Hear Andy Shaw on WLS -"Cops Not Going 100%" Andy Must Have the Numbers

Listen to the WLS feed from this morning's Don Wade & Roma - slide the bar about 3/4 of way to the part where the Police Officer asks about no Contract for Two Years/Chicago's Thug Happy Violence Festival and BGA Andy's response.

Because, in Andy Shaw's BGA News Reader World View, Jody Weiss is Police Superintendent Chicago Police Officers are pooching the job.

The real mopes always get appointed positions.

BGA Andy Shaw on Don & Roma: "Cops Lying Down"

On the way into work, I heard Andy Shaw, Bed and Breakfast Magnate and Better Government Watch Pup, answer a Chicago Police Officer named Nicky's question as to why the Police and Fire Department memberships needed to go two years without contracts and remain 4,000 officers understrength given the swelling violence in the City.

Andy, with his usual aplomb replied (now, this is only what I heard mind you) to the effect that Cops always get their lump sums and the reason that violence is going MadDog in Chicago has more to do with police officers shirking their duties because they do not like Superintendent Weiss than it does to anything else -Chicago's Media Created Thug Comfort Zone, Lawsuit Lawyer Lotto Giveaways & etc..

Andy went on to praise the Chicago Reporter for real reporting.

Cops don't fight crime. Andy Shaw is a great intellect and a fine human being.
That is your Better Government Watchdog!

Click on to my title for the WLS site.

Vice President Biden Calms the Poles

"Did you hear about the million-dollar Polish Lottery?
You win a dollar a year for a million years. "

"How about the Polish car pool?
They meet at work. "

[Deafening Silence]

"“We appreciate Poland has stepped up and agreed to host an element of the previous missile defense plan, and we now appreciate that Poland’s government agrees with us that there is now a better way … with new technology and new information, to defend against emerging ballistic missile threats,” Biden said. . . . Continuing The Vice President offered, "Knock knock."

"Who's there?"
"Polish burglar."

[growing discomfort]

Discussing Cap & Trade and Global Warming, Vice President Biden then - Licks the cover of a book of matches, bends it back so the matches are exposed, and sticks it to His forehead.

The Vice President turned and Asked Polish President Donald Tusk "What am I?"

[Stoic silence]

"A Polish miner."

Re-turning to Foreign Policy and Afghanistahn Biden asked,

"What would you call a bunch of Polish guys wearing turbans?
A Pakistanleys. "

"Hey how bout the two biggest lies a Polak will tell? ' The Check is in your mouth . . . Hey, I better stop there! Goodnight Folks!"

Tribune Editorial Board's Hack Priority at University of Illinois

In the wake of the scandal, there's a lot of talk about building an impenetrable firewall around the U. of I.'s admissions system. One set of rules for everyone. No exceptions. But as long as the cheaters are able to hide, they'll always be looking for a way over, under or around that wall

Even You goofs? Sweet Suffering Sally! Can the Tribune add a little more hair to that shirt?

First off - The Chicago Tribune is blessed with great and talented working journalists. It is anchored by -not the looniest group of hypocrites, but they'll do -an Editorial Board that Warner Brothers Cartoonists could not have dreamed up.

This hypocritical howl on today's editorial page is just one more in the string of the Tribune Editorial Board's "We Want Stan Ikenberry" Campaign - you got him. You got him.

The Tribune Editorial Board launched a full-court press on Cook County Sheriff Mike Sheahan a few years ago with a wonderfully fabricated tale of Corrections Abuse at Cook County Jail that took less than twenty minutes for a jury to toss. Sheriff Sheahan mocked the rock-solid hypocrisy of the Bruce Dold Dolts.

Stan Ikenberry was trotted out during the Tribune Editorial Board Tsunami blown against the University of Illinois Trustees and Leadership - they all had to go in order to clear the way for Compliant Gov. Pat Quinn's selection of rocked-ribbed Illini Chris Kennedy - no dodgy carpetbagger he and all the other plum cupcakes for the Clean Board. Most of all the Tribune Editorial Board needed room for Stan Ikenberry.

Stan Ikenberry is their kind of hack. The kind who Clouted a Domestic Terrorist Billy Ayers -into a job at UIC and Laundered His History.

Stan has yet to divulge just how he minced along the path strewn with ComEd petals and danced a hearty jig for Thomas Ayers - giving "My Son Bill!" a no-cut contract at Cement City (UICC). Now that's Clout, Girls an Boys!

Nope - the tweedy goofs on the Tribune Editorial Board want to make war on common sense with Hegelian Hurricanos of Hypocrisy. Yes, yes ( in hushed tones and nods of puritanical assent).


State Legislators make recommendations for scholarships according to Illinois Law.

Congressmen make appointments to American Service Academies according to Federal Law.

The Chicago Tribune/Medill 501(c)3 Industries at Northwestern Law and School of Journalism practice 18th Century Hack politics. Nothing more and nothing less.

The Tribune Editorial Board recently hacked James Tyree, who had the purpose and resources to by the Sun Times.

The Tribune Editorial Board needs 'more' light shed on its practices.

Stan! Fess up on your hiring of Billy Ayers! Let's get that balloon head out of news.

MSNBC Smears Gen. Stanley McCrystal - Boudin Brained Chris Matthews -"It's Beau Geste!"

Beginning on Oct. 7th and continuing unabated fatuous forty-Watt flannel mouth Chris Matthews has outshouted every carbon-footprint to appear with him on Hardball with his latest shout-point -'Beau Geste' in order to smear President Obama's Commander in Afghanistan.

MATTHEWS: Let me ask you, what does the president need to know that he doesn't know now before he decides on whether to give General McChrystal his requested 40,000 more troops?

MITCHELL: Well, White House officials are saying to me that, in fact, go back to the Bruce Riedel report, which led to the decisions of last March. We've all been saying the conventional wisdom in Washington has been that March is now moot, that the initial Afghan strategy is now being supplanted because of the changes, the decisions on the ground, and perhaps the political realities, although they will deny that.

MATTHEWS: Yes.

MITCHELL: But in fact, if you go back to the original questions that Bruce Riedel, a former CIA and NSC official, answered-on loan to the White House-it was, How do we come up with a strategy that will disrupt and end al Qaeda's influence and protect the United States? What we want to do is get into Afghanistan and disrupt al Qaeda.

And so the questions that the president is asking, to get to your point, are, How will these various recommendations lead to our goal? That goal remains to disrupt al Qaeda, to protect the security of the United States, and to enhance regional security, as well. Those are the questions he's asking. And right now, what he's getting are answers. At least-we don't know whether he's accepting the answers, but he's getting an intelligence briefing on how it relates to Pakistan today, followed by a regional diplomatic briefing from the secretary of state and her advisers. Obviously, Richard Holbrooke and others would be part of that. And then Robert Gates would give the military's perspective.

And what has changed today is that the Pentagon announced-Geoff Morrell announced from the Pentagon today, Chris, that they've actually given the president, officially given him...

MATTHEWS: Right. I know.

MITCHELL: ... the troop recommendations.

MATTHEWS: My concern is, as an American watching this, learning that Americans are building outposts of-to be manned by 140 people, it begins to look like "Beau Geste," one of these old French Foreign Legion movies, where we're putting troops, Western troops, our guys and women, out in the middle of these outposts...

MITCHELL: Exactly.

