Chris Zorich and The Angel

Chris Zorich in less ugly times . . . for him.

Chris Zorich's lawyer noted that the ND Hall of Famer, NFL Star of 1990's Chicago Bears. 'Must Have' Charity Draw and Urban Prep Board Director is more than flat-broke.

Chris Zorich — the former Chicago Bears star whose tax problems landed him in federal court — is broke, his attorneys said Wednesday.
Zorich, 44, has a net worth of $302,000, but owes $348,000 in a case the Illinois attorney general brought over the questionable finances of his charity — and likely more than $90,000 more in IRS interest and penalties, his lawyers said in a court filing.

The comments about this great hearted and obviously very trusting young man are about as mean-spirited and thoughtless as one can expect from unhappy people.  They read about the serial killing New England Patriot and the other twenty seven felony raps garnered by NFL this post season and mold the identical pecksniffing meme.

All of this ugly information makes people, with nothing much else to do, want to sleep-out on sidewalk until the Federal courtroom opens on July 12th when Chris Zorich is sentenced for misdemeanor tax-evasion.  The Angel whom Zorich helped is invisible, because the Chicago media only looks at what it is told to look at and goes stone-cold blind on command.

Who served on the board of directors for the Christopher Zorich Foundation?

I think that Chris Zorich had a job done on him, because a protected angel took advantage of his good nature, but that's just me.

I remember Chris Zorich when Lou Holtz commanded Notre Dame football.  Lou Holtz did not use athletes, he educated them.  Chris Zorich was a powerful athlete with a puny CPS education K-12.  Had Chris Zorich been a lither, nimbler and much taller athlete he would have had an outstanding career at Simeon and University of Miami and with NBA. He played football.

Lou Holtz ensured that his players were tutored, if they were deficient.  Chris Zorich was tutored, by an ex-Navy officer and PhD candidate in English literature.  Chris Zorich graduated with a degree from University of Notre Dame - that still means something even in our idiotic gladiator culture of sports.

Chris Zorich was not a Mongo, nor was he a Gary Fencik.   He was a gentleman-athlete who behaved like a gentleman.  He was not arrested on gun charges, or for beating women in Clubs on Lake Street.   Chris Zorich had no diamonds in his teeth to go with a recreational drug and vodka habit.  Evidently Chris Zorich managed to leave the violence on the field on any given Sunday and avoided larceny seven days a week. He made a pretty good buck as a pro.  Chris Zorich's football injuries ended his pro career. He took care of his Mom and created Christopher Zorich Foundation. 

With his NFL salary and benefits Zorich seemed to try and do some good for other people.  When  any one tries to do that, the grifters, creeps and frauds crawl out of the societal and social woodwork.

Chris Zorich, like many other pro athletes, wanted to do some good for poor kids and philanthropy always produces charity lamprey eels. They are always media protected and affiliated hipsters who always seem to have powerful political friends of family.

I noticed, at the turn of this century, that Chris Zorich had become associated with a guy who had run the finances of Hales Franciscan Prep into the ground  in five short years, but managed to avoid any public inquiry concerning his mismangement. Oprah called the guy 'an angel.'

Well this Old Divil got up in the Angel's Grill, as the lads at Leo are wont to say.

In 1996, I was asked to attend a meeting of Catholic high schools that serve the inner city to discuss a strategy for sustained support, hosted by Oprah's little angel himself at Hales.  The stategy was this -" Share your data base with us."  There thoughtful nods, and murmurs of ascent from my colleagues.  I looked and Pete Doyle, Leo Principal' for the go ahead nod and offered, " Are YOU out of your @#$%ing Mind? ( GASPS ALL AROUND!!!)  Leo gives its Alumni list to no one. Not only is that just stupid, but complete abrogation of fund-raising principles."

