The Tribune Water Boy Has a Blinding Flash of "N.S.?"

Eric Zorn, the Garbage Grid Grinder and Water Boy for Team Rahm-a-Lama-Dang-Dong had an Epiphany after watching WTTW - Winnetka Talks To Wilmette.

Like, the movie goers nodding with conviction to the sight of Charles Foster Kane's Rosebud Sled incinerating to a cinder in Xanadu,CA, Eric Zorn realizes that . . . Public Unions cost money!

After months of mouthing the Mike "Michigan Fats" Moore Meme in Wisconsin and throaty preachifying about Union Solidarity, The Water Boy now knows what any blue collar tangible citizen has known for decades about Time and Half for Overtime and Double Time and a Half on Birthdays.

Solidarity Forever . . .well until now.

Talk about many happy returns! Earning $50 an hour if you usually earn $20, just because it is Your Special Day.

And who pays for these gifts? Riders, the same folks who are looking at fare increases or service cuts if the CTA doesn’t get its costs under control, in part by winning work-rule concessions from its unions.

Kelly, who was seated next to Claypool on the WTTW set during the contentious conversation, went on: “If a guy is working and is getting paid for eight hours and he works on his birthday, he gets an additional eight” hours, he said. “If you do the math, that’s not 21/2 times. There’s nobody out there who gets 21/2 times.”

Well, almost nobody. During a follow-up interview Tuesday, Kelly said that when his members are called to work an overtime day on their birthday or employment anniversary, they’re paid double time and a half, but he estimated that “it doesn’t even happen 100 times a year.”

Still. WTTW moderator Eddie Arruza asked the question on everyone’s mind: “Why do they get paid extra on their birthday anyway?”

Eddie Arruza and Forrest Claypool tag teaming a guest on WTTW? -Ouis!Naturalmente, Mes Amis!

Progressives always do a pile on a target-guest, like two geeks emerging from their latest locker-stuffing at the hands of jocks and cool kids and then jumping like WWF Heroes on poor little Tobie, the ADD lite weight, but Summer School Valedictorian. Nobody bullies like Progressives.

Well, I'll be dipped and rolled, says the Water Boy! EZ has been been doing any number of cheerleading routines for the Smart Garbage Grid and most recently Bump-Up The Water Rates and Get Your Own Bad Selves a Meter from the top of Rahm's Progressive Propaganda Pyramid.

Eric only reports and comments on what he is given. Today, he must react on what he saw and the strain to his very soul is hurtful to witness and, obviously, facts must be brought to his attention.

Public Unions, Eric, are paid for through taxes. Public Unions are as old as the 1960s when Lefties in New York got JFK's Okey-Dorky to hammer Tammany Hall. Tammany Hall ( the Democratic Ward Machine) is gone and Public Unions have all but murdered the Middle Class.

The Skilled and Industrial Trades Unions and their membership, not tweedy mopes with milky hands and earnest big-hearted, but two-faced activists, fought and bled for Labor Rules.

The Public Service ( teachers, City, State, Federal workers) aped the gains made by Real Labor. Eric does not twist Forrest (Rula Lenska) Claypool's nipples for bashing the Civil Rights of Workingmen. I listened to that tin-horn mope make promises to Union Men, trying to unhorse Joe Berrios two Springs ago, all over the south side - Forrest, Boss Toni and Easter Bunny Quinn. Eric the Water Boy, instead, gets all pissy about Union Bargaining Chief Kelly doing exactly what he was employed to do (stand up for his Local)and then mocks the rank and file's benefits bargained for with political hacks and their progressive propagandists in the first place.

As a Progressive, Water Boy, you demand to go east and west on Western Ave., but that is not, in truth, how traffic flows.

Instead of coming to a realization that Public Service Unions are not a really great idea, though they create a swell post-Shakman Patronage Army.

Eric's outrage over the obvious is charming, even whimsical. Harry Potter's magic wand works just fine on the big screen and on cable, but when your little digits tear open the packaging and you try it out - you must contend with your magical imagination.

Double Bubble and Double Time and a Half, little Muggle with the Water Pail, has been around for a very long time.

So, the next time Michigan Fats and Big Ed want to get a bongo circle in Madison, WI, or Zuccotti Park, ask the Two TeleTubby Trotskys - 'Who's paying?' It's easy let me do this slow -

Private Sector -labor good! - only so much money to bargain for.

Public Sector -labor(PACs) not so good! - Tax well's drier than All Things Considered.


The Skilled Trades and Industrial Unions who helped make the American Middle Class fought for decades to earn those rights through Collective Bargaining with Management.

Water Boy! The Game's Afoot and you're all tangled up . . .here, start with this knot . . .then over . . .over that's it . . .Over not under . . . under is opposite of over . . .that's right over, but upside down . . .we'll come back and see how you're doing.

Eric Zorn is the Water Boy! He's Carrying Water for Anti-Catholic Progressives Who Want Chicago Transformed to an Urban Center

You will do your work on water,
An' you'll lick the bloomin' boots of 'im that's got it. Rudyard Kipling


Nothing smells as bad as water-soaked newspapers. I had an uncle who saved newspapers in the corner of his basement, going back to the Mayor Edward Kelly Administration. The problem was that Tupperware technology jumped over Uncle Mossie and he kept his treasures bound in twine. Compounding that problem was the fact that Uncle Mossie's basement leaked like Congressman Mike Quigley to the Sun Times.

When Uncle Mossie shed his mortal husk, I was tasked with cleaning out the old guy's basement - the smell would gag a maggot. Decades of seepage soaked the Daily News, Chicago Sun, Herald American, Kerryman, Southtown Economist, New World and their offspring. There were no Chicago Tribunes, as the Trib was a Scab, anti-Catholic rag. Uncle Mossie was a daily Communicant and rock-solid member of the Lather's Union.

Water and newspapers don't mix, unless one is going into the Homegrown mushroom business. Worms love newspapers soaked in water.

Change of Subject!

You kids been reading Eric Zorn lately? The banjo-plucking ink-slinger Progressive columnist is knee deep in the wet-stuff. Late this summer Eric was busy lugging the garbage out for Mayor/Coach Rahm on the Garbage Grid Plan that passed with the City Budget. Eric loves the Grid!

What passes for journalism in Chicago is a person with keyboard, a phone, Blackberry, or a lot of time on his/her hands to take lunch and an elected official, activist, Good Government appointee, or unelectable appointee with a deal.

These holier-than-a- cheapskate's -undies columnists roll out the ink with the agenda leaked into their ears by the above-stated scammers.

The Catholic Church is an obstacle, or should be, to Progressives. Progressives love Abortion, government hand-outs to designated groups and individuals, Homosexual Marriage, and Public Education . . . Oh! And Taxes! Lots and Lots of Taxes forked out by the middle class helots with all of those damn children!

The Catholic Church is one big-assed mainstream faith with many, many, many members in Chicago. The Catholic Church is very visible in Chicago. The Catholic Church operates the very best schools in Chicago for no public cost to Atheists or Progressives. Catholics no longer need to be courted much less appeased about anything in Chicago.

Progressives have a vision for Chicago, a smaller, cleaner, more efficient, Green, childless, and really fun Urban Center, and that vision is taking place. The problem is getting rid of the middle class homeowners and their rotten kids. Garbage collection and water go hand-in-hand. The Garbage Collection Grid is coming, middle class Wards will be re-mapped and smart sized, and water is going to cost families a lung. It's all there in the University of Chicago Urban Planning chit-chat linked by clicking my post title.

Rahm Emanuel is the Progressive Mayor and all he needs is a water-boy. Like a good coach it seems that Coach Rahm has an energetic pencil-necked go-getter in the always dependable Eric Zorn.

Today, Eric the Water Boy continues the coach's management of water distribution and finds an easy target in Alderman Ed Burke. Alderman Burke, it seems to me, views the new water mandates to be what they are - overture for the exit of the middle class from the planned Urban Center Chicago.

Alderman Burke takes issue with the two edged sword soaked in the wet-stuff. You see not only is the water issue a dodge to squeeze the middle class out of Chicago, it is also a swell hammer to bash in the head of Cardinal George for objecting to Gay Marriage, Abortion and all of those other nasty Catholic doctrines.

