Ben Stein,Mensch- UnDamaged by Celebrity and Touched With Humanity

This is a full text of Ben Stein's Last column Monday Nights at Mortons a glimpse at celebrity lifestyles in Hollywood.

Ben Stein, like my pals Mike Houlihan, Tom Roeser, Elias Crim, Steve Rhodes, John Powers and Max Weismann, is a Renaissance Man. Mr. Stein is a film maker, comic, wit, economist, professor and political analyst. More importantly, Mr. Stein is a Mensch* - a human being to the backbone! Read this fine analysis of fame, fortune and fraility.

Huge Hat Tip to Leo Hero - Robert Hylard ( Leo '44):

How Can Someone Who Lives in Insane Luxury Be a Star in Today's World?

As I begin to write this, I 'slug' it, as we writers say, which means I put a heading on top of the document to identify it. This heading is 'eonlineFINAL,' and it gives me a shiver to write it. I have been doing this column for so long that I cannot even recall when I started. I loved writing this column so much for so long I came to believe it would never end.

It worked well for a long time, but gradually, my changing as a person and the world's change have overtaken it. On a small scale, Morton's, while better than ever, no longer attracts as many stars as it used to. It still brings in the rich people in droves and definitely some stars. I saw Samuel L. Jackson there a few days ago, and we had a nice visit, and right before that, I saw and had a splendid talk with Warren Beatty in an elevator, in which we agreed that Splendor in the Grass was a super movie. But Morton's is not the star galaxy it once was, though it probably will be again.

Beyond that, a bigger change has happened.
I no longer think Hollywood stars are terribly important. They are uniformly pleasant, friendly people, and they treat me better than I deserve to be treated. But a man or woman who makes a huge wage for memorizing lines and reciting them in front of a camera is no longer my idea of a shining star we should all look up to.

How can a man or woman who makes an eight-figure wage and lives in insane luxury really be a star in today's world, if by a 'star' we mean someone bright and powerful and attractive as a role model? Real stars are not riding around in the backs of limousines or in Porsches or getting trained in yoga or Pilates and eating only raw fruit while they have Vietnamese girls do their nails.

They can be interesting, nice people, but they are not heroes to me any longer. A real star is the soldier of the 4th Infantry Division who poked his head into a hole on a farm near Tikrit , Iraq . He could have been met by a bomb or a hail of AK-47 bullets. Instead, he faced an abject Saddam Hussein and the gratitude of all of the decent people of the world.

A real star is the U.S. soldier who was sent to disarm a bomb next to a road north of Baghdad . He approached it, and the bomb went off and killed him.

A real star, the kind who haunts my memory night and day, is the U.S. soldier in Baghdad who saw a little girl playing with a piece of unexploded ordinance on a street near where he was guarding a station. He pushed her aside and threw himself on it just as it exploded. He left a family desolate in California and a little girl alive in Baghdad .

The stars who deserve media attention are not the ones who have lavish weddings on TV but the ones who patrol the streets of Mosul even after two of their buddies were murdered and their bodies battered and stripped for the sin of trying to protect Iraqis from terrorists.

We put couples with incomes of $100 million a year on the covers of our magazines. The noncoms and officers who barely scrape by on military pay but stand on guard in Afghanistan and Iraq and on ships and in submarines and near the Arctic Circle are anonymous as they live and die.

I am no longer co mfortable being a part of the system that has such poor values, and I do not want to perpetuate those values by pretending that who is eating at Morton's is a big subject.

There are plenty of other stars in the American firmament...the policemen and women who go off on patrol in South Central and have no idea if they will return alive; the orderlies and paramedics who bring in people who have been in terrible accidents and prepare them for surgery; the teachers and nurses who throw their whole spirits into caring for autistic children; the kind men and women who work in hospices and in cancer wards.

Think of each and every fireman who was running up the stairs at the World Trade Center as the towers began to collapse. Now you have my idea of a real hero.

I came to realize that life lived to help others is the only one that matters. This is my highest and best use as a human. I can put it another way. Years ago, I realized I could never be as great an actor as Olivier or as good a comic as Steve Martin...or Martin Mull or Fred Willard--or as good an economist as Samuelson or Friedman or as good a writer as Fitzgerald. Or even remotely close to any of them.

But I could be a devoted father to my son, husband to my wife and, above all, a good son to the parents who had done so much for me. This came to be my main task in life. I did it moderately well with my son, pretty well with my wife and well indeed with my parents (with my sister's help). I cared for and paid attention to them in their declining years. I stayed with my father as he got sick, went into extremis and then into a coma and then entered immortality with my sister and me reading him the Psalms.

This was the only point at which my life touched the lives of the soldiers in Iraq or the firefighters in New York . I came to realize that life lived to help others is the only one that matters and that it is my duty, in return for the lavish life God has devolved upon me, to help others He has placed in my path. This is my highest and best use as a human.


Faith is not believing that God can.
It is knowing that God will.
By Ben Stein

* "Reason in man is rather like God in the world."- St. Thomas Aquinas

Click my post title for Ben's House!

Mike Houlihan's Cross-town Classic for the Special Olympics at Bourbon Street -Sunday -June 28th -Noon to 4PM

STEP UP TO THE PLATE FOR SPECIAL OLYMPICS

Houli's pitching his best-selling book and donating a chunk of the proceeds to Special Olympics this Sunday at Bourbon Street.


Crosstown Challenge, Sox vs. Cubs

Sunday, June 28th
Noon to 4PMBourbon Street, 3359 W. 115th Street

Here's what Real Americans can do -
1. Show Yourself! Crack open the wallet and your $25 goes to Special Olympics and gets you food & booze

2. Watch the game!

3. Meet Southside wackos!

4. Laugh!

5. Cry when your team tanks!

6. Spring some dough for the Special Olympics!

There's-Raffles, silent auction, & more.

7. Mingle -Hot chicks, fat guys!

Now this last item causes me more than concern!
8. "Get lucky with local slut Finoola Hooligan!" - is this gambit to unload a cousin who should have 'taken the vail' Houli?????

Valet Parking available - So bring your Valet, too!

See you Sunday!

Southtown Star - A Lying Hate Rag - Hates Us - Smears Us with a Broad Brush - Shun It!

This is the reality of Kennedy Park. The Southtown Star smears us - all of us and lies about it.



The Southtown Star is a Hate Rag.

The Southtown Star is an agenda driven propaganda piece that was once a great community newspaper.

Last year, when Sun Times News Group cashiered every good veteran editor and staff reporter like Courtney Greve, John Hector, and Ed Koziarski, it ceased to exist.

The Southtown Star wanted to be more than a refrigerator magnet paper. It is - it is a disgrace.

Two intangible events took place over the last two weeks in the 19th Ward of Chicago - a black woman in Mount Greenwood found hateful words painted on the garage she rents and Swastikas were painted on the Chicago Park District Property at Kennedy Park in Morgan Park,

Here is the broad brush of hate painted by the Progressive editors and staff of the new Southtown Star:

June 24, 2009

THE ISSUE: Racist graffiti on the garage of a black Mount Greenwood resident sullies the whole community's reputation, once again.

WE SAY: Stand up for what is right, Mount Greenwood residents. Reject racist behavior loudly and publicly.

F or years, the community of Mount Greenwood on Chicago's Southwest Side has bristled at suggestions its residents foster racist attitudes. We're supposed to overlook incidents like last week's "Go home nigger" message spray-painted on the garage of Latricia Deanes' rented Mount Greenwood home. Deanes, who is black, is living there with her three children until repairs to her Beverly home are completed.

We're supposed to downplay it. Child's play. Those goofy kids - perhaps the same ones who spray-painted Nazi symbols on a Dumpster at nearby Kennedy Park.

Well, we aren't going to dismiss it.

Beverly is about two miles east of Mount Greenwood. They are two neighborhoods in Chicago's 19th Ward separated by a few railroad tracks and a cemetery. On a rudimentary, geographic level, Mount Greenwood and Beverly are next door to one another. So where, exactly, was Deanes supposed to "go home?" She is home, whether she's renting a house with her children in Mount Greenwood or living under a newly repaired roof down the street in Beverly. How nice of her neighbors to make her feel welcome.

Geography aside, incidents like this and the dismissive attitude of residents toward them make Mount Greenwood an embarrassment. The "bad apples," as Deanes described the culprits who committed this crime, wipe a stain over the entire community, and everyone else seems to keep their mouths shut.

