Lisa Madigan - Genius

A disposition to preserve, and an ability to improve, taken together, would be my standard of a statesman. Edmund Burke

’Tis with out judgment as our watches, none go just alike, yet each believes his own. In poets (Politicians) as true genius is bur rare, true taste as seldom is the critic’s share…” (lines 9-12).

“But you who seek to give and merit fame, and justly bear a critic’s noble name, be sure yourself and your own reach to know, how far your genius, taste, and learning go…” (lines 46-49). Alexander Pope Essay on Criticism



"Politics is more difficult than physics."
- Albert Einstein
Physicist (1879 - 1955)


Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan is a genius. The fact that her father is the Illinois Speaker of the House matters not; it don't hurt none, but it matters not. It only matters to people who tend to be smarmy and bitter in the first place.

Politics is not a science; it is an Art. It is a skill that is mastered over years of practice in the same way that a poet, or a plumber becomes one with the craft.

Many plumbers have sons and daughters in the trade, but damn few poets hang out a sign that reads- Oscar Wilde & Sons - Preferred Posey. To the Gay Absolutist and the Homophobe - Oscar had kids, before he buggered off with Lord Douglas. None of the Kids went into the business, however.

Politicians pass the Art on to their children - each in her/his own way. Lord Randolph Churchill greatest accomplishment in his years on earth had to be the psychological abuse and torment he passed on to Winston Churchill, who would go on to serve and save Western Civilization.

Mayor Richard J. Daley, the exact tempermental polar opposite of Lord Randolph, was a 'take the kids to work' politician, much like the artiste plumber, whose children can not wait to draw a union card, cut and thread pipe and then dope it up!

Adlai Stevenson was another very good Artist. We have many political father and sons shops here in the 19th Ward - most are pretty damn effective mechanics.

Mike Madigan is a master politician and his daughter Lisa Madigan is a political genius.

Attorney General Madigan followed a wonderful man, Republican Jim Ryan and a political hack, our Junior Senator from Illinois into the job. Lisa Madigan learned from both of her predecessors.

It was the cow-pie of Roland's Burris's brief,but far too long tenure in the U.S. Senate that prompted most 'columnists' to hold Lisa Madigan up as challenger to Burris. It will be Chris Kennedy. That will be an absolute howl to witness!

Lisa Madigan understands that her management of Attorney General in the toxic Illinois atmosphere will allow her to chose her Office in her own Time.

In fact, I expect Attorney General Madigan to make a string of indictments against the many Foxes in the Taxpayers Hen house over the next few semesters, that will make national headlines and power alliances on both sides of political aisle.

Fight for the Governorship! Fight with Roland! Their bones will bleach like roadkill outside of Carbondale in August.

Lisa Madigan is a genius. Her old man is a great mechanic, but the girl is a genius!

Monday, July 6, 2009
MADIGAN SUES CHICAGO FURNITURE RETAILER
Read more »


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Thursday, July 2, 2009
***CONSUMER ALERT***CONSUMER ALERT***
MADIGAN: 4 MILLION BABY FLOATS RECALLED DUE TO DROWNING RISK
31 Reports of Children Falling Into Water When Float Seat Splits
Read more »
Inflatable Baby Floats Recalled

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Thursday, July 2, 2009
DuPAGE COUNTY MAN SENTENCED ON CHILD PORNOGRAPHY CONVICTION
Read more »


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Tuesday, June 30, 2009
MADIGAN: TICKETMASTER AGREES TO SHUT DOWN DECEPTIVE TICKET BROKER WEB SITES
New Guidelines Result from Attorney General’s Investigation of Exorbitant Hannah Montana Ticket Prices
Read more »


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Monday, June 29, 2009
***CONSUMER ALERT***CONSUMER ALERT***
ATTORNEY GENERAL MADIGAN AND AARP WARN CONSUMERS ABOUT DEFECTIVE WOMEN’S ROBES LINKED TO SIX DEATHS
More than 2,500 Dangerous Robes Still in Illinois Homes
Read more »
Photo of Product

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Friday, June 26, 2009
MADIGAN, I-SORT PARTNERS ANNOUNCE RESULTS OF QUINCY AREA SEX OFFENDER COMPLIANCE CHECKS
Read more »


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Thursday, June 25, 2009
MADIGAN FILES LAWSUIT AGAINST WHEELING TRAVEL COMPANY FOR FAILURE TO PROVIDE REFUNDS TO CONSUMERS
Attorney General Urges Consumers to Be Alert for Fraud During Summer Travel Season
Read more »


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Tuesday, June 23, 2009
MADIGAN, TJ MAXX REACH AGREEMENT TO ENSURE PROTECTION OF PERSONAL DATA FOLLOWING MASSIVE SECURITY BREACH
TJ Maxx Parent Company to Implement Comprehensive Data Security System
Read more »
Attorney General Lisa Madigan is no Dan Lipinski and certainly no Todd Stroger. The fact that her Dad is Illinois Speaker of the House of Representatives matters not - it don't hurt none, either.

In fact, The Illinois Attorney General is a genius.

A genius understands her times and her abilties to make the most of those times.

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Monday, June 22, 2009
ATTORNEY GENERAL SUES DECEPTIVE IMMIGRATION SERVICES PRACTICE FOR FAILURE TO PROVIDE PROMISED SERVICES
Read more »


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Thursday, June 18, 2009
MADIGAN REACHES AGREEMENT WITH US CREDIT FIND TO PREVENT PHONE CRAMMING
Read more »

Houli is Back - Writing on Cook County: Mike Houlihan's Cook County Buzz at the Examiner

Chicago Renaissance Man, writer, film director, actor and political prognosticator Michael Houlihan is writing and mentor, long-time Chicago News legend, Jim Strong giving sound journalistic advice, at the Chicago Examiner! Recent Forbes Magazine profile subject ( 31st Wealthiest Man Around) Philip Anschutz is the publisher of The Examiner chain.

Mike's monthly Hooliganism for the Irish American News is no where near enough blue collar value point of view for a Metropolitan Area living in a veritable Honesty Desert. With Houlihan there is -No Nuance, No Parsing, No Smarm ( south side culture allows No Smarm - only hot-blooded invective, malediction and blasphemy) and No Group Think Whining that the Pencil Neck Progressives offer. Thus, " We were ALL of Us made better people the day Michael Jackson decided to become Diana Ross - all of us!"

Now, the Chicago Examiner provides writers like Mike Houlihan to present the unvarnished and un-PC truths to readers, wasting away to intellectual nothingness for lack of solid opinion fiber. Houli got Fiber, Y'all!

Houli is fiber rich and chock full of the real McCoy. Here's a taste of Houli's declamation on Goo-Goos ( Good Government Progressive Feebs in Creeps Clothing):

Many goo-goo’s in Cook County are Democrats, but they chafe at the reputation of their party. They elected Blago, but won’t admit it. They love Governor Pat Quinn for his record as a goo-goo, but they reserve disdain for Daley.

Goo-goo’s are so much more than simple good government people; they are patronizing peddlers of pabulum. Like Zorn in the Tribune, Carol Marin in the Sun-Times, or that brilliant seasoned journalist Katie Couric who so intellectually took Sarah Palin to task on what magazines she read during the campaign.

Goo-goo’s belong to Planned Parenthood and PETA and the “Society for the Prevention of Jimmy Pushing Johnny Out of Line”.

Goo-goo’s believe that our new President walks on water and if we don’t see it we are racist luddites.

Goo-goo’s fear Palin more than Putin, Ahmadinejad, Kim Jong Il, and the Pope. She’s the antithesis of the goo-goo worldview, and she just might get elected President someday. That’s what scares them more than anything.

Chicago thanks the Examiner.Com for the return of sense to scene. Houli will be an imporant part of my great breakfast!

Primary Weasel -Joe Klein, or Billy Jack Does America!

Joe Klein knows Billy Jack. The real guy who made what is arguably and probably the first PC Movie. It was about an Irish -looking American Indian (Native American) dude who went all martial arts on Rednecks and Bikers in order to save Hippies and the Red Folks. Joe Klein is a Billy Jack Journalist - he kicks everyone he don't like. Hell, Joe hangs out! Picks up kicking tips and protects Hippies and Red Folks. Kick them rednecks!

http://www.billyjack.com/

Remember that idiotic song, One Tin-Soldier? Jesus, my filings hurt every time I hear that! There is a very special place in Hell for every person associated with that song.