Waxing full Franklin with a direct quote The Angel cried " If we do not hang together, we will all hang separately!"I laughed, " Hang and be damned! Let's blow, Pete."  And blow we did.   Hales suffered the Angel's lifestyle and legacy to Hales finances only because of the heroic efforts of Talk Show host Jenny Jones, the late Don Hubert and especially The Big Shoulders Fund. The Angel flew off before the rope could be made available with announcement of his 'retirement' on WBEZ. In 2000 Hales Franciscan with The Angel's flight to greener clouds, was in the hole . . . .a very deep hole. Everyone agreed that the Catholic high school for African American boys was under water, but no media questioned just how the ship was scuttled.

The Angel even took Hale's colors, dress code and student handbook with him, but no blame for its perilous condition. Hang separate!

That financial jackpot became an urban mystery.  Jenny Jones helped Hales.

Who's Jenny Jones?  Chicago Trib:  "Talk show host Jenny Jones continues her quest to keep Hales Franciscan High School . Jones has donated another $125,000 to the school."

The Angel attached himself to the Charter School Movement and Chris Zorich. Zorich coached football for The Angel, hosted poker tournaments with D-List celebrities like Richard Roeper and golf tournaments that attract celebrity wannabees and photo dopes. Kewel!Made some money. An anonymous gift that was to be matched up to the amount of $1M pops up all the time in annual reports. I wonder who that might be, or have been, but that is a matter fiduciary confidence. We won't know and none will wonder.

A foundation is tough to manage - especially with every mission competing with every grift in its proximity.  With an Angel whispering in the ear of a trusting soul it gets even tougher - even Federally tougher.

I'm no angel, but I suspect that Chris Zorich's foundation problems just might have a lot to do with the Angel in his wallet. That particular Angel will disappear and scrub his association with Chris Zorich as much as he did with Hales, in my simple man's opinion.

The Angel will be fine because no one looks at him.  Chris Zorich will be sentenced on July 12th and that is sad.  Chris Zorich will remain a good, trusting man.

The Media Never Even Got Close to The Pitch -Cardinal George Smokes It Past Them

Francis Cardinal George has more hop on the ball than Jake Peavy, at least these last few hours anyway. Kansas City went over the Sox 5-2 and Peavy took the loss hard.

Cardinal George fanned every "news" outlet in Chicago, again.   Louis Farrakhan gets more favorable treatment and coverage from our Chicago Values Media than Cardinal George.  Is the Medill Empire basically anti-Semitic ?

Hey, I heard from a guy very close to Senate Leader Harry Reid that Chicago Tribune Editor Bruce Dold has been given to wearing bow ties, lately . . . just sayin'!

Cardinal George, the Archbishop of the Chicago, a Catholic guy, wrote a wonderfully articulate reposte to Mayor Chicago Values over his remarks concerning Chick fil A River North and elsewhere.  Every paper ignored the Cardinal's teaching document.

When Chicagoans noticed the Cardinal's words without any help from Manya Brachear ( Trib), or Carol Marin (Cosmic Local), the  Fruit of Islam Chicago Tribune Editorial Board Minister Brutha Dold offered up a Chicken . . . Chick fil A . . .acknowledgment.  Nothing Dold-idian Less than  " Cardinal enters Chick-fil-A fray!" The Media went all Chick fil A on Bruce Dold's say - Google it your own bad self! Every news out outlet went all chicken . . . .

http://www.archchicago.org/blog/comments.aspx?postID=276

Here is a link above to the Cardinal's original response to our public yahoos in office - no chick, chicken, egg, poultry, feathers  . . .& etc.

I don't believe I recall seeing the words Chick, Fil, A, or Chicken anywhere in Cardinal George's response to Ald. Proco-Joe Moreno and Mayor Coon Eyes Emanuel Mussolini Improve.  It take a DOLD to build this village of the blind.  The Chicago Tribune has had its bat on its shoulder since Dave Axelrod pow-wowed about a Barack Obama White House.

Cardinal George is no Louis Farrakhan afterall.

Here is Cardinal George's fireball follow-up!

Tuesday, August 7, 2012
Chicago Values, Revisited: it’s not about chicken!

Responses to my reflections last week on “Chicago values” fell into two camps. There were almost universal plaudits for recognizing that the government should be concerned about actions and not about thoughts and values. The media, of course, are in this camp, because they are concerned about the free speech that is at the heart of their profession.