Mount Greenwood, if you're tired of the bullying and the racism, speak up. Too often, silence only codifies community acceptance of this type of garbage. We know many Mount Greenwood residents feel the same outrage we do. Where are they?

Where are the elected officials? Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart lives in Mount Greenwood. So do labor leaders and police officials. Ald. Ginger Rugai (19th) represents Mount Greenwood, as do state officials Rep. Kevin Joyce (D-Chicago) and Sen. Edward Maloney, and at the federal level, Congressman Dan Lipinski. Where are they?

When Ryan Rush, a white teenager, was violently attacked by black teen-agers July 2007 at Beverly Park in what some believed was a hate crime, we vilified the vicious, unprovoked attack. We supported tough sentences for Micah Eastman and his two accomplices. What's wrong is wrong. (Emphasis my own)

This is wrong, too.

But too often, what we hear at the newspaper after stories like this appear are ignorant attempts at justification: Black people deserve what they get because they commit more crimes. Such-a nd-such high school used to be nice until black kids started going there. Black towns are no longer safe because of their racial make-up. Somehow Deanes deserved this. And on and on. Just read the online comments at the end of Steve Metsch's Saturday story about the graffiti.

To blame one resident for problems elsewhere, based solely on the color of her skin, is a ridiculous, misguided and shameful response. Whoever did this was evil. Period.

Our job at the newspaper is to highlight the good in the communities we cover and to hold those accountable who do us harm. It's our role to look out for the little guy.

Clearly, Deanes deserves defending here, not the criminals. There's just no way around it. There is no justification - none - for what they did. The harm this crime did, and will do, to Deanes' children is serious and far-reaching.

We are ashamed.

You are shameless liars! Here is what you wrote:

Editorial : Attack on youth is a tragedy, but no reason for overreaction ( Emphasis my own)

THE ISSUE: A 14-year-old youth was beaten in broad daylight in a Beverly park in what police are investigating as a hate crime. WE SAY: We hope leaders and residents in the Beverly community and the Southland as a whole can respond without resorting to generalizations and put the incident in proper perspective. The Beverly community is one of the few neighborhoods in Chicago that have achieved a significant level of racial diversity with a minimum of racial tension.

A white boy nearly dies in a beat down from the hands of black kids, but the Southtown Star scolded the whole community to respond without resorting to generalizations .

They (STNG)reserve that right for themselves. This community needs be a vehicle for the agenda to force public officials to tell their neighbors and constituents that they are all racists - everyone.

Two properties got painted and the Southtown Star bloated a Group Race Hate smear on the community it purports to serve and then lies about it- Our job at the newspaper is to highlight the good in the communities we cover and to hold those accountable who do us harm. It's our role to look out for the little guy.

Choke on it.

The Southtown Star serves only its agenda. The Southtown Star like the Chicago Sun Times needs controversy to make a go of it. Boycott these rags. Make them pay for that agenda so important that the truth matters not with their own money. Use your money for your kids and their friends -black, white, or whatever.

The ISSUE: The Southtown Star is a Hate Rag
WE SAY: Let it go bankrupt and soon!


You can get the high school sports results on-line for free.

Terry Sullivan Trio Do the Great American Song Book at Gallery Cabaret -June 29th

Ms. Terry Sullivan is a writer ( Cultural & Arts Editor for Chicago Daily Observer, choral director of St. Cecelia Chorus of St. John Cantius Catholic Church, and a seasoned Jazz singer, who Chicago nightlife pioneer and jazz enthusiast Mr. Nick Novich ( Nick's Place & etc.) likened to ' the sweet voice of Blossom Dearie.'

Terry Sullivan Trio will grace the stage of Gallery Cabaret in Bucktown on June 29th from 8-10:30PM. Get a start on your Summer with the vocal stylings of Ms. Terry Sullivan and Great American Song Book!

Ms. Sullivan is accompanied by two of Chicago's best Jazz Artists - pianist Tom Hope and Bass Man Brian Sandstrom.


Tom Hope, Jazz pianist, was born and raised in Houston, studied music at North Texas State U., and was a U. S. Army bandsman. He lived and worked in Los Angeles in the 70's and is a Chicagoan since 1976. An

experienced accompanist, he has a repertoire of thousands of tunes in all keys, with an emphasis on the Great American Songbook.

Tom has performed with Barrett Deems, Arnett Cobb, Scott Hamilton, Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson, Ira Sullivan, Ken Peplowski, Ed Polcer, Red Holloway, Lee Castle, Richie Cole, Al Grey, Britt Woodman and Charlie Persip, as well as singers such as Jaye P. Morgan and the Four Freshmen. He is also an accomplished singer and a student of the guitar.

Tom offers jazz vocal coaching in the context of the Great American Songbook. This involves learning the real melodies and rhythms of the songs, choosing tempos on the basis of lyrical sense and swing, then allowing one's natural style to develop. This leads to liberation from copying other performers' personal interpretations.



Brian Sandstrom - "One of the busiest bass players working in the Chicago area." Chicago Tribune.

Brian, sideman on more than 25 CDs, has toured Europe with free jazz pioneer Hal Russell. He has also recorded and played locally & nationally with such notables as Doug Blake, Frank Portolese, Willie Pickens, Ken Vandermark, Kent Kessler, Rusty Jones, Robert Shy, Mars Williams, Ed Pertersen, Von Freeman, Ira Sullivan, and Frank Catalano.


Gallery Caberet:

The Gallery Cabaret has been operating in Chicago's Bucktown neighborhood since 1990. According to owner, Ken Strandberg, the Gallery Cabaret harkens back to a time when "you could walk into a joint, buy a drink, and enjoy live entertainment like comedy or music just for being there and being a patron." The Gallery has offered free entertainment 7 nites per week since it opened. Over time, many up and comers have graced the stage, like The Smashing Pumpkins, Urge Overkill, Material Issue and Liz Phair (while they were still up and comers!). The Gallery has also hosted numerous comedy acts and poetry readings and slams. Every month, local artists have their work on display at the Gallery. Currently, we also offer cable TV including your favorite sports, until prior to showtime, and early bird drink specials from 5:00 pm until 9:00 pm. We also have Darts and Golden Tee Golf. Can't wait for music to start? We have TouchTunes internet jukebox with access to 1000's of songs.

Old Greaser Anthem - For the Line Dancing.

The National Coalition to Stop the War was a multi-faced coalition - nay a Rainbow -of essentially the very same dweebs and victims ( Yppies, Diggers, SDS, Al Ginsberg, Timothy Leary, The Seven! et al. ) playing at tough guy and being fully surprised by the similar outcomes incumbent upon playing the fool.

"My Gawd, How can you say that, Hickey? You unfeeling Nazi .......but, They were sooooo Committed!!!"

I dunno. Just do.

The 1968 Democratic Convention has spawned more 'committed participants who were there, Man' than even Woodstock. Belying the fact that far fewer than 6,000 showed up in Grant Park.

Police Riot? well, if convicted ex-felon and former Governor Dan Walker says so . . . Nah. Goofs went too far and got a tune-up.

The same Dweeb/Victims got a rump-thumping from Italian young men, the 69th Street Loafers, some days prior to the Convention and again by Chicago Police Officers.

Later, the same knuckleheads with rich Mommies and Daddies went all commitment in Old Town ( the Days of Rage) and a year later when rioters tore up Balboa when Sly Stone failed to show up at the Grant Park Band shell.

After that . . .the commitment seemed to die. The Theatre continued through the 1970's with the Trial of the Seven and the rest is . . .ludicrous.

Don Rose brought Happy Days back this week. Progressives get more mileage out of nothing - why does this great Nation have an energy crisis with all the methane fired out by Dweebs and Victims yet.

Whine on, Oh Happy Worriers!

For the line dancing I have chosen a very swell and little played ditty by an Arc-Greaser! Eddie Cochran!

Click my post title for a Chicago Greaser Coalition anthem - it's something else.

Obama's Brass Going to China- Where is the American Economy Going?

This tip came from Mary Ann Roti - Unbelieveable Change

And so it continues . . .