Catholics are always good kicking targets:

"I do believe there's something weird a few of our colleagues have [against Clinton]," he said. "They tend to be Roman Catholics, actually. People like Tim Russert, Chris Matthews, Maureen Dowd. They've had it in for Bill and Hillary Clinton since Monica Lewinsky. They feel that the Clintons are trying to put one over on us all the time."

http://www.portfolio.com/views/blogs/mixed-media/2008/03/03/klein-alter-and-lowry-on-anti-hillary-bias

Well, for elites like Joe Klein, Catholics never belonged here in the first place, unless they were needed to dig ditches, trim-lawns, hump steel and provide political aptitude for Progressive Cupcakes. Nuance.

It seems that after getting out of the elite Hackley School and University of Pennsylvania ( the official school of SEIU Leadership), Joe wrote for Rolling Stone and got close to Tom Laughlin - Billy Jack his own Bad Self.

Joe Klein out-ed the Clinton's with his Roman a clef Primary Colors as self--absorbed power vampires and made a killing by cashing-in trust and professionalism. Get cozy and trusted and betray that trust. Nuance.

The Nuanced are the Elitists who insult people and get rewarded. Joe Klein makes much money. Joe Klein talks down from that pile of dough.

Joe Klein offers all of us, in his Rolling Stoneish -Time piece, his sober Redneck kick on Redneck America in a dutiful slap as part of the Palin Pile On.

I wrote that Palin's America--white folks, small towns, traditional values--was a Republican fantasy, a vestige of Ronald Reagan's "Morning in America" hornswoggle in the 1980s.

Yep, you did Joe. Those are the bullies picking on Hippies and Red Folks outside of the feed store and around the Hippie School.

Americans are hornswoggled folks.

Real America is much different from, and more interesting than, that white-bread fantasy, a problem the Republican Party--the party of immigrant bashing--will be wrestling with for the immediate future. And it brings to mind a conversation I overheard, and can't get out of my mind, between two educated Iranians at a North Tehran party last month. Both had attended university in the U.S. One had recently returned from the States, the other hadn't been back here in 15 years. "You wouldn't recognize the place," the recent returnee said. "They don't have any Americans left."

I was in Real America last night and woke up in real America this morning and work ( Leo High School: All Black Male Catholic High School supported by Old White Catholic Guys)at the corner of 79th and Sangamon Streets, when I finish banging this out.

Last night I picked up my daughter Clare, Kara Donleavy, and Maddie Braun from cheerleading at St. Rita High School and got there early as always. I watched the St. Rita Varsity Football for twenty minutes with a white City Worker from St. Dennis Parish ( 83rd & Lawndale) who is required to live in the City limits and has five years left to meet his pension and later chatted with young Mike Crutchley a 36 year old African American CTA bus supervisor, at the barns on Archer Ave. and Pershing Road, who is a Chicago public school graduate and sends his daughters to Catholic Schools so that they will learn something and become successful. He wishes there were more Charter Schools. Catholic Schools cost a lung. The guy from St. Dennis sent three boys to St. Rita and three girls to McAuley -God bless him. Mike the CTA Superviser wondered 'how did he do that?' Mike knows. It was a rhetorical question posed by an American.

Mike's Daughter Casey and my daughter Clare are lifters in the same 'toss the smallest girl' contingent. The girl getting launched is a Mexican beauty named Isabella. All three girls will attend Mother McAuley -Irish American, African American and Mexican American. They work as team.

That is Real America.

Hey, Billy Joe, they pay you for your thoughts?

Ain't this country great?

Klein graduated from the Hackley School and the University of Pennsylvania with a degree in American civilization. In 1969, Klein began reporting for the Essex County Newspapers, and The Peabody Times in Massachusetts In 1972, he reported for Boston's WGBH, and until 1974 he was also the news editor for The Real Paper in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He was a contributing editor for Rolling Stone from 1975 to 1980, and Washington bureau chief from 1975 to 1977.[1] He became friends with actor-director Tom Laughlin after interviewing him for Rolling Stone and appeared briefly as a reporter in Laughlin's 1977 film Billy Jack Goes to Washington.

Klein published Woody Guthrie: A Life in 1980 and Payback: Five Marines After Vietnam in 1984. He was a political columnist for New York from 1987 to 1992 where he won the Peter Kihss Award for reporting on the 1989 race for Mayor of New York. In May 1992 he joined Newsweek and wrote the column "Public Lives", which won a National Headliner Award in 1994. Newsweek also won a National Magazine Award for their coverage of Bill Clinton's 1992 victory. From 1992 to 1996 he was also a consultant for CBS News, providing commentary.[1]

'Crazy Legs' Quinn Side Steps Madigan's Tax-Guard and Waltzes into a Hay-Maker!

Governor Pat Quinn is a lovely man. Speaker Mike Madigan is probably a lovely guy as well. Mike Madigan is as easy to pin down, publicly and privately, as it is the very last olive oil coated snow pea on a huge plate with a dinner fork, while thirty formally dressed celebrities ask you questions about quantum mechanics while being taped by the crew of 60 Minutes for their Christmas Special.

The difference being that Pat Quinn has made a career of crafting a public persona as a guy who cuts his own lawn with an ancient Sears Craftsman 18 in. Cut Path Reel Mower, Hand Pushed, like the one he used twenty years ago against George Ryan, who hired guys to cut his lawn; and Mike Madigan, could care less what I, the Sun Times editorial board, PETA, Pope Benedict XVI, Perez Hilton, Rev. James Meeks, Carol Marin, WTTW, or the cast Blue Man Group think of him.

Mike Madigan is the Packey McFarland* of politics. Muhammad Ali once called Chicago welter-weight Packey McFarland the greatest boxer who never one a championship.

Pat Quinn is ballromm dancer in the ring with Packey McFarland, the king of the Stockyards.

Tim Novak, the only real investigative writer at the Sun Times wrote this on July 4th:

The governor spent two hours Friday -- a holiday for most state workers -- discussing the state's $9 billion deficit with state Sen. James Meeks, who backs the tax hike. Their meeting came one day after Quinn met with 27 female legislators.

The governor says he plans to sit down with more lawmakers in the coming days.

"I have a number of other legislators -- Democrat and Republican, House and Senate -- I will be meeting with over the next few days,'' Quinn told reporters. "We believe in consensus-building.''

The Senate approved a tax-hike proposal in May, but it failed in the House.

Madigan won't support Quinn's income-tax increase without support from Republican legislators, leaving the state without a budget, which could force drastic cuts in social service programs across Illinois.

Quinn didn't blame Madigan for the stalemate over the state's budget crisis. But Meeks did.

"I do not think the governor is the problem,'' said Meeks, who is also pastor of Salem Baptist Church, which has one of the biggest congregations in Illinois.

"I ain't scared to call the speaker out -- he ain't my daddy,'' Meeks said. "If the speaker wanted this solved, it would be solved. For whatever reason, he doesn't want to work this out. Pat Quinn is trying to do everything he can to save social services.''

Meeks accused Madigan of playing politics by refusing to pass the income-tax increase without support from Republican legislators.

"That's a political decision, not based on what's right and wrong,'' Meeks said. "I think the Democrats bear the burden here because we're in leadership. We can pass any bill.''

Madigan spokesman Steve Brown said "the speaker is attempting to work cooperatively with the governor. The speaker supports a tax increase, but it's going to have to be a bipartisan effort. He [Meeks] ought to focus his efforts on Republicans.''

Political observers say they think Madigan is using the state budget crisis to politically weaken Quinn, who plans to run for election next year. One of Quinn's opponents in the Democratic primary could be Madigan's daughter, Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan. She is also mulling a run for the U.S. Senate seat now held by Roland Burris.

Progress Illinois, SEIU's web comic book, uses Tim Novak's piece as a Madigan smear offering; however, it appears that the SEIU goon tactics in Springfield over the last few weeks have become tiresome to legislators as well as tax-payers.

Governor Quinn might try to 'side-step' Mike Madigan, but he will have canvass all over his back, when he hears the end of the Ten Count. Governor Pat Quinn has danced to SEIU's and Rev. James 'Someone Else's Money' Meeks hornpipes and Mike Madigan is a balanced hitter.

The more the media try to explain the motives of Mike Madigan, the more Pat Quinn will step into a Madigan Hay-Maker.

*

During his entire career, Packey engaged in 104 bouts and lost just the one. He never forgot the loss and as he moved up in competition, placed caution first and preferred to outbox his man with shiftiness and speed rather than try to put him out and risk getting caught by a lucky punch. For the remainder of his career, he was floored only twice – by Ray Bronson and “Cyclone” Johnny Thompson.

