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

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

Was the man Stabbed with a Gun?

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

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

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

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

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

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


Chicago is a Thug Comfort Zone.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thugs Kill People

Thugs Rob People

Thugs Terrorize People, because they can. 

Guns kill people, like pencils flunk tests.

Rahm Emanuel's Sophisticated Snow Finances

Mayor Rahm Emanuel wants to raise fines against businesses that don't shovel sidewalks as part of his 2016 budget.
The proposal, part of the annual city management ordinance, would hike the potential fine from $50 to $500. Emanuel also wants to increase fines for anyone piling snow in a fashion that blocks the public way — including bike lanes and racks, bus stops or building entrances — from a minimum of $25 and a maximum of $100 to a minimum of $50 and a maximum of $500.
Such penalties are rarely enforced, however. The city issued just 226 tickets for snow removal issues during the winter of 2014-15, according to the Department of Transportation. Ninety percent of those were issued to business owners or multiunit residential buildings.
Emanuel also introduced language to tie fees for heavy truck permits to the consumer price index, so they would increase or decrease each year depending on the rate of inflation. Currently, the cost for an overweight truck permit is $50 to $150 for a single trip or $500 to $2,250 monthly, according to city records.
The full City Council is set to vote on Emanuel's overall budget plan Oct. 28.( emphases my own) Chicago Tribune

Last Spring Chicago had an opportunity to bid Rahm Emanuel a hearty and genuine God Speed!  The Chicago media, Axelrod Productions, The Shakman Blessed  Exempted Executive Appointees City and County level and their families ans retainers  at command, ginned up a perfect storm of I AM WITH RAHM beat down on the opposition candidate for mayor, Jesus Chuy Garcia. 

So egregious were these Axelrodian memes and tropes that even the complacent and complicit Chicago Tribune seemed shamed enough to offer this non-apology.

The mayor and his allies have criticized Garcia for not offering enough specifics on how he'd lead the city. Despite that, the ad opens by claiming Garcia has "made $1.9 billion in spending promises," suggesting that amounts to "$1,900 in additional taxes for the average homeowner." The commercial then raises the question of how Garcia would pay for the alleged promises and ends with clips of Garcia saying his campaign was conducting research on city finances and would look at "creative sources of financing."
The ad closes by flashing the text, "Creative sources of financing? Uh-oh."

"Uh-oh" indeed.

I never once heard Garcia offer to increase taxes on City services, much less do away with them.

Nor, do I recall his, in Bruce Rauner's mewling sop to his wine-purchasing pal Rahm, offer of 'sophisticated financing' via our Parks, natural resources, or human caused terrorism against Bike Lanes.

Rahm Emanuel won, after telling each and every mope in Chicago that he was a changed man.

Yep, changed up a storm.

Chicago's Lake Michigan Lake water costs us much more to drink, wash, rinse and flush.  Our Parks were handed over to Marty Nesbitt, George Lucas and other corporatist bundlers of Rahm and Obama to come and snow that avoids the manual labor and sweat of eighty year old Mrs. Wanda Skutnik owner of Pierogi Queens' Eats of 1440 N. Greenview, Apt Z-Frank will cost old Wanda a lung.

Violations will be ZipCode Cited and fines will be politically analyzed for activist blow back.

For the last twenty years, my route to Leo High School has been the same - from Morgan Park to Gresham - via north on Western Ave. to 87th Street; east on 87th Street to Racine; north on Racine to 79th Street; east on 79th to Sangamon and a sharp right hand turn into the Leo Faculty and visitor parking lot,  after I unlock the gate, of course.

Racine from 87th Street to 79th Street is the home of no less than twenty eight (28) churches located in buildings that used to house businesses.  There is a smattering of businesses ( two bars: The Junction and Holloway's Hideaway) a dollar store, a liquor store, two car washes, an auto repair shop, an urban clothing store, a gas station, and the Paul Cuffee Elementary Academy) - all of the remaining buildings house churches and most only offer services on Sunday.

In winter, the sidewalks disappear under snow and ice until the Spring thaw.  Residents walk between the east and west curbs of Racine - at their peril and if the 17th Ward managed to plow Racine.  I am very careful not to hit people trying to get to the CTA bus turn-around on east side of Racine at 86th Street in the cold, windy dark of a Chicago morning.  Very often I will offer pedestrians a neighborly ride to 79th Street ( Hookers/Trannies and ne'er-do-wells of unaffiliated gang membership excluded) - working folks.

