NPR Approves Catholic Women Wiccan Worship as Wonderful

The Archdiocese of Chicago is denying burial in a Catholic cemetery to a woman ordained as a priest.

Chicago Public Radio May 18, 2010

Question why don't Catholics name their male children Luther, Calvin, and Zwingli?

Because they were not Catholics! They ( above named) jumped ship; Quit; Heroically departed; caused Schism; split; took it on the heel and toe; bounced; caught the fast train on a slow track; took a powder; took the air. . . I could go on, but then I'd be quilty of being a Progressive Pain in the Dupa. Can't have that. I must get to the point - something Chicago Public Radio and every Progressive never seems to do.

Chicago Public Radio is not a friend of Catholics, nor is NPR, nor is WTTW.

Public Broadcasting in all of its manifestations is cozy with Abortion/Gay Lesbian Bisexual and Transgender stuff/ Reversing the Chicago River/Lawsuit Lotto Lawyers like G. Flint Taylor, Jon Loevy and Catholic Bashing Ambulance Chaser Jeff Anderson.

Chicago Public Radio huff and puffed about a poor woman who died of cancer and believed hersel;f to be an ordained Catholic Priest. At best she was delusional as worst a schismatic. I am a prosaic man. I believe that the poor thing took Progressive nonsense to heart. Chicago Public Radio is a humorless joke - always was and always will be.

Here is the NPR Propaganda piece which should be entitled - Damn Those Catholics! We Do!

And I'm Steve Inskeep.

Outside Washington, D.C. in a suburb called Falls Church, Virginia, about 40 Roman Catholics gathered this week to hear mass. They were not in a church and the person delivering the sermon was not a man. Fifteen American women claim they were ordained as Catholic priests this summer. Church leaders say the women are heretics and may be excommunicated.

NPR's Rachel Martin reports.

RACHEL MARTIN reporting:

The congregants mill around the driveway at the home of Bridget Mary Meehan. They sip iced tea and make small talk. Some wear gold cross pendants. Others carry well-worn bibles. When it's time to start, they walk two by two into the backyard accompanied by Meehan's 81-year-old father on the saxophone.

(Soundbite of song, Amazing Grace)

MARTIN: As insects buzz in the trees, 58-year-old Bridget Mary, wrapped in white robes, delivers her message to the ad-hoc congregation.

Ms. BRIDGET MARY MEEHAN: Jesus was a rule-breaker. Jesus challenged the religious leaders, so do we. All are welcome at this table.

MARTIN: She says a prayer over a plate of bread and a glass of wine, then issues a sacramental blessing to each person who comes forward. Meehan and fourteen other women say they were ordained as priests or deacons through two ceremonies earlier this summer, one in Europe and another in Pennsylvania. The women say their ordinations were conducted by three European women and these women were ordained in a secret ceremony by male bishops who are in good standing with the Vatican, which makes all their subsequent ordinations legitimate. For Bridget Mary Meehan and the other self-described priests this is the realization of a lifelong calling.

Ms. MEEHAN: I feel called to be a Roman Catholic priest. It's in my DNA. I'm Irish born, Irish Catholic. We're here because we love the Catholic Church and we're called to make it a better church, to make it a church where we're all equal, women and men. So we are really practicing holy disobedience to an unjust law.

MARTIN: According to canon law, only men can be ordained as priests and conduct the primary rituals of the Catholic Church. Phil Lawler, an editor with Catholic World News, says the women's claim to ordination makes a mockery of Catholic doctrine.

Mr. PHIL LAWLER (Editor, Catholic World News): They do tremendous harm, first of all to themselves and to whatever people are following them into this sort of break from the church. And they do a tremendous harm in terms of muddying the water and confusing people about what the Catholic Church is and does.

MARTIN: Three of the women received letters from their bishops saying their actions are grounds for automatic dismissal from the church. Archbishop Timothy Dolan of Milwaukee wrote a letter to the Vatican suggesting all the women be excommunicated. Bridget Mary Meehan has written several popular books on religion and spirituality. Her Catholic publisher has now dropped her, saying Meehan's actions put her at odds with the church.

Dolores Leckey is with the Woodstock Theological Society at Georgetown University. She says the women have not only distanced themselves from mainstream Catholicism but their actions undermine real improvements in the church on women's rights.

Ms. DOLORES LECKEY (Senior Fellow, Woodstock Theological Society, Georgetown University): Twenty-five years ago, women were not in the positions of leadership that they are today. And they have a voice and an influence on what happens in the actual day-to-day life of the church.

MARTIN: But for many at this backyard mass, like Barbara Fiske(ph), the all-male priesthood is the last front in the fight for gender equality in the church.

Ms. BARBARA FISKE: It's a day of rejoicing. I never thought I'd see it in my lifetime, but I am happy to be able to rejoice today.

MARTIN: Her friend, Mary Lou Sleevey(ph), shows off her t-shirt emblazoned with the word heretic and a list of names including Joan of Arc and Galileo.

What does that mean?

Ms. MARY LOU SLEEVEY: That means some of us are considered fringe.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Ms. SLEEVEY: You know, you...

MARTIN: Is that a bad word?

Ms. SLEEVEY: Not for me it isn't.

(Soundbite of laughter)

MARTIN: A study out of Georgetown University in 2000 showed that 70 percent of American Catholics surveyed would support women priests if the church approved. Religious scholars say that's not likely to happen anytime soon.

Rachel Martin, NPR News, Washington.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5662518

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jeepers.

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

Voila! Rhodes on Truth!

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

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

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

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

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

Here is the simple proposition I was operating under:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

*

Again, my simple proposition is this:

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

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

-

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

Knockout! Not Mike, Jamillah - A Marriage of True Minds!

I met Mike Joyce when I went to work here at Leo High School in 1995. Mike helped coach football and served on the Leo Advisory Board.

He developed a Boxing Program here at Leo that has produced half a score of Golden Gloves Champions, Heavyweight Pro Thomas Hayes ( 27-1) and the Captain of Team U.S.A. Lamar Fenner. More importantly, hundreds of young men developed confidence and dignity in the Square Ring.

Mike Joyce cared for an octogenarian boxing legend, Hermann Mills. Mike took the fighter into his home; bought his clothes, food, medicine and drove him to and from American Legion bingo three nights a week. As a lawyer, Mike helped every person in a jackpot out of the particular jamb. When my wife died in 1998, Mike Joyce helped me through years of self-pity, grief, and folly.

He is the smartest person I have ever met and that includes Steve Allen.

Somehow, this great hearted pug, who used to pull neighborhood kids through Morgan Park streets who attached ropes to the bumper of his car while wearing roller blades, met a stunningly beautiful and gracious girl -Jamillah Ali. Talk about beauty and the beast.

These two talented and generous people bonded in marriage. God bless them!

From Sneed's column:

" 'The Champ' said, 'Yes,' and so did Jamillah," said Joyce's brother, Kevin, who told Sneed: "No one ever thought Mike would get married. For the last two years, he's been the happiest anyone has ever seen him. At the wedding, Mike said, "Muhammad, you'll always be 'The Champ,' but 'The Greatest Ever' is my mother, Mary Joyce, and she's going to pass that title on to my wife, your daughter."

Ali, who suffers from Parkinson's disease, was able to walk his daughter down the aisle at the beachside wedding before 140 friends and dozens of onlookers at the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Naples. The wedding was performed by the Rev. George Clements.

"Muhammad Ali sat throughout the whole reception and invited people to come up and take pictures with him," a wedding source said.