Packey grew up in a tough section of Chicago (“back of the stock yards”) and learned early on to use his fists to take care of himself in fights on the street and in the handball courts. During his first year in the ring (1904), at fifteen years of age, Packey lost the only fights he would ever lose. Harry Gilmore Jr. noticed him in 1906 and guided him to some impressive wins over Billy Finucane, Fred Gilmore, Young Morris, and Jack Fox and, in 1907, wins over Steve Kinsey, Joe Galligan, Kid Goodman, Maurice Sayers, Charlie Neary, and Benny Yanger. Another win over Goodman and victories over Kid Herman (newspaper) and Bert Keyes earned him a match with Freddie Welsh, the unbeaten Britisher.

Packey gained a decision over Welsh in ten rounds at Milwaukee on February 21, 1908 and followed this great win by defeating Jimmy Britt in six rounds at Colma on April 11, 1908.

When accusations of favoritism surfaced after the first McFarland-Welsh bout, fans clamoured for a rematch. A second bout with Welsh was held on July 4, 1908 at Los Angeles. It ended in a draw after twenty-five rounds. Welsh showed himself very clever and skillful at close quarters while McFarland was better at a distance.

http://www.geocities.com/Colosseum/Lodge/6525/Article-PackeyMcFarland.htm

Governor Palin - Tosses the Clowns Back into Their Volkswagon

Palin Haters on Vacation! For now.

As a Regular Democrat (one not given to the allure of free Purple T-Shirts or having MSNBC think well of you), Sarah Palin represented all that is good in public service - Gov. Palin reminds me of all the great women in my neighborhood.

Moreover, Gov. Palin drew fire for John McCain*, for whom I had great hope and more admiration, until the economy tanked and McCain limped through the end of Campaign, and did so cheerfully and heroically.

Gov. Palin exuded the qualities detested by the Progressive robot-army of academics, media mopes, lard-padded politicians like Dick Durbin. ( click my post title for those)

Gov. Palin is feared, because she is genuine.

When the clowns gang up on one genuine American, it seems to me, time to pull the clowns off and toss them back into the Volkswagon.


* I was a very early McCain partisan in the last go-around, my daughter Nora was elected to be a McCain Delegate, and was sad to see John McCain give up the fight after September 19, 2008.

Who Should Challenge Dan Lipinski in the 3rd District?

Illinois - Third Congressional District

Area 124.5 mi² (322.45 km²)
Distribution 100% urban, 0% rural
Population (2000) 653,647
Median income $48,048
Ethnicity 77.9% White, 5.9% Black, 2.9% Asian, 21.3% Hispanic, 0.3% Native American, 2.7% other
Occupation 27.6% blue collar, 58.1% white collar, 14.3% gray collar
Cook PVI D + 11

Dan Lipinski -Congressman 3rd District:

Since taking office, Dan Lipinski has continued his father's pro-life stance, voting with Republicans to give federal courts jurisdiction in the Terri Schiavo case, and to maintain restrictions on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research.[25] Among the legislation he has sponsored is the Family and Consumer Choice Act (HR 2738 IH), which would require cable television companies to either provide subscribers with increased options of channel selection or comply with the same FCC decency standards that apply to broadcasters.[26] He has voted to strengthen border security, with no provisions for citizenship for illegal immigrants, and to build a 700-mile fence along the Mexican border. In December 2005 he voted to make the Patriot Act permanent. In June 2006 he joined Republicans in opposing a timetable for troop withdrawal from Iraq and declaring the Iraq War to be a part of the War on Terrorism. Although in March 2007 he voted with Democrats in supporting a war spending bill which would establish a timetable, in May he voted for a spending bill which favored benchmarks rather than a timetable.[25][27]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illinois's_3rd_congressional_district
Although marks a change in direction by Rep. Dan Lipinski that has shouted out with his vote for the Cap and Trade Bill ( in my opinion, the single most thoughtless and dangerous Bill since Prohibition) and now his support for a government controlled Health Care Reform measure that will add a trillion dollars to our tax-burdens and only cover one-third of the forty-five million Americans it trumpets to cover. Click my post title for that vote (219 for Cap & Trade-212 Against the worst Bill since Prohibition)
The squeaks in this set of brogans will be heard around the world.

The 3rd Congressional District is fiscally and socially Conservative and comprised of the very people who bear America's tax burdens - blue collar and white collar workers. The 3rd Congressional District is largely Catholic and anti-Abortion.

It seems to me that Dan Lipinski wanted to stay in his Congressional seat more than he cared to represent the people of this District. Progress Illinois the propaganda arm of the Leftist SEIU Illinois which represents unskilled and no skill workers who are tax-salaried as janitors, security guard and State funded nursing home workers, has embraced Dan Lipinski. SEIU targeted Real Democrats in the Illinois House Kevin McCarthy, Jim Brosnahan, and especially Kevin Joyce who fought run-away waste in revenue for SEIU pet programs. Congressman Dan Lipinski is snuggling up to SEIU - whose Andy Stern remains determined to kill Trades Union Apprenticeship Programs in every State and gain control of Trades requirements, examinations and ability to license. Nice friends, Dan.

http://progressillinois.com/2009/7/1/lipinski-public-plan

Dan Lipinski played ball on Cap and Trade and will vote for government Health Care.

Dan Lipinski gave the vote needed to bring the number necessary for passage to 218 votes in House of Representatives and Illinois Republican Mark Kirk tossed the leg over that fence for 219 for Cap and Trade.

Cap and Trade was rushed. It was not studied, nor was it debated. Cap and Trade will kill the Illinois Coal Industry. Cap and Trade will make 3rd District residents - most making enough in salary to meet their mortgage obligations and run-away Cook County and Illinois Taxes - confined to the home that they own.

Cap and Trade will make it nearly impossible for Middle Class home owners to sell their homes, without going into greater debt by meeting the new Federally mandated Green Energy Standards for heating, insulation, lighting and windows.

Dan Lipinski sold out the 3rd District in order to find cover with the Progressives.

SEIU will stay off Dan's back. Democratic Legislative Strategist Chuck Schumer reached out to Dan Lipinski. Schumer needs his ducks in a row and Dan Lipinski already quacked on Cap and Trade.

A Democrat is needed to challenege Dan Lipinski

Democrat who will stand up to Planned Parenthood and the Abortion Industry; a Democrat who wants to secure America's borders, but, unlike Dan Lipinksi, respects the Mexican Americans and their relatives who want to find a path to citizenship; a Democrat who recognizes Real Labor ( American Trades Unions) and not the bullying Stalinists who frighten gutless politicians and dandified editorial boards and arm-chair Menckens who write columns for Chicago's media; a Democrat who wants America's military supported and our foreign policy proud; A Democrat who is a fiscal Conservative, unwilling to cave-in to political expediency; a Democrat who will not be a Progressive stooge, but represent this District with Faith, Family and Freedom in mind at all times.

This is America's Independence Day Celebration weekend.

What better way to celebrate than have a Real Democrat challenge Dan Lipinski.

"@#$% Me, Ye, Shower of Bastards!" A Blasphemy Bill - Ireland's PC Idiocy Attempts to Kill Language

My grandfather, a genuine Bogman from Crinna Hill, Castleisland in the Kingdom of Kerry, could blaspheme uninterrupted and without repeating himself employing a Gordian Knot of profanities, scatological, pornographic and epicly laced nouns, verbs, abverbs and adjectives that could shatter the teeth of a Dutchman.

Larry Hickey would walk Shep his mongrel mix of matted-haired fanged menace along the railroad tracks around 75th Place and Ashland, dragging the black/brown/yellow massive mutt with applications of broom handle for direction and darts ofvillainous language much more 'hurtful' as PC Cupcakes are wont to say. PETA would have loved Lawrence!

"Christ, Jeezus Almighty! Shtop, So! Godammit you rare 'Hoor of a frothy Bitch's welp! . . . & etc. only louder!" Much to the amusement and edification of urchins playing along the tracks at Marshfield.

Grandpa Hickey was a howling Modern Language Association Convention encorpified and a blazing tutorial on blasphemously charged imprecations and maledictions on two legs. I received a Four-letter Degree, along with my sixty-plus 1st cousins, well before the Sisters of Mercy taught me phonics and catechism.

Language is the sacrament of the Irish.

Now, due to PC-idiocy and membership in the European Union, Ireland is being coerced into dumb-down its once high-standards for licentious language:

A NEW crime of blasphemous libel is to be proposed by the Minister for Justice in an amendment to the Defamation Bill, which will be discussed by the Oireachtas committee on justice today.

At the moment there is no crime of blasphemy on the statute books, though it is prohibited by the Constitution.

Article 40 of the Constitution, guaranteeing freedom of speech, qualifies it by stating: “The State shall endeavour to ensure that organs of public opinion, such as the radio, the press, the cinema, while preserving their rightful liberty of expression, including criticism of Government policy, shall not be used to undermine public order or morality or the authority of the State.