The reason why, the sidewalks remain uncleared of snow is due to the fact that the Pastors of the 28 store-front churches do not live in the 17th Ward.  Their parsonages are in Flossmoor, Orland Park, New Lennox, Matteson and the less-successful in Country Club Hills. If it snows on Monday, there is good chance that there are six layers of frosty precipitations layering the sidewalks and easements on Racine Avenue.  Snow removal? Not until the pastor, or his sons have an opportunity to check in on the church.

These Pastors will be considered business owners? Uh-Oh!  Churches comprise the bulk of this Racine Avenue Business community.

Well, Rahm is sophisticated enough to parse "businesses" with homeowners - "Chicago is ALL of Our Business!"  I can hear Coon-eyed Mayor hiss.  " Ticket 'em all!" He will and shortly.

You can make book on the fact that the 50 City Council Nodders and Windbags never gave a thought to Racine Avenue ( 87th-79th Streets inclusive), nor could care less.  Rahm wants the tax and the tax will happen, because Chicago was With Rahm.

I would venture to say that  the 28 pastors of the Racine Avenue churches ( 87th-79th Streets inclusive) will remain un-ticketed for Rahm's new Force Majeure  Taxation on Snow.

No, I fully expect that business owners and very shortly homeowners from what deemed to be middle class-ish Zip Codes will be ticketed and summoned to court.  TS, as Chicagoans are wont to say.

Justice has nothing to do with Progressive Global Sanctuary City like Chicago.

Vote Tomorrow for Our Neighborhood School Representatives!

Neighbors! Let's vote for five great neighbor citizens as our representatives onto the Chicago High School for Agricultural Sciences School Council.

Only Suckers Beef and only voting citizens act to make a difference. I'll vote before I take the girls to school and head over to Leo. Get a big cup of coffee at Kean on 111th Street and head over to Chicago High School for Agricultural Sciences and vote. This is our school and our neighborhood.

Our neighbor and Fire Department hero, Jim McMahon has been working to get us all to quit beating our gums and vote. Thanks Jim!

LOCAL SCHOOL COUNCIL ELECTION


Chicago High School for Agricultural Sciences
3857 W. 111th Street
Chicago, IL 60655

PLEASE TAKE THE TIME TO VOTE!
Thursday, April 22, 2010
From 6:00 AM to 7:00 PM

I urge you to support our local school and community by voting for these 5 great guys to be our representatives. All 5 of them are neighbors and co-workers of ours, and will treat everyone in OUR community with fairness and the respect they have earned.

 Mike McGrath ~ Parent Representative ~
 Carlos Soto ~ Parent Representative ~
 Keith Oliver ~ Parent Representative ~
 Dennis Riordan ~ Community Representative ~
 Kevin Helmold ~ Community Representative ~

All parents and community members of Mount Greenwood, Beverly and Morgan Park are eligible to vote in this election.

You’ll need 2 forms of I.D. to vote
POSTED BY JIM MCMAHON & Mile NeedhamAT 2:56 PM

John Devens' World Folk Music - A Huge Loss to Music and to Beverly/Morgan Park

John Devens is a guy who always helps other people. That is his shtick. He is also a brilliant musician, Folk/Jazz historian/teacher/ impresario/ band leader and hopelessly constant soft-touch.

I played Irish/Bluegrass music with John Devens years ago. He and Rick Farris and Master String Wizard Ed McGrath joined Terry McEldowney, Willie Winters and me to smooth off our jagged edges. They gave it a valiant effort.

John played mandolin and guitar after years as Big Band guitarist and helped polish the sound of three loud bar shouters and strings hitters with a very large and beer fueled following.

I hung up my 5-string in 1985 due to family and teaching obligations and never heard a word of protest from the Music World.

Willie Winters went on to direct the Beverly Area Planning Association during its Golden Age and helps Sheriff Tom Dart redefine what Public Service is all about.

Terry McEldowney cut CDs, wrote ballads, burned an ulcer the size of Oprah's Rump into Boz O'Brien's belly and continued to damage the fragile egos of the truly deserving. Terry McEldowney wrote the lyrics to the defining anthem of the south side of Chicago -South Side Irish.

John Devens directed Dyed in the Wool*a wonderful Celtic/Contemporary acoustic band and opened World Folk Music Company - a performance, teaching, resource, and musical supply resource unmatched on the south side of Chicago.

Last month, my neighbors and I learned of the closing of World Folk Music Company after a decade of beauty, laughs and inspiration. World Folk Music gave kids and adults a chance to play, hear and learn the beauty of Music. It was a full-service hands-on operation of the heart!