I believe that taking away the free Chicago water from Catholic ( and others) Institutions is the threat by Rahm to Cardinal to lay-low until President Obama is re-elected, Gay Marriage gets enacted in Illinois, and Planned Parenthood can kill babies without being called on it

Here's the Waterboy -Eric Zorn!

And if the City Council wants to start diluting the proposal by handing out exemptions, it ought to start with institutions that don't proselytize and don't mix so many babies with so much bath water.

If they give churches favored status over charitable groups, lawsuits will be sure to follow and all the potential savings will go swirling down the drain.

This dandy imprimatur for Rahm's Water Torture came last Saturday - Saturday, October 15, 2011

He's going to get that question a lot in the coming weeks. Last week, Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced an aggressive schedule of annual water-rate hikes as he rolled out next year's city budget. The increases, he said, are necessary to pay for badly needed repairs to our aging pipes, catch basins and pumping stations.

On average, he said in his speech to the City Council, the extra cost in the first year "will equal about five cups of Dunkin' Donuts coffee a month," a clever, middle-brow way of expressing $120 (a medium cup of joe at Dunkin' Donuts is $1.96 in my Northwest Side neighborhood).

But Emanuel suggested that residents could significantly dull the pain "by switching to a free water meter, as Amy and I have done. In fact," said the mayor, "those who switch to meters will pay less next year — even with the fee increase. Let me repeat: Switching to a free water meter means you can pay less next year — not more."

Two Days prior that moist towelette for the Coach was this sensitive whiff of weakness on the part of City Council Council Floor Leader Pat O'Connor.

I think what he was trying to say is when we exempt churches, all of us must pay slightly higher water bills to compensate the system: We pay for our own water, then we all chip in a bit more to cover the cost of giving churches water at no charge. Paying twice, as he puts it.

So if we charge our houses of worship for water, those houses of worship are going to have to ask us for more money. So we'll still be paying twice.

The critical difference, however, is that, under the current system, those city dwellers who don't attend a city house of worship -- those who go to the suburbs are who simply aren't churchgoing people -- are compelled to chip in.
If I'm understanding O'Connor correctly, his idea that "it's the same pockets that are paying for it anyway" makes no sense whatsoever.

Oh,Damn them Catholics!

Eric Zorn the Water Boy! Why, you little squirt, you!

http://blogs.chicagotribune.com/news_columnists_ezorn/2011/10/burke-all-wet-in-his-request-to-keep-free-water-for-churches-and-church-schools.html
http://blogs.chicagotribune.com/news_columnists_ezorn/2011/08/grid.htmlhttp://blogs.chicagotribune.com/news_columnists_ezorn/2011/10/thats-still-a-latte-money-for-water.htmlhttp://blogs.chicagotribune.com/news_columnists_ezorn/2011/10/free-water-word-salad-from-ald-oconnor.htmlhttp://blogs.chicagotribune.com/news_columnists_ezorn/2011/10/water-meter-pitch-may-not-be-such-a-bad-deal-after-all.html

Waterboy Eric Zorn Tries to Tweak Cardinal George - Spitballs Tossed at the USS Missouri

"You'll thank me for this years from now, Eric . . .or not. Yeah, probably not"

The Chicago Tribune's Waterboy, Eric Zorn, whom the Tower Editorial Board would to prop up to be The Man over a real newsman John Kass,  once again does his Nerd-Gone-Gangsta routine with today's attempt to tweak Chicago's Archbishop Francis Cardinal George over Rahm Emanuel's callow water tax levy on churches.

The claim that the public should pay water bills for organizations that do good things for the community at large is flimsy -- what, should we pay their electric bills, too? How about their property insurance? -- but at least arguable.
But the claim that the public should pay church water bills because religion itself is such a good thing -- a "glue" -- that everyone should chip in to pay for it is constitutionally (and otherwise) offensive.

Alas, The Kids in the Tower are up against EZ's gifts and public tastes. John Kass speaks with the heart and soul of a neighborhood Chicagoan and therefore remains the vox populi.  Eric 'EZ' Zorn ? This poor goof must have had a very sad childhood, indeed.

Many of the self-proclaimed 'smartest kids in class' had horrific experiences in school, due to their sense of opinion, free speech and downright loud proclamations of their whiz-bang logic.  While teachers might patiently smile at young Eric's penchant for entering the lists of any and every argument, cadres of contemporaries waited as patiently for recess, or lunch time opportunities for activist rebuttal in the form of pantsing the young Rousseau and tossing his Dad 'N Lads up on the nearest available utility lines.

The salubrious effect pantsing had on many a young Danton from my halcyon days was profound.  Young Hegels avoided becoming public ninnies and embraced common sense. Yousee, pantsing was a much more direct and emphatic manner of saying, " My dear chap, have you thought through what you have just said?  Allow me and your boonchums here to demonstrate the folly and willfully bad manners your comments make . . .grab the snotty little prique, Alphonse!"

Eric Zorn, sadly, missed out on this opportunity to remove his schnozzola from his belly-button for life because his words and inclinations were protected by educators unschooled in group play, but learned in group think.  The young fellow was few years behind the Golden Learning Curve. The result - EZ would be as welcome among most Chicagoans, as Kermit Gosnell at The Babysitter's Club.

Francis Cardinal George is more of my cultural contemporary than Eric Zorn.   We got smacked when got snotty with our elders and betters and Eric Zorn was taught by 'Who's To Say-ers.'  Wrong Side of History?  Perhaps. Wrong Side of the Brain-pan?  For sure.

Let's get to pantsing.

EZ objects to Cardinal George's protestations over a tax levied by Mayor Rahm on churches as a warning shot fired over bow.  Had Cardinal George gone all Seamless Garment on Gay Marriage, everything would be jake.

Instead, the historical exemption for churches was nixed.

Rahm Emanuel causes men of faith like Alderman Pat O'Connor to soil his Haines at the thought defending his church and common sense:

Story by 89 WLS Reporter Bill Cameron(CHICAGO) At City Hall, Mayor Rahm Emanuel's City Council Floor Leader Alderman Pat O'Connor says he's upset about the joke Cardinal Francis George made yesterday in a bid to restore free city water for churches.
O’Connor is not amused by the cardinal joking that maybe it’s time for the church to charge the city for water because Lake Michigan is God’s gift to us.
When asked, the alderman said the cardinal should stick to praying and saving souls.
“The silliest things can be said and people latch onto it.” O’Connor said. “For chrissake, we sell everybody water!  And now all of a sudden because we’re a church, we’re not supposed to sell them water?  At some point, i think what’s gonna happen is someone’s go– and here he alluded to pedophile priests - and stop talking about free water.  H/T Dan Kelley

That a boy, Pat!  Roll over.  Sic 'em with that abuse canard.  The white haired burgher really gave us a look at the gummy worm he has for a backbone.

Aldermen are scared $hitless of Rahm. All of them.  Why?  Plum evades me. Money, or the future lack of it thereof, I reckon.

Back to EZ - Eric Zorn hasa veritable  written of Pentateuch  of Rahm Happy propaganda ever since the diminuitive danse tyran took over the Fifth Floor from Richard II : Garbage Grid/ School Reform/Ceasefire Giveaways/Make underutilized and empty real estate an opportunity for the Hyde Park Mafia ( Miner/Davis/Jarret/Rogers et al)/Cop Bash and Mayor Water Tax-ey.

The water tax not only pumps up the Mayor with the Raccoon Eyes, but has the added tang of slapping the Catholic Church. Thus, more EZ logic.

The claim that the public should pay water bills for organizations that do good things for the community at large is flimsy -- what, should we pay their electric bills, too? How about their property insurance? -- but at least arguable

The Lake provides water, water.  The Unevolved, unlike the pains-in-the-ass, understand that the Great Lakes were part of God's Bounty.  That Bounty went untaxed for churches and other do-gooding non-governmental clingers to religion . . .until the Evolved showed up.

Insurance is, like usury, an unnatural man crafted construct.  Electricity comes from God's Bounty, but it takes ComEd, not City Hall, to harness the sparks after getting the coal burners a' cooking.

Apples and lug nuts,there,  Eric.

Now, to call of of the most respected scholars and original thinkers in a hard collar - a flimsy logician?

Well, that is like tossing spitballs at a battleship.

The water tax is a punitive measure to make the churches roll over on legislation that is dangerous and silly.

