Dies Cinerum: Ash Wednesday - It is in God's Hands.

We can, perhaps, conceive of a world in which God corrected the results of this abuse of free will by His creatures at every moment: so that a wooden beam became soft as grass when it was used as a weapon, and the air refused to obey me if I attempted to set up in it the sound waves that carry lies or insults. But such a world would be one in which wrong actions were impossible, and in which, therefore, freedom of the will would be void; nay, if the principle were carried out to its logical conclusion, evil thoughts would be impossible, for the cerebral matter which we use in thinking would refuse its task when we attempted to frame them.

Clive Staples Lewis

"Evil is threefold, viz., metaphysical evil, moral, and physical, the retributive consequence of moral guilt. Its existence subserves the perfection of the whole; the universe would be less perfect if it contained no evil. Thus fire could not exist without the corruption of what it consumes; the lion must slay the ass in order to live, and if there were no wrong doing, there would be no sphere for patience and justice. God is said (as in Isaiah 45) to be the author of evil in the sense that the corruption of material objects in nature is ordained by Him, as a means for carrying out the design of the universe; and on the other hand, the evil which exists as a consequence of the breach of Divine laws is in the same sense due to Divine appointment; the universe would be less perfect if its laws could be broken with impunity. Thus evil, in one aspect, i.e. as counter-balancing the deordination of sin, has the nature of good. But the evil of sin, though permitted by God, is in no sense due to him; its cause is the abuse of free will by angels and men. It should be observed that the universal perfection to which evil in some form is necessary, is the perfection of this universe, not of any universe: metaphysical evil, that is to say, and indirectly, moral evil as well, is included in the design of the universe which is partially known to us; but we cannot say without denying the Divine omnipotence, that another equally perfect universe could not be created in which evil would have no place."

Catholic Encyclopedia

The Democratic governor on Tuesday quietly invited death penalty opponents to a private bill-signing ceremony scheduled for late Wednesday morning in his Springfield office. Quinn's office confirmed that the governor has an event at the Capitol on Wednesday to announce his decision on the death penalty measure.

Chicago Tribune

"It's all good." Urban Dictionary

Is it?

On the other hand, I have and continue to sin - cause pain. I cause pain with my thoughts words and deeds. I neglect or I act in a way that hurts others. By hurting myself, I also hurt others. This is my season. Lent arrived today. From the time that I receive the Ashes in the Catholic ritual, following Quinquagesima Sunday (just the other day, at Sacred Heart Church)which means fifty days before Easter and Resurrection of Christ, I will attempt to remember that I am not bullet proof.

All of this means nothing to the 'It's all good' devotees. It means much to a sinner like me. Memento Mori is spoken when the priest, probably Father Tony Brackin later today at St. Odilo's in Berwyn, places the ashes on my fore head - 'Remember you must die.' That is an imperative verb followed by a deponent infinitive - active in meaning and passive in form which means that it is going to happen. Like in the DMV on Pulaski at 147th Street - 'Mr. Hickey you will be called.'

I sit there waiting with my check, my ID and my proofs of residence ( Gas and Light Bill) and understand that I will be called, baring a computer malfunction, tornado, act of war, or I decide to light up a Marlboro in the Illinois Secretary of State's facility and enjoy mellow flavor of fine rich Virginia tobacco. Then, I can expect to be taken out and summarily given the bum's rush.

I believe in Heaven and I believe in Hell and what I do to balance my actions, thoughts, and words accordingly will determine God's Bum's Rush.

It Ain't All Good; Most of It Is. Behave accordingly.

Great Grindings! Quid Nunc! Hamlet was an Irishman!

This one will make your eyes bleed Tom Hopkins and St. Cajetan's!

•"A little more than kin, and less than kind." Hamlet 1.2


Believe it or not dear reader. but your humble correspondent has an article published and noted in the Oxford Review of Victorian Literature. On the square. It has been read by tens of people and it concerns the critical treatments of Dickens and Thackeray.

As a result of this perquisite, I receive notes from my pals with the Oxford Review.

Today, over my Fat Tuesday lunch at Leo, I read a nice note from my pal Neha Mistry informing me that a recent Oxford study reveals that Shakepeare's brooding Dane might actually have been a boozing Mick.

Scholars have long accepted that Shakespeare took the core of his Hamlet character from ‘Amlethus’, a legendary figure found in ‘The History of the Danes’ but new research proposes that an older Hamlet name can be found in a mysterious Gaelic tale, written in the eleventh century, based on eighth- or ninth-century materials.

The tale tells the story of a flawed king who broke taboos and was consequently killed in a strange hall, filled with uncanny figures. Among these figures were three players, one of whom was called Admlithi.

“As soon as I saw ‘Admlithi’, I thought of Hamlet” says Dr Collinson.

**Read this headline-hitting article, picked up by The Guardian, FREE online:**

- A New Etymology for Hamlet? the Names Amlethus, Amlothi and Admlithi:
http://oxfordjournals-marketing.oup.com/c/16sVCUYL3erlxd6Gy
By L.A. Collinson

“Earlier scholars based theories about the Gaelic origins of Hamlet on an odd name – ‘Amlaide’ - embedded in a short verse found in Irish annals. They constructed interesting arguments which allowed for Celtic influence on ‘Amlothi’, but they struggled to explain the form of the annal name, which remains obscure” explains Dr Collinson.

If Dr Collinson’s hypothesis is correct, then the association of Hamlet’s name goes back several hundred years longer than has previously been believed.

I hope you enjoy reading this article. Please feel free to forward this email on to any friends or colleagues you think might be interested, using this form:
http://oxfordjournals-marketing.oup.com/f/16LrTEHvEZk53O

Best wishes,

Neha Mistry
Oxford Journals:
http://oxfordjournals-marketing.oup.com/c/16sW6JK2DywjhJhCd

Oh Hell Yeah!

The acting the goofiness, the whining and the mother complex - sounds like a lad from Visitation, or Little Flower. I looked deeper into the Oxgford study.
Hamlet was believed to have been a historical person, like Lear. Scholars of Icelandic and Old Danish as well as Irish have come up with this -

The precise etymologies of Amlođi, Amlethus and ultimately Hamlet have remained unclear, despite many previous attempts to elucidate these. (Currently, the best-known interpretation of the name(s) is probably that offered in the latest Arden edition of the play: ‘stupid’.)5 The aim of the following discussion is to explore the possibility that all of these names might descend from Admlithi, recorded as a player-name in the medieval Irish tale Togail Bruidne Da Derga (TBDD, ‘The Destruction of Da Derga's Hostel’), and to suggest some potential implications of this for our understanding of the histories of the Hamlet-figures developed by Saxo, and by Shakespeare.6 (For the sake of clarity, I shall keep to a minimum discussion of Haveloc.7

More so -the kenning and simile of the rich Skaldic, Irish poetry run on to the fantastically deep weaves of the uses of "mill." and "grinder" as tropes -