More complicated, on the other hand, was the reaction to the “value” that was the case in point: same-sex “marriage.” Some who are comfortably in the first camp deserted the field of argument on gay marriage. An argument is always made in a context that determines what can be considered sensible, and it seems to me that some of us are arguing out of different contexts.
There are three contexts for discussing “gay marriage”: 1) the arena of individual rights and their protection in civil law, 2) the field of activities defined by nature and its laws, and 3) the realm of faith as a response to God’s self-revelation in history. Unfortunately, when the only permissible context for discussing public values is that of individual rights protected by civil law, then it is the government alone that determines how it is acceptable to act. Every public actor (including faith communities) then becomes the government’s agent. This is a formula for tyranny.
We can see how appeals to pluralism and toleration gradually become tyrannical in the development of how we are now expected to regard the killing of unborn children. When the individual civil right to abort a living child was discovered in the Constitution, its justification began as a “necessary evil” for the sake of a woman’s health; it was then applauded in nobler terms as a positive symbol of a woman’s freedom; it is now part of the value system of our society and everyone must be involved in paying for it, either through taxes or insurance. It is mainstream medicine and settled social policy. Its opponents are relegated to a quirky fringe, outside of the American consensus not only on what it is legal to do but also on what it is good to support. When the government, the media and the entertainment industries agree to agree on how to use words and shape the argument, society itself is deliberately transformed in ways that bring academics, judges, legislators, lawyers, law enforcement officers, newspaper editors, actors, psychiatrists, doctors and every other public professional into public agreement, all portraying themselves as original thinkers. Anyone opposed to the new consensus, no matter the reason, is dismissed as a throwback to an earlier age, to be tolerated, perhaps, but removed from public life and, eventually, punished. It’s a very old story.

Getting people to think outside the context of “civil rights” is difficult. It’s as if Americans were forbidden to think beyond politics. What is singularly peculiar about the “gay marriage” argument is the way its proponents dismiss the field of nature itself as in any way normative for human actions. We would think it odd if the government, in order to please those who desire to fly without an airplane, were to repeal the law of gravity. If nature gets in the way of a new civil right to “gay marriage,” however, that’s too bad for nature. This strikes me as bizarre.
Entering into the context of faith, the believer looks to how God has intervened in history through the calling of the Jewish people to a particular vocation, through inspiring the Hebrew prophets, by the incarnation of the eternal Son of God in Jesus of Nazareth, and the founding of the Church that speaks in Jesus’ name until he returns in glory. The God who created order in nature also reveals his plan for us in history; and the religious teaching on the nature of marriage is eminently clear. Those who dismiss any religiously based argument as simply private and therefore not publicly normative are at least consistent with the secularism that makes protection of individual “civil rights” entirely determinative of public life.
What is puzzling is the case of those who, while claiming to be believers, ignore the history of salvation and reduce God to a cosmic wimp who smiles and blesses whatever comes down the track, as if God were without intelligence or the ability to discern right from wrong. Jesus is certainly “inclusive” as the savior of the whole world who invites all to follow him. But Jesus calls us to convert to his ways, which are not ours. Among the sayings of Jesus, there are about as many that start “Woe to you…” as there are those that begin “Blessed are they…” A Jesus reduced to our wishful thinking is useless.
What remains a Gospel imperative, of course, is a respectful and loving concern for those who identify themselves as gay or lesbian, including them in the community of faith and accompanying them in their quest for holiness of life. The Archdiocese attempts this response, in part, through AGLO and Courage groups.
Thanks to all who responded to last week’s blog; apologies to anyone who feels unfairly judged. I’ve tried to keep it at the level of ideas and social trends that seem to me to be dangerous to us all, Chicagoans or others.
Francis Cardinal George, OMI (emphases my own)

 You broke the clock gun there, Cardinal! They never even heard it coming, let alone saw it whiz by, Your Eminence!