Joyce, a former prize fighter known as "Irish Mike Joyce," promotes young boxers and opened a boxing club at his alma mater -- Leo Catholic High School in Auburn Gresham.

"Mike has always been consumed in helping others and has been the best man in at least six weddings," Kevin Joyce said.

Jamillah, one of Ali's family of seven daughters and two sons, works at the Secretary of State's office. Joyce's dad, Jeremiah, was a Chicago alderman for four years and an Illinois state senator for 14 years.

Whether it be a matter of personal relations within a marriage or political initiatives within a peace process, there is no sure-fire do-it-yourself kit.
Seamus Heaney

They'll be fine Seamus!

Michael Posner's American Foreign Policy Gallery

North Korean and Progressive Point of View on American Exceptionalism: Catholic Priest and Military Doctor Torture Asian Baby - probably not historically accurate but really high-minded.

"Part of a mature relationship is that you have an open discussion where you not only raise the other guy’s problems, but you raise your own."
Michael Posner - over matriculated stiff, fawning boot-licking jackass and State Department Chinaman's Pal! Judge Richard "Curb Your Enthusiasm" Posner must be related.

Autre!

"There are not enough Chinamen in the world to stop a fully armed Marine regiment from going where ever they wont to go"- Lewis B. "Chesty" Puller

Chicago's Own Fawning Boot-Licker Michael Posner - Your State Department in Action!

Even MTV is smarter than Michael Posner ( this guy has GOT to be related to Judge Larry David Posner - the guy who doubled down on Ed Vrdolyak). The Hemp smokers at MTV announced this last month -

Ever since MTV finished filming The Real World DC last fall, Housing Complex has wondered what would become of the beautiful red-brick mansion that hosted it. Well, first HealthHIV took the top two floors. Then, it sounded like owner Doug Jemal was wooing a restaurant for the ground level. Today, Bisnow is reporting that the former home of Josh, Callie, and Mike will soon be occupied by a museum devoted to the ongoing horror of forced labor camps in China.. . . The Laogai museum, underwritten by the Yahoo! Human Rights Fund, chronicles the experience of some 40 million people who have passed through the Communist regime’s labor camps since the 1950s, millions of whom have died. Kempton likened it to the Holocaust, which already has a museum in D.C.—except the persecution continues.

“Our museum really should be in Beijing or Shanghai, but can’t be,” Kempton says. “This is a system that is still going on.”

Well, this way, they’re only a few blocks away from the Chinese Embassy.

Crist on a Crunchable! Michael Posner is the Chicago born child of privilege who attended every toney college he could find and mapped out a career of high-moral-indignation at American History i.e. He is a Progressive Darling!!!! Posner is the State Department Jackass who boot-licked the Red Chinese and grovelled out apologies for the State of Arizona.

I wish the over-educated -rather, this over matriculated stiff could have some quiet quality time with the Korean War Veterans of the Burbank Marine Corps League and at the Oak Lawn VFW - open his smarmy yap and then sit back and watch the show. "The Chosin Resevoir was a shameful Trail of Tears for the Heroic Peasant Peoples Army against the running Dog Mercenaries of Capitalism. I'm a Torture Expert, People stop tickling me!!!!!!"

Shorebank Checks for Jan Schakowsky's Hubby - Bob Creamer

"I'm in sort of hour-by-hour contact with them. It's still a bit of a nail-biter, but it's very, very active and they're getting closer to where they need to be," said Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D., Ill.), who has been lobbying for assistance for ShoreBank.

Shorebank - formerly South Shore Bank - did not invest in inner city Catholic high schools: this I know.

Congressman Jan Schakowsky is going flat-out to bail out Shorebank. That's nice. I'll bet it is to say 'thank you.' Maybe Shorebank gave Jan's ex-Con Hubby Bob "The Shank" Creamer check writing privileges. That's pretty tough to get following a stretch in Club Fed for Check Kiting, but, then again, Bob "The Shank" Creamer can waltz into the White House.

What's wrong with that?

Tom Roeser Speculates Specter's Chair

"I sorta kinda hope Specter wins so as to make it easier for Pat Tooney to defeat him in November—but I don’t think that’s possible so we’ll be saying farewell to the biggest phony who ever inveigled the two party system… "

- Tom Roeser

Chilling - not stirred.

Noam Chomsky - The Rodney Dangerfield of the Witless and Humorless

I gotta tell ya, I gotta tell ya!!

Noam Chomsky responds to Israel's Good Sense and Humor

"The young man asked me whether I had ever been denied entry into other countries. I told him that once, to Czechoslovakia, after the Soviet invasion in 1968,"


“By the time I was 16 I had sex once, and VD twice, I tell ya, I tell ya.”

"I could tell my parents hated me. My bath toys were a toaster and a radio."

"I told my psychiatrist that everyone hates me. He said I was being ridiculous - everyone hasn't met me yet."

"I worked in a pet store and people would ask how big I would get."

"Enough about me . . .what you you think of me?"

No Noam - 'T'aint Unusual for Goofs to Get the Old Hyman Roth

Every American Academic goof, doofus and dipstick gets treated like Roman Polanski by grade-inflation pests working in our corporate media. Billy Ayers, Ward Churchill and Noam Chomsky are the gold-standard for academic posing.

Chomsky was a linguist ( semiotic totalitarian) whose brain-pan rubber band snapped decades ago - kind of like former United States Attorney General Ramsey Clark, who sues America at The Hague every time a pigeon flies over his Volvo.

Chomsky is a hot property, because the corporate media ( AP, MSNBC, NYT, ABC, CBS, HBO & etc.) think that his 'Rip America a New One' is cutting edge stuff.

Israel, America's most solid ally, told Noam - No Dice. Noam got the Hyamn Roth-Meyer Lansky heave-ho at Israeli Customs.

American political activist Noam Chomsky, who is an outspoken critic of Israel, has described being denied entry into the West Bank as "unusual."

Palestinian official Mustafa Barghouti had invited the linguist to lecture at the Palestinian Bir Zeit University on Monday.

Chomsky said he had been held up for hours at the Allenby crossing between Jordan and the West Bank on Sunday, and was ultimately denied entry into Palestinian land.

AP

Everybody's worried about stopping terrorism. Well, there's a really easy way: stop participating in it.

Noam Chomsky

Hey ! That they did Noamie!


Them Zionists must have read a few of Noam's tome - you magnificent bastard!

Brava, Ladies!Mother McAuley Spring Instrumental Concert

My beautiful red-headed baby Clare and the String Ensemble of Mother McAuley!

Gershwin, Chopin, Severn, Handel, and Oskielunas were all terated royally by the musicians of Mother McAuley High School. Oskielunas? That's Mother McAuley Senior Sarah Oskielunas; who presented Opus One for piano and string. It was wonderful and it followed the most heroic young woman who coaxed the audience into Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" with what might be one of the most difficult clarinet introductions in any composition - Senior Mighty Mac Mary Claire Reynolds.

My daughter Clare and her pals bowed through three compositions with the beginning strings ensemble.

Mother McAuley is doing it right!

Here is by far one of this low-brow's favorite pieces. I met Leonard Bernstein three times ( 1970,'71, & '73) and each time he acted like a bigger doofus than the year before, but that lad could conduct. I think this version is almost as good as the Chicago Symphony's under Henry Mazer.

