I Remember 9/12/2001 - Empty Skies

New Jersey's brilliant Empty Skies Memorial to 9/11


I live under the flight path of planes landing at Midway Airport. Planes approaching Chicago's municipal airport from the south east angle their way over my raised ranch on Rockwell. I believe that my home is a transportation hub. Twenty feet from my front window CSW coal cars and freight rumble and shake the foundation, but lull me and the kids to a gentle sleep.

The train vibrations cause seepage into the basement, but we sleep good. There is always a payoff in God's plan. Above us air traffic and in front of us America's fossil fuels and freight keep the nation vital and within the Hickey's enjoy a soul soothing white noise and vibrating beds that would cost us a lung at the better economy motels.

Ten years ago there was not a plane in the sky and it remained that way for months. The day after 9/11/2010 is what I remember to be the more frightening than the surreal and distant terrors that we only witnessed on television, or via the rumor mills on the information highway.

The sight of air traffic was a comfort, much like the rocking and rumble gratis the good folks at CSX. My kids have trouble sleeping away from home, believe it or not. Likewise, the empty skies made me nervous.

On Wednesday September 12th 2011, I needed to meet with a Leo patron in the Loop. I was used to seeing 747s fly past Sears Tower, the Hancock and the Standard Oil Buildings. That morning heading north of the Dan Ryan there was none of it. I kept the radio off.

In keeping with my transportation trope, trucks were banned. The Loop was on lock-down. Ten years ago one could find parking meters throughout the Loop, but on this day Chicago Police directed drivers to parking lots and there were no trucks.

There were no planes in the sky. I accustomed to the comforting sight of air traffic and the sight of contrails in the stratosphere. Pure blue skies. Void of traffic.

America was scared, but working. I had my meeting; returned to Leo and watched the kids board the bus for football practice at the Dan Ryan Woods.

It was going to be OK and it is.

I went out on my porch this morning as a CSX coal train rumbled by Cassa Hickey southbound and a fat Southwest Airlines plane stffed with travelers angled over my house. I went back inside and decided to write about this and then I will go to Leo High School, like I did ten years ago and later drive to the Loop. I am comforted.

Mark Madsen and Chicago's Jazz Soul - Ubi Sunt

Chicago used to be a great town for jazz. Politics and policy in Chicago chased great music out to the suburbs and odd enforcements and ordinances all but closed jazz venues for the sake of revenues and cash cows.

Great talents at the top of their game saw the departure of people like Jim "Skinny" Sheahan from the Mayor's Office of Special Events, and replaced by a cultural czarina who turned Chicago's stages from likes of Judy Roberts, Rich Daniels, Victor Parra and Mark Madsen to whirling Turkish Dance troupes wearing what looked like giant chefs hats and Ethiopian thumb pianists accompanied by gourd beaters. Jazz Venues closed quicker than a politician lies and hotels became the sole harbors for what passes for jazz.

Chicago Jazz musicians now scratch out some dollars in a town that once provided a living.

Last night at the Chambers in Niles, one such suburban jazz haven, featured not only the fabulous jazz guitarist/vocalist Frank D'Rone, but also a few of Chicago's best jazz artists Bassist John Bany, drummer Charles Braugham.and pianist/accordionist Don Stille. Frank D'Rone shared his show with his fellow artists for the second half of his show he and D'rone and the Chambers trio were joined by a brilliant flute master, a trumpeter and a harmonica rendition of Ruby.

Frank D'Rone is a gracious master of his art.

Vocalist the lovely Miss Terry Sullivan wowed the crowd with Lover Man. In an up-tempo trading of fours with the trio and featuring the great Frank D'Rone on guitar with masterful chops that eased back to Terry Sullivan.



The great Mark Madsen owned the house with a rendition of I'll Remember April. The poignancy of the loss of jazz due to decades of political booster cronyism in Chicago was reflected in Mark Madsen' phrasing and textured baritone that raised the spirit of Joe Williams himself. This one performance in a night of great presentations was like finding a diamond in a pile of gold coins.

Here is Mark Madsen with Rich Daniels and the Chicago City Lights orchestra performing for the McDonald's McVeterans Fund in 2008.



We lost much more than parking meters. Chicago sold our musical souls these last few decades.

This lovely day will lengthen into evening, we'll sigh goodbye to all we ever had.
Alone where we have walked together, I'll remember April and be glad.
I'll be content you loved me once in April.
Your lips were warm and love and spring were new.
I'm not afraid of autumn and her sorrow, for I'll remember April and you.
The fire will dwindle into glowing ashes, for flames live such a little while.
I won't forget but I won't be lonely, I'll remember April and smile.

Chicago Jazz is in the suburbs. Get to the Chambers in Niles.

