Religio Medici: Dr. James R. Kennedy M.D.at Home With Christ - Rest in Peace? That Will Be a Tough One.

I thank God, and with joy I mention it, I was never afraid of hell, nor ever grew pale at the description of that place. I have so fixed my contempla- tions on heaven, that I have almost forgot the idea of hell; and am afraid rather to lose the joys of the one, than endure the misery of the other: to be deprived of them is a perfect hell, and needs methinks no addition to complete our afflictions. That terrible term hath never detained me from sin, nor do I owe any good action to the name thereof. I fear God, yet am not afraid of him; his mercies make me ashamed of my sins, before his judgments afraid thereof: these are the forced and secondary method of his wisdom, which he useth but as the last remedy, and upon provocation;— a course rather to deter the wicked, than incite the virtuous to his worship. Religio Medici - Sir Thomas Browne 1635

 Dr. James R. Kennedy is an esteemed assistant professor of gross anatomy  at Loyola's Stritch School of Medicine. A retired surgeon, Kennedy is a 1960 graduate of the Stritch School of Medicine and has taught at the school since 1989. He has been on the medical staffs of St. Mary's Hospital and Riverside Medical Center in Kankakee and since 1989, has volunteered as a surgical consultant, medical student supervisor and physician recruiter for Loyola's cooperative program with St. Jude Hospital in the West Indies.  Loyola Stritch School of Medicine Award 2000

 Elizabeth “Betsy” Finneran Kennedy ’59SMC and Dr. James R. Kennedy ’57 of Kankakee, Illinois, will be presented the Rev. Louis J. Putz, CSC, Award. The Kennedys have established a well-baby clinic, a Montessori school, day care centers and youth swim teams for under-served families. They spent 10 years as medical missionaries in Saint Lucia, British West Indies, and provide service to the United Way, Kankakee Valley Theatre, Amateur Athletic Union, the American Cancer Society, Red Cross and the Diocese of Joliet. Notre Dame Distinguished Alumni Award 2005

Not even close. Neither will be this that follows.

The Gates of Heaven, if they ever really close, banged wide open yesterday when a soul left the body of a fine man in a hospice care center in Michigan City, Indiana, yesterday.

Dr. Jim Kennedy is a great man.  He grew up in Joliet, Illinois, the son of a lawyer for Greyhound Bus, who sent its fleet to the Jim Crow south to accommodate Freedom Riders and later U.S. Marshals. Jim Kennedy went to Notre Dame where he played football on the reserves under Terry Brennan and excelled as a student. More importantly, Kennedy wooed away the beautiful Betsy Finnerane of the Bronx, NYC who had been dating some poor schmo by the name of Phil Donahue, who ended up with a TV show of some kind.

 Graduating in 1957, Jim Kennedy was accepted to the Loyola University School of Medicine, where he took his Medical Doctorate and then residency at Cook County Hospital and managed to keep the arm of Betsy.  Kennedy was called into his country's service as Naval surgeon, serving with the Fleet Marine Force.

Now, it gets good,  Kennedy returned to Cook County Hospital and won the reputation as a great surgeon and general practice all purpose medicine man.  At Cook County Hospital Kennedy became friendly with the Chief Engineer and fierce defender of unborn Larry Hickey.  Bud Hickey ran all of the power plants and operations of this hospital and later butted heads with the Marxist Dr. Quentin Young over abortion.  Kennedy and Uncle Bud saw eye to eye on human life. Dr.Jim and Betsy Kennedy began their own Pro Life model in the 1960's by bringing eleven (11) beautiful, talented and much loved children into the world.


The Kankakee Kennedy's at Hoosier Hyannis Port ( Long Beach, IN - Stop 28) Even then the Chicago costs of living must have been epic; the Kennedy's moved to Kankakee, Illinois.



In 1975, I signed a contract with Father Ken Yarno, CSV to teach and coach at Bishop McNamara High School and among the freshmen students was Jim Kennedy,  a tow-head with great basketball chops and razor wit.   Dr. and Mrs, Kennedy liked what I was doing for their son.  We became friends.  Dr. and Betsy were everywhere.  Betsy could bury any NFL roster Endomorphs with her lightening pace and Mary Poppins work ethic in a week.  Doc worked two hospitals and on his days off he attended burn clinics.

I met my future bride when she was helping Betsy with the kids. Betsy shoved Mary Cleary under my nose at every opportunity, but I was serial dating at the time.  A year later, Mary's charms, grace and sarcasm and Betsy's raps on the back of my head -"What's wrong with you?" - took hold.

