods, Audi et al) and you, the consumer, pay the prices and the get to feel good in knowing that you have stopped the laws of physics (speeding bullets) and the thug impulses in Englewood - home to some great people and some really nasty thugs.

Our society buys into nonsense when nonsense is the only thing being offered.

Some do well in such a society ( an Oligarchy) and most try to survive.

Nice one, Bruce.

* Corporatism, also known as corporativism, is the sociopolitical organization of a society by major interest groups, or corporate groups, such as agricultural, business, ethnic, labour, military, patronage, or scientific affiliations, on the basis of common interests.

Closing Neighborhood Schools, Like Daley Closed Neighborhood Saloons, Is Part of the Small Global City Plan

19th Ward parents packed the Beverly Arts Center to help find a solution to CPS' problems.

Richard M. Daley closed more saloons than Billy Sunday, Frances Willard and Carie Nation combined.

Daley closed neighborhood bars and used 'public safety' as an excuse.  He gamed the ordinances that would permanently void a liquor license, citing residential complaints, noise and public urination. Fights happen in bars to be sure.  But they also happen anywhere. There are more brawls in Walmart than saloons and Chuck-e - Cheese is the place to go for a swell brawl. Daley closed taverns so people would no longer have a place talk sense over a pitcher, or two.

Rahm Emanuel is closing neighborhood schools to kill neighborhoods.  CPS has been ignoring 'residency' rules for decades.  Kids from Austin attend Morgan Park High School, no biggie.

Well when CPS closes neighborhood schools within cross-over Disciple/Gangster Disciple/ Stones/ Four Corner Hustler turf in Gresham, Brainerd, Chatham, Washington Heights, & etc., there are problems a plenty.  A grammar school aged kid living in an apartment in a two flat on 7900 S. Morgan may have to cross four gang turfs to one of the five ( Oglesby, Stagg, Wescott, Cuffee, or Gresham).

Now, there is a growing concern of parents in the 19th Ward about CPS closing and consolidating neighborhood schools that work the way schools are supposed to work.

Rahm Emanuel's City Hall and Forrest Claypool's CPS dictum is the same - if it works and not fixed break it.
 Parents and teachers say this -

Stop the closing of neighborhood schools. It may not be happening in your area now, but you never know when it's coming. We were blindsided by a proposal to close a high performing neighborhood school to relieve overcrowding at another. Let's make sure ALL students get the space they need, while not sacrificing our neighborhood schools! 19th Ward News

The 19th Ward is one of very places in this city where black and white neighbors get along very well and behave like neighbors to one another.  No rules, or ordinances; just civility and Christian charity.

Can't have that in a Global City!

Here's the thing - Mount Greenwood School has a capacity for 990 kids and it is at over 1,100 kids.

There is no undeveloped earth upon which to expand the campus. It is over-populated - way past filled up.

Alderman Matt O'Shea offers this solution in Howard Ludwig's solid report for DNAinfo Chicago:

O'Shea said there is no more room to build at Mount Greenwood Elementary, which can accommodate 990 students. That's why he's proposing the school take over the campus of the Keller Regional Gifted Center, which is just 3½ blocks away at 3020 W. 108th St.
Keller would be moved to 9241 S. Leavitt St., now the home of Kate S. Kellogg Elementary School. O'Shea has said that Kellogg and nearby Sutherland elementary school in Beverly have seen declining enrollment by neighborhood residents in recent years. So O'Shea wants to merge the two schools on Sutherland's campus at 10015 S. Leavitt St.

The merger would be phased in over roughly three years. O'Shea said he believes Sutherland, built to accommodate 504-756 students, can handle the merger, particularly as enrollment is projected to continue to decline.

I don't know where these projections come from but I can tell you that my daily polling of little guys, toddlers, infants and  moms large-with-child from my wide neighborhood perambulations, indicate that 19th Ward neighborhood schools will continue to swell like a thirsty tick for good decade or more.  School crowding should be a happy concern, but this is Rahm's Chicago, where neighborhood means racism and community means 'it's all good!'

