Old Dead Eyes is Back: Fareed Zakaria's Endless War on Plain English

I like to open Real Clear Politics for my morning break Leo High School.  That fine catalog of good, bad and ugly ( usually Dana Millbank, or Joan Walsh) political essays, polls, op-eds, or reports is a national version of Chicago's own Steve Rhodes and his incomparable Beachwood Reporter; unlike Beachwood Reporter, I can never be sure if Fareed Zakaria might have another verbal abortion popped under my schnoz. RCP will do that.

Today, is no different.  It is ninety minutes to Frosh/Soph lunch and I must keep this away from tender eyes - Obama Seeks to Affirm an International Norm.  The title alone, would put the lads off their feed. Here try it and see if I can force feed myself . . . Obama seeks to affirm an international norm; Obama seeks to affirm an international norm;. . . . Come on!  Be  a Big Boy and Open Up! Obama seeks to affirm an international norm;Obama seeks to affirm an international norm;Obama seeks to affirm an international norm; Obama seeks to affirm an international norm . . .Pwaaaah! Taste like ass, to quote Sal . . .Nope.

I'm still dizzy with my inner demons screaming "WHAT THE @#$% Does that Dead-Eyed Dandy Mean?"

Nothing.  Cable news and network news went daffy for Diversity - Brits, Sons of the Desert, Heathen Chinee, Listhpers and Fareed Zakaria.

This yutz was recently canned from CNN for plagiarism.  I channel surf without his Jungle Book hissing pleonasms sesquipedlian in duration and contemptuous universal.

Elitist creeps love guys like Fareed, MSNBC's Martin Bashir and Flat-top Richard Wolf not only for the cache of tone, the contempt they hold for America. 

American journalists like Chicago Tribune's John Kass make an easy and very profitable to sponsors slide to radio and television, because they speak plain English and have actually had more than one original thought in their lives.

Fareed Zakaria rehashes old Granta excerpts and idiots named Vanden Heuvel eat it up crap like this, "So, Obama’s aim is solely to affirm an international norm. To this end, he already has achieved something important. "   Think of the children, People.  Stop FZ! Stop him before he kills English again.

God willing Fareed Zakaria will do a lengthy immersed report from Mali. 

Only Steve Rhodes' Beachwood Reporter Studies the Thug Dictator Lobby of Illinois

The REV- "Shakedown . . . I mean Shake Mr. President"


Auld Bob -"Rev - You had me at Shakedown!"
The REV -" Is this the Lobby?"
Auld Bob " No . . .The Liberry!"

"They called themselves the 'Chicago connection' and appeared confident that their contacts with Illinois politicians would help persuade newly elected President Barack Obama to lift longtime economic sanctions against leaders in Zimbabwe, according to federal charges unsealed Tuesday," the Tribune reports.
"The two, Prince Asiel Ben Israel and C. Gregory Turner, were charged with violating federal law by lobbying on behalf Zimbabwe's longtime president, Robert Mugabe, whose violent and oppressive regime has been the target of U.S. economic sanctions since 2003." Chicago Tribune via Steve Rhodes' Beachwood Reporter: By Steve Rhodes / Posted on August 7, 2013

 Bob Mugabe . . .

Dadirai was at home alone when Mugabe's thugs arrived. They descended on the woman, hacking off one of her feet and one of her arms, before setting fire to the dying woman in front of her house. "That was not isolated case," the shocked head of the delegation Marwick Khumalo said after his return to Harare.
It is part of a new strategy on the part of Mugabe's henchmen. Instead of just hunting MDC party officials, many of whom have gone underground, they are going after their family members as well. Last Monday, for example, they caught Abigal Chiroto, the 27-year-old wife of the newly elected MDC mayor of Harare, Emmanuel Chiroto, along with her four-year-old son. They set the house on fire and disappeared with the woman and child, before releasing the boy at a police station.
Abigal's body was found a few days later not far from her house. She still wore a blindfold and her body was so terribly battered that her brother-in-law could only identify her by her clothes and hair. Aus Dem Spiegel -By Jan Puhl and Toby Selander 2008

That was in 2008, the advent of Hope & Change Worldwide. In 2013, Old Bob Mugabe, at last glance, had exactly $ 217.00 in National Treasury of Zimbabwe, formerly known as Rhodesia, named for Cecil Rhodes who was Diamond Digger who funded Rhodes Scholarships awarded to such luminaries as Rachel Maddow, Susan Rice and former Congressman Mel Reynolds. Old Bob Mugabe went from Jesuit seminarian to Black Liberation theologian to Marxist to Witchdoctor Thug Bandit Chief while amassing friendships with Rev. Jesse Jackson, former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark and Brand Obama's Foreign Policy Wiz Susan Rice.

Here in Chicago, where Mikva's Hyde Park Mafia Embraces the West Side Vice Lords, the MacArthur Foundation, Billy Ayers and his odious Old Lady, Medill School of Journalism, the Center for Wrongful Convictions, South Shore Bank, WTTW, and both newspapers in one huge Global Hug of Progressive Coalition building, one might imagine that there might be some follow-thru on reports that Illinois Lobbyists for Old Bob Mugabe's Machete Coalition in Zimbabwe. . .  might, just might mind you. N.B. This terminal verbal,  dangling over the pavement was, for our friends of Welsh ancestry.

Old Bob is a color-blind thug and master of diversity in butchery, if not a wiz at accounting -

Children as young as eight are being beaten by Robert Mugabe's henchmen as he hunts down opposition supporters, it emerged yesterday.
White farmer Roy Bennet, an MP for the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, told how three youngsters, aged eight to 12, were beaten by police trying to find out the whereabouts of their MDC-supporting parents.
In another incident, a magistrate was dragged from court, beaten and paraded through the streets.
Mr Bennet said: 'What is happening in Zimbabwe is not a white and black issue. It is an orchestrated attempt by the president to destroy the opposition. It is not land reform - it is the suppression of another view.'
Mr Bennet, who faces arrest for speaking out, said Zimbabwe was experiencing a level of ethnic cleansing 'not seen since Kosovo'. Opposition to Mugabe's ruling Zanu-PF party was being crushed by any means - from mutilation to starvation, he added.
Hundreds of Mugabe supporters ran riot yesterday in the eastern town of Chipinge, evicting white businessmen and looting their premises.
The violence came as it emerged that Mugabe's wife Grace had chosen the farm she wanted to take over.
She apparently marched on to the Iron Mask estate 30 miles from Harare last week and told the owners John and Eva Matthews, who are both in their 70s, to quit.
More than 90 white farmers, all charged with failing to leave their land, had their cases heard in courts. Among those given 24 hours to vacate their farms was Dennis Streak, father of Zimbabwe's cricket captain Heath Streak.

Here in Chicago, only Steve Rhodes ( no relation to Cecil) and his wonderful Beachwood Reporter has bothered to connect the Race-Grifters/Political Hypocrites/Feebs and Dummies  Coalition-

But here's the interesting part:
"According to the charges, Ben Israel and Turner attempted to persuade undisclosed federal and state government officials - including an Illinois state senator and two U.S. representatives from Chicago - to push for the lifting of the sanctions. The two reached a consulting agreement with Zimbabwe officials to be paid $3.4 million, authorities charged, but it was unclear whether they received any money."
So who was the state senator and who were the U.S. representatives?
"The 56-page criminal complaint described in detail how Ben Israel and Turner allegedly enlisted the support of a 'State Senator A,' who hoped that the election of Obama would cause the U.S. to take a fresh look at Zimbabwe.
"That same state senator wrote in a 2009 letter that he had made a 'commitment' to Mugabe and could use his leadership position with the National Black Caucus of State Legislators to organize a delegation to travel to Zimbabwe and fight for the removal of the sanctions, according to the complaint.
"Records show that state Sen. Donne Trotter, D-Chicago, chairs the international committee of that caucus. Efforts to reach Trotter were unsuccessful Tuesday. His attorney, Thomas Anthony Durkin, said he had not seen the complaint and had no comment.
"Ben Israel and Turner were successful in arranging for State Senator A and several other lawmakers to meet with Mugabe and other top Zimbabwean officials during several trips there in 2008 and 2009, according to the charges."
And the reps?