Yeah, exactly Balloon Girl. Remeber when that genius was overpowered by balloons at the DNC?


However, Milky always re-roasts his favorite chestnuts - be they Birthers, Guys Carrying Guns at Teabag Parties & etc. - and Matthews last used Beau Geste on General Petreaus. Here was Milky Matthews in 2007 doing his schtik on the Surge:

RIECKHOFF: Absolutely, and that‘s exactly the type of work that we did when I was there in 2003 and 2004. And then we had this period where we pulled back, went into these giant forward operating bases, and didn‘t mingle within the community like we had been. Now we are going back to kind of where we were in late 2003 and 2004, and for our guys and girls on the ground, it is incredibly dangerous.

You do not know who your enemies are, who your friends are. You are greatly outnumbered. You‘re already probably there for a second and third tour. It is extremely dangerous. You‘ve been bringing it up all week. And I think you have to put yourself in the shoes of those soldiers, just for a few days. Imagine how dangerous it is to be in a remote downtown outpost, where you are surrounded by Iraqis, and you do not know who is trying to kill you or not. It‘s incredibly dangerous. And that‘s one of the things that I try to do, is just try to communicate that personal experience. Think about how tough this is for our American soldiers and Marines on the ground. It‘s incredibly difficult.

MATTHEWS: This is “Beau Geste” all over again, fortresses out in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by Arabs who don‘t want you there. Anyway, thank you Paul Rieckhoff for joining us, and giving us this insight. We‘re going to come right back with the “Politico‘s” Roger Simon, one of the best columnists around. We‘ll talk about the debate coming up, also the Democrats and their big fight now with the president over the war funding issue, which is coming to a head tonight, as the president has vetoed the bill. It‘s all happening tonight, the big fight between the Democrats and the president over Iraq. We‘ll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18438589/

Milky Chris Matthews -The Whitest Guy on the Planet - a faux tough guy Dinny the Dimwit who attempts to toss off his altar boy Suscipiat* when he justifies abortion, is now doing his Masters' biddings by undermining the integrity and motives of the very man President Obama tasked with developing a strategy for the Graveyard of Empires.

Milky - the outpost was manned some time ago and the tribes are coming at the troops. Try not to get any more of our troops killed with that moronic maw of yours.

MSNBC - More Tools Than True Value!

* This is how the Suscipiat goes "Suscipiat Dominus sacrificium de manibus tuis, ad laudem et gloriam nominis sui, ad utilitatem quoque nostram, totiusque ecclesiae suae sanctae."

Pope Benedict Welcomes Anglicans - Epicopalians Who Woke Up.

There was a sociology of Protestantism that went: A Methodist is a Baptist with shoes. A Presbyterian is a Methodist who has been to college. An Episcopalian is a Presbyterian who is living off his investments. This has all changed now. Now an Episcopalian is, I suppose, someone heading a campaign against AIDS.

- Joseph Epstein 2003. Click my post title for a thoroughly charming and insightful interview with Joe Epstein.


When a south side Catholic got tired of going to Church he became a Unitarian. That way he could safely believe in anything without the moral and societal complications of explaining Atheism, or spelling Agnosticism.

The great American Master of the Essay, Northwestern University's Joseph Epstein - a guy who says, " Don't call me Professor; that's a guy who bangs on a piano in a Cathouse."- wrote a number of short stories grouped as Fabulous Small Jews.
This collection presented Jewish Chicagoans as witty, complex, bitter, confused and lovely people who are thoroughly American. None of the Phillip Roth angst, for Epstein, but rather people comfortable in their own skins - no polemical table thumping, or fiddling up on the garage roof at 6800 N. Campbell - he was replacing the loose shingles. I read Joseph Epstein's collection a few years ago. I need to go back to it, but I loaned the damn book to retired Detective Billy Higgins who in turn passed it on to Gene Callahan - an Armagh Carpenter who still has my back-up banjo. The Irish are the Bermuda's Triangle of loaned items.

Joseph Epstein writes about the relationship between people and the truth. Epstein - be it in Fiction or Essay -always nails it. We poor Chicago Irish have only Father Andy Greeley, who gets about as close to the truth as I do to the Confessional Box. Mea Culpa!

There is Hope! Pope Benedict XVI welcomes Anglicans ( Henry VIII's Theological children) back to the Faith.

The Apostolic Constitution approved by the Pope creates a new structure, which will allow Roman Catholic provinces such as England and Wales to have their own “Personal Ordinariate” for ex-Anglicans.

Parishes and individuals can go over to Rome en masse and join the Ordinariate. Although Catholic priests must be celibate, married former Anglican clergy who convert under the Apostolic Constitution could be ordained as Catholic priests although they would not be allowed to become bishops.

The Ordinariate could take the form of those created to care for Catholics serving in the Armed Forces and will be supervised by a senior cleric called an Ordinary, likely to be taken from the ranks of the former Anglican clergy.

It will provide spiritual care for the converts and they will be able to ask the Vatican to approve new liturgy based on their former Anglican readings, which they would hear at their own church services. They may be allowed to use Anglican prayer books.

However it is claimed there would be “formidable legal obstacles” to former Anglican parishes keeping hold of their old church buildings.

As many as 50 Anglican bishops worldwide are expected to convert under the new procedure and Cardinal Levada said the number of ordinary worshippers who had asked for such a provision was “in the hundreds”.

He added: "If there was a woman pastor in one of these groups, I would be surprised."

The leading Anglo-Catholic group in the Church of England, Forward in Faith, has warned repeatedly of a mass exodus to Rome if women are introduced to the episcopate without proper provision for those who object to the innovation.

While the group has so far remained within the Church of England to defend its place as the battle continues over women bishops, the landmark move by the Pope is likely to tempt many parishes away.

Forward in Faith said it “rejoiced” at the initiative, which it called a “decisive moment” in the history of the movement.

If Anglicans can start to see the intrinsic beauty and attraction of doctrinal and moral certainty, maybe we Catholics can become as comfortable in our skins as our Jewish neighbors reflected in the pages of Joseph Epstein's wonderful book of stories.


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/6386833/Pope-Benedict-XVI-paves-way-for-thousands-of-disaffected-Anglicans-to-cross-over-to-Rome.html

"It Goes to Discovery" - Whether a Fatly Endowed, Tribune Bannered NU Law Project Whines or Not! Nice Job Ms. Alvarez!

The Medill Innocence Project begs the question - rather it beats all of us over the head with it - "Their Featured Victim is Innocent -Believe It!"

Maybe. Let's go to Discovery - as the earnest lawyers always shout on them Cop/Lawyer TV Shows.

Discovery in Law:

In American law, discovery is the pre-trial phase in a lawsuit in which each party through the law of civil procedure can request documents and other evidence from other parties and can compel the production of evidence by using a subpoena or through other discovery devices, such as requests for production of documents, and depositions. In other words, discovery includes (1) interrogatories; (2) motions or requests for production of documents; (3) requests for admissions; and (4) depositions.

"I don't think it's any of the state's business to know the state of mind of my students," Protess said. "Prosecutors should be more concerned with the wrongful conviction of Anthony McKinney than with my students' grades."

Professor Dave wants to deny the States Attorney Discovery? You have the Editorial Geniuses of the Trib with you Dave and they are always ready willing and able to bleed ink in their Pet Causes ( Smearing James Tyree, Smearing Sheriff Mike Sheehan & etc.). That is not Justice, Professor Dave.