Georgia Arms is the 5th largest retailer of .223 Ammo in America . They sell 9mm, .45, ..223 ammunition. They normally buy spent brass from the US Department of Defense. Spent brass is "one time used" shell cases used by our Military for training purposes.
They buy the brass, recondition it, and then reload the brass for resale to Law Enforcement, Gun Clubs, Gun Shops, and stores like Wal-Mart. They normally buy 30,000 lbs of spent brass at a time.
This week the DoD wrote a letter to the owner of Georgia Arms and informed him that from now on the DoD will be destroying the spent brass, shredding it. It will no longer be available to the ammo makers, unless they buy it in a scrap shredded condition (which they have no use for). The shredded brass is now going to be sold by the DoD to China as scrap metal, after the DoD pays for it to be shredded.. The DoD is selling the brass to China for less money than the ammo makers have been paying, plus the DoD has to pay to have the brass shredded and do the accounting paperwork.
This sure helps the economy now doesn't it? Sell cheaper to China , and do not sell at all to a proven US business. Any hidden agenda working here? Obama going after the Firearms Industry and our ammunition!!
The Georgia Arms owner even related a story that one of his competitors had already purchased a load of brass last week. The DoD contacted him this week and said they were sending someone over to make sure it was destroyed. Shell cases he had already bought!
The brass has no value to the ammo maker if it is destroyed/shredded/melted. The ammo manufacturer only uses the empty brass cases to reload different calibers, mainly 223 bullets.
The owner of Georgia Arms says that he will have to lay off at least half of his 60 workers, within 2-3 months if the DoD will no longer sell spent brass cases to the industry. Georgia Arms has 2-3 months of inventory to use, by summer they're out.
If the Reloading Industry has to purchase new manufacture brass cases, then the cost of ammunition will double or even triple, plus Obama want to add a 500% tax on each shell.

Hope for Change!

Coalition of Old Greasers Calls for Counter Protest to Protest Called by Radicals Protesting Police '68 Reunion

A Coalition of Old Greaser Gangs is Settin' a Meet-up with Don Rose and his Aging Cupcakes!

Cadillac Commie with Bad Buckers 'PROVOKES' an Illinois National Guardsman-not Dick Butkus for this Dental Challenged but Earnest Revolutionary.

You say want a Coalition, well You know . . .

Here they come - from all over, by over there, near the tracks and the viaducts, where the streetcar turns the bend around.

THE REBELS: 47th Street and Ashland;63RD STREET IMPERIALS; 63rd STREET BEER CLUB;
V's: They hung around behind Gage Park High School.
69th STREET LOAFERS: Mostly Italian from 69th and Hermitage:DUKES OF HERMITAGE.
Hung around Hermitage Park and 59th and Hermitage:SAWYER BOYS: They hung at Sawyer school at 53rd and Sawyer;WHIPPLE STREET BOYS;ARTESIAN COBRAS: (a greaser gang who evolved from the 59 Street Supreme rulers, and most of whom were weightlifting fanatics) issued a statement concerning the call by Food Critic, Public Relations Maven and Later-day Kropotkin Don Rose to protest a planned reunion of septuagenarian and octogenarian Chicago Police Veterans in celebration of their Service and Protection of Chicago during the attempted coup by Cadillac Commie Cupcakes at the Democratic Convention:

From ABC Seven ( Andy Shaw Free Since 2008)-

June 23, 2009 (CHICAGO) (WLS) -- A police watchdog group says it will march in protest of a planned reunion of Chicago officers who worked during the 1968 Democratic convention.
The Chicago convention was marked by protests and violence. The group Chicago Copwatch says the planned reunion celebrates police violence against demonstrators. They plan to march this Friday, June 26, - the same day of the scheduled Chicago riot police reunion. They also delivered a letter to the mayor's office asking him to condemn the reunion.
"These were unprovoked assaults by the police on several occasions in Grant Park, on Michigan Avenue," said Don Rose, activist.
"The Chicago Police Department, the City of Chicago, broke the laws they were obligated to uphold," said Patricia Hill, African American Police League.

Chicago Greaser and Street-corner Guy* Coalition Spokesguy Niti Capone, III had this to say, " These Fruits came around the park over by the viaduct on Ashland and tried to get Vinny, Me and the Three Parisi Brothers to come downtown and help them toss 7-Up bottles of Pee and Irish Confetti at the Bulls, but we done that already and there was 16" Ball-game at Sherman Park with Slinky Ryan from Wood Streets and those Micks what live south of the tracks, across from Our Lady A Mount Carmel and all go to Leo, but their sissies what go to Big Weed (Little Flower H.S.), like this skinny little turd name Hickey who goes to all our dances and ain't too much of a damn pest, because he's tight with Tony DiPolito and the Vasi Brothers. We go to Harper and Hubbard and Parker, but we go to Church and all.

So, this Fruit** in the Dickie and Tweed and Beatle Boots says that they gonna bring Revolution! We start yankin' his pud! Then he gets his panty-hose bloated and cracks wise and Larry with the three fingers from Murray Park gives him a crack because Larry's brother is in Vietnam fightin' the Chinese Reds.

The Fruit near pee'd his cords - wearin' cords in July - and cries, 'We're Your Brothers! Off The Pigs!' and Larry gives him another crack. Then the other Fruits in the Volkswagon, we all drive Chevies, and its gots these plastic wallpaper flowers for Peace, start bawling so we swarm them and take a tire iron to the hood, which is the trunk of those Fag Wagons. We're all frisky on Sneaky Pete's ( Tall Schlitz with Ripple Red poured in) and got the giggles over these Room 222 Fags. We toss our lit Luckies into the Hitler Bug and they all start cryin' like little bitches.

We crack the bunch of them and they're all cryin' about 'callin' the Cops' and We yell back -'Off The Pigs! Dude!' The Cops from Englewood always treated us Okay and Mr. Pape was a cop and his cousin ran the Little League. So we called a bunch of the guys that we used to bloody up in the parks and at the parties and Parish dances - the Polacks, Harps, Hunkies, Mex-es and Ricans - all great guys. I was in the Army for two years with a couple of Polack Gaylords from Back o' the Yards and two Psychos from Canaryville - lovely gents.

If you see that Mick runt Hickey, let him know that my cousin Emil ain't forgotten that he cut-in on a slow dance at VIZ with Trolly Manuppa and he still ain't real happy. You ain't that Hickey are you? Jesus, you was in shape what happened? Just kidding. No, really? Don't do pull-ups anymore?

Anyway, we called the old guys to come out and support the Old Cops. The Fruits are still fruits and hate America.

Yeah, we made some calls we'll be there to help the Old Time Coppers."

Click my post title for Chicago Stone Greasers - splendid historical record - no Kidding! The Photos for the south side gangs are the work of Chicago Historian and Photag Mr. Larry Raeder who grew up in the Sherman Park Hood. Mr. Rader has been an invaluable source of knowledge for Crime Biographer Rose Keefe and Historian Richard Lindberg.

* Greaser was an attitude - generally but not exclusively of Italian, Polish, Czech, Mexican. Puerto Rican ethnic origin
Street-Corner Guy was a person attuned to proximity to smokes, beer, Pop, eats, mischief - often Irish, Jewish, German, Belgian, and Swedish


** Fruit, Fag Sissy, Cupcake, Shirley & etc ( archaic - Pre -PC) - generally a person of whom one has slight regard and middling concern due to aura of Self-absorption, infidelity and poor or unacceptable habits of dress and coiffure.

Rahm Emanuel Knows What's for Dinner - It's David Brooks - Trussed, Appled, Sauced and Smoking!

Washington Post correspondent Howard Kurtz does a splendid job of presenting Rahm Emmanuel the Chief of Staff for President Obama, as man who knows how to put Media Bacon on the President's table.

When Mr. Emanuel goes to market every little piggy gets looked over, but le treatment royale is reserved for the sucklings who play on conservative or independent high ground - notably David Brooks.

David Brooks does not do much for me, as a writer, much less as an original thinker. He reminds me of a kid who grew up playing with Major League baseball cards, but never went to the prairie between the two-flats for pick-up rules baseball. Now, he goes to swap-shows for memorabilia and shows the disinterested citizens of America all the swell stuff he got. " Hey, that's nice Dave. Look, I gotta go."

Rahm Emanuel eyed this little piggy for the platter early on the game. Howard Kurz notes:

Conservative critics also got the Rahm treatment. After Michael Kelly, then the New Republic's editor, called Clinton a "shocking liar," Emanuel took him to lunch. Emanuel called Times columnist William Safire "Uncle Bill" and had him over for dinner, despite his having called Hillary Clinton a "congenital liar."

Against this backdrop, Emanuel's courtship of Brooks, a conservative who has at times been sympathetic to Obama, is hardly surprising. In March, after Brooks wrote that Obama had turned out to be another big-spending liberal, he found himself talking to Emanuel, two other top officials and the president, which produced a follow-up column crediting the White House with making a "sophisticated and fact-based" case.