At least Steve Rhodes bothers to ask*.

Treat Yourself to the Best! - as the old Mail Pouch Chawin' Baccy Ads once boasted -Read Beachwood Reporter and support it with a modest but significant donation or One Big-Assed Grant!

* Steve Rhodes and I loudly disagree with one another on many issues (Burge Mythology & etc.); however, Steve Rhodes has more integrity than the combined editorial boards of NBC, The Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun Times.  

Chicago Poet - JJ Tindall: Wallace Stevens Without The Insurance Plan and Ezra Pound With All of His Marbles

 

My pal, Chicago poet JJ Tindall smoking a corn-cob pipe ( dang!).  My mistake reciting his brilliant poetry to a worthy audience.

Poetry is math. 

R-CALCULUS     by Jonathan Holden of Kansas

               "The child is the father of the man." 

                        -- W. W. Wordsworth

     Back then, "Calculus"

     was a scary college word,

     and yet we studied it

     from the back seat, we studied   

     the rates at which

     the roadside trees went striding  

Sound and Sense kids!  Poetry ain't poetry without  'em.  Poetry is math -  Math for the guys who cannot make their way through Algebra.  The lyre and the slide-rule were very often the tools for clever kids sent to the Lyceum and hang around with the smart guys in order to pick up  useful applications for living the examined life.

Every culture has poets, bards, shops, shapers, singers and bar-flies caging a few wet ones for the price of a song.  Some people will argue ( wrongly, of course) that any culture is equal to the other.  That is nice and very WTTW and all but about as wrong as Ald. Proco Joe Moreno on a full breakfast.  Shakespeare is superior to Charles Bukowski, the late-Lil Jo Jo, and anything by Katha Polite.

Poets must pass the finger test - e.g. dactylic hexameter if you wish to go Epic. Six feet of DAK tills - A long syllable followed by two short syllables ( Dumb-Diddy) The Greek word dactyl has two meanings 'finger/toe -thus, a metric foot. English is spoken in

 Iambs; thus iambic pentameter Ta Tum/Ta tum/Ta Tum/Ta Tum /Ta tum - five feet to the measure.  Are you bored shitless by now? It is timing, beat, measure matching mood and meaning. That's the math.

Try this by Seamus Heaney 

Digging.

Between my finger and my thumb   

The squat pen rests; snug as a gun.

Under my window, a clean rasping sound   

When the spade sinks into gravelly ground:   

My father, digging. I look down

Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds   

Bends low, comes up twenty years away   

Stooping in rhythm through potato drills   

Where he was digging.

.....

Seamus Heaney is the real deal.  In the last century (20th -remember that one?) there were three truly outstanding American poets - TS Eliot, Ezra Pound and Wallace Stevens.  TS Eliot was pretentious creep: a St. Louis Hoosier affecting the speech of the British upper classes who had his brilliant and talented wife slapped in the looney bin. Great poet, but a louse that regular guys would love to slap around. He passes the finger test for meter and the one fipped by people of goodwill in direction of cads, bounders and creeps.

Ezra Pound was a sho nuff Hoosier from Indiana who so immersed himself in his art that the art took over - Pound did radio broadcasts for Mussolini, because he liked the trappings of fascism -columns, daggers, legions & etc.  William Butler Yeats was no different from Pound and avoided a trip to hotel silly only because Eire was neutral in WWII and he happened to die in 1939. But like Pound, Yeats, to quote Pope Pius XII, was "as crazy as a shit-house rat."

Our third poet, in my estimation, was best of the lot. Wallace Stevens demands your fullest attention as a man and as a poet.  I'd hang out with him at Beachwood Inn, Chip Inn, Home Run Inn, or Stash's Never Inn any day.  He was one of the top Hartford Insurance Salesmen and practiced his art outside of the public eye.  Stevens' family only learned of his fame as a poet after his death.  By all accounts, Wallace Stevens was not only a brilliant poet, but a great guy.

Here's Chicago's Wallace Stevens without an Insurance spiel and Ezra Pound with his marbles carefully maintained.  JJ. Tindall folks!

Chicagoetry: A Wren in a Wreath

By J.J. Tindall

A Wren in a Wreath

So: there's this ghoul

in my soul,

a wren in my wreath.

In a heart full of holes

lurks a golem of grief.

A compendium of flaws,

a contraption of of fate, he.

He's not everything,

he's just a part of me.

Of course, I have forged

a life mask with a modicum

of charm and finesse

(God! To get through the day!)

and crowned my fell heart

with a laureate's wreath

for endurance under duress.

Like us all, I swirl

with embattled selves.

Within croaks a ghoul

with an elephant's memory

for bleak humiliation

and roiling defeat.

I've christened him

the wren in my wreath.

He commands a gallows

of heartworn dreams, caretakes

a graveyard of botched ambition.

He embodies my Elephant Man:

swollen skull of cracked, grey leather,

hair-sprouting warts, drooling lips,

a vocabulary of phlegm-wracked slurs.

Yep: like a drunk

just a shot away.

I don't like him

but I must love him.

Because he's there.

Stress, fatigue

and crude draughts of relief

enable the guy

with the elephant grief.

Garlanded elephant

with a wren mahout

straddling his blades

and whipping his flank.

OK: not one wren

but a chime of wrens

like a murder of crows

with a case of the bends.

He's there, my wren,

my wrench in the works.

This Eve of All Hallows

I'll drag my life mask to the gallows

and for this night

I'll let the wren reign.

Yep: I'll purge the wrath

and savor compassion

for all ravens, rooks and knaves.

This night shall go judgment

to the grave.

To dawn

and the Day of All Saints

I bequeath

my shabby heart, my wren,

my wreath.

-

J.J. Tindall is the Beachwood's poet-in-residence. He welcomes your comments. Chicagoetry is an exclusive Beachwood collection-in-progress.

JJ Tindal has the great good sense to imbibe Pierian Beers at Beachwood Inn with American Journalist and Pintsman Steve Rhodes.

-

Chicago Print Journalism, Really? - Depends Upon the Journalist

"There is no such thing, at this date of the world's history, in America, as an independent press. You know it and I know it. There is not one of you who dares to write your honest opinions, and if you did, you know beforehand that it would never appear in print. I am paid weekly for keeping my honest opinion out of the paper I am connected with. Others of you are paid similar salaries for similar things, and any of you who would be so foolish as to write honest opinions would be out on the streets looking for another job. If I allowed my honest opinions to appear in one issue of my paper, before twenty-four hours my occupation would be gone. The business of the journalists is to destroy the truth, to lie outright, to pervert, to vilify, to fawn at the feet of mammon, and to sell his country and his race for his daily bread. You know it and I know it, and what folly is this toasting an independent press? We are the tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes. We are the jumping jacks, they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes." John Swinton 1829-1901)

The Nicene Creed has worked pretty well, given the bumps and starts and start again nature of history.  I more than go along with that code and have a devil of a time living up to that Athansian paradigm almost as much as the four gospels, Acts, Epistles and Apocalypse sequel to the Old Testament.