The Ascension Sunday with Jazz Great Wes Montgomery and St. Luke

. . . Then he led them out as far as Bethany, and lifting up his hands he blessed them.
While he blessed them, he parted from them, and was carried up into heaven.
And they returned to Jerusalem with great joy,
and were continually in the temple blessing God. Luke 24: 46 - 53

Down here on the ground, we tend to dart our glances and concerns at eye-level -rarely tracking above the horizon. "Nothing down here, folks; it's all about above and beyond."

Faith moves our eyes away from ourselves and somehow carries along with that change in perspective the people we are meant to love.

Happy Ascension Sunday! All the saints who were keeping their eyes locked on the quotidian and the trite are up above the weather and the silliness down here on the ground.

Betty Loren Maltese Should Host Chicago Public Radio

Updated: Friday, 14 May 2010, 9:39 AM CDT
Published : Friday, 14 May 2010, 8:44 AM CDT

FOX Chicago News

Chicago - Former Cicero Town President Betty Loren-Maltese says she wants to pursue a career as a radio talk show host.

Betty Loren-Maltese — the former Cicero town president recently released from prison — is scheduled to co-host on WVON radio Monday. Whatever you think of the idea of yet another felon behind a Chicago radio mike, there's a bright side:

At least she's a woman.

Mary Schmich Chicago Tribune



Agreed! More woman felons are needed on our Chicago airwaves = Fresh Air! NPR for Betty Loren Maltese. I get a huge kick out of Betty! Hell, I'd even drop an envelop stuffed with nickels to support "Listener and Federal Government Sponsored Radio! WBEZ!"

Shoot, Mayor Betty was an employee of the Federal Government and has been thoroughly vetted. She knows the works and I'm not talking about a Palermo's thin Crust - Insider Politics, Systemic Racism, Gay and Lesbian Life Issues, Convicted Radio Hosts

Imagine - if you will:

BLM- "This is ( cough) Fresh Air with Betty Loren Maltese, with my guest WVON Host and former Club Fed Alum Cliff Kelley - Chicago's Gay and Lesbian Friend of the Community Hall of Famer. First off Cliff, I need to ask you this question - it is standard NPR policy and practice - Studs Terkel? Wasn't he a Treasure?"

CK- "That he was, Betty."

BLM- ( Cough, hack) Cliff, ( cough) disgraced Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich gets on WLS every hour on the eights - what's with that? He has not even been convicted and yet a Chicago Radio Station has given him a spot when he wants it -when he wants it."

CK- " Betty it makes you wanna holler and go Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm."

BLM- "Cliff, ( cough, cough, hack) I see see this as an affront to the Gay Lesbian Community, the African American Community, and to women everywhere. Now, I am a breeder, but I stand in solidarity with every oppressed minority.( cough, cough, cough hack) I gotta lay off these Ginny Slims. (cough)

CK -"Betty, I stood the time for doing the crime and there were plenty of others that should have put on DOC jumpsuits, but for race, gender and lifestyle hegemony controlled by whitey."

BLM - "We'll be back ( hack, hack, cough) with more Fresh Air!"

Sponsor Voice Over - "If you are making that first uncomfortable and life-changing move and suing the Chicago Police Department and the Cook County States Attorney because you are in Pontiac State Prison and you'd really like that new Mercedes-Benz G-Class 'an all the Trim that it can hold,G'- speak to the Law Pros at G. Flint Taylor's Peoples Law Office - You will be two-thirds on the way to your Jackpot! Urban Translator available upon request - and a substantial fee."

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2010-04-23/news/ct-met-schmich-0423--20100423_1_radio-host-car-radio-older-women

http://www.glhalloffame.org/index.pl?item=114&todo=view_item

Top Illinois Democrat Tells Scott Lee -"Scat!"

"And then I was told, if they couldn't find anything to put me in jail over, they would still put me in jail. They would make something up to put me in jail. They did not want me on that ticket," Cohen said.

No, it was not party Chairman Michael Madigan or Gov. Quinn, he said.

Sheila Simon*!

Abner Mikva!

Chris Kennedy!

Jan Schakowsky!

Muriel Abbot?

Mae Kennedy Kane!

Wee Michael Quigley!

Wally and the Fat Boys!

Mr. Light Green Smith!

John From Over By Wendy's on Western!

Marvin Muckinfuch!

This be a head scratcher, Y'all! Scott Lee, spill it, Dude! You're killin' us!

*

Ms. Simon, who had been endorsed by Mr. Quinn on Friday, won a vote of the state’s central committee, made up of 38 top Democratic leaders.

Voters selected a Democratic nominee for the lieutenant governor in February: Scott L. Cohen, a pawnbroker and political unknown who had spent $2 million of his own money on his campaign. But, within days of the election Mr. Cohen resigned under pressure from party leaders after questions emerged over a domestic battery charge, unpaid child support and steroid use.

Democratic leaders, who have battled a reputation for cronyism and back-room deals, announced that Mr. Cohen’s replacement would be picked in a manner that seemed to turn its old reputation on its head. All who wished to apply should do so. Résumés would be posted online. Interviews would be done in public.

Among the applicants was an array of expected candidates — state lawmakers, mayors, county board members, convention delegates and former political candidates, including Ms. Simon.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/28/us/politics/28illinois.html

Epithalamion - For Jamillah and Mike: May 15, 2010

Our mortal path only becomes solid and sure footed when another person bonds to us - marriage. Man was meant to travel with a woman; set a path for children. Each of us finds the chemistry sparked by another's love to be the only real purpose that the parade of experiences that strings behind our steps allowed to somehow ignite. I believe that it is God's hand and delicate fingers that crafted this event. Let no man put asunder.

In 16th Century, Ireland an English civil servant met and bonded with the daughter of an aboriginal Irish chieftan - Edmund Spenser and Elizabeth Boyle. All around them the Irish and English were slaughtering one another - yet, marriage elevated the world's most beautiul poetry above the prosaic.

Here are Spenser's beautiful words for tomorrow's bride and groom - my friends Jamillah Ali and Mike Joyce*.

My love is now awake out of her dreame,
And her fayre eyes, like stars that dimmed were
With darksome cloud, now shew theyr goodly beams
More bright then Hesperus his head doth rere.
Come now, ye damzels, daughters of delight,
Helpe quickly her to dight.
But first come ye, fayre Houres, which were begot,
In Joves sweet paradice, of Day and Night,
Which doe the seasons of the year allot,
And al that ever in this world is fayre
Do make and still repayre.
And ye three handmayds of the Cyprian Queene,
The which doe still adorne her beauties pride,
Helpe to addorne my beautifullest bride:
And as ye her array, still throw betweene
Some graces to be seene:
And as ye use to Venus, to her sing,
The whiles the woods shal answer, and your eccho ring.

Now is my love all ready forth to come:
Let all the virgins therefore well awayt,
And ye fresh boyes, that tend upon her groome,
Prepare your selves, for he is comming strayt.
Set all your things in seemely good aray,
Fit for so joyfull day,
That joyfulst day that ever sunne did see.
Faire Sun, shew forth thy favourable ray,
And let thy lifull heat not fervent be,
For feare of burning her sunshyny face,
Her beauty to disgrace.
O fayrest Phoebus, father of the Muse,
If ever I did honour thee aright,
Or sing the thing that mote thy mind delight,
Doe not thy servants simple boone refuse,
But let this day, let this one day be myne,

From The Western People - Ballina County Mayo

MAKING the right impression on your prospective father-in-law is always a daunting task, but when the woman of your dreams is a daughter of boxing legend Muhammad Ali it must seem like the bar is set extra high.