John Devens moved more burdens than Sisyphus, but always had time to help sick kids, families in financial need and to teach the beauty that is Music.

This is a huge in our Collective Public and Personal Heart. God Bless You, John! Click my post title for more.


*

Among the very best bands in Chicago is Dyed In The Wool, a gathering of grand musical talents and sweet sensibilities that can handle traditional tunes in ways that make them fresh and vibrant and create original tunes that will stay with you forever." (Rick Kogan, WGN Radio, Chicago Tribune)

John Devens, a product of the Chicago folk scene, boasts of guitar styles from the Travis pick to jazz swing. Julia Dusek-Devens has a solid classical background and an excellent command of the flute that are behind her whimsical performance attitude. If you haven’t heard Jim White play guitar, you’re in for a treat. And Meghan McKown brings her own fresh approach to everything she sings. Her tone ranges from rich to soulful to clear and pristine.

"As the regular reader knows, Dyed in the Wool is our favorite Chicago Band. Period. Great stuff. (Rating: Four Harps)" (Bill Margeson, Irish American News)

October 1st, 2009
The World Music Company - 1808 W. 103rd Street, Chicago 773.779.7059
Dear Students, Teachers, Staff, Supporters, and Fans of World Music Company,

It is with huge regret that we announce that World Music Company (WMC) will be closing our doors on Wednesday, November 25, 2009; this day will mark the end of all music programs, performances, and lessons. While the deciding factor in this decision was the loss of our lease, there were others – a declining enrollment and a reduction in funding support – that played a role.

Since 1996, we have had a wonderful time serving the Beverly community. The things we’ve learned, the people we’ve met, and the ways in which our musical horizons have expanded have been the major focus of our company for 13 years. Our staff, our teachers, and the community that has supported us and the friendships we have established and maintained over so many years have been wonderful.

Beginning on Monday, November 16th, we will begin a phased liquidation of the stock in the store and most of the memorabilia on the walls. Prices may vary and be subject to change as November 25th approaches. We would like to thank all of the past and present employees for all your hard work and dedication over the years.

To celebrate the many wonderful years of WMC, we will hold a farewell concert on Wednesday, November 25th at WMC starting at 6:30pm and featuring many of the wonderful performers that have played here over the years. We hope that as many people that have supported us over the years will attend and celebrate what we have accomplished and commemorate the end of our era. Yes, the store will be closing, but the friendships, love, and passion for music, will remain open.

Thanks for the memories and support over the years,

John Devens, Executive Director & Founder

Eric Williams, Board President

The World Music Company is one of Chicago’s cultural treasures, quietly nestled in the Beverly neighborhood. A school of music, World Music Company offers lessons on a wide variety of instruments, including Guitar, Piano, Violin, Banjo, Recorder, Brass Winds, Voice, and some folk instruments like Hammered Dulcimer and Celtic Tin Whistle you won’t find anywhere else! Read more about our world class instructors »

We also offer a variety of classes and musical related activities, including a Concert Series, Wednesday Night Jazz, Music for Children with Special Needs, adult guitar classes, and Community Open Mic.

Me and the Kids Will Take the Illinois Gitmo Guests!

Bruce Dold and Tribune Editorial Board brought a manly tear to my eye when they chorused this morning's edition with 'Be Not Afraid!'

Thomson Correctional Facility can do so much for our State and Governor Quinn has called for all of us to do things The Illinois Way! I am moved and compelled!

I am willing to take the Gitmo Guests! Let's Fed Ex this Candle! Let's Move! Send them Gitmo Guests to Morgan Park. I'll see that the lads get to Mass at St. Cajetans, get three hots and cots, enjoy WOW Cable TV and PlayStation II. Share in the delights and hilarious misadventures of the Family Hickey and their Widow Man Pater Familias.

Have the 200 Million e-transferred to my Beverly Bank account and me and the kids will watch these guys. No reason to have the Illinois Department of corrections do without a swell facility to accommodate Illinois citizens who fallen afoul of the law.

I will take the 200 Million and upgrade my Morgan Park raised ranch ( let's see,the Thomson Shed costs about $175 Million and I can get off-duty Chicago Firemen from the neighborhood - yeah, $100 Million Tops!) accordingly and treat the lads to Governor Quinn's Illinois Way!

I'll half of what's left. Eric Holder will see that these guys are well taken care of and then set free. So half of 100 million comes to 50 Million and we can get snacks and TP and fresh duds and stuff at Costco or Wal-Mart ( can I say Wal-Mart?).