Brooks says he had a half-dozen dinners with Emanuel during his congressional days and now considers him a policy maven as well as political tactician. "He's comfortable with journalists," Brooks says. "He provides real information without giving too much away. With some people you just get the spin; he does go beyond that."

Rahm Emanuel never drew a stupid breath in his life. Hell, it's easy to 'get comfortable with journalists,' Dave! It is, "Come For the Table, Newsies! Here, Newsies,Newsies! Soo-Weeeeeee!" And the Porcine Parade prances to dinner!

He feeds you apples and sugar. You provide the feast! Bon Appetite, Mr. President!

Remember newspapers,folks? Now, they are used to wrap up the fat, the bones, the snout and the ears.

Czech Please! Klas Restaurant! "The Accidental Army"; Goulash and Great Conversation with Steve Jordan and Elias Crim: Save Our History! Czech Please!

I had a most memorable Father's Day Dinner with Ms. Terry Sullivan; Susan and Steve Jordan of Oak Park; historian, editor and executive network operator Elias Crim and his three beautiful and talented daughters at the landmark Bohemian restaurant Klas in Cicero, IL.

Klas is a family operated restaurant that is a museum of Czech Culture and a delight of Old World service and atmosphere. Klas* is " the largest Czech Restaurant in the U.S.A. and a reminder of Chicago's debt to Bohemian people who brought skilled craftsmanship to the building trades and examples of personal and family thrift as an ethic - too long ignored.

The first Czech in Chicago is reported to have arrived before 1850:

Jan Habenicht in his Czech publication Dejiny Cechüv americkych (History of American Czechs) published in Si. Louis in 1910, categorically wrote that the first Czech settler in Chicago was a Moravian native Dr. Frantisek Adolf Valenta. This claim was generally accepted even by such eminent scholars as Professor Francis Dvornik.

Dr. Frantisek A. Valenta originally came to America in 1849 and, after a brief stay in New York City, he settled in August of the same year on the north side of Chicago. Later on he established a pharmacy on the corner of State and Van Buren Streets. His knowledge of German enabled him to practice medicine especially among Germans. After fourteen years of medical practice, he was quite rich and returned to Bohemia, reportedly with some $50,000. There he purchased a farm and in 1870 he died. Habenicht harshly
criticized Valenta's German orientation, however, if we look at it from a different perspective, we ought to give him credit for his entrepreneurship and be comforted by the fact that his presumed riches did not come from the back of poor Czech settlers.

http://www.svu2000.org/cs_america/chicago.htm

Chicago's Czech immigrants possessed few locally marketable skills, and in the 1880s, working at unsteady jobs, notably as lumber shovers in the “lumber district” adjoining Pilsen, they earned less than nearly all other major ethnic group in the city. Eschewing traditional craft unions, they readily employed the mass strike to better their economic situation, drawing on their dense associational network. Whole neighborhoods joined to keep out strikebreakers, playing a prominent part in street fighting with police and militia in the Great Railroad Strike of 1877 and other labor conflicts. The event that precipitated the Haymarket tragedy was a violent clash between heavily Bohemian lumber shovers and the police. Led by socialist-leaning freethinkers, Bohemians turned readily to the Socialist Labor Party at the end of the nineteenth century. By the 1910s and 1920s, however, Czechs earned more and worked at a wider range of occupations, including as operatives at Western Electric. Their energies were devoted more to ethnic and neighborhood organizations than to radical or unionist activity.

Early Czech immigrants largely voted for the Republican Party because of their opposition to slavery. However, Chicago Czechs changed their allegiance in local politics after the Democratic Party nominated a Czech for alderman in 1883. Czech support for the Democrats continued well into the twentieth century, peaking with the election of Anton Cermak, a Czech immigrant, as the Democratic mayor of Chicago in 1931.

http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/153.html

Klas is located on the street named for Chicago's best known Bohemian - Anton Cermak.

Terry, the Jordan's and the Crims had attended Mass and a play at St. Odilo's Catholic Church, while I had spent a few hours wishing my Dad a Happy Father's Day - "Hell, yes it's Happy - for Crissake, I'm still on top of the grass!"

I dropped my girls off at home and took Cicero Ave. up to Cermak Road and West eight blocks to the massive Klas and and quaffed samples the fine 'Shirley Temples' in the masterfully carved deep dark wooden bar festooned with carved statuary, memorabilia and Bohemian/Moravian Welcome!

The Jordans arrived and so also the beautiful and elegant Ms. Sullivan and Crims of Valparaiso, Indiana!

Steve Jordan is Boston-born banker who was raised Irish Catholic in San Francisco and his beautiful wife Susan is an native San Franciscan. Steve Jordan spent many years in South East Asia - Singapore primarily - and is man with wealth of historical knowledge and eclectic discernment's on all manner of cultural interests - governmental as well as gastronomical.

Steve pointed out the photos of Czech soldiers in Czarist Russian winter gear and identified them as members of the famous Czech Legion (Česká družina). 'These were giants!, remarked the talented Mr. Jordan. "The Czech Legion fought an epic battle against the Red Armies all along the Trans-Siberian Railroad route from Asia to Europe and yet very few people have ever heard of them. They fought an epic paralleled only by the Anabasis of Xenophon and Chosin Reservoir of Chesty Puller - God I love this place! You get a real sense of history here!"

Chicago film-maker Bruce Bendinger has made a film about the Czech Legion - The Accidental Army, which opened here in Chicago on June 20th at the Gene Siskel Center.

Ed Koziarki of Chicago Reader has written a splendid piece about this film and Chicago's debt to the Czechs of Chicago - here is an excerpt of Ed's review:

“Here was a story that almost nobody knows,” Bendinger says. “You pull a thread and the more you pull, the more interesting it got. Even in the Czech and Slovak republics, it’s become a historical blind spot.”

The Chicago connection goes back to 1902, when local plumbing magnate Charles Crane recruited Tomáš Masaryk, a philosophy professor and Czech nationalist who’d served in the Austro-Hungarian parliament, to lecture at the University of Chicago. (A memorial to Masaryk and the Czechoslovak Legion now stands on campus, at the east end of the Midway Plaisance). The Slavs of Central Europe had no state of their own at the time: most Czechs and Slovaks were subjects of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, while a sizable minority lived in Russia. Nearly 100,000 Czechs had immigrated to Chicago, giving the city the world’s second-highest Czech population after Prague.

After his summer stint at the U. of C., Masaryk returned to Austro-Hungary and resumed his political activities. When the empire invaded Serbia in 1914, initiating World War I, he fled to England, becoming leader of an Allied spy network and the foremost international spokesman for the Czechoslovak independence movement.

On the day the war broke out, thousands of Chicago Slavs gathered in Pilsen Park at 26th and Albany—in Little Village, then called Czech California—to urge the United States to join the Allied effort against Austro-Hungary and the Central Powers. They launched a letter-writing campaign aimed at getting their relatives in Europe to resist conscription into the Austro-Hungarian army, or to desert and fight for the Allies. “The letters [showed] how people were feeling,” Bendinger says. “Thousands of [Slavic] Austro-Hungarian soldiers surrendered as quickly as they could.” Chicago Czechs and other Slavs “were at the forefront of being on the Allied side in World War I. Their relatives were the ones being killed, or being drafted to fight for the Germans and Austro-Hungarians.”

The first Czechoslovak Legion was a force of 10,000 in the Russian army—ostensibly volunteers, though many were pressured to fight under threat of losing their land. Their ranks swelled after Masaryk convinced the Russian government to allow 50,000 Czech and Slovak POWs from the Austro-Hungarian army to defect and fight for Russia. The Czechoslovak Legion is credited with helping to tie up German forces on the Eastern front, giving the Allies a crucial edge on the Western front. Their service, Bendinger says, also gave the Czech independence movement vital “skin in the game.”

In May 1918, Masaryk went on a barnstorming tour of the U.S. to raise political and financial backing for Czech independence. In downtown Chicago, outside the Blackstone Hotel, he addressed a crowd of 150,000 supporters, demonstrating the independence movement’s political muscle and turning American political discourse in favor of a Czechoslovak nation.

(Standing before a statue of Masaryk in Prague on April 5, President Obama said, “Masaryk spoke to a crowd in Chicago that was estimated to be over 100,000. I don’t think I can match Masaryk’s record, but I’m honored to follow his footsteps from Chicago to Prague.”)