https://www.google.com/search?q=google+search&rls=com.microsoft:en-us:IE-SearchBox&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=ie7&rlz=1I7GGIH_enUS268#q=Cardinal+George+and+Chick+Fil+A&hl=en&tbo=1&rls=com.microsoft:en-us:IE-SearchBox&rlz=1I7GGIH_enUS268&output=search&source=lnt&tbs=qdr:w&sa=X&psj=1&ei=RGUiUKDTDsnxygGY3YAo&ved=0CAYQpwUoAw&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_cp.r_qf.&fp=416d567912eb08ea&biw=1007&bih=613
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-08-02/news/ct-met-cardinal-george-chick-fill-a-0802-20120802_1_gay-marriage-chicago-values-chicago-cardinal-francis-george

News Black Out in Chicago - Catholic Bishops Make Huge Statement on Obama Choice Mandate and No Coverage

President Obama,Our Secular Science President, loads up and aims more than marshmallows at Fish Eaters.

Yesterday, the Chicago news media avoiding mentioning the powerful statement on Obama's Health and Human Services Mandate. Cardinal George wrote this:

Our parents and grandparents did not come to these shores to help build America’s cities and towns, its infrastructure and institutions, its enterprise and culture, only to have their posterity stripped of their God given rights. All that has been built up over so many years in our Catholic institutions should not be taken away by the stroke of an administrator’s pen. This order reduces the Church to a private club, destroying her public mission in society. In generations past, the Church has always been able to count on the faithful to stand up and protect her sacred rights and duties. I hope and trust she can count on this generation of Catholics to do the same.

(click my post title for the text in full)

The Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun Times have much invested in Obama 2012, as in 2008. Barack Obama is a Chicago resident and has and continues to enjoy the full partnership of the Progressive Machine that helped him dance on the lily pads to the White House - State Senate of Illinois after an ignominious defeat for Congress at the hands of Bobby Rush, the media driven character assassinations of competition ( Democrat Blair Hull and Republican Jack Ryan), GOP's Judy Barr Topinka's deft selection of Amb. Alan Keyes as a general election opponent, elevation to the United State Senate, the stem winder in Boston 2004 at the DNC and tingle in Chris Matthews' leg 2008-Present.

Only John Kass, Steve Huntley and Dennis Byrne have criticized President Obama - rather they have refused to ignore his very obvious short-comings.

The HHS Obama Choice Mandate, crafted by Planned Parenthood and others, has awakened a sense that President Obama represents folks with absolutely no tolerance for Catholics.

Chicago is the most Catholic of American cities. . .no really.

John Powers of Chicago Daily Observer, for whom I occasionally offer my prose, lit into our supine media.

So how did the Chicago incumbent media react?

Op-eds from Dennis Byrne and Steve Huntley, both are against the intrusive HHS ruling and the denial of religious liberty. Yet, both columns look to be written before the Catholic Bishops letter was published by the Archdiocese of Chicago.

No mention in the Sun-Times; No mention in the Chicago Tribune; No mention on WLS-7 or any other media outlet, as far as I can search. As Peggy Noonan says, this may be the issue that gets President Obama defeated this fall, but the incumbent Chicago Media has chosen to stifle the opposition to the incumbent President on this one.

Anyone surprised?

I am sure many are surprised. That is the pity of it all.

Governor Terry Cosgrove, Quinn Appointee and PAC Boss, Controls the Narrative and Cardinal George Takes Another Beating

Cardinal George and the Bishops of Illinois walked right into a PR buzz-saw again.

The men of the cloth were doing their job. For decades, politicians who have weaseled their way into office with mountains of cash and 'in-king' help from Advocacy Empires - Planned Parenthood, LGBTQ Rainbows, High Speed Rail Enthusiasts, Green Commandos and any other Progressive sanctioned cause. The Catholic Church hierarchy like Catholics themselves shrugged and gave a 'No Biggie' blind eye to the divorce from First Principles.

Within the narrative mantle of the Jesus Christ Superstar theology espoused by theological less-lights, the Progressive agenda grabbed armfuls of Quinns, Daleys, Quigleys and other Democratic elected officials who needed to step away from the Ward Image and get a {progressive blow-dried, gelled and spangled make over as Caring Christians.