Every bill pumped into Springfield with Planned Parenthood dollars, or Fred Eychaner's moolah will be opposed by Cardinal George and the next the bishop of Chicago and the churches that avoid appearing like a Bill Moyers special on PBS.

Catholic aldermen will back Rahm.  Eric Zorn will carry water for Rahm.  Some kids are still in dire need of good pantsing.

White Rage & Segway Segue - Why I Disapprove of Whiney White Boys With Lawyers

I can't stand me some snotty white boys!

I have worked at Leo High School on the south side of Chicago since 1995  - not the south side where I live, mind you.  I am an old white boy and live in the 19th Ward ( Morgan Park) which is mostly peopled by old white boys, their wives and their kids.

The young men who attend and graduate from Leo High School are mostly black, non-Catholic young gents.  We have some white boys, but they are not of the garden variety upper middle class privileged background that spawns the white boy who gets on You Tube, arrested at G-8/NATO/GAY RIGHTS/St. Paddy's Day events and then has Pater's lawyers sue the bejazus out of everyone but the towel boy and Fore Caddy at Briarwood, Biltmore or Evanston Country Clubs.

The black,white and Mexican kids at Leo are working men's sons.  Like my kids and the kids of cops, firemen, teachers, tradesmen and nurses, they respect the aging, the elderly, the Veterans, mothers,  working men and themselves. Respect is learned.   Disrespect is intolerable. Entitlement?  As if.

Leo is a safe place in a very unsafe part of the city.  I  am here six days a week minimum.   I have always been treated with dignity and respect here in one of Chicago's most homicidal neighborhoods by the students and the neighbors.  Go figure. They hold it not against me that I am an old white boy!

It must be that our black kids from Englewood, Auburn Gresham, Grand Crossing and Brainard know that life is fraught with consequences - often fatal.  White, privileged males who fought on Nintendo, lettered in Madden Football, liberally ignore gas, beer, rent prices and other such bothersome consequences have caused me some small discomfort.

I met one such young scapegrace very recently in Chicago's Loop.  I was delivering materials downtown, when a lithe, rakishly disheveled, and tattooed son of Lake County when he rushed into me while talking, and or texting and vigorously  thumbing into some high-end black palm buddy apparatus recently purchased at a Steve Jobs venue.  Our contact upset his gait, his foaming latte and temper; this grey-beard was treated with a broken record of imprecation ( salty and salaciously hostile) and was greeted as the lad's "Bitch," once warned to watch it. So warned, Bub. This Bitch abides.

Now, I am as yellow as a duck's foot and have had my posterior lobes and other corporeal appendages kicked by the best of men and weakest of girl on any playground. Nevertheless, such bluster and bravado must not go unanswered.  God gifted me, if not with the lusty and husky accoutrements of an Ajax, with a very crazy set of eyes covered in the bushiest of eye-brows and a Silly Putty Mug that morphs my moods. I stepped into the Jerque Du Jour  with a verbal counterpoint similar to my age, culture and general bearing and the  white boy's bowels turned to water. Beeeeee Otch, Sonny?  Play that Funky Music, White, Boy!

The hectoring scamp exited the field with nothing more than his foamy brew and his pathetically fading impotent imperative sentences. I never had the chance to unsheathe my dolon.

A tear formed but refused to fall from my tired eyes as I considered how it must really suck to be that boy.  America's youth.  Sic Transit White Boy

Here is a fine example of exactly the species encountered


Segway Cop vs Skateboarder: The Reckoning - Watch More Funny Videos

A disquieting disquisition - It sucks to be you, Son. Now, here is a proper role model for you , young Feller!

Officer Ward - NATO & OWS Veteran -

First Amendment Rights Can Be Terminated - Watch More Funny Videos


Had the lad been formed in a family and neighbor centered embrace like here in Working Man Chicago, such life lessons would only be of consequence to career criminals, lawsuit lotto lawyers, mental defectives and members of Progressive Marching Societies

2013 -Tell God and Maytag Your Plans

How was your last day of 2012?  That's great.  Mine sucked . . .water from the Maytag ice-maker that leaked all over the kitchen and down into the basement laundry.  Craftsman sucks good.

New Years was to take place at the reception of a wedding for two young lovers at a massive hall near Chinatown, following Mass at an iconic Catholic Church in the west Loop.

New Years Eve is always a day of dred for parents of t'weens, teens and twenty-somethings.  I have done the EVE-dred for many years knowing that circumstance and Free Will can often have a substantial impact, also knowing that my DNA was shared with three innocents.

I managed to negotiate a date for the wedding, had my two button Armani suit cleaned and pressed, put a coat or two  of Kiwi on the dependable old wingtips, wrote a generous check out to the very happy couple, placed it in a card that I had the good sense to have my daughter purchase rather than select my own Dogs Playing Cards genre - love those!

My eldest was also attending a New Year's Eve Wedding in the suburbs, my son was out of town and his car keys are yet on his dresser, but my youngest (17 years of age) was working the 4-9 shift at Smith Village here in Beverly with the twins who accompany her after work home and then to a supervised party in Morgan Park complete with sleepover.

The bairns were accounted for and in New Year's Eve circumstances that checked parental Eve-dred, somewhat.

I own a Maytag refrigerator; did  I mention that?

The wedding Mass was set for 5:30 P.M. my date lives in the near western suburbs off of the Eisenhower Expressway -no friend to a timely arrivals.  The distance from my home in stately Morgan Park/St. Cajetan's parish is 26.6 miles with times varying anywhere from 39 minutes to God



Help Me! - especially coming into the Circle exchange and navigating to pick up the Ike 290.( Cultural note - the discarded booze, beer and wine bottles under the overpasss indicate a robust attitude of fresh-air imbibers; where to my recollection cast off empties sported labels like Happy Cossack Vodka, Pepe Lopez Tequila, vintage TJ Swan, Mad Dog, or Wild Irish Rose and rusted cans of Grain Belt,Country Club Malt Liqour,  Buckhorn, or Burgie beer, now glimmers empty worthies like CÎROC Red Berry and Coconut Vodka, Gran Patron Burdeos, a tequila aged in French and American oak and then aged in barrels sourced from Chateaux Margaux, magnums of Lavernette Granit , and Bomber sized bottles and cans - “big cans” ranging from a 14.9-ounce Irish stout to a jumbo 22-ounce Japanese reserve lager and the very best IPAs hither and yon.) The crawl onto the Ike is a cultural field trip.

We arrived at the parking lot near the church well-before the start of Mass. Before going into any place of worship, I set the phone on silent and buzz and tucked it into my top-coat pocket.  The ceremony was beautiful, fun and fitting. Marriage still means something.

We chatted with friends and acquaintances and then headed to our car for the trip to Chinatown. Once in traffic, I felt the buzz in my top-coat pocket and ignored the phone.  I am a two-hands on the wheel driver with a healthy respect for my fellow motorists and a deep regard for lane-changing meatheads and texting ninnies.

Once at the hall, which was absolutely packed with guests and wedding cast members, I again felt the buzz and transfered the phone to the pants pocket of my suit.  I took care of the coats and the elegant and darling hat worn by my chic sweetheart, carefully filed the ticket stub and worked my way through the burly and the muliebrous members and guests of the wedding to the bar and ordered my lovely escort a tall vodka and orange juice.

I nodded warmly and throated greetings with hearty good humor and responded to derisive demeanors with a modest smile, "Yes, I am still breathing, more's the pity; perhaps this New Year will harbor some chagrin to set sail my way. Keep a happy thought, @##hole."

The phone buzzed again. 

Dinner was delayed, but all enjoyed plates of miniature goodies and potables by the bottle and glass.  The DJ played "Can't Get Next to You!"  and I white-boy danced ( shoulders and head) the Tempting T's tune and gave out with my best " EYE!!!!!!!!!! Ken Turn a Grey Sky Blue-ooooooo/I jKen Make it Rain Wheneva Eye Wannit Too!!!!!!!'  

The buzz.  It was now about 8:15 and my diminuitive darling was jonesing for substantial food. The finger food would not do.  I begged patience. Buzzzzzzzzz.

"I gotta check the phone messages"  You may, said my darling.  I moved out of sight.