Aside from that Code, pretty much everything else depends upon how well I think and act in its light.  Trial and error have had a remarkable effect upon me - I no longer light tire fires under viaducts, climb water towers upon challenge, vote the Party line, answer 1800-# phone announcements, regard Male Lo T or The Mood On Demand Products commercials with anything short of a belly-laugh, or worry about fairness in print journalism. By journalists, I refer to the opinion makers and heart breakers who go unchallenged in this traditionally hick burg.  I leave out of this very inky mix - news writers - reporters, Tim Novak, Natasha Korecki, Maureen O'Donnell, Dan Mihiopoulas, Chris Fusco & etc. They are a credit to the canons of taste.

For journalists I must include the disc jockeys turned editors and their peers who run opinion in both papers.

Journalism is as hit-or-miss as American movies. Sometimes you get My Weekend With Marilyn, most times you get what ever is playing On Demand.( Hey, at least you didn't spring for AMC& Lowes prices and the $12 small combo, parking and gas!).

There's good stuff out there, but you really must be discerning -trial and error - I'd take one Steve Rhodes over any number of Eric Zorns, Carol Marins, Mary Schmichs, or Richard Roepers; one Dennis Byrne over a parliament of  Steve Chapmans, Clarence Pages, Neil Steinbergs, or David Brooks-eses..

They are the cheerleaders for the powers that be and wanna be, if funded and sanctioned by the political social engineers and their wallets .Shucks, a hack ink-slinger who barks on demand may . . . .just may end up as a career king maker, or helping the thieves steal more efficiently.

John Kass remains the only true link to the Arrch Wards, Ray Coffeys, Nick Von Hoffmans, Herman Kogans and Mike Roykos of Chicago's great writers.

Wit has been replaced with snark -whatever the Hell that is; opinion is not wanted - e.g. Steve Rhodes.

Like betting on clams in the Midwest, too many of the passed along and institutionally agreed-upon talents ( Manya Brachear, Megan Daum, Mary Mitchell, Stella Emerita, Dawn Turner Trice, Rich Miller and the Latino Line-up at the Sun Times -Alejandro Escalano, Suzanne Ontiveros, et.al.) will give that uncomfortable tum-tum followed by 

• A feeling that your teeth are loose and about to fall out
• Confusing hot and cold temperatures (for instance, you will feel that an ice cube is burning you, while a match is freezing your skin)
• Headache (probably the most common)
• Low heart rate and low blood pressure (in very severe cases)
• Metallic taste in the mouth
• 
  

Trial and error, the gradus to discernment, may lead one to believe that there are more than one bad clam in the bag.

Steve Rhodes - A Real Newsman: CTA Failure to Launch New Rail Cars Makes N. Korea Look Like NASA in the 1960's

" Claypool! What's all this, then???? This simply will not do, my good man. These bloody Sino-Canuck Bombardier Wheels are bloody well defective! I suspect foul'd play. The Games afoot! . . .again. What?"

CTA officials said the no-bid component had nothing to do with scuttling the deal and that Emanuel had encouraged it all along.

"Very early, even before he took office, he asked me how we might turn this billion-dollar expenditure into an opportunity for jobs," said CTA President Forrest Claypool, who was appointed to the post shortly after Emanuel's inauguration. "So when I took office we took that mandate and ran with it."

Claypool described the Bombardier proposal as a "very, very rare potential for a win-win. The goal was a noble one. "

Chicago Tribune April 12, 2012

North Korea, which had described the launch as that of a space satellite, said the rocket failed soon after lift-off and plunged into the Pacific. ABC News

"Through an aggressive but targeted public, community and government relations campaign, Bombardier sought:

* To inform CTA officials, local government and business leaders of the growing presence of Bombardier as a part of Chicago-area commerce and industry.
* To educate key constituencies about the successful engagements Bombardier has with transit agencies in other major areas around the country and the world.

* To build a team of allies to welcome them into the market and feel comfortable with the company's products and level of customer service.

* To create a favorable impression the Chicago media market by highlighting and promoting unique attributes and initiatives of the Bombardier Transportation N.A. to specialty and general market media.


Mission not yet accomplished.

Steve Rhodes Beachwood Reporter



North Korea fired its missile with all of the potency of an ED addled mope.

Closer to home Forrest Claypool's masterful roll out of Bombardier rail cars last year matched the young Tyrant's magic moment yesterday.

Unsatisfying.

North Korea is impotent, but dangerous.

CTA is in the hands of a master job jumper with the Illinois Progressive imprimatur. Failure to roll: Launch, Roll, Noble Goal.

Steve Rhodes highlighted the excellent and tenacious work of Chicago Tribune reporter John Hilkevich who unearthed cast off wheels of the Bombardier CTA Boondoggle from China to Canada to the Fifth Floor of City Hall and various phone lines and cyber-relays of the CTA with pith and poignant note.

Steve Rhodes has more integrity than Marcus Aurelius on a full breakfast. The Beachwood Reporter is the only news clearing house in Chicago untainted by cant, compensation. or courtship.

Dig how he do roll - Beachwood Reporter Ethics Pledge

http://www.beachwoodreporter.com/house/beachwood_ethics_statement.php


NBC tried to buy Steve Rhodes a couple of years ago and was told to pound sand in thunder.

You do not need to agree with Steve Rhodes or the talented staff of the Beachwood Reporter and he and they could care less. The point of journalism is to give truth a place at the table set with too many dishes and places by gluttons, drunks and dummies.

I am aware of Forrest Claypool's resume and remain as underwhelmed by his obvious talents and charms as I have for years. The Bombardier Boondoggle ( click my post title for a thorough close reading of John Hilkevich's work by Steve Rhodes) more than lived up my expectations.

For any summary and fair redaction of what is going on in Chicago go to the Beachwood Reporer. You will get a considered opinion free of Mammon's tickle.

Brewer's Droop, ED, Failure to Launch result from many factors.

Corruption ditto.

Kevin Myers defines the germ of corruption this way - Corruption is made possible by low standards: what is unpunctuality, but a disdain for rules?

The plumbers or electricians who don't show up on time are the building-blocks that make possible the Ziggurat of large-scale corruption. Kevin Myers last column for the Irish Independent

Myers' point; what we accept; we get - good and hard and with great regularity.

We accepted Blago. Some folks fully accept Forrest Claypool -


Here's little more on Chicago CTA Bombardier Navigator Forrest " Noble Goal" Claypool.

http://hickeysite.blogspot.com/2012/03/rahm-wasnt-bilked-in-day-took-many.html

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-04-12/news/ct-met-cta-bombardier-20120412_1_cta-president-forrest-claypool-cta-lawyers-cta-officials

Michael Shakman -The Man Who Bought Chicago -Explains 'Ethics' to Steve Rhodes of the Beachwood Reporter

Photo of Michael Shakman sitting in his office in the late 1970s. Since then, everything has been riding on his hip.

. . .And now from the Way The World Really Works desk here at Grub Street Chicago: Mayor Emanuel is suing his own park district. Why? Because it's part of a strategy to bust up a Daley-era sweetheart deal involving the Park Grill food concession in Millennium Park, which even the Daleys eventually realized was a lousy deal partly owed to the fact that the connected insider behind the restaurant was, well, really inside a female Park District official, ultimately making her pregnant. (The Daleys were always strongly against literal screwing on city business.) The Daley administration argued that the Park District had made a deal that they weren't authorized to make, involving city-owned land, and tried for six years to negotiate a better one (or one that let them in on the action), but didn't get anywhere. Now that the restaurant is negotiating its sale to the Levy Group, Rahm's taking it (and his own Park District) to court to turn up the heat. . . .While we're shedding all our naive illusions, it's worth mentioning that the attorney making this preposterous claim on behalf of well-connected profiteers is none other than Michael Shakman... yes, that Shakman*. Consider this lawsuit just one more skirmish between factions in the eternal struggle for power deep within the Machine."