Mary's grandfather happened to be the first surgical patient Dr. Kennedy operated upon in St. Mary's Hospital. Oliver Duval was a epic-ly evil-eyed, mean old bastard of Frog Eater.  He had penchant for swallowing peaches whole, it seems, and the pits did no good to the Old French villain's GI tract. When young Dr. Kennedy, fresh from Cook County ER, was served up Oliver on gurney - the Herscher farmer pulled up his gown and emitted a fart of Gargantuan proportions in salutation - " How's Those Peaches, Irish?" They remained an emergency room Roland and Oliver with Oliver blowing the trumpet. " Here's another kiss for you Kennedy!"

Dr. Kennedy often walked to his rounds from his modest home in east Kankakee's St. Theresa's Parish to St. Mary's and even Riverside Hospital.  A solid stretch of the legs of three to four miles.  One evening following a shotgun duel in St. Anne, the ER at St. Mary's and attending physician were overwhelmed and panic set-in.  A nurse on duty that night told me that Dr. Kennedy appeared as if by magic and pulled everyone together and no one died. Deus ex Machina?  Nope. Dr. Kennedy.

My catalog of stories is as thick as a Calcutta phone book.  Dr. Kennedy supervised the care of my wife when she was stricken with brain cancer. Betsy and Doc never left our sides through the two years of agony. For that I am most thankful.

Dr. Jim Kennedy went home to heaven.  He trained two of my best pals, Dr. Rick Clark and Dr. Mark Manning, to be Kennedy-esque doctors- Rick is an Internal; Medicine Honcho at Resurrection in Chicago and Dr.Maj. Mark Manning, MD, USAF(ret.) maintains surgical practice in Del Rio, Texas and over the border. Dr. Kennedy admitted students to Loyola's Medical School when the ravages of Parkinson's Disease prevented a genius with scalpel from practicing his art.  Kennedy demanded that students admitted to Loyola Med have CVs that witnessed commitment to others.  " You maintained a 4.0 GPA from high school through college, but you never played a sport, performed in a band, acted in a play, volunteered to help the poor?  You will do fine at University of Chicago or Northwestern; best wishes for a great medical career."

That is the religion of a doctor - a Catholic Doctor.  Try and take it easy, Doc. I talked to Betsy this morning and she said for you skip morning rounds and sleep-in. 

R.I.P. Phil Krone : 1941-2010 Gentleman Liberal Patriot

All theory is against freedom of the will; all experience for it.

Samuel Johnson

Phil Krone is missed. He was the last of the Gentleman Liberal Patriots. Phil Krone invited debate, drank in opposing ideas and courteously offered thoughtful rebuttal without ever raising the volume, let alone insulting his combatant.

My political beliefs differed from Mr. Krone, though we both registered and tended to vote as Democrats.

Phil was an ideological Keynesian Liberal -like John Kenneth Galbraith, Paul Simon and the great Paul Douglas, with just a pinch of Henry Wallace.

I adhere to the urban Ward-level empirical Regular Democratic point of view, that never parses away moral and religious convictions.

My political hero was my uncle and the Hickey family patriarch after the death of my grandfather - Larry "Bud" Hickey.

Uncle Bud was the Chief Engineer for Cook County Hospital from the 1950's until the 1980's. He was then made the Chief Engineer of Cook County by George W. Dunne. Uncle Bud and his large family lived in Meyer Hall - the former Cook County Hospital Doctors Residence at Taylor and Wolcott -because Uncle Bud was on duty 24 hours a day. The great surgeon and former Director of Admissions for Loyola Medical School, Dr. James H. Kennedy,MD once told me that as young resident at CCH he told, "See the Medical Director, but, above all, pay attention to Larry Hickey."

When Abortion, got its bloody foot in the door of the American soul in the late 1960's, Progressive forces, like the bed bugs now scourging urban American, bullied politicians with Policy. False tickling Policy. In the late 1970's, Cook County purchased an incinerator for the sole purpose of burning aborted fetuses.

Uncle Bud installed the gas operated incinerator and welded its doors shut. No Fetuses would be burned. it operated, but absolutely no fetuses were burned. The children would be buried with human dignity. You see, Uncle Bud was a Catholic, when that meant something, and Catholics, at that time, were prohibited from cremating the human body. All of that was parsed out by clerical Vatican II Cupcakes, don't you know.