Message One - Basso Voce" Dad -Its Conor. Your phone's off."
Message Two -Basso Voce" Dad, I'm calling Clare . . .I'll be home tomorrow after the Northwestern game."
Message Three Alto "Dad, Conor Called said he'd call you at midnight. We got off at 7- the twins are dropping me at home to change."
Message Four Soprano- "Dad, there's water all over the kitchen- the ice maker keeps pouring water.  I called conor and he's not answer. Dad, Call!!!!!!"
Message Five Mezzo Soprano- Dad!!!!!!!!!!  Really, there random water and mess I used all the towels!!!!!!!!!

I returned to the hallway and learned that dinner would be served soon - 600+ people guest placement and my nitch in the social pecking order. . .we won't get salad until 9:15 ,Tops. Decision - we gotta go. "Sweetie, disaster at home."  

You must feed me, my good man.  Greek town - Pegasus - fast. It's closer to the Ike. Adams to Ogden - I got the coats and darling hat and we headed for the doors.  There I met a boon chum and blood kin - "We gotta go."  

Some people require no explanations or pleas  Kopped, " I'll tell them you pissed yourself."

" That should do, but it is a bit early."

" Nonsense!  I've seen you up to that task many's the time and sundry ! Happy New Year"

" Et Cum Spiritu Tuo, Back at You!"

Before getting in the car I called Clare and told her I was on  my way.  " Can I go to the party?"
Of course.

With dispatch and steady hands, I returned the lovely woman to her home hours before she expected to, but I made sure that she received a fine feed issued with great dispatch at Pegasus.

I got back to my house at about 10 PM. water was cascading from the freezer.  Every towel in the house was soaked. Mother McAuley, a great college prep high school, does not instruct girls in the efficasies of water management, nor the tell-tale track for copper tubing.  I turned off the water flow to refrigerator emptied the overflowing, but until now superflous pan and took off my black two-button Armani suit for my long New Year's labors.

God provides, no matter the problem.

My children purchased a 6 gallon Craftsman wet & Dry Vac for Old Dad last Father's Day.  It was still in the box.  My Shop Vac has been and shall remain configured for dry tasks.  

Once attired for the Augean tasks that would eclipse the coming of 2012, I set about it!

All towels removed to laundry - extra liquid per load.  Assemble the Craftsman!  My God this gift is Hickey Friendly!!!!!!!!!!!! The filter is the cat's nuts. I sucked water until 1:45 PM.

Buzzzzzzzzzzzzzz - Yallo.

Basso Voce - " Dad, Happy New Year.  Howza wedding?"

The Mass was great.

Basso Voce -" Later."

Text alarm -HPPYNY LOV YA!!!!!!!!!!!!!NORA

Buzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Alto Voce - "You Ok?  Happy New Years!"

Always.

Rahm's Residency Rules -You Stay As Long as There's a Nickel To Be Squeezed Out of You Helots; Only Then You May Go

Inspector General Joe Ferguson, in a report issued this week, said the city's residency requirement makes no exceptions.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel has received criticism for allowing the chief administrative officer of the Chicago Public Schools to live in Winnetka for the next two years because of his reluctance to pull his adopted daughter out of her school.

Joe -Well, maybe this one time for an appointee -after all the kid goes to school in Winnetka - he's not a cop, teacher or fireman for Crissakes.

Rahm - Let's Change the Subject! Call the Water Boy! Tell Eric I need three or four residency shout-outs!


The Garbage Grid is the tip of the spear and the upcoming raised water rates is merely the dagger to the short ribs. When you can't breathe, you can't fight back.

Chicago and Cook County has turned the keys over to the progressives.

The Middle Class Tax Base must stay, for immediate future, because it must pay for planned Urban Center Chicago - the playground for the elites. If you own a home, have kids, attend church services, cut your own grass, rake your lawn, keep an eye on your neighbors' kids, call-in crimes, take food to suffering and wonder how long you can keep up with the mounting expenses and the glaciers of bullshit from politicians and the news media, you are not an elite.

Cops, Firemen, Streets and Sanitation Workers, Skilled Tradesmen, Clerks, Accountants, and necessary worker bees for the City of Chicago must reside within the City Limits . . .for now.

Progressive Career ASSholes*, like Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle will call her media pals and publicly humiliate and lay off hundreds of County janitors and then purchase more land for CC Forest Preserves. She'll call her media pals again and publicly humiliate and fire a family man from his County job, because he did not vote for Joy Cunningham's desire to be an Illinois Supreme Court Justice. Make sense?

Career A$$holes, like Forrest Claypool, will cut bathroom breaks and then whine about union rules for bus drivers and CTA train drivers, as if those decades-old benefits sprouted up like some magic Carbondale mushrooms and then continue to build his own pension cash mountains by dint of insider appointments, because the chinless jerk can't get himself elected.

Give me an honest, hard-working thief any day, over these Career A$$holes.

Huge lay-offs are coming and soon. The County and the City of Chicago will lay off the last of the Helots in the coming months and years.

What happens to the Shakman Empire when that happens? Mike gonna strike tents?

That's all down the road. There's more to do!

The Aldermen of the City Council will have gelded themselves, the Wards will be Smart-sized and the population of the City will continue its diaspora to Will, Du page, and Lake Counties. The poor are Section 8'd to the collar suburbs and the middle class will follow shortly, once every possible nickel can be squeezed out the pockets of people in the neighborhoods.

That's the plan, Stan! In a few years, Joe Ferguson, or his clone, will announce that it is just ducky for City employees to hit the trail.

The Progressive Triumph of Will shall be celebrated in the Green, Childless Chicago Urban Center. Garbage and Water, Kids.

* Progressive Career A$$holes can be identified as a person or persons whom breathless idiots term "Ain't He/She Great?" There is never a scintilla proof on the claim, however; thus "Forrest Claypool did a great job with the Chicago Parks District." How and What? Explain, please. "Well, he just did. He's an outsider and a Reformer. What are you some Right Wing Nut? He's Great! Great I tells You!"

The Career A$$hole makes broad and frequent use of Chicago's Iconic Columnists and The Career A$$holes Media Organ -Channel 11 WTTW & WBEZ ( Count the Times a Non Career A$$hole is the featured focus, or a guest - unless being targeted for take-down or abuse. WTTW will invariably do a Progressive Policy Pile -On the target for today, like last week's Eddie Arruza and Forrest Claypool shout-down of CTA Union President Bob Kelly.

http://discussions.chicagotribune.com/20/chinews/chi-cook-county-forest-preserve-looking-to-buy-land-20111026/10

From The Chorito Hog-Leg: Work Detail at Tulagi

Here is an early passage from The Chorito Hog Leg, Book One: A Novel of Guam in Time of War The protagonist, Tim Cullen, is assigned to a punishment detail on Guadalcanal after being caught drinking moonshine - raisin jack- on field problem by his platoon commander, Lt. John A. Buck. Cullen meets the legendary Gunny Higgins who already aware of Cullen's talents and personal integrity:

7. Shitbirds of Tulagi
His eyes burned in front and throbbed in back, his tongue and throat never seemed satisfied with cool water and every nerve in his frame bugged up to perspiration, sensation, and irritation of every sort. In short, Tim had a hangover going on its second day without let-up and activity was what he needed most which worked out nicely with his place in the punishment detail forming up in front of 1st Battalion ‘First Shirt’ Gunny Higgins.

Gunny Higgins had no ears to speak of –rather, lumps of muscle that seemed to have been pegged aft of his temples. Wearing a pith helmet, impeccably pressed khakis, leggings and boondockers, Gunnery Sergeant Billy Wheat Higgins appeared to be standing on a platform above the two rows of ten green utility clad Marines wearing green fiber helmet liners as covers. He was standing on the same soil as the boys before him, but he was so much above each and every one of them in the eyes of men and boys.

‘Side-Straddle –Hops until I am well pleased and I am never well pleased!’ Throwing Arms to a point geometrically above his head and casting his legs out like colossus to His ‘OW –un! And reversing the limbs at ‘HOO!’

‘Move MotherFuckers! I’m not doin this for my health!

‘Ow-Un; HOO; OW-unHOO! & etc for fifteen minutes without let up.

‘Fall out –You Box Me.’ Fall out - Men Die. Fall out - Boys Might. Fall-out –Don’t Try!’

After the full fifteen minutes Gunny Higgins’ body snapped shut like an expensive switchblade to signal the end of calisthenics.