Chicago Grubstreet


WBEZ, Crains, and the supine Chicago media hoo-hummed a tune of hypocrisy.

God's last honest man, Steve Rhodes, publisher of the Beachwood Reporter, journalist, and tapmaster smelled old halibut in the potpourri

Shakman? Michael Shakman?

Wait a second. Is the Park Grill's lawyer the Michael Shakman?

Readers want to know, WBEZ!

Same to you, Tribune!

Same to you, Sun-Times!

Same to you, Crain's!

(See Ryan C.'s comment.)

*

Answer: It is.

Steve Rhodes of the Beachwood Reporter


Michael Shakman explains


See? "If you can't trust a fix, what can you trust?" Nobody steals like a Goo-goo!


*

Shakman Decrees
In 1969, one man made his stand against the Chicago political machine. Michael Shakman, an independent candidate for delegate to the 1970 Illinois Constitutional Convention, battled against one of the most enduring traditions in Chicago's politics: political patronage, or the practice of hiring and firing government workers on the basis of political loyalty. With many behind-the-scenes supporters, Shakman's years of determination resulted in what became known as the “Shakman decrees.”

Shakman filed suit against the Democratic Organization of Cook County, arguing that the patronage system put nonorganized candidates and their supporters at an illegal and unconstitutional disadvantage. Politicians could hire, fire, promote, transfer—in essence, punish—employees for not supporting the system, or more particularly, a certain politician. The suit also argued that political patronage wasted taxpayer money because public employees, while at work, would often be forced to campaign for political candidates.

In 1972, after an exhaustive court procedure and much negotiating, the parties reached an agreement prohibiting politically motivated firings, demotions, transfers, or other punishment of government employees. A 1979 ruling led to a court order in 1983 that made it unlawful to take any political factor into account in hiring public employees (with exceptions for positions such as policy making). Those decisions along with companion consent judgments—collectively called the Shakman decrees—are binding on more than 40 city and statewide offices.

Roger R. Fross

http://encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/1138.html

mlshak@aol.com

Mr. Shakman serves as lead counsel in a wide range of litigation including corporate, contractual, commercial and partnership disputes, professional liability matters, construction disputes and arbitrations, antitrust, trade regulation and product liability litigation. In addition, he has served as lead counsel for public bodies and private citizens interested in cases concerning public housing practices and land-use control issues.

Mr. Shakman routinely represents attorneys, law firms and other professionals in partnership and professional responsibility disputes. He may be best known for the federal court Shakman Decrees, which have enjoined patronage hiring and firing of public employees in Chicago and Illinois.

Education
B.A., University of Chicago, 1962.
Graduated with honors
M.A., University of Chicago, 1963.
J.D., University of Chicago Law School, 1966.
Graduated cum laude
Order of the Coif
Managing Editor and Articles Editor of the University of Chicago
Law Review.
Experience
Admitted to the Illinois Bar, 1966.
Served as law clerk to the Hon. Walter V. Schaefer, Justice, Illinois Supreme Court, 1966-1967.
Practiced as an associate with this firm, 1967-1972.
Partner, 1972.
Selected Engagements
Numerous representations defending large law firms against allegations of transactional and litigation legal malpractice. These matters have involved lawsuits, arbitrations and mediations.
Defended parties in antitrust litigation involving price fixing, territorial allocations and related claims in direct and class action litigation.
Represented directors and special litigation committees of corporate boards in responding to shareholder litigation.
Represented international energy industry contractor in state and federal court litigation involving power plant construction, ownership disputes and environmental remediation work.
Represented the trustee in bankruptcy in a large Chapter 7 proceeding, which involved over 70 adversary claims removed to the District Court.
Represented investors in broadcasting business in disputes involving accounting issues, RICO and allegations of fraud.
Represented purchasers and sellers of business entities in a wide range
of disputes.
Served as Special Assistant Illinois Attorney General in representing state government agencies in disputes over land use and operations, including representation of the State of Illinois in disputes with the City of Chicago over the closure of Chicago’s Meigs Field airport.
Selected Publications
“How to Respond to an ARDC Complaint,” Illinois Bar Journal, Vol. 92 #10, October 2004. Written with Arthur W. Friedman.
“There But for the Grace of God Go I: A Look at the Modern Transactional Legal Malpractice Case...” Chicago Bar Association Record, April 2004. Written with Stephen J. Bisgeier and Edward W. Feldman.
“Reporting Your Partners and Associates to the ARDC,” Illinois Bar Journal, Volume 90, March 2002. Written with Arthur W. Friedman and Thomas M. Staunton.
“Can Lawyers Protect, and Sell at Premium, a Secret and Valuable Idea?” Chicago Bar Association Record, June/July 2001. Written with
Marc O. Beem.
“Trust Us: How Rules on Referral Fees Influence the MDP Debate,” Chicago Bar Association Record, September 2000. Written with
Diane F. Klotnia.
“Ethical Duties Remain Unclear In Online Realm: Rules of Law,” Chicago Daily Law Bulletin, April 12, 2000.
“Primer on Acting Rationally When Lawyers Relocate,”Chicago Bar Association Record, February/March 2000. Written with Geraldine Soat Brown and Barry A. Miller.
“Mediation of Business Disputes,” Alternative Dispute Resolution, Illinois Institute for CLE, 2001. Written with Diane F. Klotnia and
Edward W. Feldman.
“Flynn v Cohn: Payment of Overhead in Winding Up a Partnership,” Illinois Bar Journal, October 1993 (81 Ill. B.J. 530). Written with
Barry A. Miller.
Memberships
American Bar Association
Illinois State Bar Association
Chicago Bar Association
Chicago Council of Lawyers
American Law Institute
Board member and officer of the Southeast Chicago Commission
Board member and chair of the Institute for Psychoanalysis

http://www.millershakman.com/bio.shakman.html

Beachwood Reporter Steve Rhodes - Steel Spine, Razor Wit and Massive Heart

Steve Rhodes is a paragon. I get on Steve's nerves over my skepticism concerning the near universal acceptance that Jon Burge tortured every black man who stepped into Area 2 ( Old and New). Unlike most folks beyond my Zipcode, I believe that the entire Monster Burge Mythology is just that and the truth of what happened is buried under mountains of bullshit. I get Steve as sore as boil on this issue, but that is as nothing to what my presence and performance art has on most people I love. I am a good-natured pain-in-the-ass at times. Many times.

Steve Rhodes writes, edits and publishes, what I believe to be the best news and opinion post in Chicago, if not the whole damned country.

Rhodes has a nose for cant and singular moral code that escapes most of our more iconic Media creatures - Steve Rhodes is a power iconoclast. He lives integrity. Some time ago Steve Rhodes abandoned a lucrative post as an editor of NBC's Chicago website, and remained fastened to the mast of Truth. His monetary ship sank, but the juggernaut of Rhodesian Integrity still cuts through the waves of journalistic bullshit. In 2009, Steve Rhodes resigned as editor for NBC ( from Mike Miner of the Chicago Reader)

Rhodes explains why he left. It came down to a lack of trust and a lack of respect; Rhodes focuses on one post, about Randy Michaels succeeding Sam Zell as CEO of the Tribune Company, that he says NBC took down, and another post, about the suicide of Michael Scott, that it never put up. He writes that he couldn't get a straight answer about what the problem with the Michaels post was, but an NBC exec said the Michaels post "didn't meet the standards of the NBC brand." The post recalled an old lawsuit that alleged Michaels "roamed his old Clear Channel offices with a 'flexible rubber penis' tied around his neck" and accused him of "a host of other crude rituals."

