How Good Is Snow-Blower Repair Man Mike Greene? My 1994 MTD runs like 2016 BMW

I love the south side culture of " I got a guy."

Needs are fulfilled by word of mouth and respect for the word from a neighbor.

If I were asked by you about stopping seepage in the basement, I bring into my man cave and thrust my finger to east wall and "Behold! Water from the Rock!"  Hell, I am not handy.

Ask me about literature, jazz, history, great places to eat, methods of shirking households obligations ( no problem so big, that I can not run away and hide from it), or treating ladies with fair deference in all matters, I'm your guy.

• Want your furnace looked at?  Call Karen A Mcquillan, (708) 422-0090 and she'll get her old man, Jim, on it Air-Check Heating & Colling.

• Auto Problems? - Go to Kevin Moriarty at Meineke on Western

• Plumbing?  The Kennedy Brothers knock it out of the Park.

• Gutters and Chimneys glutted?  Call Sean Keane at Keane Sweep
• Taxes?  See Pat Biggane

Now, as to leaking basements, I have had my basement sealed three times inside and out. The CSX line runs twenty feet from my front window and the crib shakes like Oprah on a waterbed.  Can't help you. Nothing worked, but the shop vac and Fabrese.

How -some-ever, friends and neighbors, if your snowblower is on the fritz, needs a tune-up or repair, GO AND Call Mike Greene immediately if not sooner.  I called Mike in September and Mike and his daughter picked up my giant sized MTD 1994 purchase, which had beaten back lake effect snow in Griffith Indiana and cleared sidewalks, alleys and driveways here in Morgan Park since 1999.  

I serviced the machine.  Changed oil, repaired the auger and the drive-lines, drained the gas and managed the wheels, but I had not had the whole machine serviced since 1997.

Mike Greene returned (delivered) the snowblower three days later with a modest charge that included straightening the blades, replacement of drive lines, tightening the auger, complete tune up and oil and sparks.  Modest charge.  I keep it on my icebox and look at it when I'm blue.

I just got back from Mass at Sacred Heart and fired up the MTD for the first time. Last week, it was too wet to plow.

The MTD fired up and purred like a kitten (which I also need to replace since Sophie shed her mortal husk).   The plowing was exquisite and I hated to put the thing to rest.

I know that I will have plenty more opportunities today to get behind the plow, but for now,  a huge thank you to Mike Greene, a Proud Member of Operating Engineers Local 150 and a great neighbor.

      

St, Christina's Father Tom Conde and Prayer With Neighbors was Just The Thing for Mount Greenwood

"I think Mount Greenwood is a terrific community, both during my time growing up there and as a pastor," O'Donovan said Monday. DNAinfo

 "There is a lot of kindness that happens," he said. "The South Side is not how it is being portrayed." Father Tom Conde in DNAinfo

Father Tom Conde of St. Christina's Parish in Mount Greenwood stands in teh footprints of two great priests from that parish: Father John Ireland Gallery and Father Marty O'Donovan.

I know only of Father Gallery, brother of Adm. Dan Gallery - the man who captured the Nazi submarine that sits in Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry.  Old timers told me that he was a shoe-leather priest who walked the parish, knocked on doors and found out what people needed, were thinking and were in need of help.  Father Gallery had, like his three brothers been a Naval Officer and chaplain and as a priest ministered to person and flocks on Sunday.

I have the pleasure of knowing Father Marty O'Donovan.  Father Marty is a priest among priests and a bluff, sweet natured, witty and generous man who had long shepherded the individuals of Mount Greenwood with compassion and Gospel courage.  I know more than a few people whose marriages were turned away from disasters of selfishness cattiness and cruelty back to love and commitment and the love that brought two people together years before by Marty O'Donovan's simple, sweet and saving grace.

Last night, Father Tom Conde addressed the pain a neighborhood suffers when marginalized and sparked to anger for reasons beyond our simple comprehensions.

How did a neighborhood become the bad guy?  Easily is the only answer.

All we can do is remember Father Conde's words - We are the Light of Christ and we step on Holy Ground wherever we walk.  We lit our candles with the flames of the Pascal Candle to remind us to carry that flame around with us.  Candle light brings people together. Camera lights, not so much these days.  It is very good to be reminded of that.