Nevertheless, Chicago man Mike Joyce proved himself a heavy-weight in the romance stakes when he whisked Jamillah Ali to Ballina during her trip to Ireland with her father last week where he had co-ordinated a surprise marriage proposal.


Mike, whose grandmother Mary Carey (nee Higgins) hailed from Swinford, had commissioned a stunning white gold diamond Claddagh-themed engagement ring as a surprise for Jamillah, from Ballina jeweller, Joseph Winters, of The Hazel jewellery shop.


Joseph became acquainted with Mike Joyce some years ago through mutual friends in the USA. Mike is a partner in Chicago’s Celtic Boxing Club along with Rossport native Terry Cox. Muhammad Ali also has an interest in the club and Mike has known his daughter, Jamillah, for many years. He always told Joseph Winters that he would one day buy a ring for Jamillah from him. Last week the Ali family travelled to Ireland where Muhammad was made honorary freeman of his ancestral homeplace, Ennis. For Mike it was the perfect opportunity for a marriage proposal. He had been liaising with Joseph for some time in advance of the trip about a ring and Joseph suggested the Claddagh theme because of its Irish associations and the fact that it is the emblem of the Celtic Boxing Club.


Jamilla knew nothing of the conspiracy until Mike brought her to Ballina where they made a very low-key visit to Joseph in The Hazel on Wednesday afternoon, last.


Following some general chit-chat with Joseph, Mike told Jamillah that he wanted to show her something nice whereupon the ring was produced, with Jamillah immediately consenting to be engaged.


Afterwards the happy couple posed for exclusive photographs by photographer Henry Wills for the Western People and met with some of Joseph’s acquaintances in Ballina. The Hazel Jewellers on Tone Street in Ballina is probably the oldest jewellers in the west of Ireland, having been established in 1938 by Joseph’s parents, William and Mary Winters.


Now, Joseph has been joined by his son William who represents the third generation of the family involved in the business.

Honest Ward Healer and the Phony Reformers - John Powers and Jane Addams

I am no fan of Jane Addams. Hull House? Nice. However, I have much greater regard for the man who cared for more Jewish, Italian, Greek and Irish families who lived in the most densely populated Ward in America - the 19th Ward.

The 19th Ward today comprises stately Beverly, as well as working class Morgan Park and Mount Greenwood neighborhoods. In the 19th Century, the 19th Ward took in the near west side where Jews, Greeks and Italians crowded out the Irish around Taylor, Congress, Roosevelt with Halsted as the axis.

Halsted Street is thirty-two miles long, and one of the great thoroughfares of Chicago.... Hull-House once stood in the suburbs, but the city has steadily grown up around it and its site now has corners on three or four foreign colonies. Between Halsted Street and the river live about ten thousand Italians—Neapolitans, Sicilians, and Calabrians, with an occasional Lombard or Venetian. To the south on Twelfth Street are many Germans, and side streets are given over almost entirely to Polish and Russian Jews. Still farther south, these Jewish colonies merge into a huge Bohemian colony, so vast that Chicago ranks as the third Bohemian city in the world. To the northwest are many Canadian-French, clannish in spite of their long residence in America, and to the north are Irish and first-generation Americans. On the streets directly west and farther north are well-to-do English-speaking families, many of whom own their houses and have lived in the neighborhood for years; one man is still living in his old farmhouse.

Jane Addams - Twenty Years at Hull House

Hull House is accepted to be the be-all-and-end -all in Chicago's Social Justice Olympus - it is the Progressive St. Peters.

Hull House at that time it served some impoverished people by offering staged productions of Aeschylus, readings of William Lloyd Garrison, tips on grooming and Bologna sandwiches for pennies a day.

The Alderman of the 19th Ward was John ( Johnny De Pow) Powers, a saloon keeper grafter.

At the time John Powers held its aldermanship, the 19th ward included the area between Van Buren and 12th (now Roosevelt Rd.), and between Loomis and the south branch of the Chicago River. Always a poor immigrant neighborhood, it was adjacent to “Bloody Maxwell,” the famously crime-ridden district just to the south. The Tribune described conditions in the 19th graphically in 1897:

Do the drivers on the wagons indulge less freely in profanity? Do the workmen in the street show love and peace? Halsted street betrays it not. Ewing [now 12th Pl.] and Forquer [now Arthington St.] streets look otherwise. Bunker [now Grenshaw St.] and De Koven streets hide it well. Soiled children play upon the walks. The tin can travels on its endless way. Girls bend low over their work in the sweatshops making shirts at eight cents apiece. Six hundred saloons, twenty for each church in the ward, cast their exhilirating influence over the scene. The only thing bearing indisputable marks of a celestial nature is a Chinese laundry.

When Powers was first elected in 1888, the ward was almost entirely Irish, but in the 1890s and 1900s, Italian immigrants flooded into the neighborhood, and by 1910 the voting population was over 80% Italian. The savvy Irishman Powers managed to hold onto his seat, however, by assiduously incorporating potential Italian rivals into the lower levels of his political organization, who then promoted him to their fellow countrymen, even giving him quasi-Italian names like “Johnny de Pow” and “Gianni Pauli”.

Johnny (Powers) provided more fundamental aid, too, when a breadwinner was out of work. At one time he is said to have boasted that 2,600 men from his ward (about one-third of the registered voters) were working in one way or another for the city of Chicago. This did not take into account those for whom the grateful holders of traction franchises had found a place. When election day rolled around, the returns reflected the appreciation of job-holders and their relatives.

American Heritage
http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/ah/1960/1/1960_1_12.shtml
This paragon of sin (mortal and venial) also cared for a "Diverse" population of many tongues, diets, historical/political contexts, and aspirations. It was Powers who designated Ms. Addams and her gal pal Ellen Starr as part and parcel of the 19th Ward - Addams was appointed to a very lucrative and important position as Ward Garbage Inspector. Jane Addams returned this gesture* with contempt and two decades of insurrection.

John Powers had the support of the population and especially parish priests. That sticks in the craw of Progressives always - then and now.

Mother Cabrini worked the same side of the streets as Jane Addams and long before the Cedarville, IL failed medical student and her girlfriend Ms. Starr arrived on Halsted Street, the Sisters of Mercy were doing the work that did not begin and end with Jane Addams.

First to arrive, in 1846, the Sisters of Mercy were soon operating three schools, running an employment bureau for working women, volunteering at a free clinic, and teaching literacy classes. Attending to many non-Catholics during the cholera epidemics of 1849 and 1854, they also took over what was to become Mercy Hospital.

Nuns and other Catholic women attended to the needs of wave after wave of immigrants. They ran orphanages, hospitals, housing for the elderly, and day care centers. They worked with unwed mothers and tried to “rescue” female prostitutes. While almost never publicly challenging the male authority system—although some did not shrink from doing so privately—these religious women created for themselves an enormous sphere of autonomous or semiautonomous activity within the confines of an extraordinarily patriarchal ecclesiastical structure.

Above all, nuns taught school: without their labor and devotion, the Catholic school system would not have existed.

Powers served for 39 years - from 1888-1927 - that is a 19 year jump over the twenty at at Hull House.

Powers took care of thousands more people than Jane Addams and 'the short haired women and long-haired gentlemen' of Hull House, but there are no tributes, ket alone kind words allowed in our milky Progressive conversations.

The Democratic Ward bosses did more for the indigent and immigrant that the apostles of reform. A newpaper man of time understood that, Finley Peter Dunne. His Mr. Dooley offers this honest assesment.