Steve Jordan knew the story. Elias Crim knew the story. I had heard about the Czech Legion, but as with most things in my life managed to place that thought in the top drawer of my Brain Dresser - the one that holds treasures; baby teeth, match boxes from memorable places; ear rings lost and stepped upon & etc.

America needs to open that drawer often. We are losing our sense of History. President Obama has a very poor sense of history** and swats at historical facts like so many flies. Jimmy Carter also took a paddle to the rabbit of Historical sense, and allowed an Iranian Revolution that still seems to hold America hostage. That's history, folks! Learn it or live it . . .over and over again.

Too many Americans like to believe the things that they are told to them by ersatz authorities ( Look, Bill Ayers is called an Academic! Have you ever read his nonsense?)- like America is murderous, racist, greedy, opportunistic, Imperialist. Americans like to embrace icons like Margaret Sanger, who was as twisted a Eugenics racist as Hitler on a bad day, yet she is padded with Planned Parenthood coins in the memory slot; that Jane Addams was more than just a self-absorbed and bitter person; that Saul Alinsky really mattered to anyone while he was alive and that he actually improved the lives of the people that he used.

Open your eyes to history. At Klas Restaurant on Cermak Road it is all around you.
However it also helps to have interested and interesting people like Jordans and the Crims when enjoying the Goulash.

*Klas Restaurant
5734 W Cermak Rd
Cicero, IL 60804
(708) 652-0795


**

Days into his presidency, it should be recalled, Mr. Obama had spoken of his desire to restore to America's relation with the Muslim world the respect and mutual interest that had existed 30 or 20 years earlier. It so happened that he was speaking, almost to the day, on the 30th anniversary of the Iranian Revolution -- and that the time span he was referring to, his golden age, covered the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the American standoff with Libya, the fall of Beirut to the forces of terror, and the downing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. Liberal opinion would have howled had this history been offered by George W. Bush, but Barack Obama was granted a waiver.

Little more than three decades ago, Jimmy Carter, another American president convinced that what had come before him could be annulled and wished away, called on the nation to shed its "inordinate fear of communism," and to put aside its concern with "traditional issues of war and peace" in favor of "new global issues of justice, equity and human rights." We had betrayed our principles in the course of the Cold War, he said, "fought fire with fire, never thinking that fire is quenched with water." The Soviet answer to that brave, new world was the invasion of Afghanistan in December of 1979.

Mr. Carter would try an atonement in the last year of his presidency. He would pose as a born-again hawk. It was too late in the hour for such redemption. It would take another standard-bearer, Ronald Reagan, to see that great struggle to victory.

Iran's ordeal and its ways shattered the Carter presidency. President Obama's Persian tutorial has just begun.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124563005022735881.html

Happy Fathers Day - St. Joseph, Si Blitzstein and Dad - Bless Us.

“a righteous man, yet unwilling to expose her to shame” (Matthew 1:19).

"He was chosen by the eternal Father as the trustworthy guardian and protector of his greatest treasures, namely, his divine Son and Mary, Joseph’s wife. He carried out this vocation with complete fidelity until at last God called him, saying: ‘Good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of your Lord’” (St. Bernardine of Siena).

Just as the saying goes that behind every great man there is a great woman, the inspiration behind the celebration of a Father's Day is owed at least partly to its slightly earlier counterpart, Mother's Day. Mother's Day was just beginning to gather widespread attention in the United States in 1909, when Sonora Louise Smart Dodd, of Spokane, Washington, heard a sermon on the merits of setting aside a day to honor one's mother. It gave her the idea to petition for a day to honor fathers, and in particular, her own father, William Jackson Smart, who had raised her and her five siblings by himself, after her mother died in childbirth.

With support from the Spokane Ministerial Association and the YMCA, her efforts paid off, and on June 19, 1910, the first Father's Day was celebrated in Spokane. The rose was selected as the official Father's Day flower, and some suggest that people wear a white rose to honor a father who is deceased, and a red one for a father who is living. In 1972, Richard Nixon signed a presidential proclamation declaring the third Sunday of June as Father's Day.

http://fathers-day.123holiday.net/


I have three wonderful children - Nora, Conor and Clare. Their Mother and my Bride, Mary, is in Heaven. She watches the cartoon playing 24/7 which is my care for those three great kids. Homer Simpson looks like Lord Chesterfield next to my ministrations as Hickey Pater Familias.

Jesus! Rag, rag, rag and the occasional Rage. That's this weak Sister, Bubba.

I do what I can, or attempt to make myself believe that all that I do for them comes not from a misstep, a lazy half-measure, or out of my personal vanity.

They deserve a great Father. They have one in God the Father and a reasonable facsimile here on earth.

Fathers are important, I guess. There are commercials telling us about Father's Rights from lawyers in Cowboy Hats; Celebration Sales for Hardware, Steaks, Golf Shirts and Old Country Buffets.

A wonderful boss that I had back when I worked one of my many jobs to meet tuition at Loyola was Simon Bitzstein.

Si Blitzstein hired legions of Catholic Youth to sell Van Huesen Shirts, Levis, quality suits, sport coats, and accessories at Mr. Lee's in the Evergreen Plaza*. One Fathers Day while fitting a guy home from the Navy for a suit, Si was asked what he was doing for Father's Day. He said, "This. This is what Fathers do."

"Hickey, he said, "You know when's Mothers Day?"

I said, "Last month."

Si rejoined, "Nine Months after Fathers Day. You got children? You work."

That was no joke. Do your job.

Fathers, no matter how strong, weak, smart, flawed, best-intended, or exemplary, are committed to a contact made with the women that they love and the subsequent gift from God that this contact requested.

It's work. We Catholics celebrated Fathers Day long before the thoughtful Methodist Miss Strong, and the subsequent Presidents declared a fitting tribute.

Fulfill the contract.

My Dad, was a three Campaign Marine veteran of the Pacific who worked three jobs. When my Mom was sick, the Old Man cooked,cleaned, washed, dried and folded clothes in between those jobs. Never a word about it.

Si Blitzstein fitted a sailor for a new suit.

St. Joseph raised the Son of God.

That's Fathers.

I pray to be half- the men they are - Fathers.




* Click my post title for the impending demolition of this landmark shopping center.

Protect Guam from North Korean Missiles

( North Guam including Anderson AFB)

President Obama wants to talk. That is what he does and how he became our President.

However, President Obama acted on his words trying to nuance the world. President Obama does not want anti-missile defence systems in Europe or even the United States in order to make his words more compelling to Thugs. The world has some real nasty villains afoot.

These villains are not unlike the drive-by thugs in America's cities who shoot with impunity and murder anyone.

President Obama comes from the Progressive Mind-set that embraces the notion that Guns Kill People. Guns kill people in the very same way that pencils flunk examinations.

Chicago has the strictest Gun Laws in America, but also the highest number of Public School Kids murdered by Thugs with Guns. Those Gun Laws keep academics, suburban dwelling columnists, lawsuit lawyers and community activists off a patch of Mayor Daley's back, but have contributed in making Chicago a Thug Comfort Zone.
Black and Hispanic kids die from Thugs throwing shots at them with impunity bordering on immunity.

The world has thugs. North Korea is a Thug Nation. You can not talk to thugs. Thugs can only be interdicted - defended against by Law Enforcement Officers armed with guns and a government with something amounting to a spine.

President Obama told the world that he would rid it of Nuclear Weapons back in April and the North Koreans called President Obama's soaring Rhetoric:

PRAGUE – Just hours after North Korea launched a long-range rocket, President Barack Obama called for "a world without nuclear weapons" and said the United States has a “moral responsibility ” to lead the way, as the only nation ever to use them.

Obama’s speech was long planned as the centerpiece of his first presidential trip overseas, but it gained new urgency after North Korea sent a multi-part rocket soaring over the Sea of Japan early Sunday morning.

North Korea insisted the launch was meant to put a satellite into space but the U.S. and other nations believe Pyongyang is trying to develop the capability to launch a nuclear warhead.

The president, who was woken up just after 4:30 a.m. local time by news of the launch, spoke to the authoritarian state in remarks hastily added to his text.

“Now is the time for a strong international response, and North Korea must know that the path to security and respect will never come through threats and illegal weapons,” Obama said to thousands thronged into the cobblestone square outside the elegant Prague Castle, in what was the largest crowd of his five-country, eight-day swing.

“All nations must come together to build a stronger, global regime. And that's why we must stand shoulder to shoulder to pressure the North Koreans to change course.”

World Nuke Control? Where only the Thugs have guns - like here in Chicago? Come on!