6881 N. Milwaukee, Niles, IL 60714. 847-647-8282.

9/11 Stars and Stripes Forever Times Two

That much was clear from the appreciative response of the audience, estimated at 7,000. While not as quiet or enthusiastic as the Japanese crowds to whom the CSO recently played, the Chinese listened as if they had never heard an orchestra play as brilliantly, precisely or as loudly as this before. The applause was sufficient to recall Solti for three bows, after which he announced that for an encore the orchestra would perform a score ``totally unknown`` to them. That score turned out to be ``Stars and Stripes Forever,`` and, to judge by the number of Chinese I heard whistling John Philip Sousa as they filed out of the stadium, the all-American march was hardly unfamiliar.April 09, 1986|By John von Rhein, Music critic.Chicago Tribune

Music is the only thing to match the heroism and horror of that day.

9/11 Credible Threat - Round Up Them Yarmulke Wearing Hebes, Hillbillies and Fish Eaters

“It may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single-issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration,” DHS Capo - Janet "Big Sis" Napolitano -Tuesday, April 14, 2009 and, yet, she still has the job.

The Department of Homeland Security confirmed that it had information about a "specific, credible but unconfirmed threat," and the White House said President Obama was briefed Thursday morning and has been updated throughout the day.


“The president directed the counterterrorism community to redouble its efforts in response to this credible but unconfirmed information," a White House official told Fox News.

Step one - Send an apology to CAIR and the Ground Zero Mosque Folks


Step Two - Get the Yarmulke Wearin' Hebes ( per. Rev. Al Sharpton's dictum), Mackeral Snappers, Mountain Williams and all the unsophisticated Rubes who bowl, go to meeting or Mass of a Sunday, pay taxes, and welcome babies into our world under close watch -ASAP.

Outta about do it, Sis!

Barry Ain't No Harry and There's Hell to Pay.

I watched our President give, what I thought to be a petulant political speech, before the Greenbay Packers showed the nation what working men are all about. President Obama orchestrated a speech before a joint session of Congress and what looked like three foreign dignitaries.

I came away with an understanding that President Obama wants Congress to Pass the Jobs Bill right away.

Needless to say, the supine media cheerleaders at MSNBC likened the speech to President Harry Truman's 'Give 'em Hell' speech. Apples and lug nuts.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

You gotta love that 'sophisticated' belly scratch by Milky Matthews to lead off this 'sophisticated' dialogue.

And that, boys and girls, is what passes for 'sophisticated' analysis. Sans, historical sensibilities of course.

Harry Truman was the real deal. He became FDR's Vice-President in 1944, when it became clear that Henry Wallace the Progressive was more Red, than white or blue.

Henry Wallace is the father of the Democratic National Committee that controls the national narrative, by dint of lots of money, control of the media, academia and public service PACs that pretend to be real labor unions.

The spiritual children of Henry Wallace waited a very long time to grab control of the Democratic Party at the national level and will not let go easily.

The children of Harry Truman, Democrat, are confused. I know that I am so. I became less confused in 2004, when it was obvious that the Democratic Party was firmly in the grip of Wallace Progressives and John Kerry sail-boarded into Boston Harbor greeted by crowds of dowagers sporting pink I HAD AN ABORTION T-shirts and the XXXL Purple T-Shirts of Mandarin Andy Stern's SEIU.

The DNC ushered in my former Illinois State Senator, Springfield bunky of Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart, and United States Senator Barack H. Obama in that very convention. Obama wowed the crowd. Four years later, Obama was the nominee of the Democratic Party and President of the United States.

President Obama has fulfilled every obligation owed to the spirit of Progressive Henry Wallace, the ACLU, Planned Parenthood, and the public service PACs, that were anathema to Harry Truman.

Harry Truman was a combat veteran and a failed small business man. More importantly, Harry Truman was a dedicated machine politician, tutored by Kansas City boss Tom Pendergast, a Roman Catholic. Harry Truman was a Southern Baptist. The idea of a woman choosing to murder her unborn child was thought best left to the pagan Greek tragedians. Medea was a monster.

Harry Truman, as we all know, was not a sophisticate. Therefore, he could not parse truth. When he need to decide to drop an Atomic bomb, rather than have American mothers witness the slaughter of a generation of their sons by landing in Japan, Harry Truman pulled the trigger. He did not call in Navy Seal Team Six.

With victory came the tumultuous economic downturn linked to going from a wartime to peacetime economy, Harry Truman took the heat. Railroad workers, union men, did not go to fight fascism as they were needed here at home and were paid a pretty good wage transporting troops and war material. After the war, things slowed and so did overtime.