The Caring Christians gave us our legislative purgatory - Abortion on demand and paid for, free condoms at schools, even Catholic schools that were converted as Charter Schools, the gate-way to Gay Marriage - The Illinois Religious Freedom Protection and Civil Union Act, which immediately mad war on Catholic Charities.

Now, that the pig is out of the pen the Catholic Bishops of Illinois are trying to keep the Progressive Piggies from going feral.

Last week, The Illinois Bishops behind Cardinal George blasted Pat Quinn for appearing at an event sponsored by Terry Cosgrove's Personal PAC a political cash cow of Illinois Planned Parenthood. Terry Cosgrove blessed Alexi Giannoulias when the young Greek banking scion decided to test the political waters. That was my first introduction to Terry Cosgrove.

When Blagojevich's Lt. Governor stepped in as Governor and served out his term, Terry Cosgrove kept the Progressive Machine oiled and ready. Pat Quinn would be Terry Cosgrove's guy and he surely is that and change.

Quinn played Union Crusader, while Terry Cosrove deconstructed GOP candidate Bill Brady.

Quinn immediately rewarded Terry Cosgrove with a key appointment and took his marching orders from the pan-Advocacy Czar. Civil Unions was the only union that Quinn took care of in Illinois. Quinn killed the Death Penalty and pardoned scores of miscreants. He's a Christian; Hallelujah!

The Illinois economy is a joke, but the Advocacy Issues are the only things being tended to, while business as usual loots tax-payers.

Terry Cosgrove is the Governor of Illinois in all but name.

When the Catholic Bishops of Illinois criticized the self-proclaimed Catholic Quinn for appearing on stage with Personal PAC - which is all about Abortion - Terry Quinn . . .Cosgrove, I know ( Terry Quinn is a famous comedian and Pat Quinn is an Illinois Joke) turned on the media buzz saw.

The Chicago Sun Times, immediately trotted out the woman, unnamed in the Bishops' statement as our Victime de la semaine, Father Carol Marin
preached a sermon again about Compassion, and this morning the Capitol Fax Blog of Rich Miller set Cosgrove's table. Miller is an information outlet for politicos and journalists who depends upon the good will of Democratic pols and PACS.

Miller castigates the Cardinal's spokesman -

Director Gilligan has been very aggressive with his attacks on Gov. Quinn. I doubt they’ll subside, but perhaps Gilligan will be more precise in the future. He obviously didn’t give the Cardinal and others the full story before they unloaded both barrels on Gov. Quinn last week. Perhaps a little more thought and reflection are in order here.

Fatuous, Brother Miller fatuous! Rich Miller is Mr. Insider and he knows full well what the Cardinal and the Bishops objected to in the first place last week and it had nothing to do with Rape, Victims, or a Victim much less Precision in journalism and politics. Precisely!

Perhaps, Mr. Gilligan does not take his orders from SEIU, the lobbyists, or the swell gang around the troughs in Springfield. Rich Precision Miller will attack Speaker Madigan, because Speaker Madigan could could care less. Speaker Madigan knows what he is doing and he never walks into any buzz-saws, unlike Cardinal George and the other clerical victims.

Illinois Speaker Mike Madigan gets staked out as a goat every few days for the Progressive Two Minute Hate, because he is the only professional politician in Springfield. More so, the the progressives need him. Speaker Madigan rarely speaks. Terry Cosgrove controls the narrative for Illinois.

If the Cardinal and the Catholic Leadership want to make some progress at all in preserving the doctrinal and institutional life for Catholics and checking the juggernaut that is Progressive Advocacy PACSs, they had better get wise to Governor Terry Cosgrove. The man is powerful and he is vicious.

The Catholic hierarchy walked right into the Terry Cosgrove media buzz-saw.

People of good will do not control the media, much less Springfield.

Play like cupcakes and the bishops will get burned every time. Cardinal George, Christ said to "turn the other cheek." He did not say " Punch With Your Face."


http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/BillStatus.asp?DocNum=2234&GAID=10&DocTypeID=HB&SessionID=76

http://capitolfax.com/2011/11/07/cardinal-george-backs-off/