Mount Greenwood might not have packed St. Christina's Church last night but the lights reignited glowed.

Thank you.

Chicago - Untouched by Change: Media, Politics and Bad Activists Doing Just Fine

I live in the only city and county completely unaffected by the election of Donald Trump to the Presidency.  I live in Chicago, Cook County of Illinois.

Every incumbent and sanctioned candidate held onto or won public office. Same old, same old. In fact, a clerk who pretended to be a judge was elected to be a judge.  What could possibly go wrong there?

The tide, turned in by the votes and the Electoral College, missed the shores of Lake Michigan entirely.

On election day, my Ward, the 19th, which includes a neighborhood known as Mount Greenwood and home to a great many Chicago police officers and firefighters, became a racial flash point.

On the Saturday afternoon(Nov. 5th) before the election, at about 3PM members of a family that had buried a young man at Mount Hope Cemetery in this Ward travelled west on 111th Street, a two lane shopping district with barbershops, restaurants, boxing gyms, banks, dentist offices, a Walgreen's and other local concerns.  This is a two lane street with parking available on both side.  At Troy Street is a Chicago Firehouse. People in a hurry attempt to make a new right lane and cause accidents, traffic jams and on this Saturday a fatality.

Beal and others had just left a funeral in several cars and were driving to their next destination when the incident occurred, Beal’s relatives said. According to Guglielmi*, they were stopped in traffic near a firehouse when an off-duty Chicago firefighter saw one of the vehicles and notified the driver that it was illegally blocking the fire lane and causing delays. 

The firefighter then began arguing with three people who got out of their cars, said Guglielmi. While this was going on, a woman inside a nearby business saw the argument, called police and then became involved in the fight, the police spokesman said.

At this point, an off-duty Chicago police officer in a barbershop nearby also spotted the fight, approached the scene, identified himself as an officer and became involved in the brawl, Guglielmi said.

A sergeant in full uniform who was driving to work at the Morgan Park Police District then stopped when he saw the melee, the spokesman said.

“There’s a sergeant on his way to work. He now sees a man with a gun in his hand. He gets out, announces his office in full uniform,’’ Guglielmi said.

The sergeant displayed his weapon, Guglielmi said. As the incident escalated and the man with the gun did not drop his weapon, shots were fired, and the man was hit multiple times, the police spokesman said. Chicago Tribune

The man, Joshua Beal died.  He pulled a gun, waved it, pressed the trigger and was shot multiple times.

Immediately the story became a narrative - one that erased the culpability of Mr.Beal and his family altogether. One of the most egregious narratives was written by a man named Davis Steiber and printed in the dubious Huffington Post. 

Joshua Beal, who was in Chicago for a funeral, was killed Saturday by a Chicago police sergeant. The reason an off-duty police officer felt the need to start waving his gun around and pointing it at a lot of different people is baffling. To see the video, click here.

I, however, don’t want to focus on the killing itself ― I want to focus on the reaction of white people. Specifically in Mount Greenwood, where the incident occurred. Last night, hours after his death, while people gathered to support Josh’s family, some residents of Mount Greenwood came out of their homes with Blue Lives Matter flags to apparently show that Black people are not welcome in Mount Greenwood. Instead of letting people grieve the loss of a life, these white residents thought it appropriate to call them names and tell them to leave “their” neighborhood. To see this video click here.

As is the case in most police related shootings, the media twist the facts, invent the facts and turn the attendant hate on people who have done nothing to warrant a raised eyebrow let alone anger.

A local media news site, DNAinfo Chicago, which had up until this shooting in Mount Greenwood been dependable with reporting and has three very fine writers in Mark Schipper, Ed Komenda and Pulitzer Prize winning Mark Konkol, took up group thought and malicious slandering of people in order to whip up a controversy.

Three writers have crafted the Mount Greenwood Narrative.

Immediately after the shooting members of REVCOM Chicago - the Revolutionary Communist Party - sent teams of activists to the neighborhood.

DNAinfo Chicago's three reporters (Evan Moore, Joe Ward and Howard Ludwig)  have yet to mention this fact and have all but erased the crimes of Saturday the 5th by Beal and family in a sad attempt to make the 'manufactured outrage' appear spontaneous, genuine and heartfelt.  Outrage is directed against the neighborhood of Mount Greenwood, Marist Hig School and a few teenage girls unaware that texting matters.  REVCOM, along with Moveon.org has been identified by law enforcement as forces behind protests and riots around the nation.  REVCOM boasts to its retainers.