Professor Dave!

Nice work Anita Alvarez. If Professor Dave and his Junior Future State Jackpot Lawyers' Innocent is innocent a court will decide - only after Full disclosure - Discovery, Professor Dave - Discovery.

God's Good Health to Max Weismann!

Today's Mass* and all my prayerful thoughts go with my friend and mentor Philosopher Max Weismann. Max heads the Center for the Study of Great Ideas and is one of the genuine stand-up guys in Chicago. Max stands in tall company with my Mom and Dad, Mary's Mom Alice & Chuck Holm, Nora, Conor, Clare, Willie & Kerry Winters & the Kids, Tom Mahoney, Bob Hylard, Nick Novich, Bart Winters, Charlie and Kate Olson, Jim Frogge, Tamara Holder, George Applegate, Mike McGill, Jack Higgins, Bernard Callahan, Chris and Mary Fogarty, Tommy Ward, Mike Holmes, Big Curtis Banks, Rich Lindberg, Rose Keefe, Thomas Hayes, Marquis Ball, Marty Tully, Tom Roeser,All my Cousins( in the hundreds), Mike Kennedy, Pat Buck, John B. Powers, Billy Higgins, Eddie Carroll, Boz O'Brien, Terry McEldowney, Mike Houlihan, Mike 'Pickle' Joyce, Mike and Anne Cullen, Steve Swerdeloff, Mike McQuade, Frank Nofsinger, Christine Flowers,Steve Rhodes, Mary Ann Roti, Rick Kogan, Rich Furlong, Jim Farrell, Dick Prendergast, and all the Leo Alumni, Patti Bidwill, Billy Helm, Lisa Hwang, Mel Cooney, Jim & Betsy Kennedy, La Lumiere School, The Kids at Leo, Sister Mary Paul McCaughey, Jim Durkin, Ed Maloney, Kevin Joyce, Skinney Sheehan, John Sheehan, Mary Terese and Steve Riordan, Elias Crim, Steve and Susan Jordan, Father Gallagher, Father, Gene Smith, Gino Ford, Cardinal George, Bishop Ray Goedert, Bishop Gorman, Joe Gorman, 6th District Chicago Police Department, Jack Quinn, Mary Pat McWalters, Mike Miller, Seb, Hasan, Tyrone, Tyrell, Mike, James ( all of 1440 N.Lake Shore Drive), Angel of the Pump Room, my Brother Kevin and Sister Joan, Jim and Gail Cleary, Mike and Shelby, My Nephews, Ollie and Martin McGarry, Joe Epstein, Gary Saul Morson, Kevin Baker, Dan Kelley, Anne Leary, John Rubery, Asher Fein, Sy Blitzstein,and the beautiful and elegant Terry Sullivan -to name a very few of the great people I am blessed to share my life on this earth. These people put the balm on Christ's wounds.

*Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Mark 10:35-45.

Then James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to him and said to him, "Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you."
He replied, "What do you wish (me) to do for you?"
They answered him, "Grant that in your glory we may sit one at your right and the other at your left."
Jesus said to them, "You do not know what you are asking. Can you drink the cup that I drink or be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?"
They said to him, "We can." Jesus said to them, "The cup that I drink, you will drink, and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized;
but to sit at my right or at my left is not mine to give but is for those for whom it has been prepared."
When the ten heard this, they became indignant at James and John.
Jesus summoned them and said to them, "You know that those who are recognized as rulers over the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones make their authority over them felt.
But it shall not be so among you. Rather, whoever wishes to be great among you will be your servant;
whoever wishes to be first among you will be the slave of all.
For the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many."

Each of us prays in many different ways and I like to group all of the people I love into a bouquet of support and love for Max Weismann as he faces two tough surgeries this week.

Each of us has a Gethsemane, but they all should be prayers that merge as one.

God's Blessing and health to you, Max! From all of us!

James Tyree's Investment Group Get a Chicago Tribune Welcome! "Me and the Wife and Kids Set Your Garage on Fire! "

The Chicago Tribune welcomes the Investors in the Group that purchased the Flat-lined by Stupidity Chicago Sun Times with brimming bowls full of vitriol tossed right in the Lamps.

One of the best working journalists in the business Ray Gibson and a Tribune staff writer Michael Oneal seem to be doing the bidding of the same Editorial Band of geniuses who attempted to smear former Cook County Sheriff Mike Sheehan a few years ago. Sheriff Sheehan mocked the Tribune after a jury took less than twenty minutes to toss the case of Gang-Bangers/Lefty Lawyers and the Tribune's Full Court Press on a trumped up Cook County Jail Abuse Charge.

Mesirow Investment Chief James Tyree, a man with a sterling reputation for turning around businesses on life-support like the hapless Sun Times News Group ( STNG - the Progressive Independent Revolutionary Shining Path Cadre Mountain Molehill Heapers - Conrad Black's Children of the Corn and Banana Republic Payoff Mogul Cyrus Friedheim's Red Arm and Hammer Bangers*) has stepped up to save a Chicago newspaper.

Paper Hat Col. Bob McCormick's and No Popery Joe Medill's children led by Bruce 'Kenny G is Jazz' Dold seem to be following the Old Sun Times Playbook off the cliff - the one James Tyree kept The Obnoxious Oracle of Orleans Street from using.

In today's "Welcome to Progressive Journalism" oyster cracker, Gibson and Oneal squirt poison from the pens linking Tyree's Investors to a failed casino venture ( which Abner Mikva did his best to sink, it seemed to me, hearing no good word for the Emerald Investors in his Star Chamber treatment of the Casino License review - Emerald had the great Bob Clifford as counsel. BTW- I participated in one of the hearings and it sure seemed to me as though Abner Mikva had his mind set on swamping the Flynns, well before the testimony was given. The Mikva Challenge? Try and make your point.

The Tribune also attempts to toss the George Ryan Card freely at several investors as well as Al Capone. Gee why not link them to Moe Annenberg - too close to Billy Ayers I imagine. Thus!

In 2005, the Illinois Gaming Board revoked the license, citing a report by retired federal Judge Abner Mikva concluding that the owners had been deceptive and that the effort was tainted by mob influence. The Flynns have denied the charges.

Kevin Flynn, who runs an investment firm and is chairman of Renovo Services LLC, which repossesses cars and other assets, was unavailable for comment. Tyree said he knows Flynn through Mesirow's insurance arm.

Two other Sun-Times investors, William and Robert Parrillo, have deep business experience and come from a family with a long history in Chicago.

William founded Safeway Insurance Co, an auto insurer based in Westmont; his brother Robert is managing partner of Parrillo Weiss & O'Halloran, a Chicago law firm specializing in personal injury and insurance cases.

Their father did legal work for gangsters, including Al Capone. Their brother, Donald, a former 1st Ward alderman, once recounted that he was recruited to run for the post by then-Outfit chief Sam "Momo" Giancana.

Another brother, Richard, is a close friend of jailed former Republican Gov. George Ryan and raised hundreds of thousands of dollars to fund Ryan's failed defense against corruption charges. He also has been a close associate and supporter of former 10th Ward Ald. Edward Vrdolyak.

William and Robert Parrillo weren't available for comment Friday, but a source close to them said they have worked over the years to distance themselves financially from their brothers.