I'll make do - this is the Illinois Way!

"We're here today to let the people know we're not going to let the fearmongers carry the day," Quinn said. "We're going to do things right, the Illinois way."

That was former Illinois Governor Quinn, boys and girls!

The Illinois way! Is not Blago, Pat Quinn's Old Partner, facing more than a few semesters in the Hotel Serious, for conducting things in the Illinois Way?

No Fear Guv! Tell the Feds to Send the Dough!



http://hickeysite.blogspot.com/

Stoa Poikile - Philosophers of the Porch - American Urban Stoics

Stoa Poikile means the "the painted Colonnade, " or Porch, from which the philosopher Zeno (326-264 B.C.)questioned and prodded his students. These disciples were called Stoics or "philosophers of the Porch." The Stoics held that everything happens necessarily. Each day has twenty-four hours, comprised of light and hours of darkness, unless one lives in Alaska, or Sweden, or some other Northern clime and those folks must behave accordingly.

You could call them fatalists. Eventually stoicism became a huge part of Christian philosophy, which affected the the teaching of theology. Stoicism is often misjudged as an unemotional and joyless path to living - on the contrary.

I remember translating passages of Marcus Aurelius in Father Henry Maibusch's Latin class. Most of the sententiae or sentences were reminders of the wholeness of the universe and each man's small role in it - ironically, Marcus Aurelius was the Emperor of Rome and wrote the Meditations in an army tent while campaigning against the German tribes of Danube. Aurelius spent most of his reign with his Legions defending Rome, rather than luxuriating in its power and wealth. In Book X he wrote:

Everything which happens either happens in such wise as you are formed by nature to bear it, or as you are not formed by nature to bear it. If, then, it happens to you in such way as you are formed by nature to bear it, do not complain, but bear it as you are formed by nature to bear it. But if it happens in such wise as you are not formed by nature to bear it, do not complain, for it will perish after it has consumed you. Remember, however, that you are formed by nature to bear everything, with respect to which it depends on your own opinion to make it endurable and tolerable, by thinking that it is either your interest or your duty to do this.

Translated to 19th Ward Chicago by a guy with whom I sat on the porch last night. Chicagoans tend to sit on the porch with neighbors and talk. Mostly, politics, mutual interests, Catholics school politics and gossip, high school sports, recipe exchanges, often pretty funny stuff, but last night was dead serious. I had just come home from another meeting and a guy I had not talked to in months drove by, saw me backed up and got out and we sat on the cracking concrete of my porch.


"Hickey, your wife died and my wife is dying. That's it. Not a whole Hell of a lot we can do about - cry I guess, but that is not going to bring your wife back or keep mine out of the nice coffin at Sheehy's Funeral Home. I still have kids at home and will need to go back to work after Martha dies and do my job and make dinner after work; pack lunches for school' pay bills; learn to live alone in a house full of kids. Martha is on the morphine drip. Thanks, I gotta get back to the hospice."

This guy went to Mount Carmel High School and John Carroll University. I never saw him drink more than one beer. I never heard him tell a dirty joke. He is 'whipped' in love with his wife and he will not have her in a few hours. She is going back to God, or as the stoics might say the Logos.

Stoics live by endurance and not Hope. Hope is only important if we have the skills to endure. Like grief, living is a process. It started when we were kids and goes until we ain't.

Cleaning the Gutters - Our Trees and the Things They Deposit

Two weeks ago a poor guy in my Morgan Park neighborhood, Willie Whitaker, had the media crawling up his back, because he removed trees on his property.

Willie Whitaker must have his reasons for cutting down the 100-year-old oaks on his property in the Morgan Park neighborhood, but so far he's not letting on.

And his neighbors are pissed.

"This is insane," Carla Winterbottom told the SouthtownStar. "It took 100 years for some of these trees to grow, and now they're gone in 10 minutes."

Winterbottom is the head of Keeping Beverly Green. Unfortunately, there is no Keeping Willie Whitaker Green branch.

"They're my trees. They didn't pay for the trees. My trees are going to be cut," Whitaker told a SouthtownStar reporter before refusing to comment further.

Even the work crew - which counted 175 rings on one stump - was perplexed; the trees were healthy.

Theodore Richardson, who has lived on Longwood Drive across from Whitaker's yard since 1974, said, "He's another Mr. T."