Admlithi as Sea-Grinder: Irish, Norse, or both?
Despite its tiny (almost inconsequential) role in TBDD, it seems to me that the name Admlithi would have had an exceptionally broad range of potential applications, and could have been used in many, very diverse contexts. One reasonable possibility, I think, is that Admlithi was used to refer to a specific area of the sea when indirect expression was, for superstitious or poetic reasons, desirable. In the late-ninth or early tenth-century Irish glossary, Sanas Cormaic46—which itself appears to contain at least two Norse loan words47—the currents surrounding a whirlpool called Coire Brecáin (‘Brecán's Cauldron’) are compared to the paddles of a mill-wheel (orceil or orcéil).48 This complex work is currently being re-edited for the Early Irish Glossaries Database,49 but Paul Russell has published a provisional translation of the relevant passage, as it stands in the Yellow Book of Lecan (the manuscript containing the text of TBDD cited above):
Coire Brecáin, i.e. a great whirlpool which is between Ireland and Scotland to the north, i.e. a meeting place of many seas: the sea which comes round Ireland from the north-west, and the sea which comes round Scotland from the north-east, and the sea from the south between Ireland and Scotland. Then it takes them each in turn like whirling spirals50 and puts each of them in the place of the other like the paddles of a millwheel as it goes past, and sucks them down into the depths so that it is like an open-mouthed cauldron which would suck down even the whole of Ireland, and would put it in all together. Again it vomits up that mouthful and its thunderous belching and its crashing and its roaring can be heard among the clouds just like a cauldron boiling on the fire.51
This descriptive passage is followed by a narrative, belonging to a subgroup within the Sanas Cormaic entries which, through shared, ‘criss-crossing’ features, seem to evince particular interest on the part of the compilers in obscure language (including poetry), liminality (for example, sea and shoreline locations), and mysterious figures (superficially unpromising youths with great futures, and the fool (drúth), Lomna, whose head speaks after decapitation—and who, incidentally, has a similar namesake in TBDD).52
In the first part of the Coire Brecáin entry, it is the motion of mill-paddles, rather than grinding as such, which is invoked to describe the action of the currents of Coire Brecáin.53 Nevertheless, the content of the following entry (not only in the Yellow Book of Lecan, but also in the short version of this glossary in Leabhar Breac, and the Book of Uí Maine) does make it possible to suggest that, at some point in the creation of Sanas Cormaic (or one of its sources), the mill-reference may have been felt to be connected with grinding, specifically: ‘Cumal [a she-slave] i.e. a woman that is grinding at a quern; for this was the business of bondswomen before the mills were made’.54 After Cumal, the next-but-one entry is ‘Cotud ‘a whetstone’ i.e. everything hard [?], ab eo quod est cotis i.e. a stone (lie) on which iron weapons are ground.’55
The clustering of Coire Brecáin, Cumal and Cotud entries might of course be a compilatory coincidence, but, on the other hand, it is clear that, in the Irish glossaries, some entries had in fact been harvested from the same sources as those found close to them in their manuscripts, or else had been re-ordered, or even tailor-made, to fit in with their neighbours.56 In other words, entry order could be significant. The point I wish to make is that, in these manuscripts of Sanas Cormaic, Coire Brecáin is associated with mills, and mills are, immediately afterwards, linked to grinding (indeed, to much the same sort of grinding-context described in Grottasǫngr), and that this might conceivably reflect some sense that Coire Brecáin was itself a kind of grinder. Certainly, the whirlpool is depicted in Sanas Cormaic with a ‘mouth’, like a mill (the feature described as an ‘eye’ in Grottasǫngr).57 Even its name has a mill-aspect: although presented in Sanas Cormaic as meaning ‘Cauldron of Brecán’, where Brec(c)án is an untranslated personal name, Coire Brecáin could, I think, alternatively be interpreted as ‘Cauldron of The-One-Roughened-As-A-Millstone’. According to the Dictionary of the Irish Language, Coire Brecáin contains Brec(c)án, a ‘fanciful personal name’, meaning ‘speckled thing’. Brec(c)án is, in its turn, interpreted in the same source as deriving from brecc, ‘speckled’; this appears to be related to the verb breccaid ‘speckles’ and the verbal noun breccad, ‘act of speckling’. However, breccad could, very specifically, refer to the process of ‘picking’ (deliberately roughening) a quern or millstone with an instrument called a breccaire, ‘speckler’.58 Consequently, although brec(c)án is not specifically attested in DIL as meaning ‘one roughened as a millstone’, this would seem to me to be a fairly unproblematic interpretation of the word found in the genitive in Coire Brecáin. As ‘Cauldron of The-One-Roughened-As-A-Millstone’, the name Coire Brecáin could, I would argue, reflect some idea that the whirlpool resembled (or seemed to contain) a roughened millstone, complete with mouth.
Although it must be admitted that there is no evidence that Irish speakers ever did call a whirlpool ‘Admlithi’, it would seem that, had any wanted to give Coire Brecáin, for example, a nickname, ‘Great-Grindings’ would probably have made a perfectly appropriate choice—at least for one or more of the compilers of Sanas Cormaic. (This would mirror the kind of thinking behind the coining of the Dutch word maelstrom, ‘grinding-stream’ which has become a common European term for ‘whirlpool’.)59 Yet such a tag could have packed greater punch still in contexts which were at least partially Norse, its foreignness rendering it more obscure and thus more powerful (as a noa-term) and exotic (in poetry).60 Irish words were, after all, rather rare in Norse literary texts—although, importantly, a handful were preserved, including (in compound) men/min, the word for ‘flour’ which was mentioned earlier as an element in one (Irish) version of the Admlithi-name.61 My suggestion is therefore that Amlođi represents a corruption of an Irish name which was applied to (or perhaps even coined for) a specific area of grinding sea,62 such as the ‘Coire Brecáin’ of Sanas Cormaic, in the mixed-language region stretching from Ireland itself, across the North Channel, into the Hebrides and up towards the Northern Isles of Orkney and Shetland.63 Where exactly Coire Brecáin was thought to have been located is another question: the standard view is that the name probably originally referred to a whirlpool off Rathlin Island, but that another between Jura and Scarba in the Hebrides was—at some point—also given the same name (now, Corryvreckan).64 Either of these eddies could, I suspect, have been given a noa-name or heiti (Admlithi) in skaldic verse.

Coire Brecáin. As ‘Cauldron of The-One-Roughened-As-A-Millstone’ A whirlpool; Maelstrom; Hamlet; history and it is a giggle and keeps the old brain-pan fresh.

•"Let me be cruel, not unnatural;
I will speak daggers to her, but use none."
- William Shakespeare, Hamlet, 3.2

Yeah, He's a Mick.

Yep, works for me.

P.S Visit The Review of English Studies online at:

Ralph Martire Has Wound Up Yet Another Kick in the Goodies for Illinois

“The bag of tricks is empty,” said Ralph Martire, executive director of the Center for Tax and Budget Accountability, a union-funded fiscal watchdog group in Chicago.

Kick Illinois again,Ralph! The bag ain't near empty! Oh, Hell no! Empty don't mean done! Ralph is after Grannie and Gramps and their private pensions - It's a fairness issue.

This was last week - in SEIU's Progress Illinois. SEIU funds Ralphie and SEIU exist only because of the Tax Troughs in America.

Ralph Martire, executive director of the Center for Tax and Budget Accountability, said the budget pitch and the cuts it foresees were predictable, given the structure of the state's tax system. "You can't lay this at the governor's feet," he said. "If you have a fiscal system that doesn't support current level of expenditures ... you've got to do something. He tried to mimimize the pain these cuts will cause. But you can't really minimize some of these cuts. They're really, really harmful." Illinois remains a relatively low-income tax state with an inefficient sales tax code, CTBA and other budget reformers have pointed out repeatedly, for years. The tax hike helped stabilize the state's fiscal outlook, but it did not resolve those two issues.

Merciful Mountebank!

Today, the media is a-ablaze with TAX Retirement! Johnny Cullerton is rowing this boat built with planks cut by Ralph Martire

Influential Senate President John Cullerton on Monday suggested the state should start taxing retirement income. Illinois does not currently tax pensions or retirement funds such as 401(k) plans, but Cullerton suggested that the idea be in the mix as part of an effort to change the state's outdated tax system.

"It would just be a matter of fairness," Cullerton, D-Chicago, told a City Club of Chicago luncheon.

Fairness - that's Ralph Code for prepare your jewels for the ride of their lives! Kick!

Cough it out, Illinois, and ice them!

Ralphie wraps every lifting of wallets in the cozy goo-goo goodness of social justice and policy. Policy in politics has given us Wisconsin.

Ralph Martire is a career tax-pirate who has helped SEIU and other public sector unions board and loot the State of Illinois. Ever since sweet old Dawn Clark Netsch and other bow-tie wearing Policy Play Actors pushed Ralph Martire's public sector union funded Center for Tax and Budget Accountability down the Golden Goose's throat with howls of Policy Human Services, Impoverished, Children, Destitute Mental Health Waifs, Teachers - Think of the Teachers People!!!!!!! Pensions and tax-larded salaries have all but destroyed the Illinois middle class.

Hold the phone! Here's an update -

UPDATE: Arne "Too Smart" Duncan, former Aussie Hoop Pro and . . . secretary of Education jut appointed Ralph "The Tax Pimp" Martire to his Equity ( again airness - What's Mine is Mine and What's Your's Is Mine - you know, Fairness) and Excellency Commission - read this BS below about Ralph - he's Martin Luther King!

Ralph wants Grannie's pension from her forty years of service with Rheem over by Damen at 74th Street and Gramps' pension from Nabisco over by Kedzie. They did not go to Cancun. They saved and cut coupons. They are the rich that Ed Schultz on MSNBC and Michael Moore are talking about - Rich means that you did not spend your savings and still have some. It is time that Policy and Social Justice make Grannie and Gramps responsible for Tina, the teenage mom of four without her GED, who needs to go to college and become a community activist; Taffy Tarington of Winnetka who was appointed to three terms on four different salaried boards and panels through six Administrations, because 'Ain't She Great' she is the Chairwoman of Ladies for Abortion and a Planned Parenthood Anti Death Penalty Activist; and for Rod Blagojevich.

Well cough up! There is plenty of untapped wealth in Illinois! Ralph is paid to say so with pie charts and easy Media access. Ralph slipped this one under Johnny Cullerton's door.

Ralph's pie chart tells us that Illinois Ain't Broke with equal gusto of Subway Slim Michael Moore who tells us that America Ain't Broke. Grannie's got a Pension! Gramps has Silver Certificates from WW II in a safe deposit box! Hickey's got quarters in a five gallon Hinkley and Schmidt jug that he stole from . . .Charlie Olson, sorry Charlie. You had three and I had none and now I have one and you still have two - it's Policy and Justice Issue.

I plan to vote against anyone of any party that has had or continues to do anything remotely suggested by Ralph Martire.


*

Ralph Martire: Ralph Martire is executive director of the Center for Tax and Budget Accountability. Mr. Martire teaches a Master's level class on education finance and fiscal policy for the University of Illinois and Roosevelt University. He has received numerous awards for his work on education policy reform, including the 2007 Champion of Freedom Award, presented by the Rainbow PUSH Coalition to individuals whose professional work embodies Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s, commitment to equal educational opportunities.