Another Tyree investor, Edward Heil, made his fortune running a garbage business and a construction company that thrived on state contracts. He battled with DuPage County for years before selling a disputed landfill to Waste Management for $62.5 million in 1986.

More recently, Heil has invested in American Ecology Corp., which has a low-level nuclear waste site in Washington state.

Heil, 65, was one of Ryan's biggest financial supporters and a major donor to Gov. Jim Edgar. In 1993, Edgar canceled a potential $10 million state contract in which Heil had invested, saying he wanted to avoid the appearance that insiders might have gotten favored treatment.

Yep, the Tribune Editorial Board Mensa Chapter is sprinting to the same cliff that James Tyree stopped the Sun Times from trying out!

'Hi, I'm Col. Bob McCormick and this is my wife Joe Medill-McCormick! Welcome to the neighborhood! The wife, kids and I set your garage on fire! Here's a cold week old eggplant casserole with cauliflower sauce - we want the dish back tonight!'

*
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/01/AR2007080102601.html

Erroll Garner - 'Concert by the Sea' Will Set You Free!

I have six music discs in the console of my Malibu.

The Rascals Greatest Hits
Essential Frank Sinatra
The Best of Sam Cooke
John Roothaan and Terry Sullivan" (Acapulco Stomp)
Kinks - Vol.1 & 2
Errol Garner Concert by the Sea


Long road stretches get the Rascals and the Kinks. Traffic gets the sobering and soothing sounds of vocalists Cooke,Sinatra, Miss Terry Sullivan and especially the piano genius Errol Garner.

Unlike too many trendier jazz icons - e.g. perpetually pissed off black genius Miles Davis - Garner is welcoming, friendly, open and communal. Errol let's us squares in there.

Garner is complex, playful and astounding. From the initial hammering of chords on I'll Remember April Garner has you hooked ( click my post title)
Click my post title for this much too looked over genius. Wes Montgomery on guitar is Garner's parallel spirit.

This is from Paul Conley's great site

http://errollgarner.com/intro.html

Listen to any Erroll Garner recording and you realize, above all else, this man loved to play piano. If you were lucky enough to see him, you also know he loved to share that joy with his audience. As a result, Erroll Garner became one of the most popular pianists of all time. Such was not the case with many of his modem jazz colleagues, however. Consider Bud Powell, perhaps the most influential of all bebop pianists, whose pioneering approach attracted legions of fans within the jazz community but who alienated those casual listeners still struggling with the innovations of Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie. Erroll Garner, on the other hand, was a favorite among jazz musicians, jazz fans and popular audiences alike. His style was far from "bebop," but he was a thoroughly modem player, whose explorations of melody, harmony and rhythm were totally unique. Still, he never lost that personal connection with the audience. He was one of those rare individuals capable of fusing unparalleled artistry with pure and honest emotion. Erroll Gamer's music was the embodiment of both joy and genius.

As the original host of "The Tonight Show" and of his own syndicated program, Steve Allen introduced television audiences to dozens of jazz greats. "There was always a rare kind of excitement when Erroll Garner played," explains Allen. "The audience first of all could be observed to be smiling, which they would not always do if say listening to Oscar Peterson. They might be open-mouthed in awe listening to Oscar, but the smiling thing would be unlikely to happen. But with Erroll there would be this happy look on the audience's faces and then an actual cheer when he finished. And sometimes cheers would happen during the performance, like at an athletic contest when somebody sinks a long basket to win the game. It was almost like that kind of outburst when the man would perform."

Richard Heene - Time's Man of the Year!

Balloon Boy's Dad - Richard Heene - is a walking metaphor of our times - Nobel's for nothing and Chick's for Free!

As adrift as the Obama Amatuer Hour White House( Cap'N Trade; Unstimulus Package, Good Taliban, Copenhagen Snuff-outs, Katrina Junkets, GITMO Weeger Giveaways to Tropical Islands, ACORN in My Shoes and 'SEIU and Raise You,' Janet Napolitano, Van Jones, Anita Dunn, and Nobel's for Nuthin' as well as Blago whack a mole updates), young Falcon Heene and his balloon-flight in the rafters of a garage stand as a metphor for Hope and Change.

TIME Magazine ?

Colorado native and Chicago Legal Expert Tamara Holder notes this about Young Icarus in the Rafters and his Old Dad:

The balloon boy story must go down in history as one of the most bizarre events EVER: Six-year old boy detaches homemade hovercraft "vehicle" slash helium balloon from back yard...climbs inside...takes off through the Colorado sky...stops all news on Obama, health care, Rush Limbaugh and the war in Afghanistan...only to find out boy is not inside the "craft" but is really in the family's attic! Fox News article here.

I called my dad after the boy had been found alive but before it was reported just where exactly Falcon Heene was found. My dad said, "I am sure the boy said to himself, 'Oh s**t, my dad is going to kick my a** once he finds out I let the balloon loose. I better go hide.'" Well, my padre knows best; moments later it was revealed that is exactly what happened: the boy hid in the attic because he knew his father would yell at him!

But wait, the story gets better. The boy's father is a total wack job. He is a mad-scientist type...oh wait, I mean "psyientist" according to dad, Richard Heene, who has his own web page:

( click my post title for more from Tamara)

Never gets too weird for me.

Dem Bridgeport Boids Are in Beverly Well, Morgan Park Anyway

The Starling Flock has swarmed "from Bridgeport to Beverly" . . . like the song* says . . . . in search of perches for the South Side Irish Parade. These birds did not get the word - The Parade's Cancelled.

Me and my Police Detective neighbor just shoo-ed a couple of hundred off the cars, decks, bikes, baby-buggies and trees here on 108th Street. The place is lousy with winged warblers.

Which posed a head-scratcher - why they visiting in this time of Global Warming? Al?

I'll ask Mrs. Fields at the Department of Energy! Thus!

Question - Why do starlings flock in such large numbers in the
winter? Flocks never seem that big in the summer .
---------------------------------------
While some starlings do not migrate, many of them migrate from north to
south and back. This normally occurs in large numbers. When you see big
flocks of birds in colder weather, they are probably heading south (late
fall) or north(early spring). Once they reach a warm area they tend to
spread out into smaller groups. If the entire group stayed together it would
be difficult for them to find enough food, water, and shelter for each bird.
If small groups break off and spread out, then food, water, and shelter will
be available to each bird in the small flock. Flocks also help with safety,
as there are many eyes to be watching and with larger groups it provides
heat when they are all together. My guess is that the reason you see such
large flocks in winter compared to summer is that in the summer the smaller
groups have already dispersed.

Grace Fields

http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/zoo00/zoo00763.htm

*

South Side Irish Song ( Click my post title for the sweet sounds of Terry McEldowney!)

Written by Tom Walsh, Tom Black and Terry McEldowney

We're the Windy City Irish-where the craic is always best
Where every day is Paddy's Day and everyone's a guest
If you're Irish on the North Side or Irish on the West
Welcome to the South Side come join our Irish Fest!

(Chorus) We're the South Side Irish as our fathers were before
We come from the Windy City and we're Irish to the core
From Bridgeport to Beverly from Midway to South Shore
We're the South Side Irish-Let's sing it out once more!
Our parents came from Mayo, from Cork and Donegal.
We come from Sabina, St. Kilian's and St. Gall
St. Leo, Visitation, Little Flower and the rest.
The South Side parishes are mighty-they're the best!