When we heard about this outrage, the Revolution Club went to the scene, arriving in the early evening. We found members of Joshua’s family sitting in a Mt. Greenwood Burger King—unable to leave because police had surrounded their cars as part of the “crime scene.” A Club member explained to the family members who we were, and we began talking with them. Already grieving for the loss of one loved one who had been buried that day, this family was now dealing with the murder of another—shot down in front of their eyes by Chicago police.

The family members told us stories of being taunted by racists in Mt. Greenwood. They had been called “n****rs” and “monkeys” and were told to “go back to the ‘hood” by white people shouting from their cars as they drove by. 

The Revolution Club brought a Stolen Lives banner into the BK and unfurled it. Many family members gasped, as they looked at the faces of so many others murdered by police. At this point, the Burger King manager announced that the family would have to leave the restaurant. This callous racism was called out by the grieving family members and people from the Club. “This is not Mississippi in 1960. This is 2016.” “They are afraid of too many Black people in this place.” Everyone stood firm, saying, “We paid for food and we aren’t leaving.”

The manager called in the police. The police arrived in force, further crowding the Burger King. They ordered everyone to leave, announcing that the BK was closing its doors early. People were forced outside into the dark and the cold without coats or sweaters.

DNAinf Chicago has printed photos of REVCOM as well as Black Lives Matter, activists Ja'Mal Beal, Jedidiah Brown and the egregious Pastor Michael Pfleger.  However there is no mention of the Communists who sparked riots and violence in Milwaukee only this past summer.

More troubling, DNAinfo Chicago managed to get a high school girl's Twitter tweet that was racially offensive and managed to get the girl and five other of her friends from a Catholic High School after Archbishop Blase Cupich was contacted for comments in keeping with this divisive and inflammatory narrative.

The narrative has erased the story of Joshua Beal's bad behavior, illegal use of a hand gun, threatening the lives of Chicago Police Officers and bystanders and morphed into the very reasons why Donald Trump appealed to voters.

I live in Chicago, Cook County, Illinois - the land untouched by change.  The message sent to the American elites is lost here.  The people get it.  The elites do not.

Same old, same old.


* Chicago police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi

Bishop Cupich is the New Cardinal Cody

John Cardinal Cody was a sad man, a flawed man and a very small man.  He was a prince of the Church.

Cody took over the Archdiocese of Chicago and immediately fired pastors who built parishes and schools and served the needs of their flocks. Cody never took the time to learn anything about the City and the people he was supposed to serve.  In fact, John Cardinal Cody didn't much care for the people of Chicago. He was Cardinal for a very long time.

Cardinal Cody wanted only good press and powerful financial people to help tighten his grip on the Archdiocese through Project Renewal ( 1965-?) He got both here in Chicago.  He had the media until 1981.  People with wallets and check books loved him; people with change purses, not so much.

Bishop Cupich reminds me of Cardinal Cody - quite a bit.

One of his first remarks to the press seemed to be open slap at the dying Francis Cardinal George, "Wherever I live, I want to have a place where I can get some rest and feel the support of people who are around me,It is a lovely place, and I really want to honor that," he said. "At the same time, I would have to say I'm going to take my time to make that decision. I'm going to see where I can be most effective."

Cardinal George understood that the Cardinal's Residence was the peoples house in this Archdiocese, but the Chicago Media ( Carol Marin, Michael Sneed, Eric Zorn, Jay Levine et al) harped constantly on a priest living in such luxury.  Bishop Cupich is a Media Man.  He crafted a narrative parallel to Pope Francis I and will soon be rewarded with a red hat when he is elevated to Cardinal.

Cardinal George had poor kids from Englewood, Canaryville, Bronzeville and Gresham in as his guests on very regular basis.  He fed them cake, pop and cookies.  He listened to their struggles to avoid the GDs, the Stones and the Irish Deuces.  He prayed with them.  He called Leo High School to ask about their progress and chew them out when needed.

This weekend, Bishop Cupich saw to it that a young girl who texted a racially offensive thought to her friends in her Twitter circle be expelled - Excommunicated  - from Marist High School as a political sop to Pastor Pfleger, Black Lives Matter and Rahm Emmanuel. That made the media happy because damned a whole neighborhood as well.