Didn't meet standards? Rhodes doesn't buy that. He writes, "The Michaels post was partly about sexual harassment, not sex. It wasn't arted with yet another montage of cleavage that has become so familiar on the [NBC] site over the past few months."

As for the Scott post, Rhodes writes that he told it was "scotched because [Scott] was a friend of a high-ranking station official here in Chicago who had been 'ruffled' by the coverage of Scott's death."

Rhodes being Rhodes, he writes with a lot of heat and a fair amount of invective. He asserts at one point, "I didn't use names in this piece because I don't really intend this as a 'tell-all;' instead, to me, it's another in an incredibly long line of tales about journalism and its discontents. It's a sick, diseased industry that can't seem to get past the basics of what it is and what it's supposed to do.

"

This week, Steve Rhodes presents genuine analysis of the news concerning our President, his peeps, his foes and his handling of the Debt Crisis. It is his conclusion concerning lobbyists and the Obama Brand that is a masterstroke:

"The cynics, the lobbyists, the special interests who've turned our government into a game only they can afford to play," said then-Sen Obama in his February 2007 announcement speech. "They get the access while you get to write a letter . . . The time for that kind of politics is over."

Yes. Now we won't even read your letters!

"Nearly 80 percent of those who collected more than $500,000 for Obama took 'key administration posts,' as defined by the White House" iWatchNews reports. "More than half the ambassador nominees who were bundlers raised more than half a million.

"The big bundlers had broad access to the White House for meetings with top administration officials and glitzy social events. In all, campaign bundlers and their family members account for more than 3,000 White House meetings and visits."

Waiting for Superman
It's not the debt ceiling I'm worried about, it's the bullshit ceiling. Why do we keep raising that?

Click my post title for more Rhodes!

If you want the Truth, go to Steve Rhodes. He will tell you when you are a pain-in-the-ass. If you are not reading Beachwood Reporter, you should. If you are a philanthropist with a genuine love of good writing and analysis write a big check to Steve Rhodes.

If you are not any of the above, change.

http://www.chicagoreader.com/Bleader/archives/2009/12/22/steve-rhodes-leaves-nbcchicagocom

Chicago's Poet J.J. Tindall - This is Poetry

Chicagoetry: Saturday Afternoon
By J.J. Tindall
Saturday Afternoon

Music, if music, is divine,
the sub-atomic matter of divinity.
Not as a god but as a god might be.
He savored the complacencies
of a beer run, illumined by siren song,
the luminous trill of a woman's voice
in Spanish--not the tyrannous bleat
of emergency engines--sluicing through
ash-grey alleys like invisible water
through caverns of Indian-corn brick,
fluttering, flirting and luring,
lute en fleur.

A brook of invisible gems, supple
and turbulent, a careening of lush atoms.
Spanish is music-upon-music to the non-Spaniard
in the works. He encountered a church
festival in the parking lot of Iglesia del
Nazareno, a carnivale of faith and family,
pulsating with popular rhythm and blues.
Children darting and dancing, setting pigeon
flocks--flecked in ash--undulating, supple
and turbulent. Young couples embracing,
husbands and wives in intense conversations
of labor, pain and enduring love.

Visible, culpable: keyboards, trap-set
and bass guitar, with a chorus of three (a trinity).
Music invisible, but real as rain.
The Spanish did not batter his heart
with mythy rhetoric. Divinity pressed upon him
in lush, sub-atomic reality, whorling and whooshing,
like a jettisoned flock of scavenger birds.
Like swirling birds, not a seething, humanesque god.
The more human, the less humane. The less humane,
the less godly. Music, if music, is miracle,
luring lush hearts from deifying life's inherent pain,
not as a god but as a god might be.

Anapests and Ale; Beer and Ballads at Beachwood -Thursday at Beachwood Inn

Patron, Publisher and Publican Steve Rhodes pops the caps on litres of lager and loads Bob's Beachwood Inn for an evening of Ale and Alliteration by Chicago's best practicing and published poet -J.J. Tindall on Thursday October 14th - Unbuckle your chin straps! Grab a knee! Coach Steve's got soemthing to say. . .spit out that gum!

I'll be behind the bar tonight at the glorious Beachwood Inn slinging drinks and singing songs 5 p.m. to 2 a.m. Ten free picks on the jukebox for whoever gets to them first! Other specials:

* Old Style: $2.50. Yes, that's a special!
* $1 off bottom shelf. That's the lowest shelf!
* Free football pizza from John's! Made to order!
* Free pool for $1!
* Dr. Dude pinball!
* Monday Night Football in HDTV!
* 18 jukebox picks for $5!
* And bar jokes!

Please join us on Thursday, October 14 for a very special presentation of J.J. Tindall's Ballots From The Dead at Open Books -

Open Books
213 W Institute Place, Chicago, IL 60610

(312) 475-1355 () ‎

Then amble over to Beachwood Inn

Choose your own poem to read from our Chicagoetry collection and bring books to donate to our gracious host, Open Books.


Also, don't forget our Thursday books event at Open Books.

Open Books
213 W Institute Place, Chicago, IL 60610

(312) 475-1355 () ‎


See you there!


Steve Rhodes
Editor & Publisher | Beachwood Media
-
www.beachwoodreporter.com
www.agonyandivy.com

J.J. Tindall has a practiced ear for lyrical poetry and gives voice to a poetic talent too often drown out by lesser lights. Here is a posting that I made last Fall on J.J. Tindall's works.

I love Poetry and there is a heap of very bad poetry - thanks to Slams and HBO.

Poetry is exacting work - The Sound must seem an echo to the Sense*. It is not something one tosses off when fully Kreuzened and touched by the Red Bull Muse.

One of Chicago's best practicing poets can be found in the pages of Steve Rhodes' wonderful Beachwood Reporter. J.J. Tindall has a great ear and a wonderful heart that shouts out wonderfully humorous lines.

Here's a bit:




Son of St. Francis of My Ass

I'm just trying to have a good time.
Hurt is Hell. Let's have a bell!
TONG! TONG!

And a crow.
My Hell is a deep Christian
well in a raw field

just beyond
the edge of the last
suburb.

A raggedy-ass crow,
nothing noble, no Narcissus
of wire. A red crow




Chicagoetry: Confession To The Future
By J.J. Tindall
Confession to the Future

I strove for wealth and sorely failed,
I did not save a single whale.
I did not raise my children well,
I told my friends to go to hell.

I did not know my neighbor's name,
I juried love a callow game.
I scorched the earth to fight for fame,
I stole a march on any shame.

I greeted fools with charming grace
then wiped that smile right off their face.
I cheated on schoolwork, taxes, wives,
then pleaded innocence all my life.

I sold the farm for booze and coke,
I relished vicious ethnic jokes.
I bought the biggest car I could,
I dumped my garbage in the woods.

I sold insurance on people's health
then prayed they'd die to spare my wealth.
I proffered bonds on people's homes
then jacked the price and rigged the loans.

I razed the forests to drill for oil,
I fouled the air and drugged the soil.
I said anything to get elected
then assured my interests were protected:

wildlife crushed to bone and ash,
mountains scarred with gouge and gash,
rivers poisoned drop by drop,
farmland rendered fetid slop.

Thus your Martian tundra reigns,
deserts, bog-holes, acid rain.
Thus you needn't send to know
which rake made your world of woe.

Always me. It was me. It was me.


* I always bow to Pope in matters poetic and the Pope in matters spiritual, moral and liturgical.