Citing allergies, Mr. T., the Rush Street bouncer-turned-actor, cut down about 100 oak trees from his seven-acre estate in 1987, angering his neighbors in Lake Forest, the SouthtownStar reported.

http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/The-Tree-Hater-of-Morgan-Park.html

Mr. Whitaker owns the property.

Wells Fargo Mortgage and I own mine.

The parkway on 108th Street runs along my property on which three mighty Maples were planted decades ago. The Parkway on my property was planted with these Green Giants. The City no longer cares for these mighty gifts of Nature, that toss roots into my foundation and sewer pipes -clog gutters with whirly-bird seeds creating a Planter of the Gutters! - break up the sidewalks & etc. Only God Can Make a Tree! Unless the former City Dept. of Forestry (RIP) planted the woody SOBs back when Kelly was Mayor. I have three such gifts of Nature and long dead City Largess! Thanks So Mucking Fuch! ...

I do not have the steel of spine of Mr. Whitaker and I do enjoy the shade; thus, it falls to my lot - and on my LOT - that I must get in the gutter.

I have an extension ladder ( 24' Aluminum) however the rope that pulls the extension section fouled and broke immediately upon inspection. Therefore, I set the ladder on the deck over back-door ( locked and note attached that Dad is up on the roof in OSHA compliance) and wearing my True Value faux leather working man's gloves, set my gnarled and horny fingers to the rungs and pushed my stumpy haunches up onto the stairway to heaven.

Eight steps up, I carefully eased my blubber up over the gutters and onto the roof, jackknifed my knees in safe balance, pulled the sturdy black bags from my pocket and began the hour long removal of gutter-clutter -whirly-bird plants, grown in honor of the recent wettings by nature, empty Marlboro Lights packs tossed up in celebratory good humor by passing young Americans, Wiffle Balls and the odd dead bird.

This is Nature's bounty and reminders of the Great Chain of Being. The whirly-birds are the seedlings that God in His Wisdom returns to Earth with Hope of Rising. Had I not gotten my lazy ass up there and removed them, I would have the Greenest Roof in Morgan Park - Full Maples on my Roof!

The Wiffle Balls are the cheap toys that we buy little kids, when they are getting the balance that will one day lead them up onto roofs of their own. The Wiffle Balls got smacked and little Jimmy McKenna came home with only his over-sized red plastic bat to the question from the Old Man, recently laid off by the City, 'Hey, where's the ball, Kiddo? Those things don't grow on trees.'

To which the buzz cut red-headed six year old replies, 'Hickey's Roof, Dad.'

'Jesus, Bucko, that gizmo's up there for Good!'

Not so, Brother McKenna, not so. It is now on my kitchen floor and my black cat is chasing it, like Tim Novak* on a corruption story.

It is my property, after all.

Trees remind us that God is found in the details.



Tim Novak - Sun Times Investigative Newsman - the last of dying breed.

http://www.suntimes.com/news/politics/1613491,CST-NWS-mayor09.article

Real Housewives, Moms, Lovers, Best Pals, Body Guards of the Faith of Morgan Park

I never saw one episode of Desperate Housewives, Sex in the City, or any . . .any Reality TV Show.

I was dragged to see first wave feminist movies back when I was a student at Loyola, right after Dewey took Manila from Spain. I went along to those strident 'woman must liberate herself!' soft core porn films - where some babe skanks around with pipe smoking professors from whom they learn secrets of sex and Blake's Poetry and then toss off the Jugs Harness and run through New York with other mini-skirted Feminists.

I dated a 'Dip-stick in Lip-stick' who thought Abortion was the signature of real Feminism . . .once.

Hell, I am a sucker for babies and detest the thought of murdering an innocent. I'm a Caveman.

The family is mocked in the film arts as well as plucked brow literature.

Women are never happy in these films unless they are slapping the mattress with a young Che Guevara wannabee and ditching their kids and their Old Man. Romantic Forbidden Love That ALWAYS ends tragically is the ideal.

I'm a hand-holder. I come from the very same place where I happen to live right now.

Last Night, my Daughter Nora and I ( Conor was frying fish at DiCola's) watched Clare receive the St. Cajetan's Computer Science Award at the 8th Grade Honors Ceremony. All the girls, text-message-ing little women who play basketball, volleyball, softball and work service hours at the two nursing homes in Morgan Park looked like run-way models and the fourteen something young men, looked like their Dads . . . sad to say.

I looked around at all the Moms, because Clare's Mom, my Bride, is an angel. Mary died when Clare was two and a half. However, Mary would have fit in nicely with Anne, Collette, Darleen, Sheila, Peggy, Kerry, Jennifer, Linda and all the rest.