"Marist High School is a privately operated school in the Archdiocese dedicated to Gospel values," Cupich said. "We support them as they take the necessary steps to deal with this situation swiftly and take appropriate disciplinary action." 

His taking a shotgun to kill a gnat approach to race relations this past weekend went one better gave it to people who have done nothing but live their lives.

"Racism is a sin and has no place in the church, including the Archdiocese of Chicago," said Cupich, who recently was chosen by Pope Francis to become a cardinal. "Our schools must be places where all are respected and the values of tolerance and peacemaking are taught and nurtured." 

The people of Mount Greenwood , the students at Marist High School and all of Chicago did not 

• block a firehouse exit after right lane weaving
• brawl with a firefighter and an off-duty cop
• draw a hand gun and threaten to fire  
• Joshua Beal did that and died as a result

Instead, the media want to replay the 1960's and make Mount Greenwood Selma and Ja'mal Green and Pastor Pfleger the Dr. King twins.  Bishop Cupich joined in the fun. Cardinal Bernardin never called out a high school kid, even when a few beat a kid with bats.  Cardinal George took hurting young men from Chicago's meanest streets and treated them to what a priest is all about and made calls to improve their lives.  The media hated Cardinal George.

Bishop Cupich will have a red hat very soon.  He is Cardinal Cody.

I was at an Ordination Party for a young priests the day Cardinal Cody died.  When his death was announced . . .the prayer was brief and party was back under way.

Shame on DNAinfo Chicago: All Signs Point to REVCOM Stirring the Hate in Mount Greenwood After Shooting

 

From the Revolution Club, Chicago:
Joshua Beal

November 5—Twenty-five-year-old Joshua Beal

was in town from Indianapolis to serve as a pallbearer at his cousin’s funeral. Joshua was brutally murdered by a Chicago police officer while in a funeral procession. His aunt described him to us: “He [Joshua] just graduated from college, Ivy Tech College in Indianapolis. He was so happy in the graduation. And he was a father of two. Two young boys. He was a dedicated father.”
The funeral procession was driving through the overwhelmingly white Mt. Greenwood neighborhood on the far southwest side of Chicago around 3 pm on a sunny afternoon. This area is a notoriously racist enclave, home to many cops and firefighters. According to witnesses, an off-duty cop in plainclothes tried to force the car Joshua Beal was riding in off the road. Other members of the funeral procession got out of their cars out of concern about the situation. The off-duty cop threatened Joshua's 17-year-old cousin with a gun in her face. A bystander video shows this off-duty cop in street clothes wildly threatening people with a gun, including women dressed for a funeral.

Is that the official media narrative?  No, it has been tweaked a bit. Chicago Police Superintendent decided to call this a "Road Rage" incident which is almost as far from the truth.

Actually, it was just another in a long line pf celebratory gang funerals that plague the 19th Ward.  The right lane-me-first idiocies and blocking the exit of a firehouse sparked the incident and subsequent shooting of an armed idiot.

But we can not allow the facts get in the way of politics and social justice play acting.

The Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun Times use the City Hall narrative and the go-to rhetoric of the city sanctioned and Cook County approved lungs of Ja'mal D. Green, who is being groomed by Rahm Emanuel and Toni Preckwinkle for some slot in the Cook County Democratic ticket. Ja'mal undid Bernie Sanders and is out on $ 300,000 bond for assaulting a cop.

Ja'mal has skills.

However, Ja'mal can't do Revolution.  For that he goes to the Pros - Bob Avakian;s REVCOM. The Reds make the signs, bring the bullhorns and stooge goofs to provoke.