And mine that of Edward Teach the Pirate!

http://educationnationforum.blogspot.com/2011/02/us-secretary-of-education-appoints.html

Wisconsin Border Meet-Up at Checkpoint Chedder

In a televised news conference, Walker threw cold water on an offer from Senate Minority Leader Mark Miller to meet near the border and work out their differences. Walker argued that Miller had been a barrier to past talks on resolving Wisconsin’s legislative impasse.

“Sen. Miller is misleading the public just like he misled us,” said Walker, who added that he had sent two staffers to meet with Democrats on Sunday but could not reach an agreement that would bring the 14 senators back from Illinois. “For us to move forward, we need reasonable and responsible officials,” the governor said. “This letter is absolutely ridiculous. He [Miller] is the person standing in the way.”

I have been over the border and its not like here. There's Swedes and Swiss and funny County road signs that double the value of letters just when you think that you've got a grip on the directions - 'Take County F four miles until you come to the Swedenborgian Church in the Dell; take aright on County U and go 500 yards to County C; that crosses a wooden bridge near the Culver's at Argle by the Pheasant Fryer; thats K.

Now, you go north on County Y over the last gulley of the Pecatonica Millrace - not the river mind . . . you'll see the Interstate off in the distance . . .County Road O veers little and then jogs right at the Old Barn -take O until the road ends in the limestone quarry and that's U. Welcome, FIP! Have some Cheese?

The Madison exiles wanted a meet up with Governor Walker and he said, "Nix on that."

An abritrator is needed. I'll go. Anything to help make this world a better place - that's how I roll.

I can see it now - just north of Cedarburg - Sheriff Ed Galt is worried about Democratic Senators Finn and Doyle and Republican State Chairman John Smith understands. Hickey wanted the meet up to be nice, but like most situations nice happens only when force takes the most comfortable seat.


Sheriff Ed Galt: [about Doyle] If he sends Hickey after me, he's coming straight after you.
John Smith: Yeah, Hickey. I've heard he's a real scary guy.
[he starts to open the door, Galt shuts it]
Sheriff Ed Galt: Let me tell you just how scary. It goes that when Hickey was ten years old, he took a butcher knife and cut his own father's throat, ear to ear. So they put him in an orphanage. Fifteen years old, he burned it to the ground!


(Hickey arrives)

Hickey: I heard you got Finn. That was Doyle's best shooter.
John Smith: I thought you were the best.
Hickey: Nah, just the best lookin'.


Finn: I guess you'll just have to kill me.
John Smith: It'll hurt if I do

Hickey: [Final scene, speaking to Smith] I don't want to die in New Glarus. Chicago, maybe... but not Texas. You can meet me there if you like . . .(really cool music -ominous and ironic) FADE


Makes about as much sense as outlaw elected officials eating croissants, hard boiled eggs, toaster waffles, assorted mixed fruit, some great tasting coffees and teas and talking to Rachel Maddow thanks to internet access at the Public Trough Comfort Suites for three weeks acting like hunger strikers. Hunger strikers refuse to eat.


http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0116830/quotes

Thoughts of Glenna and the War of Roses and my Toeses

When I went to Loyola back in the early 1970's, I took a class with Dr. Trimble - English History: The Wars of the Roses To The Tudors. Only five students took the class and by the second week it was down to me and a girl named Glenna, most days as the other three students made only perfunctory appearances.

Dr. Lionel Trimble was a scholar*of the old school. He was close to seventy years old and spoke in very mannered, low and formal English, but what he spoke of -Perkin Warbeck, Nat Tyler, Bolingbroke, Hotspur, Mortimer, Richard II,III, Pope Nicholas Breakspear, York and Lancaster, Richard Duke of Gloucester, Buckingham, Owen Glendower, and Henry Tudor honeyed the air of Loyola's Lewis Tower on Rush Street, or so I believed.

Dr. Trimble began lecturing the moment he closed the door at the appointed time - if you were late you were locked out. History after all is about time.

Glenna was from the far North - Kennilworth or Winnetka and dressed like she was going to a board meeting at Northern Trust Bank. This was in the days when blue jeans were uniform of the day for Catholic girls freed from jumpers of Longwood Academy, Queen of Peace, Maria, St. Scholastica and other convents-lite.

Glenna had jet-black hair and alabaster skin and wore pearls most days and horn-rimmed black glasses. More importantly, to this late-adolescent testosterone bubbling scholar-manque, Glenna was graced by God with the body of mortal sin itself.
Her calves and legs, usually encased in grey or blue hose, were magnificently athletic and femininely arched at the feet, shod in low heeled pumps or black boots.

Glenna was a twenty year old Mary Tyler Moore encorpified. It took every level of self-control and self-worth in my poor powers to focus on the Wars of the Roses, when the war of hormones and romantic day-dreaming of a life as the kept man of Glenna: she attending to the world of corporate banking and larding our savings and checking accounts and me ministering to her every passion, while cooking and cleaning our Tudor Brick Home adorned by Red and White Rose bushes and maintaining my wash-board like belly, and rock hard chest with feats of home-spun athleticism.

To say that I was distracted is understatement.

Glenna and I communicated but once as I recall - days before the end of the Spring Semester. I was seated in my usual position of advantage angled just behind and to the right of this exquisite beauty, in order to take in every move and crossing of legs, but most importantly the neck, ears and superior jaw occasionally draped by the raven hair - flicked with an elegant racking by manicured and lovely fingers.

As was my wont - I was adorned in my janitor's uniform grey green work slacks and light grey long sleeved shirt with patches over each pectoral -left emblazoned HICKEY and right in Gothic script ORCHESTRA HALL. I wore heavy work boots and thick white socks. I would go from my classes directly to 220 S. Michigan and work the 3-11 shift, get relieved by cousin Willie and Tony Gac, study and sleep. Get up take a shower in the musicians locker room and return to class. Ah, the Days of Ivy!

My legs stretched comfortably in anticipation of Dr. Trimble's arrival and luxuriating in the breath-takingly sexy propriety that was Glenna and I checked my notes.

Glenna forced down her Oxford University text and pulled her horn-rimmed glasses off, tossed her cascade of black hair in a sweep that scarfed her neck and stared into my eyes with her own lavender blue orbs - "Excuse me."

My heart stopped. Yes?

"Please move, or do something. Your feet smell awful. Really. I am sorry. Please; before I throw up."

Slack jawed and silently I skulked back several seats and rows away. Dr. Trinble saved me from further shame by transporting me to Bosworth Fields.

I got and A + for my essay, notes and exams; never saw Glenna again.

By the way, my feet had soured due to the fact that I wore the same work shoes day-in-day out in rain, snow, and slush. My doctor gave me a formaldehyde regimen. Rule -toss boondockers and tennis shoes; merely washing feet don't do it.

My feet are like Roses, ever since Glenna.


*

Powicke, F.M. (1953). The Oxford History of England: The Thirteenth Century 1216-1307. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0198217080.

Green, V.H.H. (1955). The Later Plantagenets: A Survey of English History Between 1307-1485. Edward Arnold (Publishers) Ltd. ISBN 0713151765.

Michael Moore - "Why I came to Madison!"

""Right now, the earth is shaking and the ground is shifting under the feet of those who are in charge," he said. "Your message has inspired people in all 50 states: 'We have had it.' . . .We're going to do this together. Don't give up. Please don't give up," Moore told the protesters, who have swarmed the Capitol every day for close to three weeks.

Here's the reasons laid out by the man who wants 'to eat the rich' and sued his partners and distributers for MOORE MONEY -"Wisconsin is broke. There are weapons of mass destruction (in Iraq). And the Packers need (Brett) Favre to win the Super Bowl. I fast during Lent . . . they have aroused a sleeping giant . . .And this giant wants a snack! What is certain, Madison is only the beginning."




"Let me continue, . . . on Wisconsin! Let's get to vittling!