The charge of racism is answer to every problem.  Because Kellogg is 83 % African American and suffers a declining enrollment, while its immediate neighbor Christ the King Catholic School is majority and doing nicely, racism must be at the core.  The Chicago Tribune launched into race-baiting immediately.

Ald. Matt O'Shea, whose plan to reconfigure schools within the 19th Ward has drawn criticism from some residents, took a different tack when explaining the controversial proposal Monday — presenting it as crucial to freeing up money to renovate crumbling Esmond Elementary, a nearly all-black, low-income school in Morgan Park that he called "the greatest need in our community."
He opened the evening's presentation of his plan to relocate or consolidate four elementary schools in his district by rolling out staff from Esmond, which is not part of the restructuring plan, to detail the substandard conditions at their building and plead for help. . . .Community members expressed alarm that the plan — which seeks to merge two high-performing majority black schools in Beverly to accommodate a predominantly white school in Mount Greenwood — had concerning racial overtones.

"I can tell you our community, yet diverse, is also very segregated," Shanya Gray, a Kellogg parent, said. "One of the things that it truly appears is that you are sacrificing black students because of the white students, which may not be the case, but I will tell you it appears that way."

Parents also argued that the racial and economic diversity of a merged school would suffer since, under O'Shea's plan, the Options for Knowledge program, which currently enables non-neighborhood kids from more impoverished areas to attend either Kellogg or Sutherland, would be discontinued.

Lindbloom was a neighborhood high school; it is now a 'selective enrollment' high school for the children of privilege.  Try getting your kid into Lindbloom and good luck.  CPS works for the Magnets and selective enrollment academies and lab schools.  Neighborhood schools can go pound sand, until they close.

Like Daley with saloons, Rahm's destruction of neighborhoods cuts brush for  Chicago -A Global City.  Empty of middle class.

As things stand, Alderman O'Shea and parents of the schools want to see a fair and intelligent solution to overcrowded schools in Mount Greenwood and schools with declining enrollments a few miles to the east.  Bad schools, closed schools and no schools help destroy neighborhoods for the community.  The community of bankers, real restate players and race hustling creeps also want a Global City   The people of the 19th Ward neighborhoods want to do right by their children. But, this is Chicago and Rahm wants Chicago on the fast track to Small City Global Village on the Lake.  Real Estate, banking and race-baiting creeps will do all in their to help the little man get what he wants.

President Skips 2016 Water Hazzard - America the Emerging Nation

\

Afternoon at the Beach and Dinner Date in Edgartown
8 hours 42 sec ago
The Obama family headed to the beach on Saturday, their final full day of their Vineyard vacation.
The family arrived at a beach off Pohogonot Road in Edgartown around 1:30 p.m. After spending the afternoon at the south shore beach with friends, the First Family departed at about 5:30 p.m.
Later in the evening the President and First Lady went back to Edgartown for dinner at Chesca's on North Water street. The sidewalk outside Chesca's was blocked off with yellow tape, and the summer crowd lined the street.
Chesca's, a restaurant "marrying gourmet and comfort food on Martha's Vineyard," is owned by chefs Jo Maxwell and David Joyce. According to a meal ticket the restaurant posted on Facebook, the President's party ordered spinach salad, braised beef shortribs, and pappardelle bolognese, and creme caramel for dessert.
The couple arrived at 7:45 p.m and departed at 9:28 p.m. to head home for one last night in Chilmark.

DENHAM SPRINGS  — After floods devastated pockets of south Louisiana, mental scars are already showing on the youngest victims of a disaster that prompted more than 30,000 rescues and left an estimated 40,000 homes damaged.
Children who endured harrowing rescues are returning home to a jarring landscape that even their parents can scarcely grasp: Homes filled with ruined possessions must be quickly gutted. Damaged schools and daycare centers are closed indefinitely. Parents juggling jobs and cleanup work must also line up caretakers for their kids.

Hey, I ain't judging; I'm just saying.   I have 1st World Problems, generally of my own creation.  Yesterday. it rained like a cow peeing on a flat rock and my basement took on water, like a Nazi sub in them black and white movies.  If a neighbor's pooch cocks his leg on one of my three parkway trees, I get 'some moisture,' as the real estate agents say. So I shop Vac'd most of the afternoon and night - no big deal.