True ease in writing comes from art, not chance,
As those move easiest who have learned to dance.
'Tis not enough no harshness gives offense,
The sound must seem an echo to the sense:
Soft is the strain when Zephyr gently blows,
And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows;
But when loud surges lash the sounding shore,
The hoarse, rough verse should like the torrent roar;
When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw,
The line too labors, and the words move slow;
Not so, when swift Camilla scours the plain,
Flies o'er the unbending corn, and skims along the main.
Hear how Timotheus' varied lays surprise,
And bid alternate passions fall and rise!

Steve Rhodes - The Only Liberal Who Calls Out the Universal Hypocrisies on Sarah Palin

I am as proud of Steve Rhodes as any man can be and I am as sexist as I am allowed to be.

Steve Rhodes publishes, contributes to and edits what I believe to be the finest Chicago clearinghouse on news, sports, culture, poetry and common sense on the Information Superhighway invented by Al Gore, who also invented Global Warming - The Beachwood Reporter.
Steve Rhodes is a journalist in city where most columnists come off as suck-ups and snitches in a classroom dedicated to suck-ups and snitches.

Steve Rhodes and I share a love of the written word and a reverence for - at least a nod to truth and common sense.

Today, as he does most days, Steve Rhodes holds the Diogenian Lamp over the suck-ups and snitches in the classroom over the treatment of the Thrilla from Wasilla - former Alaska Governor and GOP V.P. candidate Sarah Palin.

I like Sarah Palin. On my basest level ( one to which I cling in spite of my better angels), I think that she is very easy on the eyes. I am a sexist - devout, drooling, but not without shame. I love women almost as much as Rachel Maddow and much more than Sir Elton John. Gee let's see which person would I enjoy hanging around with . . . weepy Joan Walsh? . . . Rep. Rosa DeLauro? . . .( both of whom would sicken a billy goat raised on barbed wire and broken beer bottles) or Sarah Palin?

Jeepers.

I also like Sarah Palin as a person - she seems like a fine mother and seems very happy. Happiness really upsets American Progressives - unless of course they happen to be burning witches at the stake or engaging in universal self-loathing.

Voila! Rhodes on Truth!

The Palin Exception
By Steve Rhodes
One thing I learned this week - well, I re-learned, I've faced it before - is that sexist coverage of female politicians is an awful thing unless the pol is Sarah Palin. Then it's perfectly acceptable to at least a certain number of progressive feminists in and out of the media.

Why? Because if you despise someone's politics, they apparently no longer can be defended on any other grounds. Apparently it was always about politics, not principle.

So when I posted Reporting Palin, I shouldn't have been surprised by the depressing responses I got from some quarters.

As I've written before, the whole of America seems to need a civics lesson in how to carry on political discourse, decipher the media, and learn to think for themselves like the actual, independent citizens that democracy calls for.

And much of the media still needs lessons in how to do their jobs.

Here is the simple proposition I was operating under:

"Sexist coverage of Sarah Palin is every bit as despicable as sexist coverage of Hillary Clinton, which is every bit as despicable as sexist coverage of Laura Bush, which is every bit as despicable as sexist coverage of Michelle Obama, which is every bit as despicable as sexist coverage of Kay Bailey Hutchison, which is every bit as despicable as sexist coverage of Nancy Pelosi."

How silly of me. Haven't I learned by now of the Palin Exception?

Her politics are so despised - in part justified in my view, but also in part based on a lot of debunked nonsense akin to Al Gore's never-made claim to have invented the Internet - that certain principles go out the window.

But she has a right to her politics. She also has a right to covered fairly - even if she, like many other politicians, including our president, doesn't always play fair. Make that part of the reporting, but don't demean her because of her gender.

Just to reiterate, here is just a slice of the record.

1. "From Ferraro to Palin: Sexism in Media Coverage of Vice Presidential Candidates." By Caroline Heldman, Occidental College.

"We find persistent gender differences in mention of dress/appearance, mention of candidate family, gendered policy coverage, and negative tone that disadvantage female candidates. Additionally, female candidates are four times more likely to receive sexist media coverage, and the intensity and volume of sexist coverage increased dramatically from Ferraro's run in 1984 to Palin's run in 2008. We also compared Palin's coverage in Old Media (print) and New Media (blogs) and found that sexist coverage and negative coverage are more pronounced in this new medium."

2. "Like Hillary, Sarah Faces Media Sexism." By Marie Cocco.

"[T]he media will continue to subject Palin to the unapologetic sexism that has been directed at her since the very first hours after John McCain announced that she was his pick to be the Republican vice presidential nominee - and which continued to animate coverage of her, right up through a lengthy political profile in the current issue of Vanity Fair.

"Almost as certain, my colleagues will seek to defend the indefensible as something Palin brought upon herself - by being too ignorant, too unpredictable, too touchy, too hypocritical, too loose with facts, too inept at governing, too flirty, even too obviously fertile. Yes, this is one of the assertions made in the Vanity Fair profile . . .

"Almost as soon as she'd finished her breakthrough speech at the Republican National Convention, one columnist for the liberal online magazine Salon called Palin a 'dominatrix' and a 'pinup queen,' referred to her 'babaliciousness' - and described her convention address as having been charged with enough sexual energy to give the partisan crowd a 'collective woody.' Another Salon columnist described Palin as a 'Christian Stepford wife in a sexy librarian costume" who was, for the most ideological Republicans, a 'hard-core pornographic centerfold spread.'

"Palin early on was called 'Stepford Barbie' and 'Caribou Barbie' - terms used even by highbrow commentators, who find it acceptable to liken Palin to the impossibly proportioned fashion doll. The Barbie epithet marked Palin as an object of sexualized fashion fascination well before it came to light that the vice presidential nominee had used Republican Party funds to buy an expensive campaign wardrobe."

3. "Media analyst sees racism, sexism in election coverage." By Holly Jackson.

"Audible gasps filled Ellis Auditorium at MU on Tuesday night, as Pozner played a clip featuring CNBC talk show host Donny Deutsch saying Palin was a woman he wanted to lie next to in bed and Clinton should have put on a skirt."

4. "Geraldine Ferraro Accuses Media Over 'Sexist' Scrutiny of Sarah Palin." By Tom Baldwin.

"Ms Ferraro remains angry at the 'sexist treatment' of Mrs Clinton by the media. 'In New Hampshire, someone put up a sign saying Iron My Shirt. Nobody spoke out. Imagine if Hillary's supporters had said [to Obama] Shine my shoes. Everybody would quite rightly have been jumping on it. Women in politics should not be treated better than men, just fairly.'"

5. "Estrich On Sexist Attacks On Palin." By Jim Lindgren.

"Susan Estrich, former Dukakis campaign manager, just said on Fox that she was appalled by the attacks on Palin [and called them] 'really unfair' and 'really sexist.'"

6. "Juan Williams: 'Centerfold' Palin Successful Because She's Attractive." By Lachlan Markey.

"Fox News contributor Juan Williams, also a reporter for NPR and the Washington Post, was at a complete loss when Sean Hannity told him last night that he would rather Palin be president than Barack Obama. 'Your libido is getting in the way of your thinking,' Williams told Hannity . . . 'I think she is a superstar centerfold for conservative men.'"

7. "Clinton Aides: Palin Treatment Sexist." By John Harris and Beth Frerkring.

"Sarah Palin found some unlikely allies Wednesday as leading academics and even former top aides to Hillary Rodham Clinton endorsed the Republican charge that John McCain's running mate has been subject to a sexist double standard by the news media and Democrats.

"Georgetown University professor Deborah Tannen, who has written best-selling books on gender differences, said she agrees with complaints that Palin skeptics - including prominent voices in the news media - have crossed a line by speculating about whether the Alaska governor is neglecting her family in pursuit of national office.