Guam is America's Asian Strategic Outpost and it is vulnerable to a North Korean missile threat. Guam, as it was before World War II, is always an American afterthought . . .until Thugs attack it. Guam is America, Mr. President. Guam voted for you.

Here are the thoughts of a gent in Virginia who sees the real threat from North Korea is a strike at Guam.

I think that the North Koreans could make a much more dangerous point by launching a long range missile and having it hit a target in the ocean that is exactly 3,404 kilometers away.

3,404 km being the exact distance between Pyongyang and Guam. Guam being the strategic hub of US military operations in the Pacific. Guam is home to roughly a third of our Air Force's aircraft at any given time and a large proportion of our naval assets. Nuking Guam would severely cripple us in the Pacific. Such an attack would be the modern equivalent of the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor. In pure military terms, hitting Guam now would hurt us more than a hit on Hawaii would.

North Korea is still a ways from being able to miniaturize a nuclear warhead and place it on top of a long range missile. And there is no way that one of their aircraft could get close enough to Guam's airspace to bomb it. But just putting a missile down at exactly that distance would make the point that they are approaching the ability to strategically attack the US in something beyond an asymmetrical manner. Posted by Jack Landers at Friday, June 19, 2009

( emphasis my own)

Mr. President this is no time for Nuance.

Thanks Gino Ford and the ComEd Crews Who Tackled the Storms!

Gino Ford is a man a half! Mr. Ford is a Charter member of the Kean Gas* Coffee Salon - a coterie of neighborhood worthies ( Boz O'Brien, Mary Therese Riordan RN, Capt. Eddie Ryan CFD, Eddie Carroll, Terry McEldowney - Lyric Opera, Det. Neal Mosh CPD, Frank Hodorowicz, Marty Tully, Billy Higgins, Mike Quinlan, Rich Doyle, Fred Riley, Eugenius Callahan, Smash McKenna, Joe Murphy, Jerry Schumacher, Pat Sheehan, and me self) who caucus at the gas station for coffee and bon mots between 5AM and 6AM most mornings.

It is with this diverse group of tradesmen, nurses, civil servants and venture capitalists that my insights to the economic, cultural, social and religious impact upon Patriots and Neighbors and their families is incubated and hatched - prematurely and full term.

We are blessed with such people as these. They have America's back.

Gino Ford services all of us with ComEd and is the vanguard warrior who returns electrical power to all of us.

ComEd is a bete noir with most of us helots - rate hikes and obscure billing protocols developed by sneaky bean counters and protected by some Legislators in Springfield - most notably the former leader of the Illinois Senate Emil Jones.


However, the crews who venture up on the high wires face injury and death ever day and most especially when our planet goes Gangster on us - Ice Storms and Hurricano Downpours- like yesterday.

Gino missed coffee, because he is out with the crews. Gino is sweating up a storm in heavy jacket asbestos gloves, helmet and harness with tens of pounds of gear pulling him to earth along with the buffeting winds and pelts of rain.

Yesterday evening when I travelled north to pick up the beautiful and talented Ms. Terry Sullivan for evening at Joe Segal's Jazz Showcase to witness the electric performance of Jazz Diva Dee Dee Bridgewater* and her quintet, I counted more than twenty huge ComEd Utility and Cherry -Picker Rigs heading north in the express lanes of the Dan Ryan.

That was Gino and the Lads. They are still at it.

Here is the high power and exotic Ms. Dee Dee Bridgewater singing Sweet Rain for Gino and the Com Ed Helots - the High Wire and Pole Artistes! God Bless you all and watch over your labors!

Thanks!

Chicago's Dept. of Streets and San says the storms that ripped thru the city downed 350 trees and put out more than 60 traffic lights. 450+ basements have flooded and more than 500 streets have been made impassable by the runoff.
Spokesman Matt Smith says the department will work through the night to get things back to normal.
Com Ed crews are out in force in the Southwest suburbs. Tonight's round of storms knocked out powerline and downed trees.
No serious injuries were reported but it will some time before communities recover. About 36-thousand of the 120-thousand power outages are located in the South suburbs.

NZ-Weather

* Dee Bridgewater 'Sweet Rain'

Kean Brothers Inc‎ -
2632 W 111th St, Chicago, IL‎ - (773) 445-3626‎

What's With Progressive Women and Busted Limbs? Rep. Endora Schakowsky on the Gimp,Too!

First it was Wise Latina Judge Sotomayor doing the old Step-And-Half Waltz and then Sec. of State Giggles Clinton hammers her elbow and now we learn that Rep. Jan 'Endora' Schakowsky is on the gimp, as well!

Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., one of the strongest proponents of closing down the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, came home after a visit there in arguably worse physical shape than the detainees.
Schakowsky was seen limping down a basement hallway in the Capitol on Tuesday, using crutches and sporting a cast. She said she fell down in a briefing room Guantanamo and broke her left foot.
Schakowsky has been a vocal opponent of the prison and has visited several times, reporting on "the harsh conditions detainees face there," as well as "horrific stories" told by detainees claiming to have been treated badly there.
Last year she introduced legislation that would have banned the CIA from using interrogation techniques on prisoners that have been deemed to be torture.
Schakowsy isn't blaming anyone but herself for her injury, however.
"This was not one of those enhanced interrogation techniques," she joked. "This was not to get me to confess."

Girls, time to load up on calcium! Are Progressives brittle, or what?

Tom Dart Should be County Board President - Why He Would Want It?

Sheriff Tom Dart is the best qualified person to be President of of Cook County Board. Tom Dart is a brilliant young man and a good guy to the bargain. He is collegial, tough, courteous but no push-over.

Like Speaker Madigan, and any true public servant, Tom Dart plays things close to the vest.

Tom Dart has slowly climbed the Chicago political gradus and has developed the skills to allow him to be effective.

Tom Dart was President Obama's roommate and colleague in Springfield while working to reform the looming pay-day-loan catastrophe that is now Tsunami'd into a National Storm of Debt. Dart's Bi-Partisan efforts were smothered by political self-interests. The Zip-code was declared Racist by Rev. Jess Jackson and the hand -wringers went along on the disaster train. Tom Dart warned of this impending crisis ten years ago.

Tom Dart is Cook County Sheriff - the most thankless and ugly job on the planet.

However, the source of the sewer is the Cook County Board. A Sheriff is needed so the next Sheriff can avoid having the same clowns who killed phony pay-day-loan legislation undermine that job.

Tom Dart's predecessor had these clowns and their lawyers, and think tanks and journalist stooges bed-bugging his efforts to improve Cook County Law Enforcement twenty-four hours a day.

I love Paul Vallas, but he gave the job a duck. God Bless Him! Forrest Claypool passed on it. Forrest will be fine. He's always fine. Toni Preckwinkle could not find a Chinaman on 22nd Street, but so wants to sit in Todd's Chair. Todd Stoger . . .ah, Jaysus, the poor thing.

Cook County could use someone who took the time to learn how to lead. That is Tom Dart. Tom Dart could fix the Cook County Mess. There will still be greedy, back-stabbing oppotunists buzzing around him, like President Obama's Late Mr. Fly, but the skilled, honest and professional Mr. Dart can handle them - and PETA as well.

Dart began his career in public service as an Assistant Cook County State’s Attorney, where he prosecuted hundreds of felony crimes during his five years with the office. As part of his duties he was assigned to prosecute crimes in the South Suburbs, where he helped initiate a massive investigation of corruption in the town of Ford Height’s Police Department, leading to the indictment of the chief and several of the towns police officers. Coincidentally in 2008, Sheriff Dart’s took over police protection in Ford Heights because of ongoing problems with the town’s police department.

By 1991, Dart had moved to the Illinois General Assembly when he was appointed to fill a vacancy in the State Senate. The next year, he ran for elected office for the first time and won a seat in the Illinois House, representing a diverse district on Chicago’s South Side that included communities like Roseland, Pullman, Morgan Park, Mount Greenwood, Calumet Park, and portions of Blue Island.In Springfield, Dart quickly developed a reputation as a reform minded legislator who was willing to take on the state bureaucracy.

He served as chief sponsor of more than a dozen new child welfare laws that helped restructure the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services. And, as an indication of things to come, Dart turned his attention to matters related to law enforcement. As Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, he sponsored Mayor Daley’s Safe Neighborhood Act and authored several state laws designed to crackdown on child sex offenders, including a statute that targeted child predators who use the Internet to lure young victims. He also wrote the Sexually Violent Predators Commitment Act, a groundbreaking law that enable judges to deny freedom to sexual predators and detain them in state mental health facilities if they were deemed likely to commit new sex crimes after being released from prison.