I did not toss my fists heavenward and scream, " What kind of a God would do this.?"  I am pretty centered.  I don't take Public Radio, or television seriously at all.  I don't give a hoot to listen to hours and hours of sap about emerging nations.  Ask the Olympic Committee how all of that gushy bullshite about host cities being from emerging nations.  Ask NBC about Rio?   Ask that Turkeybird Ticket Scalper Pat Hickey about the accommodations in Rio's Iron Hotel.  NPR - when a nation emerges, get back to me.

Baton Rouge, Denham Springs and Martha's Vineyard are all in a fully emerged nation that is President-ed by a South Side with You guy who wants this emerged nation to become an emerging nation - to sort of equal things out,

In an emerging nation, the Jefe, Generalismo, or Dear Leader never visits suffering people.  Emerging Nations tend to be run by war-lords and when all of the blood settles, oligarchs.  Dear Leaders do not jet down to famine relief stations, they have Khat, Coco , or betel leaf chawers armed with AK-47s and big Toyota Flat beds with heavy machine guns to do that.  Oligarchs go to hot spots, casinos, springs and The Emerson, or Graystone in L.A. to unwind.

President Obama is taking much needed vacation-time in Martha's Vineyard. Can't fault any family man for that.  Me?  I'd rather go up to New Glarus, Wisconsin.  At least he's not dragging the wife and kids around Civil War battlefields.

Hey, he plays golf; so what.  I read, or watch Maverick re-runs, or go out for a great meal with a gorgeous woman, or catch some live jazz.  Whatever floats your boat.

However, if yesterday's down-pour produced crashing waves along my window sills, I know that my Alderman Matt O'Shea ( D-19th Ward) would be in a row boat outside of my picture window.  Were he on vacation in Sisters Lakes,MI, Delavan, WI, or Flint Lake, IN ( the Irish Rivieras)Matt O'Shea would drive back to his Ward an personally see to it that the elderly, kids and the more delicate of souls were safe.

He would, and has in times of danger, personally put himself out on the line and direct the more robust of heart in salvage and rescue efforts behind the First Responders ( cops, fire fighters and EMTs) already on the job.

You see Matt O'Shea, belongs to the same political party as the President, but not of the same Progressive mindset.

President Obama is exiting the job in January.

In November, America will decide if it is becoming an emerging nation.   If it is, Matt O'Shea will have no business being Alderman of the 19th Ward.

My Neighbors Will School Ag School Vandals

I was publicly shamed when I was about eight years old.  My buddies and I recently watched Jerry Lewis in The Bell Boy at the old Highland Theatre on 79th & Ashland.



We were delighted by Jerry Lewis' antics and  mimiced his facial contortions and spasmodic contortions on our walk home to 75th Place and Wood Street, where we sat on a horseshoe of painted boulders under the street sign and continued to pantomime spastic reactions to everything.  Mrs. McGuinness and her five year old boy Robbie walked behind us on their way home from the Hamilton Dairy store at 75th & Paulina. Robbie had Downs Syndrome.

We began to mock Robbie in the manner of the comic genius so beloved by France.

We followed Mrs,McGuiness who was openly crying, but we could care less - Hell, Jerry Lewis is a movie star. What's her problem.

Mr. Balllina and Mrs. Ballina yelled from their porch, " You little bastards, stop that! Who do you think you are scaring the poor little guy and making his Momma cry."  The Ballinas were older than our parents and childless.  Mr. Ballina worked for the Bell Phone Company and his green truck was often parked in front of our house.  He was a short wiry little guy with arms like Popeye.  He was no where near finished with me and my pals.

Phil and Marie Ballina's corrections had alerted all of our Mom's and we were now about to sail up Shit Creek.

Slaps attendant and exile to our rooms, basements or porches, depending up the level of disgust our mothers had for us, were as nothing to the ticking of seven kitchen clocks up Wood Street and across 75th Place signaled the impending arrivals of Dads.