"Whin Jawnny Powers wint into th' council I don't suppose
he had anny idee what a gr-reat man he'd make iv himsilf. He
thought iv most all th' wurruld except th' nineteenth as honest.
He believed that th' la-ads that presided over th' municipyal purity
meetin's was on th' square en' he hated th' ladin'mimbers iv
churches an' th' boys that gives money to home missions an'
thrainin' schools because he thought they were inhumanly honest.
It didn't take long f'r to make him see diff'rent. Inside iv his
first term he begun to undherstand that they was rare, flesh-an'-
blood, bribe-givin' men. They was good fellers, th' same as Chick
McMillan, an' betther to dale with because if things didn't go
right they'd not be apt to come down an' shoot bullets through th'
sawdust ham in front iv a man's grocery store. An' whin wanst he
got their measure he knew how to threat shim. He's quick to lam,
Jawnny Powers is. None quicker. But I wudden't iv had his expeeryence
f'r twict his money. I'd rather set back here en' believe
that whin a man dhresses dacint he's respectible an' whin he has
money he won't steal."
"Somethin' ought to be done to rayform th' rayformers," suggested
Mr. Hennessy.
"Thrue," said Mr. Dooley. "I'm thinkin'iv gettin'up an organization
to do th' wurruk. I'd attimpt to put a branch in ivry church
an' charitable society in Chicago an' in ivry club. An' whin anny
man that abuses Jawnny Powers an' Yerkuss while buyin'th' wan
an' guaranteein' th' bonds iv th' other'd come up f'r Main Shepherd
or Chief Angel I'd agitate again him. I wudden't let him set
by while Jawnny Powers was bein' done up en' portend he was In
on th' pray; I'd get afther him.
"Thin I'd put up a social colony like Hull House down town
near th' banks an' th' boord iv thrade an' th' stock exchange. I'd
have ladin' citizens come in en' lam be contact with poor an'honest
people th' advantage iv a life they've on'y heard iv. I think th'
Hull House idee is right, but I'd apply it diff'rent. A man wurrukin'
in a bank all day thryin' to get money anny way he can,
how's he goin' to know anny diff'rent? What he needs is to be
cheered up, have th' pi-anny played to him be nice-lookin' girls,
an' find out somethin' iv th' beauties iv honest poverty be convarsin'with
poor en' honest people."
"But where'd ye get th' la-ads to rerun it?" asked Mr. Hennessy.
4
"That's easy," said Mr. Dooley. "If ye'll get th' bankers I'll get
th' others. I know thousands iv poor but honest men that ar-re
on'y waitin'f'r th'chanst to get wan crack at a banker."

Finley Peter Dunne, MR DOOLEY AND THE CHICAGO IRISH: THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A
NINETEENTH-CENTURY ETHNIC GROUP, ed. Charles Fanning (Washington: Catholic
University of America, 1976), pp. 220-22, 242-44


*http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?_r=1&res=9E04E5D81039E433A2575AC0A9679C94699ED7CF

All Carol Marin Needs to Know About "Fair"- Camera One, Carol!

Fair is fair. I don't think government prosecutors are being fair to Rod Blagojevich.. . .No surprise there.But it still doesn't feel fair.

In between there are a couple of hundred words or so that say not much.

C. Marin - See Marin on WTTW and NBC 5.

Carol Marin helped ruin the lives of Chris and Mary Fogarty. Once it seemed clear that George Ryan was going to be hammered by hack Judge Pallmeyer, Carol decided to mock Lura Lynn Ryan. Carol Marin worries about fair.

Fair enough! Tutorial time: Carol, Rod Blagojevich will not spend a day in jail. That might not be fair, but you will be cool with it. Actually, Carol Marin wouldn't know "fair" if it jumped up and bit her on the ass.

Okay, Kagan Ain't Gay - Is That a Problem for Who?

My Grandma Donahue could not imagine why Liberace, Rock Hudson and Charles Nelson Reilly never seemed to have a blond on the arm. "They're good-looking gents with wads of spending loot; what's the matter with some girls?"

Grandma, they bat from the other side of the plate, they like Tyrone Power as much as you do; . . . more.

The fact remains that Liberace, Rock Hudson and Charles Nelson Reilly were good-looking gents with wads of spending loot and heaps of talent. They never seemed to want for work, despite LGBT Victim hood doctrine that demands that they wore pink stars on their clothing at all times and slept on straw in between beatings.

Grandma Donahue and Grandpa Donahue were dragged up in the 'Ville - Canaryville, which is not exactly Boystown, but many boys spent their youths between Wentworth/Halsted; 39th & 47th Streets.

Elena Kagan is President Obama's choice for the Supreme Court seat vacated by Justice John Paul Stevens. The White House and everyone that they can find are jumping on the Oprah Coach - "She's Not Gay!!!!" Politico which gets fed directly everything coming out of the White House has a full-court Press denial about Elena Kagan's mysterious inclinations

Walzer, a former aide to Senator Joe Lieberman and a lawyer in Bill Clinton’s Department of Health and Human Services, now lives on Long Island, N.Y., and runs a non-profit that helps low-income parents prepare young children for school.


At the time, though, the two lived the life of single, straight young women, with a bit of a Harvard Law twist.


Walzer recalled “discussion about who she might be interested in – the usual girl talk stuff-- talk about how to get his attention.”


This was “less along the lines of how to wear your hair,” Walzer said, than how to avoid intimidating men with an intellect and confidence that weren’t always seen as attractive traits

Okay, so what? Who asked? Remember how the tightly closeted Rosie O'Donnell used to swoon at the mention Tom Cruise? Jesus, you could have knocked nearly every I.Q. above room temperature over with a sledge hammer blow between the lamps, when Ellen DeGeneris, Rosie O'Donnell and Melissa Etheridge announced that they like Babes too!

Watson, the game's afoot!

I could care less. Can Elena Kagan do the job? Tom Tunney, is openly gay and is one of the few Chicago Alderman who is not a hair-trigger for bladder spilling laughter. Tom Tunney is gay and happens to be a great public servant. Congressman Barney Frank is openly gay and is a sputtering arrogant train wreck.

Get to the issues. Define the Constitution, Ms. Kagan. Give the right answers and become Justice Kagan.

Okay, you ain't gay.

Happy FeastDay Neighbors at St. Walter's and the Great Clark Woodard!

Clark Woodard with his GrandMa and Mom.

My neighbors in the parish south of St. Cajetan's celebrate the Feast of St. Walter today.

What better way to celebrate the Sainted Walter than by linking a tale of a son of St. Walter -young Clark Woodard. I got this wonderful story in the pages of the Villager - a feature of the Beverly Area Planning Association (BAPA)

Generous St. Walter Student Also a Hard Worker!

St. Walter School 3rd grader Clark Woodard is quite an entrepreneur. When It was announced in church that funding was to end for the sign language interpreter during weekend Masses, Woodard decided to raise some funds.

Over the summer, the boy started his own dog-walking business, Clark Cares –which he even trademarked! A successful young business person, he earned almost $1,000 and decided to split it three ways: 34% to his college savings fund, 33% to an animal shelter, and 44% to St. Walter Church.

When he presented the donation the pastor asked why he made such a generous contribution. “I wanted to help the hearing impaired and it’s good to give back to the church,” was the boy’s reply. St. Walter School is located at 11741 S. Western Ave. for more information call 774-445-8850.

St. Walter would agree Clark.

Augustinian abbot of L'Esterp in the region of Limousin, France. He was born to a noble family in Conflans Castle in Aquitaine, and studied under the Augustinians at Dorat, where he entered a monastery. Then when he returned to Conflans Castle, he was elected the abbot of L'Esterp. He held the post for thirty-eight years and was famed as a confessor.