Happy women. Not Cosmo guzzlers. Real women and not poor confused victims. Knockouts and most of them could care less. They are married to 'older versions' of the boys who struggled into an actual tie that you need to tie for the first time: Pete, Desmond, Declan, Jake, Jack ( about four by my count), Sean, Danny, Ray and Nick!

Their Moms are married to their Dads, their best pals. Their Moms don't need Botox. These are Real Women and they do not buy obscene numbers and qualities of shoes, read How to Be Happy Manuals by Skank Head-Cases, pop pills, 'take time for themselves,' wallow in self-pity. They are Happy Women. They have no tolerance, let alone capacity for Bitching. They are the Women that Feminists hate to the very marrow of their beings!

They are women of Faith, who do not seek some stupid alternative life-style, pierce their beautiful bodies, or Tattoo their limbs, or sculpt their personal destinies with Dr. Gaddam Gupta. They have it all. They have borne the pains of child birth and nurtured babies to a point where these babies too can become Real Men and Women.

They are the Breeders. They are the Real Family Core. The makers of tortilla roll-ups with lime and jalapenos! They know how to 'Work a Beer Glass' and a Mikita Power Drill. I love each and every one of these women.

The love of my life, lives in Chicago's Gold Coast and my Morgan Park neighborhood is familiar to this elegant and beautiful woman who sings at the Pump Room, because she grew up among Real Women in Chagrin Falls, Ohio as well.

I am a thrice blessed man. My love Mary went home to Christ. Not my call. I had a huge hole in my heart that Christ allowed me to patch up with my mistakes and stupidities, but allowed me to realize the majesty that is Woman. For better or worse I too am a Mom. A homely, lumpy, Mom, but a Mom nevertheless. I buy the Feminine Hygiene products in this house! Yet, I am blessed with the love and affection of another Real woman.

Whenever, I see the vapid, self-absorbed, shallow, and indulgent clothes horses portrayed in film and on TV, I click on Paula Deen on the food Channel. That is a Woman! Women make the home and in so doing create the world where kids do not need to take Zoloft, or fill their hours on the internet. The daughters of the Housewives of Morgan Park are women.

These Real Little Women play sports, play with make-up, but they also have learned to be friends and best pals with Ray, Pete, Jake, Jack (our by my count), Sean and Danny.

The Women of Morgan Park make a happy world. Thanks Be to God.

Today in Chicago Tribune, the sun dial for the changing times, there is another stupid couple of paragraphs about some stupid reality show that wants to further insult Women and the Family.

A show revealing the lives of upper-echelon housewives -- Botox parties, tennis matches and all the drama in between -- is coming to Chicago.

Towers Productions is casting for the Midwestern premiere of a housewives show similar to Bravo's "Real Housewives," which has focused on Orange County, New York, Atlanta and New Jersey.

The producers are searching for "a dynamic group of women" who have a unique connection to one another, whether through their lifestyles or social network, casting director Becky Cattie said.

Interested women can e-mail casting@towersproductions.com (a date for auditions has not been set yet). Include your name, age, the area where you live, contact information, a photo and some personal background information.

Reality my Broad Manly Ass!

I Always Get Tagged - Anne Leary Tagged Me!

I'm slower than a roomful of morbidly obese Earth Science majors at an Indiana Community College and Anne Leary tagged me - no sweat.

It's January in Chicago--how can we amuse ourselves?


Following the brilliant and impala-like Leary required my jumping over many yard fences here in Morgan Park and negotiating many over-turned blue -barrel re-cycling dumpsterettes. I lost her at Artesian and she seems to have darted north on Western Ave. so I stopped in at Keegan's Pub at 10618 S. Western to re-charge.

The rules:
1. Link to the person who tagged you (done, above)
2. Post the rules on your blog (you're reading them now)
3. Share six non-important things/habits/quirks about yourself (see below)
4. Tag six random people with a link.


1. Non-important thing: I get up and write at 4AM. - novels, screenplays, essays, hack-pieces, indictments of declining civilizations and pornographic epics with a widowed, middle-aged, sunny-dispositioned poetic rascal in the driver's seat.

2. Quirk: I believe that people are a blast - Get to Kean Gas in the AM for coffee as proof of a wealth of diverse, alive, and profound insights and giggles from American Patriots - cops, firemen, ComEd linemen, burial vault cement finishers, teachers, nurses and the odd lay-about.