The Chicago media completely ignore the influence of REVCOM  - that's Revolutionary Communist Party and Club.  The Revolutionary Club is provided the diversity to a protest - white revolutionaries. ( see photo above - that is the Revolutionary Club of REVCOM)

The Revolution Club brought a Stolen Lives banner into the BK and unfurled it. Many family members gasped, as they looked at the faces of so many others murdered by police. At this point, the Burger King manager announced that the family would have to leave the restaurant. This callous racism was called out by the grieving family members and people from the Club. “This is not Mississippi in 1960. This is 2016.” “They are afraid of too many Black people in this place.” Everyone stood firm, saying, “We paid for food and we aren’t leaving.”
The manager called in the police. The police arrived in force, further crowding the Burger King. They ordered everyone to leave, announcing that the BK was closing its doors early. People were forced outside into the dark and the cold without coats or sweaters.
Outside the BK, protestors from the Black Lives Matter movement began to arrive to support the family. Significantly, two white youth from Mt. Greenwood also joined the group in solidarity with the family. These white youth described the hard-core racism of the neighborhood.
As we were gathering outside, an angry white youth walked up to the Burger King wearing an American flag bandana and a “Blue Lives Matter” t-shirt and carrying a baseball bat. He was led away by police but apparently not arrested, even though he was clearly looking to commit a racist assault. This was in sharp contrast to the fact that some family members in the funeral procession had been arrested by the police. As of early the morning after, Joshua's brother was still in custody, charged with aggravated assault on a cop—AFTER HIS BROTHER WAS MURDERED DURING A FUNERAL PROCESSION!!!
Video taken by a bystander shows off-duty cop waving a gun, shortly before Joshua Beal was killed by another Chicago cop.
Across the street from the BK, a racist mob began to gather. White people with baseball bats out their windows drove by. “N*****rs,” a white man shouted. A group of white people gathered on the same side of the street as the family. Thinking they might be press, someone from the Revolution Club went over. They turned out to be off duty-cops and their friends. They began shouting and chanting, “CPD! CPD!” Drivers going by shouted out, “Trump, Trump, Trump.”
One of Joshua's family members, stunned to see this, talked about how her mother had told her of scenes like this but that in her four decades in Chicago, she had never confronted a racist mob like this. One Club member commented, “This is what the day after the election could look like.” It was really ugly.
The Revolution Club got on a bullhorn and denounced the brutal murder and racist actions and called for people to get organized for an actual revolution, calling on people to come and stand with the family and oppose the outrageous police murder and the racists in Mt. Greenwood. A crowd of people who had been commemorating the birthday of Rekia Boyd—a 22-year-old Black woman murdered by police in 2012—came from the West Side to stand in support of Joshua's family. ( italics my own)

Chicago's DNA Info, most disappointingly, picked-up the Selma theme memes

The pro-police supporters numbered into the hundreds, while less than 20 activists showed to the scene. They faced racial slurs and repeated requests to leave the neighborhood, and police had to intervene between a few incidents.
"It was hectic," said Ja'Mal Green, the activist who called for the Sunday event. "I was in shock the whole time."
Green said he knew what he was getting into, as he had received death threats in the hours after the event was announced. Still, Green said the racism the activists faces took him by surprise and made the group uneasy.  "It really felt like we were back in the '60s," he said. "The rally shows that a black man can be killed by police and they were overjoyed about that." (italics my own)

Ja'mal and the other civil rights reenactors will be back on election day.  After that I expect they will lose interest.

I hope that my neighbors in the 19th Ward totally and completely ignore REVCOM, Ja'mal D. Green, and the White Priestess , or  KIM FOXX, or Rahm Emanuel.

This is an orchestrated attempt to spark hate, violence and hot-mic'd sound bytes from goofs with an opinion.

I am disappointed that DNAinfo Chicago has decided to go-possum like the Trib and the Times and play make-believe social justice warriors.

CPD Hero Saved a Crowd of People in a Mount Greenwood Pub

White, Black, Brown Red and Yellow people are not bullet proof. Bullet travels at thousands of feet per second when someone pulls a trigger.  A bad guy, a cop, or a child can pull a trigger. A gun is a formidable weapon; so is a pool cue, a pipe wrench, or a fist.

Behavior is the problem and not some Chimera - systemic racism.

Systemic is an adjective lifted from the hard sciences and employed by the agenda-driven social sciences to further the naturalistic notions that society is a body on a coroner's slab and tweedy goofs with grants and academic tenure dole out the word's application to lawyers, crumbs and dumb bunnies

Last evening, Bad Behavior from some unknown person with, what I would call a serious beef about something, added to more than a few ounces of Giant Killer

The Bad Behavior person shot someone in a neighborhood tavern and an alert and courageous off-duty Chicago Police Sergeant saved a crowd of citizens from harm.