“The publication or utterance of blasphemous, seditious, or indecent material is an offence which shall be punishable in accordance with law.”

Last year the Oireachtas Committee on the Constitution, under the chairmanship of Fianna Fáil TD Seán Ardagh, recommended amending this Article to remove all references to sedition and blasphemy, and redrafting the Article along the lines of article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which deals with freedom of expression.

The prohibition on blasphemy dates back to English law aimed at protecting the established church, the Church of England, from attack. It has been used relatively recently to prosecute satirical publications in the UK.

In the only Irish case taken under this article, Corway -v- Independent Newspapers, in 1999, the Supreme Court concluded that it was impossible to say “of what the offence of blasphemy consists”.

It also stated that a special protection for Christianity was incompatible with the religious equality provisions of Article 44.

Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern proposes to insert a new section into the Defamation Bill, stating: “A person who publishes or utters blasphemous matter shall be guilty of an offence and shall be liable upon conviction on indictment to a fine not exceeding €100,000.”

“Blasphemous matter” is defined as matter “that is grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters held sacred by any religion, thereby causing outrage among a substantial number of the adherents of that religion; and he or she intends, by the publication of the matter concerned, to cause such outrage.”

Where a person is convicted of an offence under this section, the court may issue a warrant authorising the Garda Síochána to enter, if necessary using reasonable force, a premises where the member of the force has reasonable grounds for believing there are copies of the blasphemous statements in order to seize them.

Labour spokesman on justice Pat Rabbitte is proposing an amendment to this section which would reduce the maximum fine to €1,000 and exclude from the definition of blasphemy any matter that had any literary, artistic, social or academic merit.

I am not an ordinary playwright in general practice. I am a specialist in immoral and heretical plays. My reputation has been gained by my persistent struggle to force the public to reconsider its morals.” George Bernard Shaw, 1909

“No nation can prosper or even continue to exist without heretics and advocates of shockingly immoral doctrines.” George Bernard Shaw, 1909

“The blasphemy laws are the legal protection of nonsense. Why is there not an equivalent of the blasphemy laws for science? The reason is that science can take any criticism leveled against it.” Nick Harding, 2007

“To criticise people for their race is manifestly irrational, but to criticise their religion is surely a right. The freedom to criticise or ridicule ideas – even if they are sincerely held beliefs – is a fundamental freedom.” Stephen King, Irish Examiner, 2009

“With one satiric touch Ahern has honoured the memory of Shaw, Yeats and Gregory and reminded us that blasphemy laws exist to protect, not religions, but bigots. For his next trick, he will mark the Darwin bicentenary by threatening to make creationism compulsory.” Fintan O’Toole, Irish Times, 2009

“I want everybody to realise what this Constitution states about authority… What we have here is clear at any rate - that authority is from God. That is fundamental Catholic doctrine, and it is here. It is true doctrine.” Eamon de Valera, 1937


So, I'm in Keegan's Pub on Western Ave.one night when the Salt Water Irish thicken up the south end of the bar and Eugenious Callahan makes a play for Aidan McKenna's sister - a Mickey Dodger with the Ursalines and after a few scoops of Guinness together she starts rubbin on Owenie a complete Guillermo, when McKenna admonishes -"You clatty pr*ck. I told you she had herpes. I'm pretty sure they're doing a line alright. There was f*ckin' gee juice and pubes all over the kitchen table this mornin'."
"
Eugenious protests "Jaysus, She's Nun! A Mickey Dodger! Feck Sake, your talking bollicks ,Man!"

McKenna opines,""Bit of advice, son. Don't ever tell a woman she's a stupid, fat cow with the personality of a f*cking toothpick and a face like a bag of spanners. I haven't got my oats off your mother in three f*cking weeks. The disagreeable b*tch."

Language! The Lubrication of Love, Liberty and Laughter!

http://www.irishslang.net/

Dan The Lip - Got Hip With Help! Patsy Square for Health Care? One Payer? Get Outta There!

Dan Lipinski has been as exciting as Melba Toast. All of a sudden the 3rd Congressional District Wall-Flower has Progressive Star Power!

Man Alive! This Cat is Gone! He's Knocked Out! The Purple Tax-Players of SEIU embrace this Reed! He's Cap'nTrade! He's Health Muscle!

In one week Dan Lipinski's political acne has gone all Clear A Sell!

Dig what this cat's Sayin' Here!

About 300 people turned out for the packed event, which featured eight speakers from organizations with a large stake in health reform, such as businesses, doctors, unions, nurses, pharmaceutical companies, and hospitals. Rep. Lipinski wasted no time drawing a line in the sand, telling the 3rd Congressional District crowd that, in order to limit the cost of health care for individuals, small businesses, and the federal government, a public plan is a must.
But his support comes with a few caveats. Lipinski admits that employers may stop offering private insurance to workers if a government plan exists. "It all depends on how the public option is implemented," he said. And Lipinski prefers the "level-playing field option" championed by Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), in which the government-run plan would be granted no special advantages over private insurers, such as the ability to use Medicare's low rates or to access taxpayer subsidies.

Dan, You Send Me -straight for the Loudmouth Soup! This Reed needs some steel, Son!
SEIU is providing the Lighweight - the right mates. Purple Shouters! Go Cat,Go!!!


http://www.lipinski.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=914&Itemid=1

Yip,Yip, Yip! Let;s Sing it to the Lip! Click my post title and listen to Keely Smith and Louie Prima!


Down on the Cal-Sag River in a knockdo* dive
I met a politico playin' character and Man alive!
When he began to rip, he really played it from the hip
And when I asked about his name, they told me, "That's 'The Lip'."
Yip yip yip yip
No one plays high notes like The Lip.
He's got a tone that's reminiscent of a boy named Bix
He plays so high that only dogs can hear him, just for kicks.
And when I asked him does he read
He says, "I'll tell you, hon, I read a little bit but not enough to hurt me none."
Yip yip yip yip.
No one plays high notes like The Lip.
I said The Lip.
She must mean Ray Anthony, huh?
I said The Lip.
No, man, she means Harry James.
I said The Lip.
You mean Louis Prima.
I said The Lip.
Noo, LIP-er-ace.
Yip yip yip yip
No one plays high notes like The Lip.
I never heard a trumpet player play a note so high
And I had to coax a lot before The Lip would tell me why
Then he took out a little jar that's labeled 'High-note Grease'
And he rubs a little every night on his mouthpiece
Yip yip yip yip
No one plays high notes like The Lip.
Listen here gal, are you kiddin' about all that 'high-note grease'?
No, man, I swear, he had ten in his valise.
Wha', you mean he goes to the drugstore and gets them from the medecine shelf?
No, some cat's told me he makes it himself.
Yip yip yip yip
Tell us the secret of The Lip.
Well..you take a buketful of steam
And a dozen rooster eggs
And you mix 'em up gently with a bushel full of goldfish legs
And ya hang 'em on a sky hook in the midnight sun
Mmm and then you fry them until they're done.
Yip yip yip yip
That's the secret of The Lip


Get hip and give the Lip the Slip! That Big Pink One!

Rep. Lipinski Caves in - Votes for the Catastrophic Cap and Trade Bill

Dan Lipinski was given his Congressional Seat by his Dad - Dan Lipinski defeated a boiled beet Progressive John Sullivan and a genuine Man of the People -Honest John Kelly ( who gave Carol Marin the Hose Knot of a lifetime with his 'straightforward' answers to smarmy and snobby questions) in the Democratic Primary. Once in Congress Lipinski faded into the wallpaper. Now, Dan joined Republican Mark Kirk to betray Illinois on this most dangerous and gutless vote.

These two elected goofs need to go. Mark Kirk is a Republican and thinks that he'' make a swell Senator - Mark, we already have two lightweights in the U.S. Senate -Durbin and Burris - all filled up here! Kirk's MSNBC-friendly nose nuzzle showed Illinois what his presence in Washington is worth. Dan Lipinski decided that playing ball against his constituents is Okay - it ain't Congressman.
You 'killed the job' as they say in the Trades.

Dan Lipinski represents a very traditional Democratic base - people described as blue-collar, Catholic, anti-Abortion, anti-tax Democrats.

Dan Lipinski took the path of least resistance. Dan Lipinski voted for the most dangerous piece of legislation to the American Way of Life ever crafted - The Cap and Trade Bill. Dan Lipinski allowed his rump to be padded against the Progressive Loudmouths and Purple T-shirt howlers. This was a close vote in a very sheepish U.S. House of Representatives that is driven by the Media and the special interests Planned Parenthood, ACLU, SEIU, ACORN and the balance of the Acronym pantheon of activists.