3. Quirk: I am a sucker for babies - if Carla Gugina flirted with me, I'd opt instead to play with the kid in the stroller and ask the pre-verbal child questions about The False Decretals and the hegemony of Lombard over the Papal States in the early renaissance - kids love it.

4. Non-important thing: I jingle the change in my pockets when nervous about the economy.

5. Habit: I never call a bartender Chief and always over-tip. No Dukie - No Go-Outey!

6. Quirk: I need to have my daughters look me over prior to dates with the supremely talented, diminutive, gorgeous and elegant young woman who deigns to be seen publicly with me.

The links:
http://chicagoray.blogspot.com/
http://secondcitycop.blogspot.com/
http://www.beachwoodreporter.com/
http://www.tomroeser.com/
http://wapellarocks.blogspot.com/
http://www.philly.com/dailynews/columnists/christine_flowers/

Snowbound in Morgan Park: Chicago Idle - Well, I am anyway.

Within our beds awhile we heard
The wind that round the gables roared,
With now and then a ruder shock,
Which made our very bedsteads rock.
We heard the loosened clapboards tost,
The board-nails snapping in the frost;
And on us, through the unplastered wall,
Felt the light sifted snow-flakes fall.
But sleep stole on, as sleep will do
When hearts are light and life is new;
Faint and more faint the murmurs grew,
Till in the summer-land of dreams
They softened to the sound of streams,
Low stir of leaves, and dip of oars,
And lapsing waves on quiet shores.

John Greenleaf Whittier

Wittier Than Whittier? -Naw It's Too Cold.


The snap and crackle on sidewalks white
Signal colder fingers all through this cold night,
And Dawn's Toes that froze all the way from the car,
Do now warn the brain-pan -'Tis Cold out Th'yar!'
Stiffer than Wanstead when given the Slip,
By Mrs McCaskey through Angelo's Lip;
Bears that care do not maul the foe,
And all of Chicago nods,'Wanny Must Go!'-
Lovie-Like snows once froze the Hydrant's pipe
And Water Department guys mended it Right,
On Rockwell 108th just the other day,
And Obam's Transition had nothing to say.

Sub-zero Factors ride Big Shoulder's gelid wind
And close Ord's Runways -Extended Stay Inn.
The Short Man on Five wants new kinds of salt
For Streets and San Men to cast from the Vault
Of Horded Plenty white crystals that melt
Nature's cold spittle with Taxpayer's gelt.
North Wind and Sun did Battle in Aesop's Fable
To tell all and sundry who better was able
To get Man to strip his garments gay and bright
The Sun, it was, proved who could get the thing Right.
Sol/Boreas, Madigan/Blago, contend in like manner for Public Approval
The Sun heats all Truth -watch Blago's Removal.

Boreas blew like the Bears' Recent season
And forced ice and wind on Jim chilled by all Reason.
But Man yanked his duds tighter 'round his shivering bones
And warded off North Wind until Jim he got home,
Where the Missus and kids thawed Dad's Polar Limbs
And Souped, Peoples Gassed, hugged, thawed tired Jim.
Sol did much better with gradual heat
Last Summer than Boreas the North Wind Sol Beat.
Jim stripped his Drapes in easy gay layers
To his Banana Hammock as a willing and gradual player
Witched to the whispers of persuading fellow
Warm Sol's Barrelhouse invite 'Get Naked and Mellow!'

Persuasion gets Man to do as might,
While Blowy Dictums pull Drapes around tight
The Freezing Man. Who endures Boreas and Daley
And Blago, and Taxes frozen pipes daily.
Warm Sol and persuasion and brotherly chat
Get more peels of raiment's and Taxpayer Fat
For the Fires that energize Government Bunnies
Who gobble your clothes, your cabbage and monies.

This Thursday is Cold, Frost-Hoary and Mean!
North Wind and Sun do battle on Man. Lean
Government like Orange rhymes with no word
The Thaw is coming. Peel dollars clothes-ward.
That Rhyme was forced, like a bartender's treat.
Screw it. Must scrape the clogged ice on my street.

Crimes 2212 : Beverly/Morgan Park in Chicago Police District # 22

Chicago Beat Cop -Ubi Sunt?


There is a great deal of crime - black on white crime taking place in my neighborhood.

There is no City of Chicago out cry.

There is and there will be no Media Outcry other than 'well what can people expect given the economic realities of the day and systemic racism foisted upon persons of color by these white-flight residents of Beverly/Morgan Park?'

Here's the breakdown of the 97 pages of crime reported for Beat 2212 in Chicago Police District #22 ( Morgan Park)over the last few months.