 <iframe width="640" height="390" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/5V4JEuGj2qk" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

It is believed that this Bad Behavior shooter of guns is a white man . . .a deceased white man.

Ask Me About My Racism

The Beverly Area Planning Association hosted the forum in the wake of racist graffiti that was spray-painted on several cars, garages and buildings over a two-day span beginning late Sept. 19. The Beverly Area Planning Association hosted the forum in the wake of racist graffiti that was spray-painted on several cars, garages and buildings over a two-day span beginning late Sept. 19.DNA Chicago

Now, how did I miss that?

There is nothing that tickles my fancy more than any opportunity to scratch and sniff at the scabs on my see-through- 2nd Generation Irish pelt and considering the horrible systemic racial darkness of my heart.

Me and mine are just about the most low-down, dirty, arm-pit smelling, Hairy Ape nasty, bunch of bull-whip cracking Thornbirds who ever Riverdanced poor colored folks into a Melissa Harris Perry level of righteous outrage to soil Mammy Earth's clean and wholesome gravel.

My racist comings and goings begin upon waking and leaping from my dollar stuffed pillows and mattress and shaving my white privileged mug with a straight razor no stranger to violence and blood.  My infringement upon the Souls of Black Folks begins when I pull into the driveway of a single- mother of two whose car happens to be a victim of race hatred these last three years and expect the poor woman to accept a ride from this ChiRish bully to work. Then, I go to work at an all boys Catholic high school funded almost entirely by my black hearted Irish Cousins, where we do good out of White Flight Guilt alone!

There is no limit to the lengths that I will go to make people of different colors obliged in some dark and twisted expiation for my sins. The only people more active in tormenting African Americans and getting more privilege would be the Jews, according to NPR, Rev. AL and Pork Chop Louie Farahkhan, but Micks take a back seat to none when it comes to racial hate, or race guilt and scab-yanking.  You should hear my Ofay glad-handing bonhommie when I pick up the twelve young black scamps from Englewood to Bronzeville every school day.

I watch every Ken Burns documentary and see the strange fruit swing from every limb in Beverly, Morgan Park and Mount Greenwood enough to no that hatred is the only by product squeezed out of these bones and sinews.  Bill Moyers continues the fine public work begun by William Lloyd Garrision, Jospeh Medill and carried on by Reverend Al Sharpton from Ferguson to 111th & and Rock Island line in Morgan Park.

Any chat about race is a monologue and usually a pretty loud one where I must nod with conviction that I only watch the first twelve minutes of Armistad and the last fifteen minutes of Glory.

It is very important that I recognize that I secretly delight in every act kindness, affliction, raised-eyebrow and every outrage manufacture by Reverend Jackson, or Reverend Al as just another nail added to the White Tower of my privileged life.

Dog whistles, or codes will always catch me out.  People better than me will define me. Gee, black people do not like being defined, from what I hear.  White folks have defined who I am - NPR, Ken Burns, Bill Moyers, Eric Zorn, Carol Marin . . .Gosh I guess we are equal!

The very best people continue to say so.

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

I Got a Margaret Sanger Gold Dollar That Says, ' Desiree Rogers Is Salahi Wave-In

Everyone in America's Compliant Media has set his/her stop watch to the firing of a Secret Service Agent over the Virgina Slims who slipped through the Obama State Dinner.

Only someone as "special' as Chicago's Own Lotto Ball Girl and John Rogers Ex - Desiree Rogers ( The Gal who blew up blocks of Mount Greenwood while Peoples Gas Champ) could be our Progressive Prowler Pivot Person'

Desiree should have taken the short yellow bus to school, but had her abilities overlooked due to her viscerally more appealing aspects - as the old story went "Desiree, You are sitting on a Gold Mine!"

The White House referred most questions to the Secret Service, but sources familiar with procedures during big White House events said that typically someone from the Office of the Social Secretary would be at one of the secret service checkpoints just in case there is any confusion. While rare, guests can be inadvertently left off a list, the source said.

Responding to a question about whether her staff was represented at any of the checkpoints, Social Secretary Desiree Rogers*, told AP: "We were not." Yet there were also no attempts by agents at the checkpoint to contact the social office, a source said.

NBC News anchor, Brian Williams, an invited guest, saw the couple arrive by car at the East Gate of the White House, yet said the Salahi's vehicle was turned away.