"'What we're dealing with now, there's nothing subtle about it,' said Tannen. 'We're dealing with the assumption that child-rearing is the job of women and not men. Is it sexist? Yes . . . '

"* Liberal radio host Ed Schultz used the words 'bimbo alert' to refer to Palin, and the Huffington Post featured a photo montage of Palin with the headline, 'Former Beauty Queen, Future VP?'

"* CNN's John Roberts recently pondered on air: 'Children with Down's syndrome require an awful lot of attention. The role of vice president, it seems to me, would take up an awful lot of her time, and it raises the issue of how much time will she have to dedicate to her newborn child?'

"This line of inquiry was echoed by writer Sally Quinn, who in her 'On Faith' column for washingtonpost.com agreed that Palin is a 'bright, attractive, impressive person," but also asked, "is she prepared for the all-consuming nature of the job?'

"'Her first priority has to be her children,' Quinn wrote. 'When the phone rings at 3 in the morning and one of her children is really sick what choice will she make?'"

8. "'No One Will Ever Be Able to Take Your Place' as a Mom." By Richard Prince.

"'My question to Sarah Palin is this. Who is going to lead your children?' Sidmel Estes-Sumpter, a media consultant and former president of the National Association of Black Journalists, asked on her blog on Friday.

"'I get it when you say you have a supportive husband who is always there for you. I get it when you complain that men aren't subjected to the same kind of questioning as women when it comes to family values. Been there . . . done that . . . got the t-shirt. But Sarah . . . GET REAL. No one will ever be able to take your place as a mother. I'm telling you this not because of what I have heard. I'm telling you this because this is what I know.

"'More than 17 years ago, I was elected the national president of the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ). . . the first woman in our organization to accomplish that. The biggest heartstring pulling at me was how it would affect my two year old son. That consideration almost forced me not to run.'"

9. "Newsweek Cover Races To The Bottom With Old Photo Of Palin." By Glynnis MacNicol.

"The weekly magazine, which since its relaunch has opted for increasingly blogosphere-like headlines to generate readers, apparently has decided that the best way to cover Sarah Palin's reemergence on the national stage is with an old photo from Runner's World . . . But resorting to a photo like this (and yes I realize she posed for it, though in an entirely different context) to illustrate such a condescending headline forces me conclude that Newsweek thinks Palin is an annoying little problem because she looks good in runner's shorts, and not a problem because, as both the magazine's articles suggest, she is the 21st century's version of Barry Goldwater, and has broad national appeal for a whole slew of reasons, very few of which having to do with how she looks in runner's shorts."

10. "Biden's Gloves Come Off . . . Against 'Sexist' Media." By Matthew Jaffe.

"[T]he truth is, some of the stuff that the press has said about Sarah, and that others have said about the governor, I think, are outrageous," Biden said. "I just think some of the stuff said has been over the top, totally unfair, and has been sexist, and I think the way the governor has handled it has been admirable."

11. "Matthews: Palin Like A 'Mail-Order Bride.'" By Ed Morrissey.

"No one will be surprised to see Matthews do this, but having Newsweek's Howard Fineman busting a gut and joining in the fun may be a bit of a surprise."

12. "From Gloria Steinem to Norah O'Donnell, Misogyny and Sexism Are Fine if the Target (Palin) Is on the Right." By Julia Reed.

"Blogs accused her of faking her own pregnancy with a Down syndrome child to cover up for her daughter. Mainstream journalists - female mainstream journalists - like Norah O'Donnell questioned whether a mother of five could effectively function as vice president. More piled on about her irresponsibility in accepting the nomination with five children, including one with special needs. Alan Colmes suggested on his blog that her airplane travel had possibly contributed to the fact that her child was born with Down syndrome. It went on and on and on. Where was the feminist outcry?

"Plenty of Republican women were sickened over the treatment of Hillary Clinton (hell, even I cried at the video that introduced her convention speech), but there has been no reaching across party lines to defend Palin. Not even when Martin Peretz dismissed and demeaned her by saying, 'I give [Palin] her due: she is pretty like a cosmetics saleswoman at Macy's.'"

13. "Eric Zorn's Sexist Folly." By Steve Rhodes.

"The Tribune columnist today retells the jokes of late-night comics about Sarah Palin without any recognition of how offensive many of them are."

14. "Palin as Pinup." By Steve Rhodes.

"I'm not sure what to do first, re-read Freud or call Susan Faludi."

*

Again, my simple proposition is this:

"Sexist coverage of Sarah Palin is every bit as despicable as sexist coverage of Hillary Clinton, which is every bit as despicable as sexist coverage of Laura Bush, which is every bit as despicable as sexist coverage of Michelle Obama, which is every bit as despicable as sexist coverage of Kay Bailey Hutchison, which is every bit as despicable as sexist coverage of Nancy Pelosi."

But when it comes to Palin, well, a lot of "progressive" women (and liberal reporters) simply don't care.

-

Steve remember what the poet and philosopher Al Sweringen from Deadwood told his minions - "You want a donkey's attention, you bring a #$%king pole down between his ears."
Yes Sir!

Chicago Poet J.J. Tindall - Good Ear and Great Heart

I love Poetry and there is a heap of very bad poetry - thanks to Slams and HBO.

Poetry is exacting work - The Sound must seem an echo to the Sense*. It is not something one tosses off when fully Kreuzened and touched by the Red Bull Muse.

One of Chicago's best practicing poets can be found in the pages of Steve Rhodes' wonderful Beachwood Reporter. J.J. Tindall has a great ear and a wonderful heart that shouts out wonderfully humorous lines.

Here's a bit:

Son of St. Francis of My Ass

I'm just trying to have a good time.
Hurt is Hell. Let's have a bell!
TONG! TONG!

And a crow.
My Hell is a deep Christian
well in a raw field

just beyond
the edge of the last
suburb.

A raggedy-ass crow,
nothing noble, no Narcissus
of wire. A red crow

Chicagoetry: Confession To The Future
By J.J. Tindall
Confession to the Future

I strove for wealth and sorely failed,
I did not save a single whale.
I did not raise my children well,
I told my friends to go to hell.

I did not know my neighbor's name,
I juried love a callow game.
I scorched the earth to fight for fame,
I stole a march on any shame.

I greeted fools with charming grace
then wiped that smile right off their face.
I cheated on schoolwork, taxes, wives,
then pleaded innocence all my life.

I sold the farm for booze and coke,
I relished vicious ethnic jokes.
I bought the biggest car I could,
I dumped my garbage in the woods.

I sold insurance on people's health
then prayed they'd die to spare my wealth.
I proffered bonds on people's homes
then jacked the price and rigged the loans.

I razed the forests to drill for oil,
I fouled the air and drugged the soil.
I said anything to get elected
then assured my interests were protected:

wildlife crushed to bone and ash,
mountains scarred with gouge and gash,
rivers poisoned drop by drop,
farmland rendered fetid slop.

Thus your Martian tundra reigns,
deserts, bog-holes, acid rain.
Thus you needn't send to know
which rake made your world of woe.

Always me. It was me. It was me.

* I always bow to Pope in matters poetic and the Pope in matters spiritual, moral and liturgical.


True ease in writing comes from art, not chance,
As those move easiest who have learned to dance.
'Tis not enough no harshness gives offense,
The sound must seem an echo to the sense:
Soft is the strain when Zephyr gently blows,
And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows;
But when loud surges lash the sounding shore,
The hoarse, rough verse should like the torrent roar;
When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw,
The line too labors, and the words move slow;
Not so, when swift Camilla scours the plain,
Flies o'er the unbending corn, and skims along the main.
Hear how Timotheus' varied lays surprise,
And bid alternate passions fall and rise!