Residents are concerned that lack of police beat cars and the vast geographic area covered by this beat created a Thug Comfort Zone - Thugs from outside of the neighborhood have the confidence to rob, assault, burglarize and violate the residents of this neighborhood.


91 crimes of Armed Robbery

131 crimes of Narcotics

158 crimes of Assault*

214 crimes of Burglary

388 crimes of Criminal Damage

438 crimes of Battery*

630 crimes of Theft


Members of the Chicago News Media play at journalism while exercising their rights of Free Speech as 'social engineers' and dime store prophets.

Editorial Boards agree to ignore or sneer at the residents of my neighborhood. Beat 2211 covers an area that embraces Mount Greenwood much farther to west where even more black on white crime is taking place.Read the comments by residents in Southwest Observer:

I am in need of some clarification as far as the Police district is concerned. Is Beverly and Mt. Greenwood covered by the 2 beat cars?? Or is it just our neighborhood? How come the police are there to take two teenage girls home to their parents who were minding their own business sitting on a bench at Mt. Greenwood park? And no one responds to the 911 call for "mob action" between 2 groups of kids beating the s#$% out of each other?
Personally when I am home during the day, I keep both my doors locked. I also have a security system and a big dog who answers the door before I do.
It bothers me to read about all of the violence and crimes so close to our homes. My son and his friends often visit the Burger King on Kedzie, and now that is a place where suspects were caught.
Is it true that the CAPS meetings are being phased out?
I signed up for the email updates from the 22nd district, and it;s funny that I haven't received ONE.
Do I feel safe? no. . .I don't. . .

and this,

2211 and another recently added car covers Mt Greenwood. These are generally one manned cars that cover a very large area. These cars, from the intelligence I am getting, have been on the east end of the 22nd district answering calls instead of patroling our area. There is a CPD Parks car that covers the districts parks. If you look at the 22nd district, you will see the many parks vs one car.Somebody had to call about the kids on the bench. With the vandalism that occurred at the playground, neighbors of the park are more vigilant. There may have been more to the story as well. CAPS will take your information but when it gets back to the district and headquarters.......they don't have the manpower. CAPS is just the middleman. My kids go to BK as well and I am very nervous. The bus stop on 111th and Kedzie needs to go. Another friend of mine on the 108th block of Troy had a woman approach her on her porch and asked to use her bathroom. My friend refused and told her her dog would attack her. When the woman walked away, a white van pulled up and yelled "Let's go. Someone called the police." She got in a they drove off. We are no longer safe.

http://www.southwestobserver.com/mount-greenwood/retired-cop-shoots-home-invader-49-23356#comment-223

This black on white crime activity is happening and only the people who live here and the Police who protect us, but are hand-cuffed by Daley's political needs, seem to care.

In the mean time, Drop all the huffing and hand-wringing about Racial and Social Justice, or save it for your feel good sessions at some Loop or Near North gin-mill before you get on the Metra to the lily-White Burbs.


* As a first approximation to the distinction between battery and assault:

the overt behavior of an assault might be A advancing upon B by chasing after him and swinging a fist at his head, while
that of an act of battery might be A actually striking B.
Battery requires (1) a volitional act (2) that results in a harmful or offensive contact with another person (3) committed with the intent to cause a harmful or offensive contact or with a reckless disregard as to whether such contact will result. Assault is an attempted battery or the act of intentionally placing a person in apprehension of a harmful or offensive contact with their person.

Welcome Home Marines of 2-24! Chicago's Own!

There are six young men coming home from the Morgan Park/Beverly/Mount Greenwood Neighborhood, known in the Chicago MSM at the 19th Ward.

Ryan Nolan
Mike Hughes
Jim Kelly
Bob Carroll
Nick Parker
John Folliard

. . . all Marines of 2nd Battalion, 24th Marines.* Our young men will be greeted down Western Ave. - their hometown mainstreet. These five heroes are members of St. Cajetan's Parish! There are Yellow Ribbons all over this neighborhood in Morgan Park of Chicago. God Bless You, Marines!

Tomorrow, I will meet the young men who have served our Country with Honor in Iraq at the 2nd Battalion, 24th Marines formation at Rosemont Horizon. My interviews with their familes and the men themselves concerning their part in the The Surge and the welccome that awaits them back in the neighborhood.

My interviews and photos will appear in Chicago Daily Observer - The Best Source of Balanced Journalism in Chicago: go to www.cdobs.com

http://cdobs.com/