Chorus

We live on the South Side-Mayor Daley lived here too
The Greatest Irish Leader that Chicago ever knew
he was always proud of his South Side Irish roots!
So here's to Hizzonor to his memory we'll be true.

We sing the songs our fathers sang when they were growing up
Rebel songs of Erin's Isle in South Side Irish Pubs
and when it comes to baseball-we have two favorite clubs
The Go-Go White Sox... and whoever plays the Cubs!

Government Option in Health, or Anything - Check out this Historical Gem!

On the way into Leo, I listened to Better Government Association( BGA) Softball Andy Shaw toss Softballs to Congresswoman Jan 'I-Spy-The Turk' Schakowsky.

Forty Watt Jan bubbled and squeaked with delight about the Health Care Reform Snowe-Job yesterday. Jan and other really deep thinkers will continue to push a government health care option down American throats, until the upchuck of voter outrage changes Congress.

The Commies under Stalin ordered that a monster of a bomber be built - kind of like our Democratic Congress pushing a monstrosity of a Health Care Bill - in full breathless 'It's A EMERGENCY!!!!' mode.

Here is a fine example of the Government Option in History.

Second and final in our series of posts today about very big things is this Soviet K-7 bomber, which dates from 1930s, before jet propulsion. As you can see by the tiny little people in the bottom right, this thing is vast - 28 metres long and 53m wing-to-wing. It weighed 38 tonnes when loaded.

It carried 120 passengers within wings which were 2.3m thick. Melded from chrome-molybdenum steel, the design originally called for six engines, but when built, a seventh had to be added. It first flew in August 1933, but crashed that November, killing 15 people. Two more were ordered, but the project was cancelled before they could be delivered.

Click my post titke for more.


Built in Russia during the 1930s, it flew 11 times before crashing and
killing 15 people.

The designer, Konstantin Kalinin, wanted to build two more planes but the
project was scrapped.

Later, Stalin had Kalinin executed. Next time -Read the Job Description!

Evidently, it was not good to fail on an expensive project under Stalin. Evidently.

It's got ( it has, Ms. Sullivan, it has - I am in south side mode, thank you!) propellers on the back of the wings, too. You can count 12 engines
facing front.

The size would be equivalent to the Empire State Building on its side,
with cannons. Think Secretary Napolitano in a thong bikini.

And you think the 747 was big... not only a bunch of engines but check out
the cannons the thing was carrying. Can not have too many cannons.

In the 1930s the Russian army was obsessed by the idea of creating huge
planes and executing millions of people.

At that time of design, it was proposed to have as many propellers as possible to
help carrying those huge flying fortresses into the air, jet propulsion has
not been implemented yet.

Not many photos were saved from those times because of the high secrecy
levels of such projects and because a lot of time has already passed.

Still, on the attached photos you can see one such plane - a heavy bomber
K-7. Too big to fail? - Oh, I don't think so! Failed Hugely, Murial!

Imagine what these dopes could have done with a grammar school bake sale?


Can you imagine what it would be like sitting in this thing when those
cannons go off? It would be like being a guest on the Ed Schultz Show.

BTW - What is BGA Softball Andy Shaw doing on WLS? Andy grab some real crooks? How'd you miss ACORN, Genius?



Huge Hat Tip to my California Patriot Pal Mike McQuade! Updated link and Hat Tip to R. Torrence for more on this monstrosity of Government Design.
Here -
http://www.truthorfiction.com/rumors/k/k7bomber.htm

Carly Simon Sues Starbuck's 'Spresso Swillers Scorn Stax of Wax by Star with a Mouth Like a Firebucket

From Rolling Stone - no less ( clique me post title) and check out this comment*!

Hag-like has-been, Carly Simon is a suing a coffee shop because her records are not selling all that well.

Carly Simon was the hippie chick who hooked up with Mick, Cat, Sweet Baby Ray, er James, Warren, Frank, Eddie Carroll ( three times at Keegan's Pub), the 1973 Leo High School Basketball Champs, USS Daniel A. Joy(DE 585), the fat Greek who ran the Fields on Wood Street & 79th Street ( "Ged Oudda Hee Leo Shea! Mollacka! Leo U Leedle Bastahd!" and sang some forgetable songs.

She had huge knockers as I recall and a mouth like a firebucket. De Gustibus Non Est Disputandem.

Now the old Harpy is suing Starbucks. Lawd, Lawd.

The Four Tops never disappointed their fans; nor did Mitch Ryder.

*One Wag Weird Waldo got in this lick before any one else!

WeirdoWaldo | 10/13/2009, 12:43 pm ESTNow she really has some clouds in her coffee!!

Obama Learns Russian -"Nyet!'

Three weeks after giving the store away (Czechs, Poles, Lithuanians, Georgians - Europe) on the missile defense system, four days after receiving the Nobel Peace Prize and swell Atta Boy from Vlad Putin, President Obama learned the meaning of Nyet.

“At the current stage, all forces should be thrown at supporting the negotiating process,” he said. “Threats, sanctions, and threats of pressure in the current situation, we are convinced, would be counterproductive.”

While Mr. Lavrov’s skepticism about sanctions is not new, his comments came just three weeks after President Obama canceled an antimissile defense system in Eastern Europe that Russia had strongly objected to, raising hopes of cooperation on Iran. Two weeks ago, President Dmitri A. Medvedev told President Obama that “in some cases, sanctions are inevitable.” Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin, who was in China on a trade mission Tuesday and missed Mrs. Clinton, has spoken out against using punitive measures against Tehran.

Jimmy the Two Headed Boy could see that one coming. President Obama is Jimmy Carter in Hart, Schaftner & Marx.

Rev. Jesse Jackson Will Pay Fenger Parents!!!!!! For Real? He Says they Must Be Paid!

The Operation PUSH leader suggests, in the meantime, that parents from Altgeld Gardens be hired to safely ensure student safety to and from school.

In a bold and unfamiliar move, Rev. Jesse Jackson says that parents 'must be hired to ensure student safety!" The Rev is sincere. He's paying? Lord Save Us From All Harm!

The REV is bucking up! He Rides the Bus! The Bus Stops Here, Y'all! The Bus is Bucks! Bucks Back Bold Boycotters! Boycott Brutality! Bucks Buck Brutality! Buck Me!

Rev. Jesse Jackson is paying parents to patrol! He can not mean anything less . . .you think? . . . and folks call him a race-baiting phony!

A Priest Hits a Rabbi

An Irish priest and a Rabbi


A middle aged south side Irish priest and a young Rabbi get into a car accident on Western Ave. Father Marty O'Hara of St. Philerup Parish of Over -By- There T-boned Rabbi Ezrah Mendel of Temple Bar Beth Israel from Out-by-Flossmoor at 108th street when the Rabbi was pulling out of DiCola's Fish.


Both clerics get out of their cars and stumble over to the fish market parking lot.

Rabbi Ezrah says, "My God, What a wreck!"

Father Marty asks him, "Are you all right, Rabbi?"

You see they had met at an inter-faith breakfast at St. Nick's Greek Orthodox on 103d this summer.

Then, the dazed, bruised and wronged Rabbi Mendel responds, "Just a little shaken."