News of this got out. The Policy hit the fan. Uncle Bud told Dunne, "Fire Me, but those doors stay welded shut."

George Dunne ended abortions at Cook County Hospital, except to save the life of the mother, because he agreed that Cook County Hospital had become no more, in the Cook County President's words, 'an Abortion Mill,*' Uncle Bud and George Dunne were Democrats. Dick Phelan bowed to Planned parenthood as Cook County President.

Policy, Phil Krone would argue, took into consideration the idea of a Woman's Choice - the euphemism for abortion -and Policy overtook the empirical act of killing a child in the mother's woman.

Gentlemen can agree to disagree - Policy holds that war is bad. A combat veteran understands that sometimes you need to squirt napalm into a cave and incinerate twenty enemy combatants in order to make Peace Happen.

Phil Krone unlike Uncle Bud believed that a Policy of Choice would bring about a better world. Phil Krone had a great heart and a wonderful intellect. Uncle Bud had a gas-operated incinerator that would burn the aborted fetuses of children. Gentlemen can disagree.

I raise the issue of abortion,only to make the distinction between Policy and Politics.

Phil Krone's voice was never the strident, arrogant, divisive pusillanimous caw of the Ed Schultz, Chris Matthews, or Rachel Maddow. Phil Krone put his money where his heart was and entered the political arena in the New York Primary, though suffering in the last months of his heroic life.

Phil Krone believed in Civil Rights, Peace, Human Dignity, Liberty and Justice.

More importantly, Phil Krone respected the people who believe in those very same principles, but disagee with the path to them.

May Christ throw open His Arms for a Gentleman Liberal Patriot! God Bless you, Phil!

*

Dunne's views on women's sexuality are hypocritical
Click here for complete article

Date: May 4, 1988
Publication: Chicago Sun-Times
Page: 32
Word Count: 528
Excerpt:
As the powerful Cook County Board president, George Dunne has been almost singlehandedly responsible for the fact that poor women cannot obtain abortions at Cook County Hospital.
While the issue of this abuse of power through the use of sex is the foremost issue publicly raised by the Better Government Association, there is another issue here: Sex carries with it the risk of pregnancy.
It is time to take notice of the hypocrisy of male politicians on the issue of women'...

John McCain: Watch This Story - Tim Novak on Obama, Rezko, Doc Ray and Pi$$ed Away Investments

A couple of burglars get caught and Nixon resigns. A county payroll Urologists ( Wee-wee Doc) wets his beak and sings to the Feds. Keep an eye out for this and other stories by the only pitbull among the Progressive purse-puppies at Progressive Sun Times - the paper so deep in Obama's tank that many crossocheilus oblongi are required to clean up for the Obama Campaign. Not it seems, Tim Novak

Chicago Sun Times has a pitbull - Tim Novak. Here is one of his investigative stories that will prove to have legs like Cyd Charisse in 1954!

While on the county payroll, a top urologist at Cook County Hospital solicited nearly $1 million from drug companies over the last decade for his private foundation.

Dr. Paul S. Ray's pitch was that the money would go toward medical research and education.

Dr. Paul S. Ray has been granted immunity from prosecution to testify against Tony Rezko in a still-pending criminal case.

But most of the money hasn't gone to health care at all. Instead, Ray invested it -- mostly in Tony Rezko.

Rezko is the convicted influence-peddler who had been a prodigious fund-raiser for politicians including Sen. Barack Obama, Gov. Blagojevich and the late Cook County Board President John Stroger, the ultimate boss of the county hospitals.

Ray had long worked with Stroger's godson, Orlando Jones, a top administrator at Cook County Hospital who became Stroger's chief of staff. Jones eventually left county government for a job with Rezko. Last September, after he had been questioned by the FBI, Jones committed suicide.

Ray set up the Paul S. Ray Urology Education and Research Foundation 16 years ago. It began investing with Rezko's companies in 2002, according to reports Ray filed with the Internal Revenue Service. The foundation invested $500,000 with Rezko Concessions, which operated Panda Express and Papa John's Pizza restaurants. It also put $100,000 into a proposed housing development Rezko unsuccessfully sought to build on a 62-acre site along the Chicago River in the South Loop.

Ray, 63, of Chicago, also invested his own money with Rezko, spending millions to buy real estate and Papa John's Pizza restaurants from Rezko.

Ray's Rezko deals didn't turn out well:

Click my post title to link on to Tim Novak
The Doctor is singing!

Let the parsing begin!