In the tropical heat with all of the physical snap and strain not a drop of sweat spotted his arm-pits or blemished the cleanliness of his khakis. Strapless his pith helmet never went askew, nor fell from his square muscled head. Gunny Higgins was Gorgon and Apollo wrapping the soul of Voltaire and the balls of Rabelais.

‘I have served the flag in uniform from the time that you mewling tit-suckers tore out the snatches of some fine women. I do not ask who is my enemy or what his thoughts might be or if we had supped at the same table last night. I do not give a shit that the Pope locks up! Major Opley and men up the chain from him have determined who my enemy will be – Today –tomorrow- and until Jesus takes back the Aggies I stole from that Jew wood-butcher. ‘

Without looking into any man’s face, Gunny Higgins pointed down from his majestic height and moved his long thick broken right fore-finger –slowly and judicially.

‘Each and every swinging man-log on parade before my tired eyes is my enemy, because the very men up the august chain from whence all truth calls down have told me that you are. I have butchered greasers on the Coco River and Niggers in Haiti and Japs wherever I find them and traitors to the flag without so much as a thought because I was ordered to fight and kill them. But each and every one of you have made my enmity boil because you have pained your elders and betters up that august chain – You have soiled Duty and Honor as Fuck Ups! I will amend that before my next hard-on! LCM at the beach step lively – Now! ’

And the twenty in green double-timed it to the awaiting landing craft. The coxswain ordered each of the twenty green fatigued men in the work detail to put on life-belts and made the port perch aft available to Gunny Higgins.

. . . . ( In the Landing Craft Mechanized -LCM)


‘Tulagi beach master and step on it, Coxman! I might kill a handful of these pearls, before the task gets ripe, You a Louisiana Man Coxman?’

‘Born and raised in Cribstone. . St Laurence parish . . .,’ the warmed sailor began.

‘Well, Fuck You then! Sail this craft without incident and I’ll get beer call for you and your three sisters. Honor Bright!’ and Gunny was as good as his word. He stepped down three of the steel rungs into the cockpit next to Cullen and put his steel portside arm around the boy’s shoulders. ‘I saw you on Boogan . . . in the aid station and later on the line. You handled that .30 like a salt with four hash marks; must be a gift, son. Stare ahead and don’t eye-ball me son or I’ll carve off your head and shit down your neck. Now, listen here, Major Opley remembers you from that scrap and saw your name down for my detail that is why I called you out. He liked your sand in taking that four-eyed Navy saw-bones by the stacking-swivel. Yes, Sir, that pleased him. He wants me to baptize you in the blood of lamb before our next walk on the beach. You need to step up into the shoes of the dead.’

The LCM beached at the Transport Cove on Tulagi and the twenty-one Marines disembarked and formed up. Gunny Higgins exchanged more obscenity laced compliments to the boat crew and informed them where they might pick up the cases of Drewery’s beer in possession of 1st Battalion Gunnery Sergeant William Wheat Higgins.

The twenty man punishment detail stood at ease but alert to the coming commands of their overseer. Gunny Higgins had gone from the LCM to pick up the manifest from the Tulagi Beach Master’s shack that would process the possession of 10 tons of .30 caliber ammunition for 1st Battalion, 3rd Marines.

All of the ammunition needed to be clipped and belted by the squads and gun crews in their company areas, but it would be the task of this detail to transport the ammunition back to Tetere Beach on Guadalcanal, check and clean the rounds before clipping and belting.

Gunny Higgins burst the propriety of the efficient beach master’s shack with a hurricane of filthy language and imprecations against the Commander of the South Pacific Area, General Douglas Macarthur, whose domain included the ammunition stockpiles on Tulagi.

The designated stockpile had been bulldozed – ‘to keep it safe from fire. Bullshit!'

Wacky Mac had decided to throw a screw into Gunny’s Marines and that was the long and the short of it. His boys needed to bail through the mud and dig out their ammunition crates and could be assured that their tasks would be longer and more demeaning. Bougainville had been Admiral Halsey’s show and Mrs. Roosevelt had come to the Canal to praise General Turnage’s fine men who took that island from the Japs so handily. At this very moment dog-faces under Generalissimo MacArthur were slugging it out with the Japs and losing hundreds of men as well as real estate on Bougainville. The Third Division had handed the campaign over to General Patch on Christmas Day 1943 and now the U.S. Army was having a tough time sealing the deal. Macarthur hated the Marine Corps.

Standing legs spread and four-square before his detail, tall, tanned, khakied and commanding Gunny Higgins pointed over his port shoulder to the bull-dozed stock pile – his pith helmet squared.

‘I have pissed rainbows of beer over taller mountains than God can lay bricks on full breakfast! From the rocky coast of Maine to sunny Frisco Bay, I have fucked them all – countesses, millionaires and movie stars! The sight of me makes proud men blush and maidens as wet as a New Orleans hooker shop in August. I have bested men and boys at cards, games and quick draw. I can eat the crotch out of a running Grizzly bear and ask for seconds on servings of mule shit, but I am four-eyed and fucked over this one, Girl Scouts!’

‘El Supremo has determined that the men who snatched Boogan from Tojo need more work and so the Supreme Commander of South Pacific Forces ordered the Quartermaster Corps to have the .30 caliber ammunition earmarked for the 1st of the 3rd Marines covered with Tulagi. Nothing to it, girls, but sweat and suet! Cullen get ammo carts from the beach master take four men - the other half of you get to digging, and relay passing all ammo to my feet. Move!’

Five peeled off in the direction of the Beach master’s shack where he had already assembled ten ammunition carts and each man pulled two carts back to Gunny Higgins.

‘That Yankee Momma’s Boy has not seen the day where Men of the one True Corps can be set back a-heel by a candy-sucking cavalryman! Assholes and Elbows!’

With pride and anger, the punishment detail hefted and clawed and pulled and carted the heavy mud-caked and soaked ammunition crates. They loaded the ten ammunition carts and two man teams horsed them back to the beached LCM that would take these angry boys and their soiled ammo back Tetere Beach on Guadalcanal. For three hours this detail dug the prized rounds out of Tulagi soil and mud, gave the crates a perfunctory cleaning and stacked them on the carts and hauled them to LCM and restacked them.

As the job disintegrated like the caked soil on the crates, a knot of Army brass and journalists and photographers assembled on the knoll above the work detail. Centered in the group was the unmistakable Roman profile in crushed overseas cap with scrambled eggs, the foot long corn-cob pipe, the casually tailored khakis and slow sure gait of a Man of Destiny in his late sixties.

Gunny Higgins had his back to his enemy and like he had been in the jungle these last twenty years- well aware of his enemy’s presence, their strength, and their deployment. His electric gaze targeting only the twenty individuals awed by Macarthur’s apparition and enraged by his arrogance in slighting those beneath him. Tim Cullen pushed his loaded ammo cart with all the determination that he had legged on the football field for Leo High School and not unlike his playing days he was bested by a better man.

Gunny Higgins understood Cullen’s intentions to howl, vent, threaten and assault the Supreme Commander of the South Pacific and with one casual step to his right, blocking any view of his subsequent actions from the gawkers and the patrician above and behind, Gunny Higgins telescoped his left arm to Cullen’s throat, catching the boy’s Adam’s apple between his sandpaper thumb and his thick deadly forefinger with whispered, ‘I love frying Papist Porgies for a Po’Boy but only in my own oil. Do not give that Army cunt one scintilla of reason to laugh at a Marine’ and released the boy to cart the ammo to the LCM.

I love that boy, thought Gunny Higgins, Hell; I’d fuck all his sisters and the Pope’s mule for that little display. That boy will do fine.

The work continued for another hour and without comment, the Marines took their contaminated ammunition away for cleaning. This incident spoke mountains for the small man on the hill and the giant hearts of those he thought he would abuse.

The LCM took proud and happy men back to Tetere Beach and none happier or more filled with pride than Gunny Sergeant William Wheat Higgins. Upon return, to 1st Battalion headquarters tent, Billy bubbled like a school-girl with new crush – he was dreamy in love with Tim Cullen! Major Opley was delighted as he had always been a great judge of character and this red-headed runt who had stayed on the line as sick as he was and found the strength to tear at the Battalion surgeon’s throat for calling him a malingerer and now wanted to single-handedly assault a hill full of Army brass and reporters for fouling the Marines, no wonder Billy was in love.