1
Dairy Queen
7860 Mineral Point Rd, Madison, WI 53717 » Map
(608) 833-2080
5.8 miles Be the first to review
» Website
» Coupons
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What: Fast Food Restaurants, Ice Cream & Frozen Desserts
2
Dairy Queen
2856 University Ave, Madison, WI 53705 » Map
(608) 238-4511
1.8 miles Be the first to review
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What: Fast Food Restaurants, Ice Cream & Frozen Desserts
3
Bluephies
2701 Monroe St, Madison, WI 53711 » Map
(608) 231-3663
1.7 miles
4.5 stars
(8)
» Website» More
Where: Dudgeon-Monroe
What: Fast Food Restaurants, Restaurants, Delicatessens
4
Wah Kee Wonton Noodle Restaurant
600 Williamson St, Madison, WI 53703 » Map
(608) 255-5580
1.3 miles
3.0 stars
(5)
» More
Where: Capitol, Downtown Madison
What: Fast Food Restaurants, Chinese Restaurants, Restaurants
5
Culver's
2102 W Beltline Hwy, Madison, WI 53713 » Map
(608) 274-1221
2.7 miles
5.0 stars
(2)
» Website» More
What: Fast Food Restaurants, American Restaurants, Restaurants
6
Arby's
601 S Gammon Rd, Madison, WI 53719 » Map
(608) 274-6205
5.2 miles
5.0 stars
(2)
» Website» More
What: Fast Food Restaurants, Restaurants, American Restaurants
7
KFC
4502 Verona Rd, Madison, WI 53711 » Map
(608) 271-1355
3.6 miles
5.0 stars
(1)
» Website» More
What: Fast Food Restaurants, Restaurants, Chicken Restaurants
8
Orange Julius
207 E Towne Mall, Madison, WI 53704 » Map
(608) 241-1971
6 miles
5.0 stars
(1)
» Website» More
What: Fast Food Restaurants, Refreshment Stands, Restaurants
9
McDonald's
4687 Verona Rd, Madison, WI 53711 » Map
(608) 274-2668
3.9 miles
3.0 stars
(2)
» Website» More
Where: Dunn's Marsh
What: Fast Food Restaurants, American Restaurants, Restaurants
10
Culver's
1325 Northport Dr, Madison, WI 53704 » Map
(608) 242-7731
4.5 miles
4.0 stars
(1)
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What: Fast Food Restaurants, American Restaurants, Restaurants
11
Arby's
4 Collins Ct, Madison, WI 53716 » Map
(608) 222-2400
5 miles
4.0 stars
(1)
» Website» More
What: Fast Food Restaurants, Restaurants, American Restaurants
12
Chipotle Mexican Grill
658 State St, Madison, WI 53703 » Map
(608) 250-4613
0.3 miles
4.0 stars
(1)
» Website» More
What: Fast Food Restaurants, Restaurants, Mexican Restaurants
13
Blue Plate Diner
2089 Atwood Ave, Madison, WI 53704 » Map
(608) 244-8505
2.8 miles
4.0 stars
(1)
» Website» More
What: Fast Food Restaurants, Restaurants
14
Yen Ching Restaurant
1300S S Midvale Blvd, Madison, WI 53711 » Map
(608) 273-2475
3.4 miles
4.0 stars
(1)
» Website» More
What: Fast Food Restaurants, Chinese Restaurants, Family Style Restaurants
15
Gumbys Pizza
2825 University Ave, Madison, WI 53705 » Map
(608) 238-9494
1.7 miles
2.5 stars
(2)
» Website» More
Where: Sunset Village
What: Fast Food Restaurants, Pizza, Restaurants
16
McDonald's
2402 S Park St, Madison, WI 53713 » Map
(608) 251-1993
2.3 miles
3.0 stars
(1)
» Website» More
Where: Burr Oaks
What: Fast Food Restaurants, American Restaurants, Restaurants
17
Taco Bell
1920 S Park St, Madison, WI 53713 » Map
(608) 255-6799
2 miles
3.0 stars
(1)
» Website» More
What: Fast Food Restaurants, Restaurants, Mexican Restaurants
18
Taco Bell
534 State St, Madison, WI 53703 » Map
(608) 255-7055
0.4 miles
3.0 stars
(1)
» Website» More
Where: State-Langdon, Downtown Madison
What: Fast Food Restaurants, Restaurants, Mexican Restaurants
19
Wendy's
633 S Gammon Rd, Madison, WI 53719 » Map
(608) 271-8789
5.2 miles
3.0 stars
(1)
» Website» More
What: Fast Food Restaurants, Restaurants, Hamburgers & Hot Dogs
20
McDonald's
1102 Regent St, Madison, WI 53715 » Map
(608) 257-1102
0.4 miles Be the first to review
» Website» More
What: Fast Food Restaurants, American Restaurants, Restaurants
21
McDonald's
4500 University Ave, Madison, WI 53705 » Map
(608) 238-5909
2.6 miles Be the first to review
» Website» More
What: Fast Food Restaurants, American Restaurants, Restaurants
22
McDonald's
3051 E Washington Ave, Madison, WI 53704 » Map
(608) 244-1913
3.6 miles Be the first to review
» Website» More
Where: Worthington Park
What: Fast Food Restaurants, American Restaurants, Restaurants
23
McDonald's
1001 S Whitney Way, Madison, WI 53711 » Map
(608) 288-9380
4.1 miles Be the first to review
» Website» More
Where: Orchard Ridge
What: Fast Food Restaurants, American Restaurants, Restaurants
24
McDonald's
2901 Dryden Dr, Madison, WI 53704 » Map
(608) 249-9446
4.3 miles Be the first to review
» Website» More
Where: Sherman
What: Fast Food Restaurants, American Restaurants, Restaurants
25
Culver's
4401 Cottage Grove Rd, Madison, WI 53716 » Map
(608) 268-0211
4.7 miles Be the first to review
» Website» More
What: Fast Food Restaurants, American Restaurants, Restaurants
26
McDonald's
6910 Odana Rd, Madison, WI 53719 » Map
(608) 833-3636
5 miles Be the first to review
» Website» More
What: Fast Food Restaurants, American Restaurants, Restaurants
27
McDonald's
110 W Towne Mall, Madison, WI 53719 » Map
(608) 833-7798
5.1 miles Be the first to review
» Website» More
What: Fast Food Restaurants, American Restaurants, Restaurants
28
McDonald's
3709 Kinsman Blvd, Madison, WI 53704 » Map
(608) 249-9689
5.2 miles Be the first to review
» Website» More
Where: Reindahl Park
What: Fast Food Restaurants, American Restaurants, Restaurants
29
Culver's
4301 E Towne Blvd, Madison, WI 53704 » Map
(608) 244-0808
5.8 miles Be the first to review
» Website» More
What: Fast Food Restaurants, American Restaurants, Restaurants
30
McDonald's
4502 E Washington Ave, Madison, WI 53704 » Map
(608) 249-4500

. . ."

Coming Soon to Your Town: The Michael Moore Sleepy Giant Solidarity Budget Buster Buffet - All He Can Eat!


click my post title for the next five pages of Mike's great tasting reasons!

Why Labor Will Lose in Wisconsin

American workers are the best. American labor made the standard of living that is being eroded by people who want the American middle class to disappear.

The issue in Wisconsin will not end well for organized labor. The skilled and industrial trades, in my simple opinion, made a pact with the devil by siding with public sector unions ( PACs in reality) and allowing the likes of Andy Stern to hijack not only the voice of labor, but the very meaning of the word.

Taxes and the salaries of public sector unions are paid by electricians, carpenters, millwrights, pipe-fitters, plumbers, auto workers, steel workers, engineers and industrial workers. These folks are American labor.

Here is the face of labor -hijacked labor - in 2011.


This is face of real labor This great photo was sent by Max Weismann

My Jazz Man Crush on Guitarist Peter Bernstein is Gee Whiz Tops!

I developed my Jazz Man Crush on guitar master Peter Bernstein at Joe Segal's Jazz Showcase three years ago when the woman I love and I caught Hammond organ genius Dr. Lonnie Smith and the understated artistry of the Jewish Wes Montgomery.


Here is Bernstein at the Press Room in New Hampshire doing a knock out job on This I dig of You.



He sends me - first class and insured. Now, dig Love Walked In, Cats.

I'm all girlish with the vapors, I dare say . . .my hairy chested, tough-knuckled testosterone charged self notwithstanding.

Interview With Northwestern Distinguished Professor of Pornography - Jackie Treehorn

Professor Jackie Treehorn takes full responsibility for the live sex act.

"Hello, Dude, I'm Jackie Treehorn."

I'm not the Dude. I'm Hickey, or Hick, or the Hickester, or Hickerino, or 'Hey, What's that on Your Neck?' or . . .?

"Fine Dude, have it your way. What are you drinking?"

Aquafina, How's the smut business, Jackie?

"Oh, the dildos, the dummy and the players? Regrettably, standards have fallen in academic discourse due to lack of funding, but as a society we have grown. Comic books for primary texts in Evanston . . .these are exciting times, Dude."

Hickey

Jackie isn't ready, however, to express regret.

"If I decide to say I shouldn't have done this," he said Thursday, sitting in his sex research lab at Northwestern University, "it will be because this could have been avoided, not because anybody has been harmed by it."

Here in the sex lab — an unsexy little space crammed with computers, chairs and a wobbly round table, Penthouse, Russ Meyers posters and bound volumes of BIG Gay Caballeros, Dutch Dykes and Jugs and Ammo — the world seemed quiet, wonky, normal, not so different from the polyester suited and silk-shirted Jackie Treehorn.

What about your university benefactors, your Deans, your colleagues, the media, and your students and their parents kicking out that serious tuition capital Jackie?

"They're sexually spontaneous kinky folks," he said of the performers, "and I'm sure they came up with the idea right there.Sex is not just one thing," he said. "Sex is many things. I teach many things. That includes teaching what kinky sex means."

So, you're feeling crucified, Jackie? The Old Puritanical Card - Iron Nails Ran In?

"I have a thicker skin than most people," he said, "... but I'm feeling the nail through the skin right now. This isn't BYU, this is Northwestern, where a terrorist can be called a law professor and a Medill Law Professor can do anything he feels like doing with his students just to keep the 501 (c)3 Lefty money rolling in. Like I said, exciting times, Dude."

Hickey. How's the blow-back, Jackie?

"If I had to bet, I would bet I will not be doing this again," he said, "either because of my decision or someone else's. And that's fine. It's not like I think this is a necessary part of understanding kinky people."

We are who we are, Jackie?

"Northwestern is the American University in metaphor, Dude."

Hickey.

"What's that on your neck? Let me get the door for you, Dude."


The man treats.