"Actually the first ring of Secret Service security had worked," Williams said on Thursday's nightly broadcast. "After their vehicle was turned away, they hopped out. What attracted our attention was there was at least one camera trailing them. And a makeup woman got out and fixed the woman’s hair and then started powdering the man's forehead."

Watch folks! This Tale will hit Desiree Rogers like a 9 Iron on Tiger's Noggin!

Desiree has handed real people more laughs over the years than we truly desereve! Blowing up Mount Greenwood and blaming the Unions in yellow boots and rain gear- Killer!


ccustomed to the spotlight, Peoples Gas President Desiree Rogers finds herself on the hot seat as regulators probe safety procedures at the Chicago gas utility.
Ms. Rogers must deal with three investigations — federal, state and internal. Peoples Gas faces questions about testing procedures for pipe corrosion and the possibility that some employees falsified test records. The Illinois Commerce Commission last week launched a legal process that could result in a $1-million fine. And if evidence shows that employees falsified safety reports, criminal penalties for those responsible could be in the offing.
Last week's news was another blow to a company already tarred by allegations that it conspired with Enron Corp. to overcharge customers. That case was settled last month after Peoples agreed to a $100-million customer refund without admitting wrongdoing, but the episode claimed the job of Thomas Patrick, CEO of Peoples Energy Corp., parent company of Peoples Gas. He agreed to step down by February 2007.
Unlike the Enron case, however, which focused on the parent company, the pipe-testing breakdown happened in the unit Ms. Rogers oversees and involves the most critical aspect of gas utility operations — safety.
Known for her communication skills and political savvy, Ms. Rogers, 46, faces multiple challenges that will test those abilities and require others she's not as known for. She must get to the bottom of the inspection problems without becoming identified with them; mend strained relations with state regulators, and then persuade them to grant Peoples a hefty rate hike, which the company expects to request in early June.
"Is this the biggest challenge of my career? Absolutely," says the high-profile executive, who is active on the city's charitable and social circuit and sits on numerous boards, including the Lincoln Park Zoo (where she's vice-chairman) and the Museum of Science and Industry. She joined Peoples as vice-president of corporate communications in 1997 after serving as director of the Illinois Lottery. She was named chief marketing officer in 2000 and president in 2004 of Peoples Gas and North Shore Gas, which serve the city and some northern suburbs.
How she responds to this crisis will demonstrate whether Ms. Rogers' has the operational skills to match her other talents. She bristles at the suggestion that she's more marketer than manager, pointing out that in 21 months as Peoples president, she's improved response times at the customer service center, converted paper records of inspection results to an electronic system and eliminated a massive backlog of home gas meter inspections.
"We're going to see, and (Peoples') board is going to see, how good of an operational person she is," says Richard Mathias, former chairman of the Illinois Commerce Commission (ICC) and currently Midwest liaison for regional electricity transmission grid operator PJM Interconnection. "It will be a real test."
Ms. Rogers is installing a new training and auditing regimen, and hiring quality-control employees to check compliance work. She promises the utility's safety procedures "will be a whole lot better in a year. A lot better."
LETTER OFFENDED UNION
First, Ms. Rogers must determine the extent of the corrosion-testing problems at Peoples. In a spot check recently of nearly 400 pipes that Peoples tested last year, state inspectors found that about 40% had inadequate corrosion protection. More seriously, at about 10% of the locations where Peoples had provided positive test results, the inspectors couldn't find any monitoring equipment to take a reading, raising questions about whether false results were being recorded. (Corrosion can lead to pipe leaks, allowing gas to escape, accumulate and potentially cause explosions.) No leaks have been found, and Peoples says its pipes are safe.
In a sign of how delicate Ms. Rogers' task will be, union leaders at Peoples took offense to a sharply worded letter she sent to gas distribution workers after learning of the ICC findings. The letter suggested some workers violated the company's code of conduct, putting at risk "their jobs and the reputation of the company."
"That was very accusatory in tone, and we took offense to it," says John Groenwald, business manager of the Gas Workers Union Local 18007, which represents 875 Peoples employees.
Ms. Rogers says she'll work with the union to address the problems, but doesn't apologize for her blunt approach: "It's not business as usual. It cannot be."
©2006 by Crain Communications Inc.

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/