Dart received dozens of honors for his work in the legislature, including the Illinois State Bar Association’s President’s Commendation and “Legislator of the Year Awards” from several groups, including the Illinois Association of Chiefs of Police, the Illinois State Crime Commission, and Mothers Against Drunk Driving. Chicago Sun Times columnist Steve Neal referred to Dart as an “impact player” during his decade of service in the Illinois House.

Dart left the legislature in 2003 after an unsuccessful campaign for Illinois State Treasurer and was appointed to serve as Chief of Staff Cook County Sheriff Michael Sheahan. In 2006 Dart was elected to a four-year term as the new Sheriff of Cook County after Sheahan retired.

As Sheriff, Dart has enacted a variety of new policy initiatives. Among the many changes are an institution of psychological testing for entry level recruits, installing new technology in the Cook County Jail and court facilities throughout Cook County, and the creation of a weapons free committee to target the widespread use of homemade knives and shanks in the jail.
Under Dart’s directive, the Sheriff’s Police have initiated a variety of stings, crackdowns, and investigations of criminal activity. He has been in the forefront in breaking up dog fighting rings and presided over the arrests of prostitution rings that use the internet as their advertising arm.

Dart holds a J.D. from Loyola University and a Bachelor’s Degree in History and General Social Studies from Providence College. He and his wife Patricia reside in Chicago and are the proud parents of four children.

Ralph Martire's Monster Budget - Ralph, Illinois Policy Institute Trims the Budget Blubber . . .And No One Dies

Rock-Solid By Gummy Illinois Son of the Soil -"Mrs. Illinois, not to be rude but Ralphie Rod Blag-Budget has gotten just a tad past chubby; now, I suppose that it's none of my business, but perhaps . . . maybe . . . Ralphie Rod might like a nice Soy Snack - 'stead a that thar Hershey's Dipped Deep Fried Oreo Wheel?"

SEIU Human Activists - "Coward! Ralphie Rod Has Feelings and Will Die Without Those Empty Calories! Call the Coalition! We are marching on this man . . . what's that? Oh, Woman. Sorry. Are you Gay? That would make a huge difference, . . .Oh, you were laughing at us! Youare a Man a Breeder! No Doubt against Womens Reproductive Health and a Theocrat. Nice. but the child needs his snack!"

John Tillman's Illinois Policy Intitute's Report and Recommendations shows legislators how to trim the lard from the State Budget without raising taxes.

In fact it gives very specific recommendations of just where to slice and dice wasteful spending - Chicago State University* for example, where its former President went on a taxpayer funded personal spending junket for years, is given only a modest cut in appropriated spending dollars.

No blood. No Fire. No Nothing. Just a reasonable taxpayer cash diet.

The report concludes:

If Illinois had enacted an expenditure limit in 2004 that limited spending growth to population plus inflation, the state could have cumulatively
saved $13.7 billion over the past six years. That’s money that could have
been put in a rainy day fund, applied toward the unfunded public employee
pension liabilities, or even refunded to taxpayers. Budget Savings from
Establishing a Spending Limit in 2004 An expenditure limit could have helped to
prevent the $11.606 billion budget deficit . . . state faces today. If Illinois had adopted an expenditure limit in 2004, the budget for fiscal year 2010 would be $29.1 billion. Given that the state is expected to bring in $26.9 billion
in revenue in 2010, the “diet” budget of $29.1 billion is much more in tune with reality than the actual 2010 base budget of $34.2 billion. Illinois has a good opportunity to prevent future runaway spending growth by immediately passing an expenditure limit based on inflation and population growth.

Purple T -Shirt give-aways are a nice way to get folks passionate about shouting at lawmakers and marching under the Capital Dome, but real solution to Budget Bloat is Fiscal and Fiduciary Fearlessness.

Legislators who voted down the tax-increase showed just that - Courage.

Ralph Martire sold Tax Bloat to Blago and others before him. Sensible Law makers said no. People like Patti Bellock, John Fritchey, Jim Watson, Debbie Mell - Yep Deb Mell, Kevin Joyce, Kevin McCarthy, and Jim Brosnahan are the only people telling Illinois Budget Blubber Boy, Ralphie-Rod, 'Drop that Elephant Ear, Son! My God it's the size of a Harvester!'

Ralph is still hawking the lard. It's getting pretty tough to squeeze into those purple T-shirts - metaphorically speaking.


Cut the Bloat! Say No to Taxes!

Feel like Marching!



* Click ,y post title for the full report! Nice work John Tillman!
Check out Table # 3 on page 2 of the Illinois policy Institute Report
TABLE 3: Eliminating Governor Quinn’s
FY 2010 Spending Increases (general funds)

Voting Against Illinois Tax Monster is Not Cowardly, Ralph Martire - It is Your Monster, Ralph, You and Your Pal Blago. Get a Leash

"Avoiding a tax increase vote because you are concerned about your political career. That is cowardly," said the Center on Tax and Budget Accountability's Ralph Martire. SEIU Graphic Novel -Progress Illinois

Graphic Novels are what the Hep Cats call Comic Books these days. Ralph Martire is a career Academic Appointee who helped Gov. Rod Blagojevich buy fleets of PACE SUVs to help 'seniors' get around. That was nice. Grandma Donahue lived at 63rd & Kilpatrick near Midway and got around just fine on CTA. Seniors now ride free.

Old Lawyers from DuPage ride free. Blago sent his wife to Costa Rica and awaits more paper from Fitzy. Ralph Martire is still getting a handsome salary from one or more of the many Coalitions, that he handsomely manages to get appointed to, and shouts out scripted screams that tax-payers need to pay more.

Ralph, we're Tap City, Son.

My legislators voted against the Swelled-Like-A-Tick Budget that Ralph Martire helped Blago bloat. Ralph was Blago's Budget Big-shot ( Ralph has been Illinois' Mr. Programs since Dawn Clark Netsch first appointed Ralph to do some Coalition building).

Ralph is going around with Progressive, Fair and Efficient Charts and Numbers to make sure folks that who do not understand how a balance a check book can get all worked up over money that other people have earned.

http://www.kankakee.lib.il.us/podcasts/images/tax.pdf

Ralph is good for SEIU, Good for People who benefit from other people's tax burdens.

Ralph is not really good for people with mortgage payments, tuition burdens, and jobs ( for the moment) in Illinois. Ralph is good to people who appoint him to swell paying jobs and positions on boards. Ralph has not held elected office.

SEIU is going after Representatives voting the way the people (tax-payers) demand that they vote -

Up first was a trio of south suburban Democratic Reps. -- Kevin McCarthy, Jim Brosnahan, and Mike Zalewski -- who all voted against a temporary tax increase last month. They were paid a visit by dozens of state workers, including home health care aide Gwendolyn Vaughe, who asked the Representatives how they could justify the life-or-death cuts. "What does this mean for our seniors?" Vaughe asked. "Are they going to be left to die?"

When we caught up with Rep. McCarthy in his Orland Park office, he told us that he's yet to see exactly what programs are at stake (department heads are still pulling together the specifics), but acknowledged "dire circumstances" are ahead. "None of my colleagues have blinders on," he tells us. "They see how important these cuts are." But do they?

They do, Sweetheart. People who stand for election have a Coalition - the voters. Let the Legislature and its Leadership cut through the Fat on Ralph & Blago's Monster. Save the SOB stories.

Ralph, you made the Monster Budget. You feed him.

Chicago Daily Observer Connects the Allison Davis Dots Found By Sun Times' Tim Novak

Tim Novak of Chicago Sun Times has done more to put ’some’ light on the Progressive Machine; however, Mr. Novak’s great work scatters heaps of Dots that remain Unconnected on the political table.

His labors are Augean, but also like those of Sisyphus - much uphill groaning and heaving only to have the stone roll back.