The Canaryville raised priest pulls a Half Dog of Powers Irish Whiskey from the deep right-hand pocket of his De La Salle Meteors Windbreaker and says, "Here, drink some of this - it will calm your nerves."

Rabbi Ezrah takes the flask and drinks it down and says, "Well, what are we going to tell the police?"

"Well," The formerly red-headed Stiff-colar says, "I don't know what you're gonna say to the Bulls, Bub - But I wasn't the one drinkin'."

. . . The Blue Lights rushed down Western.



Teasing hurts . . . but it's funny as Hell!

Max Weismann's Letter to Secretary Arne Duncan - Right America's Moral Compass With Great Ideas

Secretary Arne Duncan
United States Secretary of Education
LBJ Education Building, Room 7W311
400 Maryland Avenue, SW
Washington, DC 20202

Dear Secretary Duncan:
I reside in Chicago and I am a well known moral philosopher in the field education and I am the protégé of Dr. Mortimer J. Adler.
.
U.S. Attorney General Holder: "We want to listen to educators, parents, and experts in the field, and find out the best ideas for addressing this urgent problem. We're not interested in just scratching the surface or focusing on generalities, and as we delve into this problem we're not going to protect any sacred cows. We're here to learn firsthand what's happening on our streets so we can devise effective solutions."

As long as you treat violence, drug/alcohol addiction, vicious behavior, etceteras as the problem, instead as a symptom of a moral problem, you are not really addressing the crisis.

Whenever there is something bad or wrong in our communities, cities, states, it is because we (citizens & parents) let it get that way.

Most Americans have lost their moral compass and we are in lock-step with the cultural trajectory of ancient Rome.
When the word education is used today, vocation is meant. Only a true liberal education can save us and that is not even a guarantee.

Our schools are not turning out young people prepared for the high office and the duties of citizenship in a democratic republic. Our political institutions cannot thrive, they may not even survive, if we do not produce a greater number of thinking citizens, from whom some statesmen of the type we had in the eighteenth century might eventually emerge. We are, indeed, a nation at risk, and nothing but radical reform of our schools can save us from impending disaster. Whatever the price we must pay in money and effort to do this, the price we will pay for not doing it will be much greater.

Cordially,

Max Weismann,
President and co-founder with Mortimer Adler, Center for the Study of The Great Ideas and Chairman, The Great Books Academy (3,000+ students)

Cc: Eric Holder
Mayor Richard M. Daley

Nobel Speech by William Faulkner - Read it, Mr. President

At Stockholm in 1950, an American writer accepted the Nobel Prize for Literature. It is one of the greatest speeches in human history. I taught this to my students. I hope one of President Obama's teachers presented this to him. William Faulkner -American.

I feel that this award was not made to me as a man, but to my work--a life's work in the agony and sweat of the human spirit, not for glory and least of all for profit, but to create out of the materials of the human spirit something which did not exist before. So this award is only mine in trust. It will not be difficult to find a dedication for the money part of it commensurate with the purpose and significance of its origin. But I would like to do the same with the acclaim too, by using this moment as a pinnacle from which I might be listened to by the young men and women already dedicated to the same anguish and travail, among whom is already that one who will some day stand where I am standing.

Our tragedy today is a general and universal physical fear so long sustained by now that we can even bear it. There are no longer problems of the spirit. There is only one question: When will I be blown up? Because of this, the young man or woman writing today has forgotten the problems of the human heart in conflict with itself which alone can make good writing because only that is worth writing about, worth the agony and the sweat. He must learn them again. He must teach himself that the basest of all things is to be afraid: and, teaching himself that, forget it forever, leaving no room in his workshop for anything but the old verities and truths of the heart, the universal truths lacking which any story is ephemeral and doomed--love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice. Until he does so, he labors under a curse. He writes not of love but of lust, of defeats in which nobody loses anything of value, and victories without hope and worst of all, without pity or compassion. His griefs grieve on no universal bones, leaving no scars. He writes not of the heart but of the glands.

Until he learns these things, he will write as though he stood among and watched the end of man. I decline to accept the end of man. It is easy enough to say that man is immortal because he will endure: that when the last ding-dong of doom has clanged and faded from the last worthless rock hanging tideless in the last red and dying evening, that even then there will still be one more sound: that of his puny inexhaustible voice, still talking. I refuse to accept this. I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal, not because he alone among creatures has an inexhaustible voice, but because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance. The poet's, the writer's, duty is to write about these things. It is his privilege to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past. The poet's voice need not merely be the record of man, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail.

(emphases my own)

Mayor Daley Follows Eric Zorn's "Civility of Abortion Rule"

The mayor said protesters can express their opinions but “should not harass and scream and yell” at people going into medical facilities. “There has to be some civility left in our society," he said.

When a reporter noted that some aldermen voted against the measure, citing their religious beliefs, Daley, who is Catholic, said, “My religion is very personal.”

The mayor's decision to sign instead of veto the abortion protester ordinance comes as his office today said it would halt a telephone survey it was conducting on the controversial ordinance.

Religion is so very personal that it must shut up and be civil! There are Abortions being demanded by American Progressives.

Mayor Daley is only following the admonition of Eric Zorn's Change of Subject Guide to Civil Abortions.

So Civil! Civility demands that we toss $ 500,000 at a school to dole out to activists and Cease Fire boondogglers, when a child has his head caved in by a plank and that when Catholics try to prevent a child from having its skull crushed by a "First Do-No-Harm' physician with a Hegelian Absolute sensibility - Catholics and others must not speak. Keep a Civil Tongue!


Eric Zorn will always take the Progressive Hegelian Absolute over the doctrinal and tribal convictions of citizens who see Abortion to be the killing of children. The very best American People -Margaret Sanger, Roger Baldwin, Studs Terkel, Gloria Steinem, Bill Maher, Keith Olbermann and Mayor Daley jettison religious conviction for an Absolute that requires the death of a child.

Why only this week Eric Zorn warned Mayor Daley and Mayor Daley jumped!

Foes of abortion-rights in Chicago ought to be relieved to know that they'll continue to have the First Amendment right to "protest, counsel, shout, implore, dissuade, persuade, educate, inform and distribute literature" on the sidewalks outside abortion clinics, despite new restrictions imposed on them in a measure passed Wednesday by the City Council.

They're not.

Instead they're mounting protests and threatening lawsuits claiming the new ordinance infringes on their freedom of speech because it forbids them from getting up in the faces of patients and employees at the doors of the clinics.

Specifically, the law creates a 50-foot buffer zone around entrances to all medical buildings. Protesters still are allowed inside that zone, but can no longer come within 8 feet of people going in and out for the purpose of approaching them to offer counseling, education, prayer, opprobrium or leaflets that would fall under the loose heading of protest statements.

It is Civil to Choose to Crush a Child's Skull and Suck it from a Woman's Womb. There are T-Shirts ( sold at all of the recent Democratic National Conventions - in Hot Pink no less) that attest to the civility of Abortion.

The City Council's 'Bubble Law' that keeps Anti-Abortion far away from women getting a very civil reception at Planned Parenthood Abortion Mills and Counselling Centers is just the ticket for the Civilized Act of Killing Children in the Womb.

You see it is all about the Absolute Will of the Progressive that is important - the Will to Kill that Child in Woman's Womb is only an adjunct of the Absolute Will - This Absolute nullifies religion. It nullifies the universality of literature ( Deconstruction & etc.) God's Law becomes merely 'Your God's Law.' The same logic moves Progressives to weep unashamedly over the maltreatment of dogs and laugh uproariously at the convictions and courage of Abortion protestors. They must be silenced.