Pope Exonerates Jews For Crucifiction: What About Gefilte Fish?

(Newser) – Pope Benedict would like to be clear: the Jewish people as a whole were not responsible for the death of God's only son. The pope makes the sweeping exoneration in his new book, Jesus of Nazareth, excerpts of which were released today. In it, Benedict presents a biblical and theological analysis that explains why such an interpretation—which has been used for centuries to justify the persecution of Jews—is not true.

The statement isn't exactly a new one for the Vatican, which in 1965 released a document that firmly stated Jesus' death couldn't be attributed to Jews as a whole. But Jewish scholars welcomed the pope's argument, noting that the faithful are more likely to read commentary than old church documents, and saying it would help fight
anti-Semitism.

The great Lenny Bruce might have been to blame for perpetuating that hateful canard when he revealed that a note was found in a basement -

Lenny Bruce once said that all his life all he ever heard from gentiles is "The Jews killed Christ." Bruce said he never really believed it until, one year, he bought a house in Lake Ronkonkama, NY which is on Long Island. On the day he moved in, he went down to the basement to clean up. Behind an old bookcase he discovered a note. Bruce read it. It said, "I did it" and it was signed "Morty."

Nevertheless, to quote Mr. Bruce, " We are all the same, schmuck!"

Yes, we are.

Pope Benedict reiterated the two thousand year late exoneration and that should end that historical and theological blame game once and for all.

I have but one beef with Jews - Gefilte Fish. Good Lord! After the Holocaust, Jews turned the desert that was Palestine into a Garden of Eden -alive with orange groves and trees and universal sanitation! They found water where none was to be had.

How can the people of the One True Living God, the folks who brought not only monotheism to mankind, but also the first genuine codification of moral and social law and articulated Justice for widows and orphans throughout civilization, the poetry of the psalms, and most of all dietary sense and sensibilities to Mankind explain Gefilte Fish?

I have eaten pig's ears ( fried 'Listeners'), smoked pig's feet (crubeen), yards of tripe, calves brains, crawdads, snails, locusts, haggis, boudain, smelts, eel, Buffalo carp, chicken feet, and seaweed and all with some gusto.

I know a guy who would eat the crotch out of a mortally slow 'coon that had been hit by a Jimmy on I-57 in August, but he turned his nose up at Gefilte Fish ( געפֿילטע פֿיש).

In my goyish understanding Gefilte Fish is shredded or ground carp, whitefish, pike, or mullet that is mixed with eggs, onions matzoh meal and either stuffed into the skin of a fish, or formed into balls or logs.

There are two distinct varieties and I have tried both: one is sweet because sugar is added to the mixture, or peppery. The varieties identify either the Galitzianer ( the sweet) who originated from Galicia and settled in Ukrainia, Poland, Germany, and Austria, the Litvak ( peppery) from the Duchy of Lithuania.

The Gefilte Fish is often served with a jelly schmaltz concoction.

The Jews have a rich bountiful banquet of belly busting wonders! Bagels, Blinnys, Kugel, pickled roots and vegetables that are God affirming - Abraham put the knife in me for a Kosher Green Tomato!

What Jews do with a leg of lamb would make a Greek weep with envy! Stews with raisins, nuts, and figs, Only a Jew can smoked a salmnon! Soups,God Bless You! The Jews invented Fish and Chips with Salt and Malted Vinegar and captured the hearts and minds of Welsh, Irish, Scots and Brits!

But Gefilte Fish? After centuries of abuse, perhaps this was your exploding cigar of cuisine? Here, Goychik, try this! Man, it would gag a maggot.

Okay, we had that one coming.

American Naval Power Fades, While America Stares at its Navel.

Last week, pirates attacked and executed four Americans in the Indian Ocean. We and the Europeans have endured literally thousands of attacks by the Somali pirates without taking the initiative against their vulnerable boats and bases even once. Such paralysis is but a symptom of a sickness that started some time ago.

So warns novelist,journalist and historian critic Mark Helprin* in a recent essay that parallels the disturbing announcement by the Iranian Navy that Iran will build a permanent naval base in Syria

Just two days after two Iranian warships reached the Syrian port of Latakia via the Suez Canal, Friday, Feb. 25, an Iranian-Syrian naval cooperation accord was signed providing for Iran to build its first Mediterranean naval base at the Syrian port, DEBKAfile's military and Iranian sources reveal.

The base will include a large Iranian Revolutionary Guards weapons depot stocked with hardware chosen by the IRGC subject to prior notification to Damascus. Latakia harbor will be deepened, widened and provided with new "coastal installations" to accommodate the large warships and submarines destined to use these facilities.


Iran has much to celebrate, DEBKAfile's military sources report. It has acquired its first military foothold on a Mediterranean shore and its first permanent military presence on Syrian soil. Tehran will be setting in place the logistical infrastructure for accommodating incoming Iranian troops to fight in a potential Middle East war.


According to our sources, the "cadets" the Kharg cruiser, one of the two Iranian warships allowed to transit the Suez Canal, was said to be carrying were in fact the first construction crews for building the new port facilities.

Two more events were carefully synchronized to take place in the same week.


On Feb. 24, as the Iranian warships headed from the Suez Canal to Syria, Hamas fired long-range made-in-Iran Grade missiles from the Gaza Strip into Israel, one hitting the main Negev city of Beersheba for the first time since Israel's Gaza campaign two years ago - asDEBKAfile reported on that day. Tehran was using its Palestinian surrogate to flaunt its success in getting its first warships through the Suez Canal in the face of Israeli protests. The Iranians were also parading their offensive agenda in deploying warships on the Mediterranean just 287 kilometers north of Israel's northernmost coastal town of Nahariya.

The second occurrence was a contract announced by Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov for the sale of advanced Russian shore-to-sea cruise missiles to Syria. The Yakhont missile system has a range of 300 kilometers and skims the waves low enough to be undetected by radar. DEBKAfile's military sources take this sale as representing Moscow's nod in favor of the new Iranian base at Latakia, 72 kilometers from the permanent naval base Russia is building at the Syrian port of Tartous.


The Russians are willing to contribute towards the Iranian port's defenses and looking forward to cooperation between the Russian, Iranian and Syrian fleets in the eastern Mediterranean opposite the US Sixth Fleet's regular beat

However, the United States Fleet Sixth Fleet is sending two warships to monitor the situation in Libya. A chartered ferry removed a few hundred Americans from Tripoli last week, while British, French, Italian and Russian vessels carted their citizens out of harm's way.

The spin from the White House holds that its determinations were based upon the safety of the US citizen -nothing safer than a ferry.

America removed the Captain of the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise, because he helped boost morale on that deployed warship in harm's way with bawdy video. The Navel Gazers won. America's debate about anything is controlled by Navel Gazers, if not fools and grifters.

An American writer of great talent Mark Helprin understands our national folly. Americans will self-examine and hair shirt for months about an unpopular or PC utterance by anyone and wholly ignore, in an instance, a calamity of historic proportions - see 9/11. It took no time at all for Americ's belly-button watchers like Noam Chomsky, Ward Churchill and half of Hollywood to blame America for the twin towers attack by Islamists.

. . .And yet the fleet has been made to wither even in time of war. We have the smallest navy in almost a century, declining in the past 50 years to 286 from 1,000 principal combatants. Apologists may cite typical postwar diminutions, but the ongoing 17% reduction from 1998 to the present applies to a navy that unlike its wartime predecessors was not previously built up. These are reductions upon reductions. Nor can there be comfort in the fact that modern ships are more capable, for so are the ships of potential opponents. And even if the capacity of a whole navy could be packed into a small number of super ships, they could be in only a limited number of places at a time, and the loss of just a few of them would be catastrophic.

. . .The United Sates Navy need not follow the Royal Navy into near oblivion. We have five times the population and almost six times the GDP of the U.K., and unlike Britain we were not exhausted by the great wars and their debt, and we neither depended upon an empire for our sway nor did we lose one.

Despite its necessity, deficit reduction is not the only or even the most important thing. Abdicating our more than half-century stabilizing role on the oceans, neglecting the military balance, and relinquishing a position we are fully capable of holding will bring tectonic realignments among nations—and ultimately more expense, bloodletting, and heartbreak than the most furious deficit hawk is capable of imagining. A technological nation with a GDP of $14 trillion can afford to build a fleet worthy of its past and sufficient to its future. Pity it if it does not,

Here is the Syrian point of view -

Syrian Defense Minister Lt. Gen. Ali Mohammad Habib soon put him right on the "cadets' outing." At a ceremony in honor of the Iranian Navy Commander Admiral Habibollah Sayyari, Habib said: "Iranian warships' presence in the Mediterranean Sea for the first time after 32 years is a great move that is going to cripple Israel." Empasis my own.

America needs to straighten its spine and look to our interests around the world. Let Hollywood take care of Dafur and African AIDS for the time being. Iran will have a naval base paid for by Russia in Syria. Israel needs a friend - Israel needs Americans. Americans telling Washington to keep America's Navy strong and present in the world will be a good start.

Americans need to ignore the Navel Gazers and look to our Navy.