Dan bleeted with this flock of beauties.

Illinois is represented by two Locked Up Senators - Dithering Dick Durbin and Roland Burris. They are Cap and Trade Teammates.

Dan Lipinksi betrayed my neighbors. I do not believe that Dan Lipinki could name three people from his District (3rd) to begin with - Dan sold them out, anyway.

In the United States, the House of Representative climate bill, approved by a 219-212 vote Friday evening (see list below), would mandate that 15% of the nation's electricity come from renewable sources such as wind and solar power by 2020, potentially expanding the market and profit potential for companies in those sectors. Towards that goal, it seeks to boost nascent industries such as wind-generated electricity and solar power.

Last March this article by R. Emmett Tyrell laid out the facts of Cap and Trade:

Cap-and-trade has been tried in Europe by the signers of the Kyoto Protocol and according to the Heritage Foundation's Ben Lieberman, "Nearly every European country participating has higher emissions today than when the treaty was first signed in 1992. ... emissions in many of these nations are actually rising faster than in the United States." Yet perhaps the Obama administration has its eye on something other than limiting emissions. Possibly it sees cap-and-trade as a great way to gain control of still more of the private sector.

As mentioned above, the huge amount of money mulcted from the private sector and handed over to the public sector has got to please every collectivist in the White House. Moreover there is the huge bureaucracy that will have to be set up to oversee cap-and-trade.

Those of us who have followed the economic crisis and the Ponzi schemes of Bernard Madoff are familiar with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). If the administration's climate legislation is passed, we shall have the Cap and Trade Commission (CAP). It will be vast.

To begin with, CAP's agents will have to go to every factory and office building and presumably even public buildings and decide their allowable amount of emissions. That is to say, their cap.

Next the agency will auction off and oversee the sale of the documents that certify emissions allowances. Call them coupons. Then the agency will have to monitor the exchange of these allowances and the ownership. Finally the agency will have to monitor compliance and presumably punish those who fail to comply.

In this setup there will be countless opportunities for corruption as polluters try to bribe CAP's agents, or the agents try to elicit bribes. As with the SEC, there will be incompetence and lax enforcement. Finally, there will be senators and members of the House of Representatives making special pleadings for corporations in their regions, labor unions, special pleaders of all sorts.

Finally, there is the economics of the legislation. It will take $2 trillion from the private sector and dump it into the public sector. That is to say, a large tax on the private sector will transfer money to the public sector. So how is the private sector to grow itself out of this recession? The administration's answer is that the government will return the money to worthy endeavors, health care, green technology - again still more opportunities for corruption and for special favors to pleading solons and numas on Capitol Hill. ( emphasis my own)

The Prophet Obama was very disturbed recently when asked if he was a socialist. Socialism is government control of the means of producing and distributing goods and services. What I have just described is a powerful instrumentality toward socialism. Along with Cap-and-Trade, the Obama administration is calling for a sufficient number of these instrumentalities to socialism that by the next election the United States will be very close to being a socialist state.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/mar/20/cap-and-trade-promises-disaster/

Dan Lipinki needs to be voted out. I hope a real Democrat steps up and soon.

Norman Thomas' - Blue-Print to Catastrophe

Democrats used to give elites like Norman Thomas the chair in the corner. Remember, at one time Organized Labor and the Democratic Party helped make the American Middle Class and raise the American Standard of Living that was marvel of history.

Boiled Beet Progressives like Roger Baldwin, Jane Addams and Norman Thomas were generally 'praised' but largely ignored and well they should be. They are fit subjects for the salon set - who generally do not work for a living - much less for anyone else; but as far as impacting on American life -they offer bupkis.

Noramn Thomas ran for President of the United States six times and just before his death remarked -" I have not come to burn the American Flag; I have come to cleanse it!"

Really? Nope Norm, Roger, Jane, W.E.B. and their heirs have succeeded in smothering debate, controlling the weak-kitten Media, Academia and Stalinist labor. Acronyms with bags of gelt -ACLU, SEIU, ACORN - have replaced personalities like the old timey radicals.

SEIU's Stalin Andy Stern was able to blackmail WAl-Mart and squeeze a letter out of the corporation that killed main street:

Wal-Mart -- which provides insurance to employees and wants to level the playing field with companies that don't -- on Tuesday delivered a letter to President Obama taking a different stance.

"We are for an employer mandate which is fair and broad in its coverage," said the letter, signed by Wal-Mart Chief Executive Mike Duke. Andrew Stern, president of the Service Employees International Union, also signed the letter, along with John Podesta, who led President Obama's transition team and is chief executive of the Center for American Progress, a liberal-leaning think tank.

The National Retail Federation, the industry's main lobby, said it was "flabbergasted" by Wal-Mart's move. "We have been one of the foremost opponents to employer mandate," said Neil Trautwein, vice president with the Washington-based trade group. "We are surprised and disappointed by Wal-Mart's choice to embrace an employer mandate in exchange for a promise of cost savings."

Old Norma Thomas came to clean the American Flag - his children, like Andy Stern have come to polish off the American Middle Class.

A Policeman's Lot Is Not A Happy One - CPD Officers,Sing This to Jody!

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of enjoying Gilbert and Sullivan's Pirates of Penzance: A Slave to Duty*.

In Act II, came this great song. Given the wit and vinegar of Chicago's Law Enforcement Professionals, I am sure a parody fitting the Age and Morals of Chicago 2009 will grace the lyrics. I have rarely met people more well-read, insightful, good-humored, tolerant or braver than CPD members.

Sergeant. When a felon's not engaged in his employment –
Police. His employment,
Sergeant. Or maturing his felonious little plans –
Police. Little plans,
Sergeant. His capacity for innocent enjoyment –
Police. 'Cent enjoyment
Sergeant. Is just as great as any honest man's –
Police. Honest man's.


Sergeant. Our feelings we with difficulty smother –
Police. 'Culty smother,
Sergeant. When constabulary duty's to be done –
Police. To be done.
Sergeant. Ah, take one consideration with another –
Police. With another,
Sergeant. A policeman's lot is not a happy one.
Police. Ah!
Sergeant & Police. When constabulary duty's to be done, to be done,
A policeman's lot is not a happy one, happy one.

Sergeant. When the enterprising burglar's not a-burgling –
Police. Not a-burgling.
Sergeant. When the cut-throat isn't occupied in crime –
Police. 'Pied in crime,
Sergeant. He loves to hear the little brook a-gurgling –
Police. Brook a-gurgling,
Sergeant. And listen to the merry village chime –
Police. Village chime.


Sergeant. When the coster's finished jumping on his mother –
Police. On his mother,
Sergeant. He loves to lie a-basking in the sun –
Police. In the sun.
Sergeant. Ah, take one consideration with another –
Police. With another,
Sergeant. A policeman's lot is not a happy one.
Police. Ah!


Sergeant & Police. When constabulary duty's to be done, to be done,
A policeman's lot is not a happy one, happy one.

Click my post title for the melody and inflection.

God Bless Chicago Cops - He'd better.



*

After the sensational success of H.M.S. Pinafore, many American performing companies presented unauthorized versions of that opera. Gilbert, Sullivan and Carte decided to prevent that from happening again by presenting official versions of their next opera, The Pirates of Penzance, or The Slave of Duty simultaneously in England and America. The opera premiered on December 31, 1879 at the Fifth Avenue Theater in New York with Sullivan conducting, but a single performance had been given on the previous day at the Royal Bijou Theatre, Paignton, England, to secure the British copyright. Finally, the opera opened on April 3, 1880, at the Opéra Comique in London, where it ran for 363 performances, having already been playing successfully for over three months in New York.

On December 10, 1879, Sullivan had written a letter to his mother about the new opera, upon which he was hard at work in New York. "I think it will be a great success, for it is exquisitely funny, and the music is strikingly tuneful and catching." True enough! The Pirates of Penzance was an immediate hit and takes its place today as one of the most popular and enduring works of musical theatre.

In The Pirates of Penzance, Frederic was as a child apprenticed to a band of tenderhearted, orphaned pirates by his nurse who, being hard of hearing, had mistaken her master's instructions to apprentice the boy to a pilot. Frederic, upon completing his 21st year, rejoices that he has fulfilled his indentures and is now free to return to respectable society. But it turns out that he was born on February 29 in leap year, and he remains apprenticed to the pirates until his 21st birthday. By the end of the opera, the pirates, a Major General who knows nothing of military strategy, his large family of beautiful but unwed daugters, and the timid constabulary all contribute to a cacophony that can be silenced only by Queen Victoria's name.