Mayor Daley's balanced political tight-rope walking requires the tight ropes ratcheted up by the Progressives who can absolutely move a crowd of activists to fill a City Council Chamber -can't have that. Keep a Civil Tongue! We Have an Abortion to do!

It is easier to insult the core beliefs of the majority of citizens who do not have the time, nor the level of inherent incivility to fill a City Council Chamber.

The Civilized Smashing of a Baby's Head makes perfect political sense - for now.


http://blogs.chicagotribune.com/news_columnists_ezorn/2009/10/bubble.html

Rio Names President Obama 2016 Decathalon Winner

Nobel Prize tosser Thorbjørn Jagland* declared "You, sir, are the World's Greatest Athlete"

Mooching a Square! Gold!

The First Wright Pitch! Gold!

Pitch Too Mah Loo! Gold!

Toss Like a Girl in Moms Jeans! Gold!

Virtual Hoops! Gold!

The Hurdle Stretch! Gold!

Paw Shake! Gold!

The Hokey-Pokey! Gold!

The Oprah Carry! Gold!

The Sharpton Finger Poke! Gold!

* This guy Jagland - The President's Nobel Chinaman- headed up the Herring Choker ACORN back in the day - dig this:

Also in 1998, four leaders and treasurers of Oslo AUF were convicted of fraud and jailed as part of the Workers' Youth League membership scandal. They were found to have filed excessive membership numbers in order to receive increased municipal grants, and the court case revealed that most youth parties and their leaders had been engaging in this practice since the 1970s.[27] Jagland testified in the case and said it was not necessarily wrong to "advance" money for memberships, provided the members in question reimburse this fee later on. But he did testify that it was unacceptable to transfer money from AUF's main bank account to pay for membership fees. When pressed by the prosecutor, he also agreed that membership numbers were too high when he was the leader of AUF. In his defense, he said if AUF were to follow the law too rigidly, they would only have ended up with a quarter of the membership numbers that the Norwegian Young Conservatives operated with. Jagland has later said to the court that AUF should have received even more subsidies, referring to some of the other political youth parties that used similar methods for calculating membership numbers.[28]

Nobel! Dynamite! Mr. Jagland Attests the Strength of the Award!

Thorbjorn Jagland, the chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee and a former prime minister of Norway, said the president had already contributed enough to world diplomacy and international understanding to earn the award.

"We are not awarding the prize for what may happen in the future, but for what he has done in the previous year,” Mr. Jagland said. “We would hope this will enhance what he is trying to do.” The prize comes as Mr. Obama faces considerable challenges at home. On the domestic front, he is trying to press Congress to pass major legislation overhauling the nation’s health care system. On the foreign policy front, he is wrestling with declining support in his own party for the war in Afghanistan. The White House is engaged in an internal debate over whether to send more troops there, as Mr. Obama’s commanding general has requested.

NYT

Mr. Jagland - aptly named! That same rock-solid logic awarded $500,000 to Fenger High School for the honor of Derrion Alberts getting his head whacked in with a plank. You guys are on the same page and we all can expect more of the same.

Congratulations President Obama! That one was Easy! Copenhagen was tough, but Oslo was a Breeze! Eleven days into your Presidency and nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize!

Hat Tip to the scholarly Mark Rhoads:

206 people were nominated for the prize by the deadline of Feb. 1, 2009 when Mr. Obama had been in office just eleven days. But today it was announced in Oslo, Norway that President Barack Obama won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize for "his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples," the Norwegian Nobel Committee said, citing his "outreach to the Muslim world and attempts to curb nuclear proliferation." The great man had done all these miracles in just eleven days?

Illinois Review

TR had to calm down Imperial Japan and Czarist Russia. Woodrow Wilson had to go out build a League of Nations - damn near killed . Jimmy Carter . . .what'd he do, exactly? Al Gore melted our Cold, Cold Hearts! Nobel Peace Prize in Eleven Days! Kids, pay attention!

Mmmm; Mmmm; Mmmm!


http://illinoisreview.typepad.com/illinoisreview/2009/10/president-wins-nobel-peace-prize-for-his-first-11-days-in-office.html?cid=6a00d834515c5469e20120a62871ea970c

Gen. Tom Gerrity Leo Man: All Veterans Invited to Leo High School -Nov.6th 2009 at 11AM

All Veterans, Law Enforcement and Firefighter members, please join the Students, Staff and Alumni of Leo High School for the

Veterans Observance at Leo High School
7901 S. Sangamon Street
Chicago, IL 60620
(773) 224-9600

Call to Colors, Flag Raising, Honors will be announced at 11AM by the bagpipes of David McKee ( Leo '46) - Pipe Master of the Stockyard Kilty Band.

The Leo War Memorial was constructed by the Leo Alumni Association and dedicated by General Thomas P. Gerrity* in 1965. Just the day before the Fall of Bataan in April, 1942, a group of American and Filipino pilots ( among them future President Carlos Romulo) escaped from Bataan by flying out a Grumman Amphibious Plane that they had repaired.

Lt. Tom Gerrity who had served as a bomber pilot, fighter pilot, ground liaison to Gen. Wainwright and infantryman on Bataan organized the repair and flight of the aviators. They would evade Japanese naval and air units and make it to Dole Field on Mindanao where they would meet Gen. Rosie O'Donnell ( not to be confused with the contemporary icon) and fly to Australia.

Gerrity would fly B-25 Missions against the Japanese in the Bismark Sea; sink 28 ships; and become a leading force in American Air Power. Gen. Thomas P. Gerrity, USAF.

General Thomas Patrick Gerrity was a United States Air Force general and was commander of the Air Force Logistics Command at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio.

Gerrity was born in Harlowton, Montana, in 1913. His family moved to Chicago, Illinois when he was a child. He graduated from St.(sic) Leo High School in 1930, attended Tilden Tech and later the Armour Institute, now the Illinois Institute of Technology, all three schools located in Chicago. He entered military service in August 1939 as an aviation cadet, completed flying school in May 1940 and was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Army Air Corps Reserve.

His first assignment was with the 15th Bombardment Squadron at Barksdale Field, Louisiana, and in October 1940 he was transferred to the 17th Bombardment Squadron at Savannah Field, Georgia. While stationed at Savannah, he attended Armstrong Junior College.

He went to the Philippine Islands in October 1941 with the 17th Bombardment Squadron and was assigned to the Air Ground Support Section of the Luzon Forces. In February 1942 he joined the 21st Pursuit Squadron at Bataan, transferring in April to the 13th Bombardment Squadron for duty in Australia. He assumed command of the 90th Bombardment Squadron on New Guinea in August 1942. During this period he flew 49 combat missions.

In November 1942 Gerrity was assigned to the Army Air Forces Materiel Command at Wright Field, Dayton, Ohio, as project officer on B-25, B-26, B-29, B-32, YB-35 and B-36 bombardment aircraft. During this assignment he attended the Command and General Staff School at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. After graduation in October 1945 he resumed his former position at Wright Field, and in January 1946 became chief of the Bomber Branch in the Aircraft and Missile Section. While Chief of the Bomber Branch he attended the advanced management course at Harvard University. Later he was named chief of the Aircraft and Missile Section.