*

Born in 1947, Mark Helprin was raised on the Hudson and in the British West Indies. After receiving degrees from Harvard College and Harvard's Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, he did postgraduate work at the University of Oxford, Princeton, and Columbia. He has served in the British Merchant Navy, the Israeli infantry, and the Israeli Air Force. He was published in The New Yorker for almost a quarter of a century, and his stories and essays on politics and aesthetics appear in The Atlantic Monthly, The New Criterion, The Wall Street Journal, Commentary, The New York Times, The National Review, American Heritage, Forbes ASAP, and many other publications here and abroad. Senior Fellow of the Claremont Institute for the Study of Statesmanship and Political Philosophy, Fellow of the American Academy in Rome, Member of the Council on Foreign Relations, former Guggenheim Fellow and Senior Fellow of the Hudson Institute, and Adviser on Defense and Foreign Relations to presidential candidate Robert Dole, he has been awarded the National Jewish Book Award, the Prix de Rome, and the Peggy V. Helmerich Distinguished Author Award, 2006, among other prizes. Translated into more than a dozen languages, his books include A Dove of the East & Other Stories, Refiner's Fire, Ellis Island & Other Stories, Winter's Tale, Swan Lake (With illustrations by Chris Van Allsburg), A Soldier of the Great War, Memoir from Antproof Case, A City in Winter and The Veil of Snows (both with illustrations by Chris Van Allsburg), The Pacific & Other Stories, and Freddy and Fredericka.

http://llphfreedom.blogspot.com/2011/03/iran-to-build-permanent-naval-base-in.html


http://www.anti-semitism.net/syria/iran-to-build-permanent-naval-base-in-syria-real-americans.php

Punish Faith - Gay Agenda

Children are not, in the words of the US Supreme Court in Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U.S. 205 (1972), “mere creatures of the State".

Civil unions in Illinois had one very short honeymoon. Wildly ecstatic though that be -gay folks are mad again. To rev-up the bile of breeder folks, Faith needs a tune-up and Manya Brachear of the Tribune is more than compliant especially if Catholic Doctrine, Leadership or Catholics can be on the receiving end of some nonsense. Front page, GLBTQ agenda is gunning down Catholic and Lutheran social service agencies that handle adoption and Manya is pulling the trigger this morning with her breathless announcement that the State of Illinois is "investigating" Faith.

Not really, even ABC's Chuck Goudie could handle this investigation - Gay couples, joined in civil unions, cannot adopt a child. No news flash. Desire meets Doctrine -no contest.

Children who have lost or were abandoned by their biological parents have been the focus of Catholics and the Catholic Church in Chicago ever since it seemed that sidewalks might be better paths to a destination than wading through mud and maybe cholera might not get tramped on the carpets along with Chicago goo.

The first Chicago orphanages, the Chicago Orphan Asylum and the Catholic Orphan Asylum, opened their doors in 1849 in the aftermath of a cholera epidemic. By 1890, there were 12 orphanages in the city. They split along Roman Catholic and Protestant lines. Chicago had no Jewish orphanages until the 1890s. Until then, Jews tried to send orphans to institutions in Cincinnati, but some Jewish orphans lived in Protestant orphanages in Chicago. Almost all “orphans” in nineteenth-century Chicago orphanages had one parent living. They were places that single-parent families in financial crisis could safely keep their children. A few of them, like the Home for the Friendless, were gigantic, housing hundreds of children at a time.

Children were cared for by people of Faith. There were no doubt active and fulfilled homosexuals among Chicago's pioneers. However, due to the historical milieu and contemporary mores they no doubt celebrated their their difference with much less gusto and public displays of affection, than do Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender and Questioning citizens today.

An active lesbian, Jane Addams, co opted the work of faith-based charity, by attacking the largest of these homes like the Home for the Friendless and secularized child care on a very small scale.

The largest orphan institutions were run by Catholics and the by the 20th Century became the standard for care of children without families - by the 1940's Angel Guardian alone cared for 1,200 children. In the 1970's the work of Jane Addams found fulfillment in the establishment of a State run agency the Illinois Department of Child and Family Services (DCFS) and forced the closing of Illinois orphanages, including Angel Guardian in 1974.In 1975, Sister Rosemary Connolly kept up the fight and reconfigured Angel Guardian to become Misericordia Home - for special needs children. In the city of Chicago, Father James Close energized Mercy Home for Boys and Girls that had been established in the Loop by Fathers Campbell and Mahoney as a home for Working Boys - this expanded through the depression. Children were cared for by people of faith. Faith and Deeds bring 'capacity building' = not coalitions or news ink.

Father John Smyth a giant of a man with more heart than a continent and more balls than a bowling alley, expanded the 1880 Bishop Feehan established Maryville Academy, in Bridgeport and later in Des Plaines. Father Smyth received almost no money from Archdiocese, but used his political genius for pulling dollars from charitable donations raised by himself with dollars matched by the State.

The State, DCFS pumped their charges - children- into Maryville Academy. DCFS paid politically clouted Directors triple figures and larded the staff with more bureaucrats. Maryville was directed by Father Smyth a big good-hearted . . .patsy for the power players. Agenda jumps at opportunity - Jane Addams was all about opportunities take credit for what others had built. That is Progressive thought.

Power is what it is all about. Charity is trumped by a bureaucracy in the moused out rhetoric of do-gooder tax pirates. DCFS worked tirelessly with the media in the early 1990's to undermine the work of Father John Smyth who personally took on the work of caring for troubled children - the ones left in the bureaucratic cracks, alone, friendless, unloved - like the old hippie mantra -Somebody Else's Troubles. DCFS flooded Mercy Home for Boys and Girls

"Familiaris Consortio" (The Role of the Christian Family in the Modern World) by the late Servant of God John Paul II. In it he wrote: "The right and duty of parents to give education is essential, since it is connected with the transmission of human life; it is original and primary with regard to the educational role of others, on account of the uniqueness of the loving relationship between parents and children; it is irreplaceable and inalienable, and therefore incapable of being entirely delegated to others or usurped by others...”

The Gay Agenda demands that everyone cower before its lifestyle -any disagreement, or even mere 'live and let live' is intolerable. Gay agenda politics does not seek acceptance or tolerance.

Gay Marriage is the goal. In the way of that goal is the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church does not recognize same sex . . .sex - let alone marriage. That will not change. Some silly priests might nuzzle up to the Gay Agenda, but the Church will not cave in on this issue. Allen and Albert are not going to go halves on a baby and neither will Tina and Toni. If every one were homosexual, it would be a Gay old world and we would finally achieve Zero Population growth - now that's Progressive!

In today's Chicago Tribune, the always hilarious Manya Brachear - The Seeker - roots out a self-fulfilling investigation on Gay Adoption. Catholic Charities is among the faith-based adoption agencies that denies Allen and Albert, or Tina and Toni from adopting a child. The Church holds that a mother and a father should adopt a child.

Manya slants the heartbreak to the bosom of the homosexual couple who might be denied the joy of parenting with the stamp of approval from Catholic or Lutheran adoption agencies and turns to always Progressively dependable ACLU and DCFS -

"Social intervention such as adoption laws and practices inevitably reflect their communities," said Kendall Marlowe, a spokesman for DCFS. "Illinois as a state has grown on this (gay rights) issue as evidenced by (civil union legislation). Adoption law and practice should reflect the values of the people of Illinois."

Therefore, Catholics and Lutherans have not 'grown' and the agencies that care for children controlled by their unevolved dicta are hurtful and uncaring and must be punished - no State funding! Strip!

The kids be damned! Get on the right side of history! If we can not agree that sex between gents, or gals is human evolution, punish the tree dwelling louts!

They did it Boston!

Religious agencies in Illinois are the not the first to grapple with how to balance discrimination laws and doctrine. In Washington and Boston, Catholic Charities ended a combined two centuries of foster care and adoption services when it could not comply with state anti-discrimination laws after the approval of same-sex marriage.

Ecce Homo! -the Progressive Field Marshal for all agenda politics on this hot issue in Manya's Seek piece and make war offering:

Benjamin Wolf of the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois, an attorney who represents juvenile state wards as part of a court-monitored consent decree with DCFS, said limiting the pool of prospective foster care parents because certain religious traditions believe same-sex relationships are sinful is irresponsible when children are in need.

"We don't know for sure if a loving lesbian or gay family turned away from a discriminatory agency is necessarily going to go to another agency because of the disruption and harm caused to them," he said.

The religious institutions' policies might send a hurtful message to the large number of children in the foster care system who landed there after suffering neglect, abuse or rejection because they were gay, some experts say. Marlowe said 240 children out of more than 15,000 in the foster care system currently identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender or questioning.

Anytime someone uses 'hurtful' my neck hair shoots to the skies! Rock-solid hypocrisy is kicking down your door, Hickey!

Old Ben really means, "Screw the kids; Gays demand and must have!" Whatever they want.

Good luck.

PBS - The Return of Masterpiece Theatre and Your Host - Charlie Sheen

" Good Evening. I'm Charlie Sheen and welcome to the return of Masterpiece Theatre - it takes a Masterpiece and you are looking at one! I wish to thank the Corporation for public Broadcasting and viewers like you - taxpayers with your ugly wives and ugly kids. I'm on a quest to claim absolute victory on every front.I'm proud of what I created. Why wouldn't I be? I exposed people to magic. I exposed them to something that they otherwise would not see in their boring normal lives. And I gave that to them! Tonight - the first part of the ground breaking yet haunting Classic Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! .

Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! is a 1965 exploitation film directed by Russ Meyer, who also wrote the script with Jack Moran. It stars Tura Satana, Haji, and Lori Williams.
The film features gratuitous violence, sexuality, provocative gender roles, and campy dialogue. It is one of Meyer's more boldly titled and unflinchingly exploitative films; however, there is no nudity.

Our story features three thrill-seeking go-go dancers—Billie (Lori Williams), Rosie (Haji), and their leader, Varla (Tura Satana)—encounter a young couple in the desert while racing their sports cars. After killing the boyfriend (Ray Barlow) with her bare hands, Varla drugs, binds, gags and kidnaps his girlfriend, Linda (Susan Bernard). On a desolate highway, the four stop at a gas station, where they see an old man (Stuart Lancaster) and his muscular, dimwitted son, Vegetable (Dennis Busch). The gas station attendant (Mickey Foxx) tells the women that the old man and his two sons live on a decrepit ranch with a hidden cache of money. Intrigued, Varla hatches a scheme to rob the lecherous old man, who uses a wheelchair.Dying is for fools. Amateurs." And now Part 1 of Faster Pussycat, Kill, Kill,Kill




"Resentments are the rocket fuel that lives in the tip of my saber."
"I've got magic. I've got poetry at my fingertips.I wanted to watch 'Jaws' on the ocean in the dark and be afraid. It's been a tsunami. And I've been riding it on a mercury surfboard. I'm still alive, which is pretty cool.[I was] bangin' 7-gram rocks and finishing them because that's how I roll. I have one speed, one gear ... go!I mean, what's not to love? Especially when you see how I party. Man, it was epic. The run I was on made Sinatra, Flynn, Jagger, Richards all of 'em just look like droopy-eyed armless children. What's the cure, medicine to make me like them? Not gonna happen. I'm bi-winning. I win here, I win there. Now what? If I'm bipolar, aren't there moments when a guy like crashes? You borrow my brain for five seconds and just be like 'Dude, can't handle it! Unplug this bastard!' ... It fires in a way that is perhaps not from this terrestrial realm. I am on a drug, it's called 'Charlie Sheen.' It's not available 'cause if you try it once you will die. Your face will melt off, and children will weep over your exploded body.

Do join us next week Part II of this gripping saga."

This series was underwritten by Mobil (which later became Exxon Mobil). After 25 years of support, the series added the funder's name to its title. ExxonMobil ended its sponsorship in 2004, and the series remains without a corporate sponsor. The show is currently funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and by contributions to various PBS stations from, as PBS puts it, "Taxpayers Like You".

About Jody Weiss - Any Major Dude With Half A Heart Will Tell You

Many of my neighbors serve as Chicago Police Officers. Superintendent Jody Weis has had a personally lucrative albeit disasterous tenure. Today was to end his contract - what should the man do?

ANY MAJOR DUDE WILL TELL YOU

I never seen you looking so bad my funky one
You tell me that your superfine mind has come undone
CHORUS:
Any major dude with half a heart surely will tell you my friend
Any minor world that breaks apart falls together again
When the demon is at your door
In the morning it won't be there no more
Any major dude will tell you

Have you ever seen a squonk's tears? Well, look at mine
The people on the street have all seen better times

CHORUS

I can tell you all I know, the where to go, the what to do
You can try to run but you can't hide from what's inside of you

Well, he did run . . .that was gratuitous.

Steely Dan: Walter Becker and Donald Fagin had fingers of the pulse of this conundrim some time ago.

La Lumiere School's 20th Science Olympiad - The Great Bryan Smith: Coach, Teacher, Mentor and Gentleman

Master Teacher - Bryan Smith - ageless, damn him! He's gotta be using Grecian Red!
La Lumiere School: boarding and day preparatory school -Arcadia in Indiana
La Lumiere School in La Porte, Indiana is Alma Mater to Chief Justice of the United States John Roberts, HBO Director and producer Paris Barclay, John Buck Company Principle and Operations Chief Pat Buck, Actor & Comedian Jim Gaffigan and school Headmaster Mike Kennedy.

The school was established in 1963, by Chicago and Indiana Catholic laymen, like Andy McKenna, John Daly, Art Decio, Charlie Comiskey, Aidan Mullet, F. Miller Bransfield, Ed Stephan and Ed Proctor to name a few. It is positively one of the most beautiful places on earth. I lived and taught at La Lumiere School from 1988-1994 with some of the best teachers on the planet -Bryan Smith, Miriam Nasidi, Pete Campbell, Johanna Miller, Father Jay Schultz, Mike Hall, Pat Mulligan, Pat Buck, Chris Balawender, Larry Sullivan and Linda Weigel. It was wonderful.

Bryan and Judy Smith parented Augustine House (dorm) to the east of my dorm Becket House - each housed a family and twenty plus teenagers. Bryan Smith is a Baltimore native and Notre Dame Graduate who has spent his entire teaching career at La Lumiere School. Bryan married Judy Coppens and they became great friends to the Hickey Family.

I know many great teachers and Bryan Smith a biology and science instructor to be the very top of the food chain. Along with Larry Sullivan - Headmaster Emeritus - Bryan Smith possessed genuine academic command and mastery of the classroom. Moreover, Bryan Smith is the man any parent would want serving in loco parentis - Mr. Smith has been Dad to hundreds of brilliant, capable, snotty, ingracious, cooperative, saintly and more than a few kids with my instincts and inclinations.

In October of 1989, my son Conor ws born at La Lumiere during our football defeat at the hands, feet, teeth, ass & elbows of the Bridgeman Bees ( Michigan) and sixteen years later the native son returned to La Lumiere for his junior and senior years of high school. Bryan and Judy again watched over Conor.
# 55Conor Oliver Hickey '08 -Capt. La Lumiere Lakers Football-Center -in two years of play at St. Rita and La Lumiere Conor never muffed a snap, nor missed a block -thank Christ that Conor is his Mother's son!

Bryan Smith initiated and coached the La Lumier School Science Olympiad Teams - in twenty years Bryan Smith's teams have "gone to State!"

They are going again! God Speed Lakers! Go Blue! As always, well done Coach Smith! God Bless Bryan & Judy Smith!

The La Lumiere School Science Team took first place in the Indiana Science Olympiad Regional Competition at Goshen College, Saturday, February 5.

La Lumiere School placed first in 21 of 23 events. In over half of the events where La Lumiere placed first, they also captured second. Headmaster Michael Kennedy commented on the students’ accomplishment, “This exemplary performance, and that of our Regional Championship Academic Decathlon Team, is only surpassed by the outstanding character and commitment of these students. This confirms what many people already know: La Lumiere has the strongest academic program in the area, and this is just one example of our level of excellence.”

The Laker team will compete in the state tournament at Purdue University Calumet on April 2, 2011.

La Lumiere School students compete to qualify for a spot on the School’s Science Olympiad team. Through classroom activities, research and training, the team prepares for district, regional and state tournaments. La Lumiere has competed successfully at local, regional, and state levels for the past 19 years. La Lumiere School’s medal results are as follows:

First Place Medals

Anatomy and Physiology – Adnan Ahmed, Chesterton and Neathie Patel, Chesterton

Astronomy – Neal Patel, Chesterton and Andrew Yarger, South Bend

Chemistry Lab – Adnan Ahmed, Chesterton and Christian Allen, Valparaiso

Disease Detective – Christian Allen, Valparaiso and Anulé Ndukwu, Chesterton

Dynamic Planet – Neal Patel, Chesterton and Michael Spaeth, La Porte

Ecology – Laima Augustaitis, New Buffalo, MI and Mary Catherine Brown, Lakeside, MI

Experimental Design – Kelly Barr, La Porte, Andrew Bartels, South Bend, and Emet Murillo, La Porte

Forensics – Adnan Ahmed, Chesterton and Lucas Tang, Portage

Fossils – Christian Allen, Valparaiso and Anulé Ndukwu, Chesterton

Helicopters – Chong-xin (Dereck) Luo, China and Lucas Tang, Portage

Microbe Mission – Neathie Patel, Chesterton and Lucas Tang, Portage

Mission Possible – Chong-xin (Dereck) Luo, China and Michael Spaeth, La Porte

Mousetrap Vehicle – Christian Allen, Valparaiso and Hans Guentert, South Bend

Optics – Lindsay Ciastko, Hammond and Mackenzie O’Brien, La Porte

Ornithology – Robert Bartels, South Bend and Alexa Hicks, La Porte

Remote Sensing – Neal Patel, Chesterton and Andrew Yarger, South Bend

Robot Ramble – Hans Guentert, South Bend and Ryan Worl, La Porte

Sounds of Music – Lindsay Ciastko, Hammond and Anulé Ndukwu, Chesterton

Technical Problem Solving – Esmeralda Alvarez, Chicago, IL and Jin-uk (Tim) Heo, Korea