Solid, Jackson! The Rev. Revs Up to Opportunity . . . Winnowing the Jackson Community

BBC World Service- Veteran politician Rev Jesse Jackson, who has been counselling the Jackson family, said the behaviour of Michael Jackson's doctor needs to be explained. Click my post title for the video.

"Love Laughs at a King, Kings don't need no Bling on the Street of Dreams! Gold, Silver and Gold -all that you can hold - on a moon beam. Joe,I''ll accept that bauble - for starters. As that Dead White man said,"For within the hollow crown/That rounds the mortal temple of a king,/Keeps death his court, and there the antic sits,
Scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp,/. . . . . . And humored thus,
Comes at the last, and with a little pin/Bores through his castle wall, and farewell king! No King; No Bling! No Bling; No Thing!"


Rev. Jesse Jackson, from left, and his son Yusef DuBois Jackson, speak with Joe Jackson, father of the late pop star Michael Jackson, outside the Jackson family home in the Encino neighborhood of Los Angeles on Friday, June 26, 2009. AP Photo

The ripest fruit first falls - Richard II- Act II, Sc. I

In an act of solidarity the Family Jackson covers the loss like a Prudential Gold Plan. Rev. Jesse L. Jackson was hot to issue a call for a second "independent" autopsy on the mortal husk of Michael Jackson. He might just blanket the Gary Jacksons with Jackson Universal!

Rev. Jackson might orate"

"From Jackson Hole to Jackson Mississipi; From Jackson Street to Jackson Browne; Jackson be Jackson to Jackson and My Son to Your Son; from Yousef To Your Self -We Are all of us Jackson, until Jackson's Jack Jacks All Jacksons onto Some Jack and until We are all Jack City, then there be Jackson! . . .Solid Jackson!. . . I'll take the Questions of the Press as well!"

Be it known - while I view the Rev. Jackson with a squinty gimlet eye, a reknowned Chicago attorney and friend to both the Rev. Jesse Jackson and this cynical helot offered this assesment. ( Please note!)

Anyway, something you may not know is Rev. Jackson was like a surrogate father to MJ. They loved each other dearly. I witnessed it.

Tamara Holder

Mortimer Jerome Adler- Old and New Testament to a Happy Life

Eight years ago today, America lost Mortimer Adler. Mortimer Adler* challenged the world to lead a happy life based upon some understanding of the Great Ideas passed on to all of us through the history of human thought.

εὐδαιμονία -EuDaimonia ( which I can never, ever pronounce correctly) comes from two Greek words: Eu -Good,or well-being and Daimon - a person's total spirit or place in the world.

This weekend, the world snoops into the death of Michael Jackson, a terminally unhappy fifty year old pop-singer from Gary, Indiana. The late Mr. Jackson's ability to garner 98% of all news coverage is miraculous. MSNBC will report on the white smoke billowing from Neverland, or whatever Jackson Family compound not under receivership, when a new King of Pop is elected. Mortimer Adler was happy man. He was surrounded by the good works of life -in theory,output and practice.

Leading a happy life is hard work. There are no 'Atta-Boy's' for doing your job, being a good and decent citizen, loving,caring and providing for your children, living up to your obligations and making a difference while your walk on this earth.

We mistake 'enjoyment' for happiness. Michael Jackson and the attention his very unhappy life exuded is testimony to just that.

Mortimer Adler welded the Testaments of our Western Culture - he was born Jewish and died with the last rites of Roman Catholic Church. What brought Mr. Adler to the New Testament seems to have been his life-long study of a Pagan -Aristotle. From Aristotle, Adler employed the Jewish scholar Maimonides and Muslim Averroes to understand St. Thomas Aquinas. Adler was the greatest Aquinas Scholar of our time.

Rolling through the ages of thought, Adler dismissed the radical Hegelian paganism of the 19th Century, which is the basis for Progressive thought in America, forged by John Dewey and bowdlerized by political activists and tin-horn academics.

This Hegelian nonsense dismisses piety and humility in thought. It makes the individual God - it is what Bertrand Russell (an atheist by the way) called our 'Cosmic Impiety).

Respect for the gods, God, Great Ideas and better persons than ourselves is piety. Not a mealy-mouthed, pharisaic bead rattling show-off, but a person dedicated to qualities of virtue and obligation. Respect in America is as disposable as a plastic razor bought at Dollar Bill's.

Piety, which teaches how to respect ourselves, is what allows a person to be 'happy' - piety, virtue and dignity are what gives a person Authority; not alphabets after your name, scoops of cash, or the most toys, or the most ink.

Mortimer Adler reminded us that humility leads to authority.

Here are two American authorities on Mortimer J. Adler - in testimonies to Adler's welding of Man's Testament with God, given at his funeral service in St. Chrysostom Church in 2001.

Remembrances
Charles Van Doren

I met Mortimer for the first time more than seventy-five
years ago. I know the place and date exactly: Lennox Hill
Hospital, New York City, February 14, 1926. Mortimer
was a little over twenty-five years old. I was two—two days,
that is. My father and Mortimer were colleagues at Columbia,
leading a great-books seminar together. Dad had
brought Mortimer to see his first born, and Mortimer entertained me by neologizing. To neologize is to speak employing
words that you make up as you go along. The
meaning is not important; it is the sound that counts. I
loved the sound of Mortimer’s voice then, and I never
ceased to do so. At that time he spoke too fast for most
people to understand him, unless they paid very special attention,
which many people do not like to have to do.
Later, he slowed down and spoke in short, simple, direct
sentences—and wrote them too. The mellifluousness that
had charmed me as a two-day-old then began to charm
everyone else. What a speaker he was. You never had any
doubt what he was saying. But, if you disagreed, it was because
you did not quite understand. This was also true of
his books. With a single exception, every book that he
wrote after his sixtieth birthday was distinct and clear, its
language perfectly conformed to its meaning. As a reward,
almost every book was a best seller (comparatively speaking,
no bodice ripper he).
And what a teacher, too. In his autobiography, he wrote
about what he had learned from my father about leading a
seminar. And in every one of the more than two hundred
seminars Mortimer and I led together over thirty years in
Chicago, San Francisco, Minneapolis, and other places, I
always learned something important about something important—
as his friend Arthur Ruben used to say.
When I was a child, Mortimer astounded and fascinated
me. He would visit us, whenever he came to New York on
business—always with an agenda in hand of items to discuss.
I thought that was astonishing. We visited him at
Stone Pond in New Hampshire, and I was again astonished,
to see him happily splashing about with water wings
above his head, like Mickey Mouse ears. He never sneezed
just once, always three times, never more, never less. And
when I learned about his work with the Hayes Office,
which among other things ordained that a movie actress
could not show her legs more than a few inches above the
knee, and especially not the inside of her thighs, I was kerflummoxed.
(That’s not a neologism.) Since the inside of a
woman’s thigh was at time (I was thirteen) a matter of
enormous interest, I envied Mortimer. I imagined that he
had to check out all those beautiful thighs and make sure
they were not breaking the rules.
And then there came the time when I fell down, face down
in the mud, and he picked me up, brushed me off, and gave
me a job. It was the best kind of job: as he described it, one
you would do anyway, if you did not need the money. And
I did it for thirty years. First we worked together making
books for Encyclopædia Britannica. Then I, and many others,
helped him to design and edit the greatest encyclopedia
the world has ever seen. It has fallen on bad days, but it
will rise again and outlive us all—just as Mortimer’s philosophical
work will do.
I remember the first seminar we led together, nearly forty
years ago. The text was Plato’s dialogue, The Sophist. I had
read it twice or three times and struggled to get the point. It
could not be what it seemed to be. But Mortimer helped us
all to understand it was. The true sophist, Plato is saying,
cannot be trapped—if he is willing to say anything whatsoever
to win the argument. If he wants to win at all costs
and does not care what is true, and if he is adept at fending
off the truth when it is presented, the sophist will triumph,
and you will fail. I asked Mortimer after the seminar
whether he agreed. “Yes,” he said, surprisingly, “Plato is
right.” But he believed (and I do to) that this is the tragedy
of intellect. In other words, truth must be fought for, even
though one may not be able to win. Mortimer fought for
the truth all of his life, although he believed in the end that
he had been defeated. We tried to persuade him that this
was not so, but we failed. Time, merciless and remorseless,
betrayed him—as eventually it betrays us all.
And now, having said that, I want to praise him. As another
man, a great general, praised another philosopher,
long ago. The general compared that other philosopher to a
satyr. (And, indeed, there was a certain rotundity of body
and an amused, ironic look on Mortimer’s face most of the
4ime.) That general said that that other philosopher was like
Marsyas, the great flute player who challenged Apollo, and
whose melodies charmed all who heard them. But the general
said that this philosopher produced the same effect
with his words only, and did not require a flute. “When we
hear any other speaker,” the general said, addressing his
friend, “His words produce absolutely no effect on us, or
not much. Whereas, the mere fragment of you and your
words, even at second hand, and however imperfectly reported,
amaze and possess every man and woman and
make them confess that they ought not to live as they do.
Your words seem simple when we first hear them,” the
general said, “and not worthy or appropriate for their matter,
and are even laughed at, because you are always repeating
the same thing, in the same words. But when we look
within those words,” the general said to that other philosopher,
his friend, “We find that they are the only words that
have a meaning in them, abounding in fair images of virtue
and of the widest comprehension, or rather extending to
the whole duty of a good and honorable man.” Thus did
Alcibiades praise Socrates, Mortimer, and thus do I praise
you. Your words, simple, direct, and clear, still tell us we
ought not to live as we do and describe the whole duty of a
good and honorable man.
I will not end with Plato, who, although he may have
started Mortimer on the road to philosophy, did not accompany
him for long. Mortimer would refute me is I did
not mention his nearly lifelong admiration for Plato’s famous
pupil. Many times he told me, as I imagine he told
you, that he hoped to meet Aristotle in the afterlife, so he
correct his errors—and also have the opportunity to talk
about all the most important things with a man who knew,
as Mortimer did, what they were and why they were important.
Mortimer and I agreed, when St. Christopher was struck
from the list of proper saints, that the action, although
probably correct, was a pity. I myself have stubbornly per5
sisted in addressing the benevolent giant every day of my
life. You know the gentle, little prayer:
St. Christopher be my guide,
In my most need,
Go by my side.
I have modified it in various ways over the years, and I offer
you another modification now:
St. Christopher, be Mortimer’s guide,
and Aristotle’s too,
In their most need.
If they are wandering in some
dark, cold, and lonely place
and cannot find one another,
Bring them together,
Join their hands,
Shed warmth and light upon them.
Go by their side
And from time to time,
Let Thomas Aquinas come for lunch.
Mortimer, we miss you, and we need your help. We all pursue
happiness, but we do not know what it is or how to
find it. We need you to remind us that happiness is not a
moment of ecstasy or a feeling of contentment that can
come and go. Instead, happiness is the product of a whole
life—a life lived in accordance with the two kinds of virtue:
intellectual and moral. We have to use our minds and not
waste them. And we have to acquire the habit of desiring
the right things, the things we really need and are good for
us, not the wrong things, which are bad for us and for everybody
else. In addition to all that, we need to be lucky—in
our country, in our friends, and in our loves. You were
lucky in all these, dear friend, and therefore we can conclude
that yours was a happy life. It is our great loss, not
yours, that it had to end.