For the next two weeks every man in the 1st Battalion had heard about Tim Cullen from 1st Platoon Able Company and how he tried to kill Douglas MacArthur and was saved by Gunny Higgins, while they cleaned and re-greased every round that they would fire during the up-coming Guam Campaign

Why Bother With The Trib - The Real Reporting Can Be Found at Chicago News Co-Op

I read quite a bit. Even at this hoary-age of the dark-side of 58, I tend to remember what I read. Reading like plumbing, carpentry, and painting is an art. I do not plumb, carpent or paint, unless there is a very good reason to do so, like black water gushing up out of every household orifice, timbers a'cracking and chips of paint getting mixed in with the Lime and Salt flavored tortilla chips.

I read because I must. I have taught generations of high school kids not only to engage in reading, but introduced them to the very best in writing, in order to become discerning readers.

While a student at Loyola, I worked with a Stationary Engineer who was a 'big reader' - Mack Bolan, Nick Carter, Mickey Spillane, various and sundry crotch novels with titles like "Trailer Park Pam and the Big-Top Snake Wranglers at Play." While appreciative of the cover art that packages such tomes, I, none the less, found the lurid prose to be just that and came away from their sentences with the feelings of shame that must accompany young Ezra when Mom comes down into the basement with basketful of the twenty-something's laundry and catches Young E with his mitts around more than a pretzel stick, while watching the Kardasian hi-jinks on the wide-screen Hi Def.

Chicago's two remaining big newspapers and their web-sites have become little more than Condensed Lite Nick Carter dailies.

The Chicago Tribune, to be fair, has made some modest gains toward substance in recent months, but any paper with a disc jockey as managing editor and editorial board propagandist is rather sad. The Sun Times, likewise has improved from its laughable days when Cheryl Redd called the shots, and has excellent journalistic foot-soldiers like Mark Konkol, Natasha Korecki, Maureen O'Donnell, Tim Novack and Abdon Pallasch and Southtown's Star's Steve Metsch.

However, you can not find a better source for reporting, opinion and insight than the Medill Castaways of the Chicago News Cooperative ( New York Times).

One of my favorite, Metro and City Hall beat journalists is Dan Mihalopoulos. Today, this gritty and exacting reporter cuts through fatuous opinions of the Aldermen and City Hall flacks and presents the realities of Chicago Police Manpower shortages.

The ACLU and the usual suspects of political loudmouths and phonies are providing cover form Rahm Emanuel's dodgy deployments. Dan Mihalopoulos offers the facts - reminding readers of what newspapers used to do. While the Emanuel 'Smart Sizing" of the Chicago Police Department might provide cover for aldermen and the Administration, saturating high crime areas with Officers will not necessarily solve the problem.

Only Dan Mihalopulos cuts to the chase -

The Chicago News Cooperative recently obtained a list of the unit assignments for the 10,300 sworn Chicago police department employees from a police source who requested anonymity because the department leaders have declined to release it.

The records described the unit assignments as of early October and appeared to reflect the vast majority of the recent personnel moves ordered by the Emanuel administration.

Most of the detectives were assigned to one of the department’s five area headquarters, while about 2,400 of the police officers were either assigned directly or detailed to specialized units, including the narcotics section and the internal affairs division.

It was impossible to deduce from the data exactly where the officers in specialized units were working. The list also did not include supervisors.

The other 7,000 police officers, representing a majority of the department’s sworn members, were each assigned to patrol beats in one of the 25 districts. The number of officers in each district ranged from a low of 191 in the 23rd district to 386 in the 7th district.

A comparison of the beat deployment figures with department statistics for property crimes and violent crimes in each district this year shows:

¶Four districts — the 25th, 8th, 6th and 4th — had higher ratios of both property crimes and violent crimes per officer than the citywide average.

¶The highest ratios of property crimes to beat officer counts were in the 14th, 8th and 25th districts, each of which reported at least 15 property crimes per patrol officer in the year’s first eight months.

¶The lowest proportion of violent crimes to officers was in the 1st district, which covers downtown Chicago, followed by the 19th district on the North Side.

¶The 4th district, in the city’s southeast corner, had the largest gap between staffing level and violence, with 4.05 violent crimes per officer.

The 4th district covers most of the 7th Ward, whose alderman, Sandi Jackson, praised Emanuel for adding officers to areas of greater need, despite tight budget constraints. But asked about the Chicago News Cooperative findings, Jackson replied: “There is absolutely a disparity. We are not where we would want to be ideally.”

Some experts say the reaction of aldermen in apparently underserved districts, though politically astute, would not lead to the wisest policies for fighting crime.

“It is reasonable and rational to expect that there should be more officers in areas with more crime,” said Arthur Lurigio, a professor of psychology and criminology at Loyola University. “But there is no evidence that would necessarily be the case.”

Lurigio said saturating areas with officers often merely pushed criminals to other places that then witnessed a spike in violence.

Imagine if high crime areas were saturated with beat officers, prowler cars and paddy wagons?

Imagine what Harvey Grossman and the ACLU say and how quickly they would shop for Federal Judges to sue over racist invasions and forces of occupation in Englewood, or Roseland?

Fourteen people were wounded and one killed last night, blares the Tribune in anticipation of a full explanation to people by Eric "The Water Boy" Zorn, or a thunderingly hilarious cop-slamming J'accuse from Bruce Dold.

Read The Tribune for laughs, read the Chicago Sun Times for the great reporters and skip the columnists, and read the Chicago News Cooperative in order to be fully informed.

To Well-Heeled Chicagoans

It is a shame that Chicago's 1%ers can meet at Smith and Wolinsky's and pony up hundreds of thousands of dollars and invest in a bar or a restaurant, but take a pass on helping to fund the only real news source in Chicago - The Chicago News Cooperative. I mean aside from a guy who moved to Chicago and already pumps millions into schools, the great John Canning, where are all of the Oxen Gore-ing PlumpCats and Kittens? Support Chicago News Cooperative. Us Helots are already pumped dry, by Rahm, Boss Preckwinkle, Governor Easter Bunny, and Boss Claypool -not to mention Boss Shakman.

This great source of news should be supported by the people who have the most treasure in their kicks. If you have a couple of hundred thousand dollars laying around your Gold Coast condo, Lakeview gray stone, or Hyde Park mansion, give Jim Warren a call, or write a huge check to

Chicago News Cooperative Contact Info:
70 East Lake Street, #810
Chicago, IL 60601


www.chicagonewscoop.org

Chicago needs real news and good writing.



The two journalistic and editorial equivalents of "Trailer Park Pam and the Big-Top Snake Wranglers at Play" just aren't cutting it. Buck up, Buckaneers!

Cullen's Tiger Shark from The Chorito Hog Leg

Tim Cullen was sunning his filmy Irish pallor into a robust red after days at sea. In the Gun Tub within hailing distance of the bridge, Tim, Sal and Watson maintained the ready boxes and changed the water in the empty barrel tube with cold salt water. As there was a scarcity of fresh water on board the LST and limited to one shower every three days Tim and the other enlisted men had become used to oily feel of their skin and applied moisturizer to their faces immediately after shaving. Other than that and the BA PALM, BA PALM, BA PALM that the flat ship made as it coursed its way to the anchorage at Kwajelain, where the men would go ashore for running and conditioning, Tim and the others rested and prepared themselves for the invasion by reading and studying maps and hand-outs, but mostly by cleaning and re-cleaning their weapons. Into the sun’s bright rays broke the towering majesty of Gunny Higgins whose shoulders eclipsed the late morning sun over Tim.

‘Brig-rat, it is time that you learned to eat of the sea’s bounty and as you are most mechanically aptituded fuck-up in this august body of fighting men under my mothering gaze - Get your side-arm and come with me.’
“Gunny we are not supposed to carry side arms on board but have them stowed,’ replied Cullen with a cat’s sense of scalding water to come.
‘Pipe, down shit-bird, and lash on that Smitty Wesson, we going fishing.’
Cullen snapped to and donned the shoulder holster and the .38 revolver that he had carried since Bob Foster had handed it to him before Bougainville.
‘Throw on your cover, Altar boy! We are in the shadow of our betters and they are in the Officer’s Ward Room for the next three hours.’ Tim put on his khaki fore and aft cap. ‘Choirboy we are fishing for the fat-fucker who ate Jonah; ‘Course being a Pope’s Pussy you do not know or appreciate the beauty and majesty of the Bible – King James only. See the starboard davit? Aft of the LCVP is a small crane for lowering cargo and ammo. That is our fishing pole and this is our bait.’
Gunny Higgins produced a twenty pound slab of fat back bacon that he had commissioned from the Cook on condition that all galley ratings got a cut of shark steak. Gunny held the huge slab aloft as if he were a king and this was his first born male heir!