When Dads came home from shifts, we were properly re-beaten, belted, slapped and vilified according to sizes and ages, but that was not all - No, not by a jug full.

Each Dad shoved each son to McGuiness home up tyhe porch stairs and we each apologized to Robbie, who hugged each of us and said, "Thas Oh Ride Pad, Yus My Bes Frens!"

I learned shame.  The shame of this act of my is still very much with me. I learned not to do cruel things to people at a very early age, or at least I learned what cruelty really means.

We pulled weeds and did sic and fetch for Mrs. McGuinesses for a few days after and not one of us could look one another in the face again without a sense of group shame.

Boys will be boys, until they learn to be gentle men.  Girls can be even more brutal, but they not generally thoughtless.

As we got older we learned and believed that toughness had more to do with be able to take punishment, than dishing it out.

A few days ago some teens in my neighborhood broke into the Chicago Ag High School.  A wonderful woman shared the news of this on Facebook

This was shared with me today. It happened yesterday 6/23/16.

At the Ag School last night someone broke in and harassed all of the animals, tied the mother goat up with a rope, threw eggs at the baby goats, and tied all the chickens legs together. A Police report has been filed. Empty egg cartons were found on the scene. If anyone knows anything about this please contact the 22nd district. Might be a good time to have a conversation with kids about harming animals as local kids are usually seen drinking out in the field behind the school.

The reaction to this universal neighborhood shame and the comments ranged from " arrest the bastards' to " Boys will be Boys,"

On my walks to morning services, last week which takes from 107th & Rockwell, across the CSX rails to Talman Steet, which is a beautiful walk with no two homes alike and varied in design and size.  Last week I saw egg shells all over the sidewalks between 106th Street and 103rd Street on the west side of Talman.

I have had my raised ranch egged by teens in passing cars.  It is a pain to clean dripping yolks and whites off of bricks and windows, but what the hell.

Damage to property is a step toward thuggery.  The next step is cruelty to living things - small animals. Then, it is human beings.

We get our moral shorts in knot when we read about cats being napalmed and dogs used for target practise.

Then we really get to marching and vigil-ing when people get murdered.  Cruelty is easy.

I grew up at time when consequences were important thanks be to God.  The parents today not only must teach their children well, even within a culture that ignores consequences universal.

My neighbors arrested our development into nasty, vicious little bastards, for the most part, back in 1960.

I am angry that kids in my neighborhood would pelt baby goats with eggs and tie up the poor mother, but understand their acting out needs a swift address, by parents and neighbors.

Tying the chickens together?  Awesome!  No. that is wrong too, but I could still get behind that. Chickens are nasty critters. Better angels, you recalcitrant nave!

Seriously, I know my neighbors will get to these kids.

Once we understand cruelty - we will never watch, much less laugh about another Jerry Lewis movie.

Sit-in By Cynical Slobs - Sorry; Save for CSPAN Saps.

I am a Democrat.  Still vote that way - largely. I love my Alderman,Matt O'Shea of the 19th Ward, because he is a genuine representative of the people he represents.  I will not vote for a Congressman, State Senator,or State Rep who takes coin from the Abortion Industry, Planned Parenthood, or Personal PAC Illinois - sorry.  I am not a gun owner, never was and never will own one - not because I believe that guns kill people.  Guns can be used to kill people.  People kill with any means they find handy.

I do know that Planned Parenthood kills more people than the NRA.

I have buried far too many young African Americans ( 9 by my count) in the last twenty years.  Not one happened to be gang-banger.  Twice that number have been wounded and one splendid young man will be in a wheelchair for life.

I have had several close calls as well.  The first time in 1998, a bullet whispered past my left ear and then two more, before I hit the pavement at 79th Street and Sangamon.  I called my Dad, who was a WWII veteran of Bougainville, Guam and Iwo Jima and described the very distinct sound of the rounds. " Did fill your Union Suit?" was his response.  No, I answered.  " You will the next time."

He was right.  I learned to fall with my broad manly rump facing the shooter, so as not to take one in the head.  Strange things one learns in one's middle age.