Towers – James Caplice, Michigan City and Lisamarie Nappier, Chicago, IL

Wind Power - Lindsay Ciastko, Hammond and Mackenzie O’Brien, La Porte

Second Place Medals

Astronomy – Emet Murillo, La Porte and Marina Walinski, Rolling Prairie

Chemistry Lab – Jin-uk (Tim) Heo, Korea and Esmeralda Alvarez, Chicago, IL

Experimental Design – Robert Bartels, South Bend, Mackenzie O’Brien, La Porte, and Andrew Yarger, South Bend

Forensics –Esmeralda Alvarez, Chicago, IL and Kelly Barr, La Porte

Fossils – Andrew Bartels, South Bend and Emet Murillo, La Porte

Helicopters – Jin-uk (Tim) Heo, Korea

Ornithology – Mary Catherine Brown, Lakeside, MI and Marina Walinski, Rolling Prairie

Protein modeling - Alexa Hicks, La Porte, Neathie Patel, Chesterton and Lucas Tang, Portage

Remote Sensing – Kelly Barr, La Porte and Emet Murillo, La Porte

Sounds of Music – Jacqueline Lange, La Porte and Marina Walinski, Rolling Prairie

Technical Problem Solving – Lindsay Ciastko, Hammond and Chong-xin (Dereck) Luo, China

Towers - Neal Patel, Chesterton

Write it-Do it – Mary Catherine Brown, Lakeside, MI and Jacqueline Lange, La Porte

Third Place Medals

Dynamic Planet – Andrew Bartels, South Bend and Jacqueline Lange, La Porte

Ecology - Robert Bartels, South Bend and Alexa Hicks, La Porte

Write it-Do it – Alexa Hicks, La Porte and Neal Patel, Chesterton
About Science Olympiad

Science Olympiad is a national organization that strives to promote and improve student interest in science and to improve the quality of K-12 science education throughout the nation. Its vision is to:

Create a passion for learning through the organization of tournaments.

Improve the quality of K-12 science education throughout the nation by changing the way science is perceived and the way it is taught (with an emphasis on problem solving and hands-on, minds-on constructivist learning practices).
Celebrate and recognize the outstanding achievement of both students and teachers in the areas of science and technology.
Promote partnerships among community, businesses, industry, government and education.

Kalends of March - We Got Nones and Ides Coming Up!

One of the mythical founders of Rome - Romulus (he and his brother Remus were raised by wolves and went all Cain and Abel on one another) - devised the first Roman Calendar ( Kalend - has the prosaic meaning of 'account book, or ledger after all The Rent is Due and The Rent Is Too High!). Julius Caesar revised the Roman Calendar that was used all up to St. Gregory which took into account the liturgical year.

As an English teacher, one of my favorite duties was to teach sophomores the great Shakspearean Tragedy/Historical play Julius Caesar. "Beware the Ides of March!" Bad happens on the Ides! And it do! The audience in Shaspeare's time understood the terms Kalends, Nones and Ides. Our times things get far to goofy and oh, so delicate with language.

The Roman calender was set up like this - Kalends was the first day then the subsequent days were counted back from the Nones and the Ides.

March 1: Kalends; March 2: VI Nones; March 3: V Nones; March 4: IV Nones; March 5: III Nones; March 6: Pridie Nones (Latin for "on the day before"); March 7: Nones; March 15: Ides Rent Due, Hickey!

The Romans were great organizers - roads, governments, book-keeping, grain futures, and census taking. Romans became high minded only after crucifying and slaughtering any and all opposition. The Roman Army was a marvel of organization and discipline and that pretty much kept the Calendar going well beyond the Renaisance. Our Bic shaver and pen toss-it-away attitude shapes what passes for culture, and goof-ball academics and lazy teachers have dumbed down our kids to this current point in history where language does everything it can to become void of shared meaning. Really? Words have meaning and reference actions and their results.

Facta Non Verba -Deeds Not Words! Nothing could be more true, than that - unless Noam Chomsky and his army of his "Yes-Butters" gets the say-so.

Last night, I helped my daughter Clare with her notes on literature and concentarted on the disctinction between metaphor and simile - Simile uses 'like' or 'as' in refernce to something - in order to makes sense of a teenage boy's gluttony we might say, "Conor eats, like he's going to the Chair." That requires and understanding of Metaphor or implies comnparison - The Chair used to mean execution and a condemned man was give a 'last meal' and thus, he ate with gusto.

'What's gusto,Dad?" Gusto, my dear comes from the Latin word for 'taste' -'gustus past particple. De Gustibus Non Est Disputandum There is no accounting for taste.

"My test is tomorrow, Dad, dial it back! I just got to know simile and metaphor."

Yes, the rent is Due!

"What are you talking about? God!!!!!"

The Last Oscar - Sappho's Curse

I fully intended to ignore the Oscars last night. Best intentions to the wind! Following a delightful phone chat with the woman I love in which she described the performance of the Merry Widow by Chicago's Joffrey Ballet she attended Sunday afternoon and the conclusion of a disappointing parody of Donny Brasco by the Simpsons on FOX 32, I surfed south to Channel 7 - Oscars.

The two hosts a tall gawky dark- haired babe and some monosyllabic monotone teen heart-throb gushed some nonsense about the Oscars. The tall gawky babe gushed out "It's been a great year for lesbians, not just in general, but in movies!"

Well, hell, I'm a lesbian!

From Sacheen Little Feather to Mack the Dyke - Oscar You come a long way baby!

(Click)

And the Hollywood Swingers worry that geese get corn stuffed down their gullets to make fois gras? Cor Blimey! - my Homage to The King's Speech!

I took the woman I love to see both The King's Speech and True Grit and both were exceptionally good films. My daughter Nora saw Black Swan and said that it was really creepy. The last ballet movie that I went to see was at gun point - my late wife Mary twisted my ear all the way into the movie theatre in Marycrest Shopping Center in Kankakee to see Shirley McClain and Ann Bancroft kick the $hit out of one another.

There was a movie about how wonderful lesbian parenthood happens to be starring two actress who happen to not be lesbians. I witnessed the raising of children by lesbians and empirically speaking the kids were not alright - I taught one poor kid adopted by lesbians and he was a train wreck ( dope, violence, suicide attempts, and many trips to rehab); same thing with a relative who happens to be homosexual and her life-partner - they were lesbian pioneers and adopted a kid as early as the 1970's and that poor boy did not end well, God love him. It seems to me that gay/lesbian lifestyle is just that -not a way of living as a family. Much in the same way that an unmarried man and woman can not artificially declare themselves parents. I read an article last week beefing that such patronizing might be akin to Black Face minstrelsy Here's more hair shirt nonsense for Hollywood to chew on -

When compiling research for this post, there was an abundance of information and analysis chronicled about gay male characters who had been honored by the Oscars but less so about lesbians. This discrepancy is probably due to more gay male characters having been written and, more paramount, having been featured in films that garnered distribution and viewership. Hollywood’s sexism is no secret and that bias infiltrates queer representations as well. This is not to say that gay male characters have fared much better fates than their lesbian counterparts. Most if not all of those representations have also been largely troubled as well. But here I’d like to focus more specifically on the issue of lesbian representations at the Oscars as to avoid losing my point by ignoring issues of intersectionality.

Why does this even matter? Aren’t the Oscars just, to quote Lindsay, “the ultimate pageant of Hollywood hegemony?” Aren’t homo award show enthusiasts generally relegated to the ranks of fashion correspondence and even then that’s only gay-male-inclusive? In many ways, yes, that is true. The Oscars are driven by capital and the problems that accompany forces capitalistically driven. But the Academy Awards do matter in their potential to serve as a vehicle for visibility, empathy, and insurance towards cultural relevance. If more lesbians’ and other queer folks’ stories are told, respected and honored, it will be easier to combat attitudes that drive institutionalized bigotry and ignorance. People make sense of their lives and the lives of others through art, including and especially movies and media. If stories aren’t told with sensitivity and accuracy then prejudiced representations of them will prevail.

Whoa there Hoss! Intersectionality?

Well, Lock Arms and Cross the Selma Bridge! No one wants homosexuals to be unhappy - that is their business. Happiness is very hard work. Live with your mate! Get the job you want. But same sex couples will not partner up and give birth. It will always be artificial. That's nature -not nurture.

I rented Winter's Bone - that was a great movie about a heroic whote trash girl fighting to keep her family together in contemprary Ozarks America. It centered on breeders and wildly dysfunctional they be - Meth Head dad, Crazy Mom, Criminal Uncle and Hillbilly Mafia cousins. However, the core element was natural preservation of the family. Not sex. That film, Winter's Bone was the best picture and there was no way that Hollywood would honor it beyond a nodding nomination or two.

Hollywood is no longer a reflection of America - it is an artistic plastic mold toy maker - like the gizmos at the Museum of Science and Industry.

This year it was cranking out plastic lesbians.

I am Distressed and I Just Can Not Appreciate Fashion

This is Tres Chic Fahionista John Galliano (Hey, we used to splash Dago Copper in Harvey Wall-Bangers!) seamstress and Jew-baiter and a hop-head. Get a load of this beauty!

I wonder if he ever took it into his to make money? Of course, silly, Galliano's fabulously wealthy.



I can Not appreciate what passes for fashion, nor chic Anti-Semites. I gotta add more arugula and fois gras into my feed, I guess. Meat and spuds and greens not doing it. Or, maybe that is just fine. Again, I'm conflicted.