‘We go fishing for the great fish – the Great White or his fat-assed lazy brother the Blue Shark. You will operate this crane and drag bacon until one of those torpedo-like chow-hounds gets more than he can swallow.’
Cullen almost wet his pants with excitement and took the gaffing hook from its lashing and pulled the large thick cargo hook over the gun-whale and Gunny Higgins speared the huge slab of bacon through the grain and then against it.
Tim operated the crane out and lowered way the chain slowly and carefully so as not to bring the line crashing into the thin hull of their transport.
‘Kiss my heroic ass, if you don’t handle mechanisms like you were born to them. Jesus, Brig-rat, you amaze me and I fucked humped back midget sluts in Shanghai before going to YMCA meetings. Makes you want to throw up; doesn’t it Junior? Why, the taste of fine snatch in the Orient is only bettered by its nibble on a working man’s wallet. You a Virgin, Candyass?’

Tim lied, ‘No Gunny, I took pleasure in the whores of San Diego.’

‘Don’t lie to Gunny, Needle –dick, I have your service record and you went home to Mama after Boots, got tossed in the Brigs, took a Summary Courts, boarded Bloemfontaigne for New Caledonia, shipped to the ‘Canal, surveyed on the .30 under Bob Foster, a better man never drew breath, crapped in your pants and everywhere else on Boogan, and you still got you cherry.’

Tim laughed to himself but tried to concentrate on the job at hand.
Between LST- 448 and the horizon were LCIs of every type- The Landing Craft Infantry was roughly half the size of the LST 128 feet in length with a beam of 23 feet and, like the LST, almost flat bottomed so every sailor and Marine aboard felt every wave. With crews of between 40 and 60 sailors the LCIs carried up to 200 Marines. There were also derivative models of the LCI modified to be gun ships, rocket ships, and mortar ships

The LCI(g), or gunboat carried 3” and 5” guns, extra 40 mm Gun mounts, and bristled with 20mm guns as well as .50 caliber machine guns. The LCI(r) carried rocket launchers and up to 600 4” rockets. LCI(m) was outfitted with heavy mortars to bombard hill-lines and take out bunkers on the defended beaches.

Destroyers of every Class and designation darted like ballroom dancers among the plodding transports. Like every day thus far aboard LST-448, Tim marveled at the vastness of the Pacific and imagined that he had traveled farther and to more historic impact than any other person in his bloodline. He did not need to imagine that he had in fact done so in his full year in the service of his country.
His mother and father had told their children of their individual odysseys from County Kerry: his father working in Liverpool and Manchester and fighting the working man’s fight with Big Jim Larkin and taking the passage to New York, boarding train for Chicago and the stockyards in time to work as a policeman during the Strike of 1912 and his mother, leaving a cabin on the Great Blasket Island and heading to Queenstown in County Cork for passage to New York and herself a train to Chicago to work in the kitchen of Metropole Hotel on 22nd Street. These were day trips in comparison. Tim had voyaged farther than anyone in his bloodline and that was fact.

Let’s take this time to sweep out the attic of our imaginations and suspend the trinkets, tinsel, ticket stubs and teary-eyed treasures above the level of our thoughts-vision and look to port from Tim Cullen’s thin steel housing. We have had, this narrator has at any rate, a clutter of junk that he imagines are the important mirrors of his experience on earth – a pretty good time most of us, despite the disappointments, deaths, diseases, distractions, and in some cases whole-sale de-railings of our journeys; but in the might and main we have had it pretty good.

The boss walks in and tells you that the McDonald’s account will go to the guy who leaves at 3PM, spends the next three hours at a martini bar with the suits from the next level and ‘big pictures’ all the ideas that you have presented to the ‘team’ and that you should give this slug all of your notes and work-ups and keep him apprized. You have had it rough; you pay your own way; you meet the mortgage payments; you take the extra classes; you do the heavy lifting; you do not cheat on your husband; you do not make your wife do the lions share of the work with the kids and then beef about Andy’s inability to master freshman algebra; you do not sleep-in when it’s a twenty below zero wind-chill factor and Sacred Heart is five miles from the house; you do not reap the rewards for which you labor as a good woman or man – tough shit.

Your kids are not coughing up their little lungs and shivering under wet blankets in a tropical rain-forest after having had their cottages torched and pulled down and sent with all your belongings to Manengon on the other side of the island; you did not risk your life sneaking dried fish and fruit to an uncle named Blas who would walk thirty mile north through jungle and kunai grass, evading patrols of Japanese Naval Landing Force troops led by Boson Otayama, who was pissed off to have to take his twenty-seven sailors out of Agana to the wilderness on a wild-goose chase for the last of the Yankee sailors cowering in a cave; Otayama vowed that he slit open any gook that he found, from the dick to the lungs and leave him or her for the bugs and toads; You are disappointed. Take it and embrace it. Grow up.


Tim Cullen grew up fast, but he was still a kid even after Bougainville and he had a kid’s sense of fairness and the arm of God and the protective cloak of the Blessed Virgin taking a direct part in his journey, like catechism books when he was a little guy at St. Sabina’s Grammar School, do good and you will be taken care of – what about martyrs? – don’t be a wise guy. Tim Cullen believed that Gunny Higgins was going to take care of the boys in the squad with a shark steak dinner.

Out there, strung out for miles, ships and smaller craft folded the waters into prayerful wakes like the hands of Virgins and saints in the statuaries of St. Sabina’s a prayerful voyage and beneath the palms of foaming waters darted Tim’s prey, who themselves sought out the weaker and the plaintive unfortunates who fell overboard – and they did with some frequency – American, British, Australian, Dutch, and Japanese combatants who were too clumsy, too trusting, to cocky, and too human and plunged to mercies of what they believed and what would be. Those sharks would eat them.

Tim had an American made Harrington Hoist built on Tchoupitoulas Street in downtown New Orleans by Standard Services Crane Company and a twenty pound slab of Iowa Landrace Hog in the palm of a very sharp hook. After an hour of slow and methodical trolling the bait hooked a sixteen 1/2 foot long Tiger Shark! The powerful monster threshed and thrashed and yawed in attempts to unhook itself from the baited trap, but the thick American steel cable and the Gary, Indiana forged hook help the trapped victimizer of overboard sailors and troops of all nations. Tim Cullen worked the controls slowly and eased the heavy dinner toward the starboard hoist aft of the rocking LCVP above Tim’s khaki covered red-hair. Gunny Higgins watching from the starboard fly-bridge hooted and laughed aloud as his cloud-covered altar boy once again proved himself to be a boy of talent and steel.

‘Cullen, you pie-eyed unregenerate brig-rat, you by God bested my take off of Cuba in 1932! That is a tiger and I snagged a damn thresher! Boy, you are a fire-tested pair of brass balls! Get that fucker aboard!’

Tim’s heart pumped and he half-giggled but maintained his focus as scrums of sailors and Leathernecks jostled near the starboard crane when word of the feat spread through the Company. Cpl. Jack Howard’s Jackie Coogan –face thrust through the scrum of faded blue denim and salt-bleached green herringbone – “YAYYYHOOO! Hook ‘em Cullen! That’s my gunner boys and girls!’ Similar encomiums fell around Tim’s shoulders and now the bridge above them was thick with pressed khakied officers who slept in well-ventilated berths in the ships castle while those below sweated and slumbered in the bowels of LST-448. The officers, especially Maj. Opley and Lt. Buck cheered their accomplished underling’s feat of skill and luck.

After twenty minutes of coaxing and dexterous manipulation Cullen swung the huge gray fish over the gunwale and lowered the Tiger shark to the deck. The monster thrashed and snapped as if un-troubled by the snare of steel. Marines and sailors turned into mincing girls and danced toe-touchingly back from its razor sharp maw. Tim pulled the Smith and Wesson from his shoulder holster and put two bullets in the shark’s brain and then the three last as the shark’s last acts of will slowed to a violent and final snap.