St Walter Parish & School‎
11741 South Western Avenue, Chicago, IL 60643-4789
(773) 445-8850‎

For All Moms and Moms to Be -" Something Else"

“When I was a kid, I found out about Eddie Cochran and Gene Vincent through the Beatles and the Stones doing covers of rockabilly songs,”
Brian Setzer

Happy Mothers Day! The Memorare

This 15th Century Prayer is the perfect Mothers Day Gift - to everyone.


MEMORARE, O piissima Virgo Maria,
non esse auditum a saeculo, quemquam ad tua currentem praesidia,
tua implorantem auxilia, tua petentem suffragia,
esse derelictum.
Ego tali animatus confidentia,
ad te, Virgo Virginum, Mater, curro,
ad te venio, coram te gemens peccator assisto.
Noli, Mater Verbi,
verba mea despicere;
sed audi propitia et exaudi.
Amen.

Remember, O Most Gracious Virgin Mary,
that never was it known that anyone who fled to Thy protection,
implored Thy help or sought Thy intercession,
was left unaided.
Inspired by this confidence,
I fly unto Thee, O Virgin of Virgins, my Mother;
to Thee do I come, before thee I kneel, sinful and sorrowful.
O Mother of the Word Incarnate,
despise not my petitions,
but in Thy clemency, hear and answer me.
Amen.

Forrest Claypool -Our Rula Lenska for Assessor

Carol Felsenthal wrote a nice piece about the Rula Lenska ( the person who claimed and everyone believed to be 'Somebody') of Illinois - Forrest Claypool. Back in the 80's Rula Lenska was believed to be a celebrity - the commercials for hairspray said so; these days, Forrest Claypool is believed by similar folks to be a Reformer and political genius, because Carol and Walter and the editorial clown operas say so.

Carol Marin, Walter Jacobson (homeless street cred dude) and every other goof with a column or a 30 second TV Feed perch are loudly smearing Joe Berrios and blowing smooches to Forrest Lenska - the guy that John Stroger defeated while on life support.

Ms. Felsenthal and the redoubatble John Kass know that Forrest Claypool is a public relations manufactured product. So do voters.

So who is Forrest Claypool?

A native of Southern Illinois (St. Elmo, population 1,300) and son of a man in the oil-drilling business, he graduated from Southern Illinois University and then the University of Illinois Law School. He lives in Ravenswood and has three children, all of whom were educated in private schools.

Claypool twice served as chief of staff to Mayor Richard M. Daley and ran the Chicago Park District in the ’90s. Like politicians at every level, he’s a mix of reformer and—Kass had it right—conventional party loyalist.

He’s in good company, as the record shows.

Claypool’s loyalist side comes out in the race for Barack Obama’s old U.S. Senate seat. I interviewed him just hours after the feds took over Broadway Bank. He told me that he backs Democratic candidate Alexi Giannoulias, Broadway’s former VP and senior loan officer, and has done so from the start—even after the squeaky-clean Inspector General David Hoffman entered the primary.

In the Democratic primary for county board president, Claypool did not endorse Ald. Toni Preckwinkle, the candidate with whom the good-government types were most comfortable. He offers a lofty explanation: he was not persuaded that Preckwinkle or any of her opponents would repeal “the hated [Todd] Stroger sales tax.” (Claypool didn’t endorse any candidate in that race.) He now says that he’ll support her in the general election.

Preckwinkle has said publicly that she’s supporting Berrios, a man Claypool describes as “exhibit A of how the insider culture works, where the people who have clout make out and the rest of us get higher taxes.” Claypool told me that he made his decision to run after the primary, when Berrios defeated Raymond Figueroa—a former alderman “who has independent ties that go back to Harold Washington.” When asked if he considered supporting the Republican candidate, former Evanston assessor Sharon Storbeck-Eckersall, he said, “No, no. I don’t really know enough about her, but I do think [Cook County assessor] is a very, very big job.”

Claypool has known Rahm Emanuel for 30 years and is close friends with David Axelrod, and he has visited the White House several times—most recently on March 28, according to visitor logs. He also claims a friendship with the President—he was chairman of then-Senator Obama’s transition committee in 2004-05—and, during those White House visits, he “chatted” with the President in the Oval Office.

In 2006, Claypool lost in the primary for county board president to incumbent Democrat John Stroger—after Stroger had already suffered a debilitating stroke. Obama—then a senator—didn’t endorse Claypool. “Why?” I asked. “You’ll have to ask [the President],” Claypool said. I already knew the answer: Obama, for all his idealism, is a politician.

Why, Carol, Forrest Claypool is Rula Lenska!


Forrest Claypool is as genuine as Rula Lenska. Complete Rules available wherever this fine product is sold -WTTW, CBS-2 and Chicago Sun Times.

Baroque Maestro Nicholas Kraemer Premiers Tellemann Concerto - at least in the last 400 years

Chicago's Harris Theater was packed with music lovers especially the beautiful woman who deigned to attend last night's performance with me. The diminutive angel with whom I am allowed to visit my better instincts is a gifted Alto choral director and singer and has performed with most of Chicago's Baroque Chorus and Orchestra - Soprano's Laura Amend and Maire O'Brien, and a Bass named Hoss.One of the soloists was Alto Nina Heebink who doubled as a mezzo soprano.


I knew Conductor Nicholas Kraemer as I had watched his athleticism and buoyant grace charge the atmosphere at Chicago's Symphony Center two years ago. With the body of a wrestler or a gymnast, Kraemer brings full-contact grace to music. More importantly, the man is intelligent, witty, gracious and warm.

Last night, Maestro Kraemer performed a Lazarusian miracle on Cantatta: "Nun ist das Heil und die Kraft" by George Phillip Telemann which had only been performed once since its composition in 1726. Telemann, Maestro Kraemer told us, wrote more than 1,000 Cantatas. The score for the text was found in Belgium.

Baroque music is from the age when Fredrick the Great was bullying Europe and Marlborough was slaughtering Frenchman at Blenheim - when the House of Hanover (Windsor) were still working on their resumes to get England to replace poor old Queen Anne. Baroque is ornate, intricate, diverse and humorous - combining peasant motiffs with court hubris. Bach, Tellemann, Hayden and the lads knew that the world was Vanity itself and that all things must look back to God and maybe people would eventually shake off some of their nonsense.

Nicholas Kraemer is a Scot and a harpsichordist

holds the positions of Permanent Guest Conductor of the Manchester Camerata and Principal Guest Conductor of Music of the Baroque, Chicago.

Kraemer’s recent highlights have included acclaimed débuts with The Chicago Symphony, Detroit Symphony and Kristiansand Symphony Orchestra. He enjoys frequent collaborations with the BBC Philharmonic and BBC National Orchestra of Wales; the Northern Sinfonia, Scottish Chamber Orchestra and Musikcollegium Winterthur. Other major ensembles with whom he has conducted include The Hallé, Berlin Philharmonic and Rotterdam Philharmonic

Opera engagements have taken him to Paris, Lisbon, Amsterdam, Geneva and Marseilles. Amongst recent projects have been The Magic Flute and Handel’s Jephtha for English National Opera, Agrippina for Theater Aachen and L’Incoronazione di Poppea for Central City Opera, Colorado.
Nicholas Kraemer’s 09/10 plans include début appearances with the South Jutland and Colorado Symphony Orchestras as well as Le Nozze di Figaro with Den Nye Opera.

http://www.caroline-phillips.co.uk/artists/CPM_NK.htm

Kraemer seems like an absolutely wonderful gent! Two years, ago there was an in cocert screw up by a stage hand at Orchestra Hall, during a Hayden presentation and Kraemer erased any and all unease. He is the anti- George Solti. That Magyar egoist would have had the stagehand's job and guts for garters. ( click my post title for that story)

In a genuine act of grace during the final concert applause, Maestro Kraemer gestured our applause toward the Angels, or The Saints - the great volunteers how ushered the performance standing at the wings of audience - Non Nobis Sed Te Deum et Angeliis!