Dan Kelley's timely piece might just prod the Lap Dogs to connect the piles of Dots:

If nothing else exposing Davis would serve a higher purpose: publicizing the blatant hypocrisy of the phony activists who are really reliable cogs in the Democratic Machine. A one time civil rights protester, who marched outside of City Hall, Davis proved to be someone who could be bought off by the system. His one time protégé, Obama means to overhaul the American economy and engage in a massive expansion of the size and scope of government activities. Like Davis, Obama, exempts himself from the rules and intends to live a life of ease and plenty. The president can jet off for a dinner date on Broadway without worrying about the hypocrisy of simultaneously asking all of us commoners to pay higher taxes and make sacrifices while reducing our wasteful use of energy and limiting our pollution causing habits.
Posing as a community activist is a tried and true way to advance your political and financial career in Democratic Chicago: the Shaw brothers, Bob and his late brother, Bill, were supposedly fair housing activists; Dorothy Tillman attended Chicago Board of Education meetings where she shouted down Angeline Caruso, a former acting school superintendent, and ridiculed Caruso’s frumpy appearance in the name of education activism; Luis Guiterez marched with Communists and Puerto Rican Nationalists, some of whom were later accused of committing acts of domestic terrorism; Marilyn Katz ran with the campus radicals, Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn, and protested the Viet Nam war while hurling missiles at the police before she became a public relations expert for the political machine; Jan Schakowsky and her unapologetic, convicted criminal spouse, Robert Cremer, are two other fakers. Interestingly enough, despite their varied backgrounds, these folks have something in common: all of these individuals seemed to fall into line as soon as their personal needs and wants were gratified and they were given a place at the head table. They have all been feeding from the public trough ever since. The former Soviets called such privileged leaders “the vanguard of the proletariat.”
Obama has accepted bushel baskets of money from Davis in the form of campaign contributions. He lobbied to place housing redevelopment funds in the hands of Davis and Rezko. Perhaps, a few dollars from the pension fund profiteering ended up in Obama’s campaign war chest too. Only time will tell as the investigation proceeds.
Someday soon, the president needs to explain his relationship with both men. Calling it another “boneheaded” move or claiming “This is not the Allison Davis that I once knew” may not cut it indefinitely. Laundering clean a stained reputation is not an easy task. Club soda does not remove all types of spots.

Click my Post Title for Dan Kelley's Expose of Chicago's Progressive Machine within its Very Nuanced Context and Chicago's Media's Feckless Disregard for Both.

Oh, Carol, You're The Bottom of the Barrel; The Dirty Rotten Apple of My Eye!

Today, Carol Marin does the buzzard on Fran Spielman's labors.

Fran Spielman is going after Mayor Daley's nephew - the Vanecko kid. Fair enough. The kid went into business with Progressive Clout Meister Allison Davis - Judson Miner's partner and Obama's Law Boss. It seems that the Sun Times wants no light on Allison Davis, whose own little boy had a real estate venture that got a three year old child killed when Cullen Davis' Venture* included a rusty gate that crushed the toddler.

Yep, The Progressive Independent Voice of Chicago shed no light on Progressive Impunity Immunity Workhorses. You see, if and when Allison Davis starts chirping to Fitzy - bad stuff about the Progressive Machine gets out.

Nota Bene! Sun Times Investigative Reporter - Tim Novak covered Allison Davis and Cullen Davis like quality wallpaper. In fact, this helot lamented the long absence of Tim Novak's powerful work over the last summer and fall. Here is a link to my references to Mr. Novak's great work ( amended 8:53 AM 6/17/2009). I apologize for this inadvertent slight of Chicago's most tenacious news pitbull.

http://hickeysite.blogspot.com/search?q=Tim+Novak
So, the pile on continues on Regular Democrats and GOP politicians only - oh, and any and all members of their families - It's A Progressive Thing.

Well, Old Carol Marin, for whom I have little, or no regard as a journalist, but fully understand and appreciate her status as a manufactured icon, does the buzzard on the body of work performed by a real reporter - Fran Spielman.

Carol can't eat all the carrion on her own self and powers, so she pours on the Royko Remoulade - Mike Royoko is the be all and end all of Progressive Coverage. The Sauce is Boss!

Voila,

Decades before the White House columns, he was writing about another generation of Vaneckos and Daleys and a disease he called "payrolliaitis."

"It isn't anything that would show up through scientific testing," wrote Royko in 1965, "but Mayor Richard J. Daley is a carrier of a fast-spreading germ . . . called payrolliaitis. The symptoms are easy to spot. A person gets close to the mayor. Crunch -- the payrolliaitis bug nips him. He wanders off in the direction of a city, state or county agency, sits down at a desk, and his name breaks out on a payroll."

Royko was talking about the hiring of Robert Vanecko's grandfather, Dr. Michael Vanecko, whose son married the late mayor's daughter. Shortly before the wedding, that Vanecko went to work for the Chicago Board of Health. And later, his son, Dr. Robert Vanecko, was hired as the physician for the city's municipal pension fund. And now today we have the third generation, as his son, another Robert Vanecko, lands a $68 million deal with -- what else -- city pension funds. He severed all business ties with the deal only after the feds began subpoenaing records.

I dialed Fran on Tuesday at City Hall to ask if she had ever been to dinner with the mayor.

"No," was all she said.

That's good. There's work to do.

Yeah, but Carol Marin will do bugger all of it!

Yep, Carol decided, or her Editorial Chinaman decided, that going after the Family Davis is au contraire! However, "Everyone Hates the Daley Family! The Knit Hat-Soul-Patch & Shave-No-Legs Crowd will find it Fabulous to rip Daley's Family Even Though There is No Tangible Connection Whatsoever to the Story! Just Splash on the Royko!"

So, Carol Marin impugns one of the City's best, most skilled and respected Thoracic Surgeons Dr. Robert Vanecko of Northwestern Medical Center and his surgeon Father as political hacks! Bottom of the Barrel Carol!

Carol, there was a great old song by the Fabulous Farquahr** a folkish musician ( No Pete Seeger, He!) of note with a cult following who penned a lyric about an odious woman named Carol. It is almost eerie.

Carol, you're the bottom of the barrel/You're the Dirty Rotten Apple of my eye/
And when I see you/ I hold my nose and go PU/ And When I See You, Carol

You're Face, You're, Hair, and Your Complexion/ Sure Could Use a Resurrection! - Carol . . .& etc.

* The Family Davis Saga has everything that No Progressive Wants Talked about - Billy Ayers, Comb-Over Dave Axelrod, Rahmbo, Bernardine Dohrn, Judson Miner, all the 1960's Radicals insulated from Inquiry!

**http://johnnykmusic.blogspot.com/search/label/Fabulous%20Farquahr

Mayor Daley's Take on Nephew is Very Believeable - Fran, Have You Ever Tried to Tell Anyone Under 40 About Anything?

"Family? Family? Look, get a dog."

He wants us to believe that, the minute he did find out, he ordered his nephew Robert Vanecko to drop out of the deal with developer Allison Davis, only to be ignored.If voters are having trouble swallowing the mayor's story, it's for good reason:

Yeah, it's in the papers.


Fran, voters don't swallow stories - they vote along Party lines and sometimes get tired of hyphenated Irish names trying to sneak on the Judicial benches in Cook County.

However voters have nephews and nieces. They get phone calls from their Moms and Aunts about the triumphs -'Muriel! Guess What! My Colleen ( McNamara-Haley's Comet- Eisenroth) is going to be a Judge! Remember that fat slob she married? well, it turns out that he has juice Downtown.' or ' Brian, got buried in a sewer trench. He laid down . . .only for a minute, because he was at Midnight Mass, and the SOBs pushed the dirt on him. They are all Daley's Punks from the 11th Ward on that crew especially that louse Sobcjec who lives out by the Airport . . .O'Hara not Midway . . . he's divorced . . .and moved outta the 'Ville, back when his wife was with the County and took up with that four eyes Reporter on Channel Seven . . .remember? Brian, got him a good lawyer who hates Daley's guts . . . the Cowboy Hat One. Brian's gonna be on a Cable Show Too with the black guy and the big fly swatter to tune-up Daley! My ankles is killing me.'

Nephews and Nieces tell Moms and the Aunts enough about their Triumphs and Tragedies to make a softer landing for their lard, when events take their Natural courses.

Nephews and Nieces, generally speaking, can not be told anything. They do not need to pay COBRAS for health insurance, because The President has their backs. HE remembers each and every one of them . . . the nieces and nephews, because THEY worked on his Campaign and They Had their pictures taken With HIM down in Uncle Vasco's basement at his Cinco De Mayo Party last April and they are on Facebook too ; and THEY have Facebook, Twitter, and a loan from Uncle Tommy the crippled Viet Namn Vet and VISA! They are young. They are bullet-proof.

Given the ever changing Obama Mythology - I'll bet He ain't got no Nephews! Hell, Ask his brother! No clout for the Obama clan. The last relative, I recall was living in a Box out in Boston.

I believe the Mayor. I am a recovering Nephew.