I was not a target; I was in the way.  The students I mentioned above were targets, but they were no fortunate. Eric Ersery was murdered in 1998 at 79th & Laflin, trying to protect a young girl. Eric's mother had paid the last installment of his tuition that April day.  Eric went to classes and then on to work at Burlington Coat Factory at 81st & Cicero.  When he got off the 79th Street bus, Eric walked over to talk to the girl he knew.  Gangbangers mistook the girl for relative ( CPD Area 2 Detectives later explained) who had run afoul of them and they emerged from the gangway 9's a popping.  Eric covered the girl and his bullet peppered body was found over the girl, who also died.

I don't hate guns.  I don't hate inanimate objects.  I hate the acts of people too stupid and too thuggish to consider the consequences of their wants.

I hate bullying. I hate violence,  I hate stupidity.  Most of the mugs in the photo attached above from my experience with them (Schakowsky, Quigley, Duckworth, Davis) as people who impressed me to be very stupid bullies.  Violent? Beats me.

I do not like meaningless gestures, nicely phrased appeals to our better angels; especially from people who care only their position, power and pleasure - preachers, pundits and politicians, for example.

Aside from Robin Kelly (whom I have never met) , the people of the Illinois Congressional Delegation are some of the most obnoxious, smarmy, dim-witted, opportunistic and puffed up bullies, it has been my sad experience to suffocate some of my time earth in their company.

To say that this group of self-serving snobs and simpering bootlickers is in any way shape or fashion sincere, beggars logic and sentiment.

Their rumps kissing the floor of the Nation's Capitol insult the victims of thuggery world wide.

Guns do not kill people and more than pencils fail exams.

People who pretend otherwise are sitting on the floors of Congress.

You Won't Ever See Rahm Emanuel Helping Out A Neighbor -Ald. Matt O' Shea Will Pump Gas and Clean Windshields at Kean Gas

19th Ward Aldermann Matt O'Shea -Doing; Not Talking = Facta Non Verba and likes his neighbors, because he is one.

"Rather than doing the kind of fact-checking that normally goes with a story, you ran with certain stories for not wanting to get beat. There's a pressure that exists in your profession. I would be surprised in any honest exchange that you say that doesn't exist."   Rahm Emanuel
“To learn real human nature you have to go among the people, see them and be seen. I know every man, woman, and child in the Fifteenth District, except them that's been born this summer and I know some of them, too. I know what they like and what they don't like, what they are strong at and what they are weak in, and I reach them by approachin' at the right side.” George Washington Plunkitt

Last Friday at around 3 PM, the Morgan Park Temple of 'Didn't See You at Mass on Sunday. Hickey' - Kean Gas at 111th & Talman was robbed.  The neighbors wondered why no news of robbery had been enough to nterest the Chicago media in doing a clause, or two.  Many said, " Rahm's up for the vote this month and 'don't you know' crime is way down and we have way too many cops on the job?"

Cynical, but well earned; especially these days, when Chicago is run by a Hollywood-dollar fueled misanthrope with 9.5 fingers and zero capacity for neighborhoods.

Our alderman responded as he always does, by going in up to his elbows.

As many of you may know, Kean Brothers' Gas Station, 2632 W. 111th Street, was the victim of an armed robbery last week. The Kean family has operated a business in our community for more than 70 years, supporting countless charitable, civic and parish causes along the way. I am asking that we rally in support of them by visiting the station tomorrow, Wednesday, February 4th to fill up your tank or purchase a few things inside the station. Kean is open from 5:30 am - 10:00 pm. I will be there pumping gas between 3:00 - 6:00 pm, I hope to see you there. Matt O'Shea

Matt is only one of 50 City Council officers, called alderman by real Chicagoans, and the only one who actually works, sleeps and plays with his neighbors.   I catch Matt O'Shea at it all the time - My brother picked me up from surgery on Monday ( SnowMaggedon '15), we took 95th Street east from Christ Hospital to Westen Ave. and Western Ave south - past 103rd the Bro says, " Who's that guy digging the Old Bat ( elderly woman) out of the drift?"  Digging furiously and cheerfully mear the old KODA and the 19th Ward office was . . . .

Ald. Matt OShea -the anti-Rahm.