Maestro Kraemer warmly and genuinely highlighted all musicians and singers individually and en masse. Kraemer is Baroque itself he turns attention away from himself and reminds us of God's hand in all things.

Maestro, I would love to buy you a pint of Belhaven Ale ( or Fuller's London Pride) at Duke of Perth! Bravo!!

Beer Here! Beer Here! Boz O'Brien Brings Brew Midway Oasis in Brew Desert

". . .a woman is like beer. They look good, they smell good, and you'd step over your own mother just to get one!" Homer

From Ceapflights via the Dethronner comes this tribute to an American Hero - James "Boz" O'Brien

This gentleman scholar-athlete opened Reilly's Daughter Pub in 1975 ( full disclosure: I was one of the original bartenders, while teaching at Bishop Mac) and moved the pub from 111th Street to Midway Airport.

Boz featured Imported and Hand-crafted brews when most Chicagoans thought Andecker was an Import. I was a dedicated Drewry's man myself - loved the Mountie!

– With a name like Boz O’Brein you know the guy has got to run a bar. And he does. It’s in the postsecurityfood court at Chicago Midway (MDW)
www.flychicago.com and it’s called Reilly’sDaughter. The first thing you’ll want to
know about this cozy enclave is thatthe bar, and all its furniture, was
crafted in Ireland. The second thing you’ll want to know is that much of
the beer is Irish – Guinness, Harp,and Smithwick’s – and all on-tap.
When O’Brien first opened the place,“I didn’t think people would be interested
in Irish beer,” he said. So, O’Brien stocked up on mass-produced American brands. He was wrong.

Guinness is his best seller. Now, the brew matches the ambience. If you’re stuck at Midway waiting for an airplane, this is where you’ll want to be.
– Go goose hunting at Chicago O’Hare (ORD)
www.flychicago.com. The Goose Island Beer
Company www.gooseisland.com recently set up
shop in Terminal 1, Concourse C between Gates 8
and 10. The Goose Island enclave is a contemporary
brasserie affair. Lots of ambience –lots of good beer.
Try Honker Ale – blessed with a spicy hop aroma

Well Done Boz!

Kevin Myers on the Nature of Most Politicians re.The British Election or any Race in Illinois

Roland Burris: "Well, ain't you gonna press the flesh, Pappy? Do a little politickin'?"

Dithering Dick Durbin: "I'll press your flesh, you dimwhitted sumbitch. You don't tell your pappy how to court the electorate. We ain't on-at-a-timin' here. We're mass communicatin'!"

Harry Reid "MmmmmmHmmmm."

Irish Independent's Kevin Myers on the British Cluster Cluck!

The three main contenders are personally no more substantial than fifth-formers at a third-rate public school, and with brains to match

The British general election campaign, now breathing its last, has been about as fascinating as a local government contest in Oslo. Even now, I'm unaware of any real difference between the candidates, and assume their promises are as genuine as a whore's orgasm. What's left, after such tissues of persiflage and deceit? Not much.

Outsiders glimpse voting statistics, but they do not know why people vote, not least because voters themselves probably don't. Electorates are like luminous molecules in a stream. The molecules usually don't understand the dynamics of the surrounding liquids, but merely obey the strange compulsions of mass-movement.

This is true of all electorates, everywhere. . . .No result today, thank God, is likely to be part of such a comparably malevolent cycle. For the three main contenders are personally no more substantial than fifth-formers at a third-rate public school, and with brains to match.

Brown is an obsessive control-freak, a scowling, bullying stamp-collector. Clegg is the annoying, smirking twerp who sits at the top of the class, hogging teacher's attention. And Cameron is the first trans- sexual head-boy, an insincere, sermonising and simpering hermaphrodite.

Who will win? And who cares? After all, politics is perhaps best left to the mediocre charlatans whom it usually attracts.

Happy Birthday Johnny Brahms

For Brahms, you have to deliver differently with your right arm than with any other composer, because of the musical sentence structure. When you have a phrase, it’s usually long, and more connected. We need to know exactly where to use different styles of bowing.

Jaap van Zweden Dallas Symphony Orchestra

Happy Birthday, Johannes!
Click my post title for Brahms' Hungarian Dance #5

1833 -May 7th
Birth of Johannes Brahms, German composer and pianist. Johnny Brahms composed the Lullaby that is the gold standard for musical slumber impetus! Sleepy already.

Johannes Brahms -

Brahms was born in Hamburg. His father, who gave him his first music lessons, was a double bassist. Brahms showed early promise on the piano and helped to supplement the rather meager family income by playing the piano in restaurants and theaters, as well as by teaching. Although it is a widely-told tale that Brahms had to play the piano in bars and brothels, recent research, for example that by Kurt Hoffman (1), suggest that this is probably false. For a time, he also learned the violoncello, although his progress was cut short when his teacher absconded with Brahms's instrument.

The young Brahms gave a few public concerts, but did not become well known as a pianist (although in later life he gave the premieres of both his Piano Concerto No. 1 in 1859 and his Piano Concerto No. 2 in 1881).

He also began to compose, but his efforts did not receive much attention until he went on a concert tour with Eduard Reményi in 1853. On this tour he met Joseph Joachim, Franz Liszt, and later was introduced to the great German composer Robert Schumann. Reményi was, however, offended by Brahms' failure to praise Liszt's 'Sonata in B minor' wholeheartedly on a visit to the Court of Weimar where Liszt was the court musician. Many of Brahms' friends cited that Reményi, being the polished courtier, had expected the younger Brahms to conform to common practice of politely applauding a celebrity's piece which Brahms either failed to do or did not appear to do so with condescending compliment. He told Brahms that their friendship must end although it was not clear as to whether Liszt felt offended or otherwise. Joachim, however was to become one of his closest friends, and Schumann, through articles championing the young Brahms, played an important role in alerting the public to the young man's compositions. Brahms also became acquainted with Schumann's wife, the composer and pianist Clara, 14 years his senior, with whom he carried on a lifelong, emotionally passionate, but always platonic relationship. Brahms never married.

In 1862 he settled permanently in Vienna and began to concentrate fully on composing. With work such as the German Requiem, Brahms eventually established a strong reputation and came to be regarded in his own lifetime as one of the great composers. This may have given him the confidence finally to complete his first symphony; this appeared in 1876, after about ten years of work. The other three symphonies then followed in fairly rapid succession (1877, 1883, 1885).

Brahms frequently traveled, both for business (concert tours) and pleasure. He often visited Italy in the springtime, and usually sought out a pleasant rural location in which to compose during the summer.

In 1890, the 57-year-old Brahms resolved to give up composing. However, as it turned out, he was unable to abide by his decision, and in the years before his death he produced a number of acknowledged masterpieces, including the two clarinet sonatas Op. 120 (1894) and the Four Serious Songs (Vier ernste Gesänge) Op. 121 (1896).