In March 1950 Gerrity assumed command of the 11th Bombardment Group, Strategic Air Command at Carswell Air Force Base, Texas. He was transferred to Headquarters U.S. Air Force, Washington, D.C., in March 1953 as director of procurement and production engineering in the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Materiel and later was named assistant for production programming in the same office.
Gerrity was transferred to the Air Materiel Command in August 1957 and assumed command of the Oklahoma City Air Materiel Area at Tinker Air Force Base, Oklahoma. In July 1960 he was appointed commander of the Ballistic Missile Center of the Air Materiel Command at Los Angeles, California. As a result of the reorganization of the Air Research and Development Command and the Air Materiel Command into the Air Force Systems Command in April 1961, General Gerrity became the first commander of the Ballistic Systems Division in Inglewood, California.

In July 1962 Gerrity became deputy chief of staff for systems and logistics at Headquarters U.S. Air Force, Washington, D.C. He also served as senior Air Force member, Military Staff Committee, United Nations. In August 1967 he became commander of the Air Force Logistics Command at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio.
His decorations included the Air Force Distinguished Service Medal with oak leaf cluster, Silver Star, Air Medal with oak leaf cluster, Army Commendation Medal, and the Purple Heart. He received an honorary doctor of humanities degree from the University of Tulsa, Oklahoma. Gerrity died on February 24, 1968, and was buried in Arlington National Cemetery, next to his wife, Margaret B. Gerrity.[2]

Leo High School site of Veterans Observance 11/06/09 at 11AM

Leo High School, Leo Alumni Association, The Burbank Marine League Color Guard, Windy City Veterans, The Veterans Leadership Program, American Legion Giles Post #87& especially Mrs Rochelle Crump of Chicago Department of Child and Family Services will hold a special Veterans Memorial Observance at the Leo War Memorial in the school's courtyard. , Leo High School President Robert W. Foster & Principal Phil Mesina ( USAF ret.) and Vice Principal Frank Wilson (USMC ret.) will direct the observance which features presentations by Veterans, wreath - laying by Richard Furlong, President of the Leo Alumni Association. Leo Man David McKee ('46) always pipes in the colors and opens the ceremonies on the Irish War Pipes.

Leo High School erected a memorial in 1965 to the many Leo men who have died serving
America in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam and the Windy City Veterans of Chicago
updated the engraved names and constructed permanent lighting for the memorial. Last year more than two hundred persons joined the 220 Leo students in honoring America's war fallen. The War Memorial was dedicated by General Thomas Gerrity USAF ( Leo 1930) - a hero of the Fall of Bataan who escaped to Australia and returned to destroy 28 Japanese ships from his B-25 in the Bismark Sea and New Guinea. (click my post tite for more on Leo Man General Thomas P. Gerrity!

John Fardy (Leo 1940) was posthumously awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for his heroic sacrifice during World War II. Mr. John Houlihan (Leo ?41) served in the Marine Corps as did Mr. Dick Prendergast and twenty (20) more of his classmates from the Class of '43. Many Leo men have been decorated for heroism, including Mr. Jim Farrell (Leo '61), Mr. Jack Farnan, (Leo '63), and Mr. Jim Furlong ( Leo '65), all members of the Leo Hall of Fame and highly decorated Vietnam Veterans. The late Mr.Thomas Stack (Leo '61) organized the first welcome home to the Veterans of Vietnam. Mr.Tom Stack won two Silver Stars and three Bronze Stars in Vietnam.

Another highly decorated Vietnam Veteran, Gen. George Muellner, USAF (ret.) graduated from Leo, flew more than 600 combat fighter missions, commanded many fighter commands, and developed the STAR communications weapon system for Operation Desert Storm. Gen. Muellner is now the VP for Boeing Corporation's Stealth Projects.

The Veterans Memorial Observance will be held in the school courtyard located on 79th Street. The Public is invited to share in this Observance.

Poetic Justice - Poetry Wants No Parole for Norman Porter

A Louse, is louse, is louse. Worked for Gertie Stein. Poetry is the means by which man best articulates what he sees, feels, thinks, tastes and wills. Poetry is math and music.

I was delighted to read that Poetry.com is on the record against parole for a double murderer, fugitive and unrepentant louse - Norman Porter. Norman Porter murdered two people in the 1960's in New England. In 1975, Governor Mike Dukakis communted one conviction.

Today the Chicago Tribune glossed over the horrors committed upon people by Porter. That is what a newspaper wrapped up in the subtleties of the Northwestern Wrongful Conviction and There But for Fortune Industry does with stories like Norman Porter's.
You see Norman Porter skipped out on the law and hid in Chicago where he wrote poems as JJ.Jameson. How could a poet be bad?

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-ap-ma-fugitivecaught,0,4747496.story

Porter is up for parole out East .

A powerful voice in Poetry Chicago Poetry.com slams the louse Porter. The newsies whine that Porter has friends in Chicago - Well, Buckos, Poetry is not a friend of this murdering louse.

Poetry.com editor says this -

Norman Porter refuses to take responsibility for his own crimes. He also refuses to take responsibility for the people he hurt in Chicago. Even in the movie Killer Poet, when he was interviewed, Porter claimed the only thing he lied about to his friends in Chicago was his name. Really? How about when he told us he had two daughters? How about when he told us he was in the streets protesting the Vietnam War in the 60s and 70s, when he was really behind bars for brutally murdering someone? How about not warning those who put him up for the night that they were aiding and abetting a fugitive cop-killer? It's not hard to see why Porter shouldn't be paroled. It's simple. He committed the crime, now he has to do the time.

It is also not about how much it costs to keep someone in prison. Yes, prisons are expensive and, yes, some people should be released to keep the cost down, like those charged with minor drug offenses, for example. But in Norman Porter's case, we are talking about a man who was sentenced to two life terms for two brutal murders, who received every bit of leniency and mercy the system could offer, way more mercy than most prisoners get, and who then cold-heartedly took advantage of that mercy to sign himself out of prison to go take a walk, only to betray those who trusted him with that right. If I had $48,000 to spare every year, I would personally fund Porter's imprisonment in order to keep this malicious, murderous, lying manipulator off the streets.

Let us not forget that when Norman Porter was on the lam he was not living a "law-abiding" life. Every minute of every day of every year he was free he was committing a crime by being a fugitive wanted by the law. This big fiction that the "friends of Norman Porter" are creating, about how he was such a generous and caring person who didn't get in any trouble while he was on the lam, is just hogwash. Norman Porter was nothing but trouble and for some reason we celebrated that trouble. We celebrated that trouble because we didn't know who he really was. I am wondering how many of us would have sat there and watched his final reading at Coffee Chicago, when he was so high on narcotics that he couldn't even speak, if we knew that he was really Norman Porter from Massachusetts. How many people at the church would have trusted him with their kids if they knew? We were not given the opportunity to decide whether or not he was a trustworthy person, because he sold us a great big lie. We were not given the chance to decide whether or not he was worthy of our friendship. His life in Chicago, the lies he told, the relationships he ruined, and his destructive behavior were all crimes that he shouldn't have been given the opportunity to commit.

Yours truly,

CJ Laity
ChicagoPoetry.com
Still fighting the good fight!

A bit long for gnomic verse, but I like it! Well done, Mr. Laity!