Remembrances
Peter NortonPast President and CEO,
Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

I spent something over thirty years with The Encyclopædia
Britannica, and, of course, in that time I met many
very intelligent, very smart, very well-read intellectuals
and people generally. Unfortunately, I fell into none of
those categories. So, when I first knew that I was going to
meet Mortimer Adler, back in London in the early Sixties, I
was decidedly nervous. In fact, the feeling I really had was
one of great awe. I spent all my time trying to talk in sentences
as short as possible, so that he would not work out
quite what a nitwit was running the London company. But
we got on really quite well, and Mortimer, of course, as always,
was charming. Here was a man who had not just read
but had written more books—and was still writing at that
stage—than a lot of people have read in their lives. Now,
that’s not Britannica people, of course, because we had all
been weaned on How to Read a Book, and Mortimer had
made sure we all read the great books of the Western
world, to keep up with it. Consequently, I had quite a lot to
be nervous about.
But I am not going to talk about what Mortimer achieved,
and what he did. I am sure the others who follow me will
do that much better than I can. But I would like to talk a
little while about a Mortimer that I knew. In the early Seventies,
after I had relocated to the United States, at one of
Britannica’s international functions in Hawaii—we always
chose the best places to have our functions—sin attacked
me. In the course of an afternoon session, when I should
have been working with everybody else, I snuck out of the
meeting because there was the allure of a great and wonderful
ice-cream parlor. And I went down to the ice-cream
parlor, and I crept in very quietly to make sure there was
nobody there. And it was empty—except in the far corner
there was one very large ice-cream and chocolate concoc-
tion, out from behind which came a wonderful, very large,
ear-splitting grin on this wonderful, elfin-like face. And that
was when I met the other Mortimer.
As the years passed, Mortimer and I managed to commit all
sorts of terrible sins of gluttony, in all sorts of different
parts of the world, in ice-cream parlors and candy shops
and places like that. And what I came to find out was that
behind this austere intellectual facade was a fun-loving, excitable,
and very happy, life-loving little boy. This was the
little boy who, after having some problems in his youth
with swimming, at an age when most people had given up
swimming, succumbed to the challenge of a great marathon
swimming match at another Britannica meeting. He agreed
that he would do this, and he not only took on this challenge,
but he won it in great style and was triumphant.
(Now I must point out that the pool he swam in was approximately
fifteen feet long, and it was not more than
three feet deep, and there were at least twenty people ready
to jump in to save him if anything happened). At the end of
the course there was a bottle of champagne for the winner,
and that, of course, was the sort of incentive that Mortimer
always liked.
This was the Mortimer who not only liked to joke but
could take a joke when it was aimed at him. This was the
Mortimer who could walk with crowds and talk with kings,
and, although I cannot talk about his virtue, I can absolutely
guaranty that he never lost that common touch, that
common touch that made so many people love him, and
why so many people are here today who miss him. I shall
miss my young friend. But I have one remaining regret. I
have no doubt that, at this particular moment, Mortimer
and his God are in very deep discussions, which I would
love to be able to hear. I only hope that God is up to it.

Happy man! Thanks to Max Weissmann of the Center for the Study of Great Ideas

* Mortimer J. Adler dropped out of school at the age of fourteen (14).

'68 Reunion Cops Nab -Billionaire Pervert Candy Maker & Activist - Wonka Wonked!

Chicago June 27, 2009

1968 Police Veteran and Group Spokesperson Sgt. Claudell 'Clubber' Lange (CPD ret.) detailed the detaining of Billionaire Candy-Maker and Progressive Activist Willy Wonka as he attempted to lure eternally ten year old Charlie Bucket into a psychedelically painted VW-Minibus a few feet from the Re-Union 1968 Chicago Police veterans.

Said Lange, "this little white boy banged on the hall where the re-union was taking place screaming that a middle-aged old white guy - a hippie - wanted to take him to forever where the boy would once again see his missing friends. When the boy confronted the pervert, whom we restrained with professional courtesy and Mid-western welcome until CPD officers could make their way through the tens of 20-something Protesters and Death Row Alumni. I wrote down and recorded their exchange for the States Attorney - it went something like this:


Charlie Bucket: Mr. Wonka, what'll happen to the other kids? Augustus, Veruca?

Willy Wonka: My dear boy, I promise you they'll be quite all right. When they leave here, they'll be completely restored to their normal, terrible old selves. But maybe they'll be a little bit wiser for the wear. Anyway, don't worry about them.

Willy Wonka: I don't understand it. The children are disappearing like rabbits. Well, we still have each other. Shall we press on?

At that point, we took citizens action and restrained the gentleman, who said that he was there only to protest the brutality of all police - not just CPD. He then started singing -

Willy Wonka: [singsong] There's no earthly way of knowing / Which direction we are going / There's no knowing where we're rowing / Or which way the river's flowing / Is it raining? / Is it snowing? / Is a hurricane a-blowing? /
[apprehensive, now spoken]

Willy Wonka: Not a speck of light is showing / So the danger must be growing / Are the fires of hell a-glowing? / Is the grisly reaper mowing? / Yes! The danger must be growing /
[yelling]
Willy Wonka: For the rowers keep on rowing / And they're certainly not showing / Any signs that they are slowing!

Creepy huh? The Perv Perp said, "Do KNOW who I am! I'm The Candy Man!"

Wonka was taken into custody by Chicago Police and bonded out this morning. His court date is set for a year of total enchantment. This Wonka will be out in no time. Some reporter from WonkaVision taped the whole thing, but they'll slice and dice it so the Perv walks.


Wonka has retained lawyers Jon Loevy, G. Flint Taylor and Locke Bowman

Steve Huntley - Sun Times' Last Man Standing for Balance

whalen wrote:
Boo hoo, Steve. The Neanderthals lost the elections in 2008, remember? Pardon our dust as we rush past the Cro-Magnon years to enact much-belated initiatives before it is too late for all of us!