While completing the Op. 121 songs Brahms fell ill of cancer (sources differ on whether this was of the liver or pancreas). His condition gradually worsened and he died on April 3, 1897. Brahms is buried in the Zentralfriedhof in Vienna.


Works
Listen to Brahms' Intermezzo, from opus 76, no. 7
Problems listening to the file? See Wikipedia audio help

Brahms wrote a number of major works for orchestra, including four symphonies, two piano concertos, a Violin Concerto, a Double Concerto for violin and cello, and the large choral work A German Requiem (Ein deutsches Requiem). Brahms was also a prolific composer in the theme and variation form, having notably composed the Variations and Fugue on a theme by Händel, Paganini Variations, and Variations on a Theme by Joseph Haydn, along with other lesser known sets of variations.

Brahms also wrote a great deal of work for small forces. His many works of chamber music form part of the core of this repertoire, as does his solo piano music. Brahms is also considered to be among the greatest of composers of lieder, of which he wrote about 200.

Brahms never wrote an opera, nor did he ever write in the characteristic 19th century form of the tone poem.

For a list of works, see List of compositions by Johannes Brahms.


Influences on Brahms
Brahms venerated Beethoven, perhaps even more than the other Romantic composers did. In the composer's home, a marble bust of Beethoven looked down on the spot where he composed. Brahms's works contain what some of his contemporaries considered to be outright imitations of Beethoven's work, including the Ninth Symphony (regarding the similar - only in form - themes found in the last movements of Brahms's 1st and Beethoven's 9th symphonies) and the Hammerklavier sonata.

Brahms also loved the earlier Classical composers Mozart and Haydn. He collected first editions and autographs of their works, and also edited performing editions.

Brahms's affection for the Classical period may also be reflected in his choice of genres: he favored the Classical forms of the sonata, symphony, and concerto, and frequently composed movements in sonata form. In general, Brahms can be regarded as the most Classical of all the Romantic composers. This set him in contrast to the acolytes of the more progressive Richard Wagner, and the divide between the two schools was one of the most notable features of German musical life in the late 19th century.

A quite different influence on Brahms was folk music. Brahms wrote settings for piano and voice of 144 German folk songs, and many of his lieder reflect folk themes or depict scenes of rural life. His Hungarian dances were among his most profitable compositions, and in orchestrated versions remain well known today.

Brahms was almost certainly influenced by the technological development of the piano, which reached essentially its modern form during his lifetime. Much of Brahms's piano music and many of his lieder make use of the deep bass notes and the pedal to obtain a rich and powerful sound.


Brahms's personality
Like Beethoven, Brahms was fond of nature and often went walking in the woods around Vienna. He often brought penny candy with him to hand out to children. To adults Brahms was often brusque and sarcastic, and he sometimes alienated other people. His pupil Gustav Jenner wrote, 'Brahms has acquired, not without reason, the reputation for being a grump, even though few could also be as lovable as he.1 (http://members.aol.com/abelard2/jenner.htm)' He also had predictable habits which was noted by the Viennese press such as his daily visit to his favourite 'Red Hedgehog' tavern in Vienna and the press also particularly took into account his style of walking with his hands firmly behind his back complete with a caricature of him in this pose walking alongside a red hedgehog. Those who remained his friends were very loyal to him, however and he reciprocated in return with equal loyalty and generosity. He was a lifelong friend with Johann Strauss II though they were very different as composers. Brahms even struggled to get to the Theater an der Wien in Vienna for Strauss' premiere of the operetta Die Göttin der Vernunft in 1897 before his death. Perhaps the greatest tribute that Brahms could pay to Strauss was his remark that he would have given anything to have written The Blue Danube waltz. An anecdote dating around the time Brahms became acquainted with Strauss is that the former cheekily inscribed the words 'alas, not by Brahms!' on the autograph score of the famous 'Blue Danube' waltz.

Starting in the 1860's, when his works sold widely, Brahms was financially quite successful. He preferred a modest life style, however, living in a simple three-room apartment with a housekeeper. He gave away much of his money to relatives, and also anonymously helped support a number of young musicians.

Brahms was an extreme perfectionist. For instance, it is thought that the symphony we know as the First may not have been the first he composed, since Brahms very often destroyed completed works that failed to meet his standard of quality. Another factor that contributed to Brahms's perfectionism was that Schumann had announced early on that Brahms was to become the next great composer like Beethoven, a prediction that Brahms was determined to live up to. This prediction hardly added to the composer's self-confidence, and may also have contributed to the delay in producing the First Symphony. However, Clara Schumann noted before that Brahms' First Symphony was a product that was not reflective of Brahms' real nature as she felt that the final exuberant movement was 'too brilliant' as she was encouraged by the dark and tempestuous opening movement when Brahms first sent to her the initial draft. However, she recanted in accepting his sunny Second Symphony and was a lifelong supporter of that famous work in D major, one of Brahms' rare key usage.

http://www.8notes.com/biographies/brahms.asp

Rep. Kevin Joyce (D, 35th) - Powerful Statement on School Reform and Legislative Responsibility

This is a solid man at work. School Reform can not depend on a political party; only on great people. Shoo the mice away!

Sun Times NewsPro Natasha Korecki Covers Burge Trial as it Should - Facts, Nothing But the Facts

The Chicago Sun Times has the best reporters and worst columnists in Chicago.

Mark Konkol, Tim Novak, Chris Fusco and sometimes Abdon Pallasch are strong and honest. My favorite read is Natasha Korecki she slides a sentence with the grace of sportswriter Dan McGrath and avoids the posing and posturing of the would be Menckens and Divas.

Paddy Fitz the Fed needs Media Points after his Blago Blunders and here he is playing to his orchestra. The Burge Trial will be a Circus and the Feds will play to the folks who only read what Carol Marin, Mark Brown, Mary Mitchell, and the Sun Times' weak-ass editorial board writes. The Sun Times has talent like Ms. Korecki who will report and not fabricate. BTW- The Sun Times Editorial Board is 10X better than the Chicago Tribune's.

Jon Burge has been convicted by the media and the media never checks its own sources - they are in agreement with all the nonsense that the Burge Industry ( Peoples Law Office, Mr. & Mrs. Ayres-Dohrn, Northwestern Law, CPUSA) have provided the lazy and the wildly ambitious columnists.

Thank you Natasha Korecki! This is a good read and a fine report.

Dressed in a black suit, tie, and blue shirt, former Chicago Police Cmdr. Jon Burge on Thursday spun around in his chair and seemed to struggle a bit as he stood up.

"Morning, ladies and gentlemen," said the man who for decades has been accused of torturing murder suspects.

» Click to enlarge image

Former Chicago Police Commander Jon Burge as he leaves the Federal building for a lunch break Thursday.
( Brian Jackson/Sun-Times)


Burge was briefly inside a courtroom addressing the potential jurors who will judge his fate in his trial that starts later this month on obstruction of justice and perjury charges. A pool of jurors were summoned today to fill out a questionnaire but jury selection in the case doesn't begin until May 24. After court, a slow-moving Burge, who lives in Tampa, Fla., said he felt "terrible," physically and that it was "not unusual," to be back in Chicago.

Nearly 80 potential jurors were handed questionnaires in preparation for the upcoming selection.

U.S. District Judge Joan Lefkow told the ethnically and racially diverse panel not to read or listen to any media coverage of the case.

While Burge and his underlings have long been accused of torturing suspects into giving confessions, he is not on trial for those actual acts. Burge is accused of lying on a sworn questionnaire that probed him of the alleged practices.