Steve Rhodes of Beachwood Reporter - Integrity's Son!

It's a party line vote in Congress, but in America support for health care reform but disgust with the legislation before us is indeed bipartisan.

Steve Rhodes Beachwood Reporter - March 18, 2010

Ladies and Gents, Steve Rhodes is a rock-ribbed Liberal and gentleman to the back-bone.

Earlier this year Steve Rhodes, refused to be pressured by NBC and water down a story on the NBC Chicago Website. Steve Rhodes walked away from a paying job . . .how well it was paying the good man never mentioned. Only Suckers Beef.

Yesterday, 55 notoriously dumb nuns betrayed their vows and the faith in favor of a Progressive imprimatur from such fatuous cheerleaders as Washington Post Class Snitch E.J. Dionne and the clown opera at MSNBC in support of the worst piece of legislation forced on the American People since . . .last year's Cap and Trade idiocy.

Today, a genuine Liberal in the tradition of Harry Truman, Steve Rhodes offers a powerful explication of Health Care Boondoggle and Hegelian hypocrisy in the American Media.

Here is a sample from Beachwood Reporter!

Eric Zorn is "still waiting for someone to calmly explain why using 'deem and pass' offends the ideals of democracy or good government."

In other words, Zorn is still trying to figure out why it's offensive to use a parliamentary maneuver for a purpose it wasn't designed for in order to pass controversial and far-reaching legislation that doesn't have enough votes to pass if actually voted on.

Hell, why even have Congress vote at all? Let's just "deem and pass" everything!

Steve Rhodes and I agree on most things that are important - integrity, dedication to task, honor for our elders and betters, and support for those without succor.
He will tell me when I write crap out of laziness or expediency. Steve Rhodes will tell me when I have crossed the line or taken the path of least resistance - the coward's way out. I take what Steve Rhodes has to say when he piles on a Man's share of salt. He mines that salt with heart, sinew and soul.

Proud to call you Pal, Steve! You are a gentleman.

Chicago's Voice Returns with Skinny and Houli on Avenue 950 WNTD AM

The only thing sadder than a fat girl playing the song Georgy Girl over and over again, is the sorry state of Chicago's Voice.

John Kass - solid pipes; Steve Rhodes at Beachwood Reporter ditto, but these lads are but rarely heard on the Radio airwaves or over the Idiot Box.

Well cheer up Boys and Girls, Skinny and Houli are coming to Chicago's airwaves!

Cant Free Radio Returns!



Skinny & Houli Show debuts on Avenue 950 WNTD AM


Avenue 950 Timeless Cool, a product of Sovereign City Radio Services, rolls out their much anticipated program, The Skinny & Houli Show, on Wednesday nights from 6-8PM beginning January 20.

James "Skinny" Sheahan, former Director of the Mayor's Office of Special Events and Mike "Houli" Houlihan, columnist for the Irish American News and former features columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times, introduce listeners to the quirky characters and stories that give our city its unique charm.

This two hour, freewheeling talk radio dialogue features two of Chicago's most irrepressible personalities, discussing what's happening in the city each week. The hosts will dissect the news, politics, sports, and entertainment scene with their trademark wit and introduce a variety of community activists and neighborhood heroes.

The Skinny & Houli Show, in partnership with Special Olympics Chicago, will feature guests who are making a positive impact on the lives of Chicagoans plus a "Special Olympics Spotlight" on an athlete, coach or volunteer for outstanding achievement.

Tune in to Avenue 950 and hear a show that will make you proud to live in Chicago.
Click my post title for the sound of the current state of Chicago's Voice - get out the Hankies Girls!

Steve Rhodes - Chicago Journalist: Cyrano De Bergerac of Beachwood

I love Liberals and there are darned fewer of them than there were when I started teaching English.

Liberals were often very well-educated and well-dis positioned men and women who looked to the human heart for the path to God. Liberals are Cyrano De Bergerac*!

Liberals did not need Decalogues, Doctrines or Dogmas rather they found the wholeness of human decency to be a Universal.

I am far too lazy a man to have been a Liberal and far too ignorant to be a Conservative. Conservatives have already devoured the books that I intend to read - witness Steve Jordan, Elias Crim, Tom Roeser, Dan Kelley and Max Weismann. Conservatives are St. Thomas More.

I feature some where far between such heroes - a combination of Bob Newhart/Stanley Kowalski.

One of the great Liberals - no Progressive ( a Dogmatic Dewey Spewer and faux-Hegalian flannelmouth) - in my circle of friends is journalist and Beachwood Reporter Publisher Steve Rhodes.

I began to admire this energetic young man's work, while I was teaching at La Lumiere School in the early 1990's. Steve Rhodes wants God's poor and unprotected safe and happy, but will not distort or destroy history to make that happen.

Recently Steve Rhodes had been a contributor to NBC.com Chicago. Along with Mary Ann Ahern, Steve Rhodes was one of my favorite Peacock Reporters.

Today, I learned of attempts by NBC to silence a journalist. Steve Rhodes has more integrity in his chin-whiskers than Peacock has lawyers.

Click my post title for a full account of Steve Rhodes' refusal to "Tickle the Horns of Mammon."

Here's a gem!

News organizations are the biggest hypocrites on the planet because they so often violate ethical standards - conflicts of interest, deception of the public - that they so often try to hold others to. Nothing is more disheartening to journalists who actually believe in what they do to hear of and confront and become entangled such untoward activities.

*

What would you have me do?
Seek for the patronage of some great man,
And like a creeping vine on a tall tree crawl
upward, where I cannot stand alone? No
thank you! Dedicate, as others do, Poems to
pawnbrokers? Be a buffoon
In the vile hope of teasing out a smile
On some cold face? No thank you! Eat a toad
For breakfast every morning? Make my knees
Callous, and cultivate a supple spine,-
Wear out my belly grovelling in the dust?
No thank you! Scratch the back of any swine
That roots up gold for me? Tickle the horns of
Mammon with my left hand, while my right,
Too proud to know his partner's -business,
Takes in the fee? No thank you! Use the fire
God gave me to burn incense all day long
Under the nose of wood and stone? No thank you!
Shall I go leaping into ladies' laps
And licking fingers? Or, to change the form-
Navigating with madrigals for oars,
My sails full of the sighs of dowagers?
No thank you! Publish verses at my own
Expense? No thank you! Be the patron saint
Of a small group of literary souls
Who dine together every Tuesday? No,
I thank you! Shall I labor night and day
To build a reputation on one song,
And never write another? Shall I find
True genius only among Geniuses,
Palpitate over little paragraphs,
And struggle to insinuate my name
In the columns of The Mercury!
No thank you! Calculate, scheme, be afraid,
Love more to make a visit than a poem,
Seek introductions, favors, influences? No
thank you! No, I thank you! And again
I thank you! But . . .
To sing, to laugh, to dream,
To walk in my own way and be alone,
Free, with an eye to see things as they are,
A voice that means manhood--to cock my hat
Where I choose-- At a word, a Yes, a No,
To fight--or write. To travel any road
Under the sun, under the stars, nor doubt
If fame or fortune lie beyond the bourne--
Never to make a line I have not heard
In my own heart; yet, with all modesty
To say: “My soul, be satisfied with flowers,
With fruit, with weeds even; but gather them
In the one garden you may call your own.”
So, when I win some triumph, by some chance,
Render no share to Caesar--in a word,
I am too proud to be a parasite,
And if my nature is not that which grows
Towering to heaven like the mountain pine,
Or like the oak, sheltering multitudes--
I stand, not high it may be--but alone!

God Bless Good Men!