Well, Whalen - the last time Progressives had such a 'Pardon Our Dust' victory was the advent of Prohibition. From 1919 until its Repeal, America was set-back on its heels, Whalen.

Sorry, I can be prickly . . .Whalen , or as some Progressive might opine. without the adverbial ending there. With John Dewey*-esque devotion to 'inquiry' over fact, a Progressive Whalen responded to Chicago Sun Times columnist Steve Huntley - The Last Man Standing - over his revelatory column on Progressive Force-feeding of the Government Goose.

John Dewey is the father of radical progressive thought in America and the beauty who's views on education slaughtered Public Education**. Let it be pointed out -Oh, do - that John Dewey established a Lab School for the elites, while the unwashed masses could serve as lab-rats in an educational philosophy that pushed Public Education to eliminate the guts of education.

The study of how the American Government ( local,state and federal) has all but vanished; the canon of American Literature and British Literature has been diluted to a watery and sugary and under-nourishing swill; that for the Dewey Public Schools "inquiry" is the ethic - child should do as opposed to learn and they do not learn. With each new Hegelian/Marxist doctoral thesis comes a further murder of thought and history.

For Dewey and Progressives 'Inquiry' upon which an a priori goal - Gay Studies, Identity Politics in general, Group Thought is achieved and put in place. If you do not know a Concordat from a Magna Carta, a Peace of Wesphalia from a Piece of the Pie, then it is a fair chance that you are Public School Alum of the last forty years.

In that case,let's take this slowly - John Dewey was a philospher of education, society, and psycholgy at the University of Chicago, who was heavily influeced by the German thinker Hegel. who is actually the granddaddy of Marxist thought. John Dewey believed that 'inquiry' is the most important thing in life so long as the outcomes agree with that inquiry. Thus, if we inquire into poverty as rooted in Racism; all poverty results from racism. If failure results from poverty. racism caused failure & etc. Progressive inquiry arrives at a Pre-Determined outcome.

Gay Marriage is good; all opposition to Gay Marriage is evil; Gay Marriage is good.

Abortion is Women's Reproductive Health, Uterine Cancer is a Woman's Reproductive Health Issue; Uterine Cancer . . . Hey, get me a good Nuancer over here!

Dewey made the Artificial, Natural.

Take a look at the Media which offers a "Let's Look at Race Relations!" series.

The outcome is fixed - Systemic Racism, Imperialism, Class ism is always the conclusion. Whites are always bad and people of color are always good. Hence, no Race Crime can be committed by a person of color. Why? Don't matter just is and that is Dewey. Dewey Agree!

Dewey had clout ( Roger Baldwin, Jane Addams, Emma Goldman,I.F.Stone W.E.B. DuBois & etc.). Radical Progressive clout saw Dewey's Philosophy as a burglar bar with which to loot American History and geld American Education. Inquiry is not method it is a goal in Dewey Education.

Steve Huntley represents a mind-set that is valued by most Americans. The old Benthamite view of 'the most good for the most people.' Common Sense.

In Steve Huntley's June 26, 2009, he outlines the Progressive Agenda and the force feeding by the Democratic Leadership in the Congress at the direction of President Obama's White House:

Congress, driven by President Obama's ambitious political agenda, is out to be a jack of all trades. Just look at its to-do list for this year -- health-care reform, clean energy legislation, overhaul of financial regulation, a rewrite of immigration law, stimulus spending to prod the economy toward recovery. Whew! And with six months left in 2009, who knows what else might be added?

That list doesn't include such major business as considering a new U.S. Supreme Court nominee or a host of less sweeping but still significant bills, like a just-passed measure giving an overburdened Food and Drug Administration the duty of regulating tobacco. . . .
With Democrats in total control of the House and close to it in the Senate, fierce partisanship, long-cherished liberal goals and the pent-up energy of the Democratic left are driving the transformational agenda. There's no argument many of the bills address problems needing a fix, but that's best achieved with at least a degree of bipartisan support. Yet we're being force-fed a liberal prescription. A crowded agenda controlled by Democrats and a White House push for quick action crowd out competing views.

Regrettably, the major national media have been compliant. For example, this week ABC News offered an hour in prime time for Obama to monopolize the national discussion on health care.

Yet polls consistently show public discomfort with the implications of greater government control of medical services, worry about the costs and a high-level of satisfaction with their current health care among the majority with insurance. Recent news reminds us a public insurance option would open a new avenue for abuse of the taxpayer. Republican Rep. Peter Roskam of the northwest suburbs has started a "medi-fraud blog" tracking corruption and waste in Medicare and Medicaid. His latest entries note that in just the last week prosecutors broke up schemes in Detroit and Miami to defraud Medicare of $150 million.

Another issue is energy. Some of us think the emphasis should be more on energy security than green goals. Yes, we all want a cleaner planet, but our national security and economic future require the exploitation of abundant fossil fuels such as domestic coal and offshore oil as well as expansion of nuclear energy while we develop solar, wind and geothermal for the long term.

Similarly, the economic meltdown naturally leads to new regulation. Yet remember the Sarbanes-Oxley Act passed in 2002, after the accounting scandals, saddled business with expensive and complex regulations making U.S. enterprises less competitive.

The focus on regulation ignores government's role in the housing collapse. The Wall Street Journal reports Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), who encouraged the mortgage excesses of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, is at it again, urging the agencies to lower lending standards for condo buyers. Sounds like another dose of the easy credit that wrecked home values.

Obama and Democrats insist Congress works for the good of America in taking on so many projects. But the jack of all trades, as you may recall, is the master of none. Is that how you want the future of your health care or energy supply to be determined?

Columnist Steve Huntley, investigative journalist Tim Novak and Pultizer Prize winning cartoonist Jack Higgins maintain some semblance of thoughtful inquiry for Chicago, because they know that inquiry is not a goal upon which people are forced to agree.

Winning an election is only the beginning of government. The end of government is the preservation of the American Republic. Democrats and Republicans have been doing just that, until these last few months, it seems to me. Dewey has replaced the Founders Fathers for the Progressives. For now.

History has a way of Repealing itself!

*

Dewey is “attractive to those how are more impressed by our new control over natural forces than by the limitations to which that control is subject,” finding that Dewey’s philosophy “is in harmony with the age of industrialism and collective enterprise.” But it is Dewey’s underlying hubris that Russell singles out as “the greatest danger in our time” because “it is increasing the danger of a vast social disaster,” however unintentionally.

Russell’s fears, at least in part, have been realized. There are many who would, without hesitation, describe public education, in combination with other social, economic and political forces, a “vast social disaster.” There are, of course, many more that disagree.

http://home.earthlink.net/~fheapblog/id28.html

**

I believe that the only true education comes through the stimulation of the child's powers by the demands of the social situations in which he finds himself. Through these demands he is stimulated to act as a member of a unity, to emerge from his original narrowness of action and feeling, and to conceive of himself from the standpoint of the welfare of the group to which he belongs. Through the responses which others make to his own activities he comes to know what these mean in social terms. The value which they have is reflected back into them. For instance, through the response which is made to the child's instinctive babblings the child comes to know what those babblings mean; they are transformed into articulate language and thus the child is introduced into the consolidated wealth of ideas and emotions which are now summed up in language.

I believe that this educational process has two sides-one psychological and one sociological; and that neither can be subordinated to the other or neglected without evil results following. Of these two sides, the psychological is the basis. The child's own instincts and powers furnish the material and give the starting point for all education. Save as the efforts of the educator connect with some activity which the child is carrying on of his own initiative independent of the educator, education becomes reduced to a pressure from without. It may, indeed, give certain external results, but cannot truly be called educative. Without insight into the psychological structure and activities of the individual, the educative process will, therefore, be haphazard and arbitrary. If it chances to coincide with the child's activity it will get a leverage; if it does not, it will result in friction, or disintegration, or arrest of the child nature. . . I believe that the community's duty to education is, therefore, its paramount moral duty. By law and punishment, by social agitation and discussion, society can regulate and form itself in a more or less haphazard and chance way. But through education society can formulate its own purposes, can organize its own means and resources, and thus shape itself with definiteness and economy in the direction in which it wishes to move. ( emphasis my own)

I believe that when society once recognizes the possibilities in this direction, and the obligations which these possibilities impose, it is impossible to conceive of the resources of time, attention, and money which will be put at the disposal of the educator.

I believe that it is the business of every one interested in education to insist upon the school as the primary and most effective interest of social progress and reform in order that society may be awakened to realize what the school stands for, and aroused to the necessity of endowing the educator with sufficient equipment properly to perform his task.

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!