‘Now Hear This! Now Hear This! This is the Captain Speaking! Master-At – Arms! Disarm that Man and drag him to the brig!’ Over the ship’s loud-speaker, the voice explained the folly of Tim Cullen’s trust in Gunny Higgins. Hoots and howls of laughter replaced the high Hozannas! ‘The Brig-Rat’s Return! Now, Playing ‘The Man in the Iron Mask!’ ‘Piss and Punk Cullen!

‘Aye, Aye, Sir!’ Chief Chaffee replied to the call from the ship’s Captain Lt. Mo Higgins.

Tim received three days on bread and water for firing an unauthorized weapon aboard a ship in a combat zone without the stated authority of the Master at Arms. Gunny Higgins took one arm while Chief Chaffee confiscated the machine gunner’s side arm and marched the pawn to his steel screened dungeon behind the galley.

‘You’ll sweat off some chubby in here, Brig Rat,’ opined Chief Chaffee.

‘Hold on, there MAA this is a combat tested, fighting man only trying to feed the men who guide his life. Besides, he’s all ribs and dick now as it is. He’s a shell-back and won’t miss kissing your disgusting paunch, Chief, any how! That’s tomorrow we cross the equator – number twenty for me.’

Tim was stripped of his boondockers, shirt and trousers and in skivvies and socks laid down upon his bed of pain – again.

John McCain: McCain Has Killed Kittens, Pushed Blind Cripples in Front of Buses and Predicted an Obama 15 Pt. Bounce! Meanest Man Alive!

John McCain is Mean! He called a boy who merely asked him a question, 'a little jerk!'

Keith Olbermann has named John McCain 'Worst Person' in the World and coming from a troubled fat boy who shudders throughout the day when repressed memories of his days as a lonely boy himself surfaced like bubbles in a tepid water-filled bathtub - toying tearfully with a dog eared Rocky Colavito from Topps and preparing for his next un-pantsing at the hands of loutish athletes, that means something; Keith knows. The bullied become bullies.

I imagine John McCain lifts pads of butter at Denny's across this great country of ours and smears railings in nursing homes and the odd men's door knob. Of course, only after asking the Denny's waitress for a chilled glass of dehydrated water -'Yes, Sir, Senator!'

I see the Senator Glad Wrapping toilet seats after serving guests gallons draft beer hundreds of yards from the house.

No doubt a proffering of delicately fried Tortilla Chips, marshaled around a festive Guacamole dish filled with Wasabi and garnished with intricately cut limes, cilantro, and diced tomatoes would be ideal for those Press Barbecues.

But this week, Senator John McCain crossed the line! If the 18th Century artist William Hogarth could have witnessed McCain's vile act, he would have engraved cuttings for a Fifth Level of Cruelty ( Stage One -small animals; Stage Two - villainy and robbery; Stage Three Murder and Seduction; Stage Four Cruel Perfected and the Fifth Senator John Sidney McCain!

McCain told one of the pencil neck geeks at Huffington Post that he expects the Obama Campaign to take a 15 Point Bounce after the Democratic Convention. ( Click my post title for this shameless act of cruelty.

My God, Sir! These are Half-wits,with whom you are having sport! You, Senator are . . . I'm sorry I can not go on!

But it is damn funny! What's next asking a room full of nuns, 'Is there anyone I have not slept with here today?' Telling a blind kid 'Hey look at that Sunset!'

Asking Keith Olbermann, 'Getting Any?'

Prate About An Elephant Nobody Has Seen: An Indian Tale About Politics?

How was your Election Night?  Mine was brief.

Once there was a village high in the mountains in which everyone was born blind. One day a traveler arrived from far away with many fine things to sell and many tales to tell. The villagers asked, "How did you travel so far and so high carrying so much?" The traveler said, "On my elephant." "What is an elephant?" the villagers asked, having never even heard of such an animal in their remote mountain village. "See for yourself," the traveler replied.
The elders of the village were a little afraid of the strange-smelling creature that took up so much space in the middle of the village square. They could hear it breathing and munching on hay, and feel its slow, swaying movements disturbing the air around them. First one elder reached out and felt its flapping ear. "An elephant is soft but rough and flexible, like a leather fan." Another grasped its back leg. "An elephant is a rough, hairy pillar." An old woman took hold of a tusk and gasped, "An elephant is a cool, smooth staff." A young girls seized the tail and declared, "An elephant is a fringed rope." A boy took hold of the trunk and announced, "An elephant is a water pipe." Soon others were stroking its sides which were furrowed like a dry plowed field, and others determined that its head was an overturned washing tub attached to the water pipe.
At first each villager argued with the others on the definition of the elephant as the traveler watched in silence. Two elders were about to come to blows about a fan that could not possibly be a pillar. Meanwhile the elephant patiently enjoyed the investigations as the cries of curiosity and angry debate mixed in the afternoon sun. Soon someone suggested that a list could be made of all the parts: the elephant had four pillars, one tub, two fans, a water pipe, and two staffs, and was covered in tough, hairy leather or dried mud. Four young mothers, sitting on a bench and comparing impressions, realized that the elephant was in fact an enormous , gentle ox with a stretched nose. The traveler agreed, adding only that it was also a powerful draft horse and that if they bought some of his wares for a good price he would be sure to come that way again in the new year.         Indian Tale

The Joan Walsh Evolution: Wall Flower to Shrill Hag To Spartan Fascist

Be nice to homely girls, always; for if you do not, they may become dangerous. 

In another attempt to define normal people as dysfunctional and Republican candidates as what they are,  spineless dummies, Joan Walsh has mapped out her personal journey from porky wall-flower to Spartan Fascist -


Joan Walsh, the poor door full of woman, not only demands women abort a child to feel fresh, but now has gone full Spartan.

Parents own kids.  Most cultures hold that to be true and self-evident.

The Spartans, as goofy a gang of homoerotic zenophobes as ever raped a helot, did not believe that chldren belonged with their parenst; neither, did Plato; neither did The Utopians; neither did Hitler nor did Hooky Sanger and Planned Parenthood Movement of America.

Joan Walsh must have been treated very badly by my male contempraries at whatever sock-hops, dances or socials Miss Walsh hugged a wall.  Hurt can lead to bitterness and bitterness to savagery - Spartan savagery.

 The Spartan family was quite different from that of other Ancient Greek city-states. The word "spartan" has come down to us to describe self-denial and simplicity. This is what Spartan life was all about. Children were children of the state more than of their parents. They were raised to be soldiers, loyal to the state, strong and self-disciplined.
It began in infancy. When a Spartan baby was born, soldiers came to the house and examined it carefully to determine its strength.The baby was bathed in wine rather than water, to see its reaction. If a baby was weak, the Spartans exposed it on the hillside or took it away to become a slave (helot). Infanticide was common in ancient cultures, but the Spartans were particularly picky about their children. It was not just a matter of the family, the city-state decided the fate of the child. Nurses had the primary care of the baby and did not coddle it.Soldiers took the boys from their mothers at age 7, housed them in a dormitory with other boys and trained them as soldiers. The mother's softening influence was considered detrimental to a boy's education. The boys endured harsh physical discipline and deprivation to make them strong. The marched without shoes and went without food. They learned to fight, endure pain and survive through their wits. The older boys willingly participated in beating the younger boys to toughen them. Self-denial, simplicity, the warrior code, and loyalty to the city-state governed their lives.Spartan children were taught stories of courage and fortitude. One favorite story was about a boy who followed the Spartan code. He captured a live fox and intended to eat it. Although boys were encouraged to scrounge for food, they were punished if caught. The boy noticed some Spartan soldiers coming, and hid the fox beneath his shirt. When the soldiers confronted him, he allowed the fox to chew into his stomach rather than confess, and showed no sign of pain in his body or face. This was the Spartan way.At the age of 20 or so, they had to pass a rigorous test to graduate and become full citizens. Only the soldiers were received the aristocratic citizenship. If they failed their tests they never became citizens, but became perioeci, the middle class. So to some extent class was based on merit rather than birth.

The Spartans hated eveyone - not just Darius' Persians.Haters gonna Hate.  Joan Walsh is full-Spartan: cool with infanticide, hates everyone not herself.

Thus, the damage done to life's unplucked flowers - the nunnery, or Spatan fascism.

Man and child, it is a bitter thing to witness what happens when a girl can go from walllower to harpy.  Spartan, almost