In the spring of 1946, a national railway strike, unprecedented in the nation's history, brought virtually all passenger and freight lines to a standstill for over a month. When the railway workers turned down a proposed settlement, Truman seized control of the railways and threatened to draft striking workers into the armed forces. While delivering a speech before Congress requesting authority for this plan, Truman received word that the strike had been settled on his terms. He announced this development to Congress on the spot and received a tumultuous ovation that was replayed for weeks on newsreels. Although the resolution of the crippling railway strike made for stirring political theater, it actually cost Truman politically: his proposed solution was seen by many as high-handed; and labor voters, already wary of Truman's handling of workers' issues, were deeply alienated

In the early 1960's, disciples of Henry Wallace forced the issue of organizing public service workers into unions. America was wealthy. What's a few tax dollars? They bumped the pay. What about pensions? No sweat!

By 2008, American labor was dominated by the public service employees. They were not the heroes of labor. They were not shot at the coal mines. Beaten and stabbed in Flint. The public service employees became labor, long after labor lost its industrial muscle. They were the labor loudmouths. They bullied the weak and bribed the ambitious elected officials with the threat or reward of votes and money.

The American economy sagged and collapsed.

Which brings us to last night's speech. Empty rhetoric and more taxes.

The sophisticated Wallace still controls the microphone, the megaphone, and the Teleprompter.

America could use a Harry Truman unsophisticated President, who has some skin in the game.

Mitt Romney's Hit to the Fence

Bendix was The Babe and Mitt played both last night!


I believe that people generally come to look like what they do for a living. English teachers look like English teachers; cops, cops; firemen, like smoke eaters; plumbers, like neurosurgeons.

Mitt Romney looks like a movie star, from the 1950's. Another star of that by-gone era, was William Bendix. Bendix could play a cab driver, a sailor, a cop, a stagecoach driver, a mob enforcer, a priest, or Babe Ruth. Mitt Romney would have been type-cast as jilted-lover, a playboy, the executive officer of a destroyer hunting a Nazi sub, the co-pilot of a Pan Am flight in a storm, or a movie star in a movie about Hollywood. Babe Ruth?

Newt Gingrich looked like Cliff Arquette, the Old Charlie Weaver character





Michele Bachmann played Polly Bergen without the sex appeal






Rick Perry was Jack Palance






Hermain Cain was the handsome, tough dependable black guy in all the old Korean War movies James Edwards






Jon Huntsman was Speedy Alkaseltzer





Ron Paul again chewing up the scenery as Pa Kettle






Rick Santorum played Jimmy Olsen, again.


I watched the GOP debate expecting the sleep-inducing platitudes and mild gottchas, but was delighted to see Mitt Romney not only play the Bambino, but gesture his bat to the far fence and knock one over the cheap seats and out into Armour Park.

Mitt morphed into William Bendix as The Babe, after helping Jack Palance up after a huge group beat-down over his Texas Med Mandate with this -

Right now, we have people who on this stage care very deeply about this country. We love America. America is in crisis. We have some differences between us, but we agree that this president’s got to go. This president is a nice guy. He doesn’t have a clue how to get this country working again

It's Outta Here!

If Rick Perry is to keep up with Mitt he needs to shed Jack Palance and become Ward Bond. Ward Bond trumps William Bendix 24/7!

I still hope Ava Gardner walks on stage - not even Ward Bond can upstage that beauty.
Sarah Palin is Ava Gardner with Judy Holliday's voice, God help her.

UPdate - "I wish Sarah Palin had Ava Gardner's smoky voice, I think that's what will ultimately kill Sarah Palin's chances, is her high pitched screechy voice. I love everything Sarah says, just can't stand listening to it." Chicago Renaissance Man and cinema auteur Mike Houlihan wishes that Gov. Palin's voice could match the smoky allure of Miss Gardner. Alas, take what God provides, Michael.

Joel Kotkin Holds a Mirror to California and We See Illinois

Gov. Pat Quinn is one hobbled donkey.

CHICAGO -- Gov. Pat Quinn said Tuesday that he plans major spending cuts, including layoffs, as he tries to keep state government running within the tight budget sent to him by Illinois legislators.

Quinn would provide no details about the scope of the cuts. Asked if thousands of state employees could lose their jobs, he said, "We have to do what we have to do."

Forbes Magazine

Gov. Quinn's Labor Day must have been a sobering one, or maybe not. He's got a few years left and Lt. Gov. Sheila Simon has his back. Dr. Quentin Young, Planned Parenthood, SEIU, Sierra Club, Dawn Clark Netsch, Terry Cosgrove and every civil union, and of course TaxaPalozza's Ralphie Martire is always armed with pie charts to keep the Illinois peasantry quiet with platitudes and promises. Gov. Quinn stayed away from Labor Day marches and celebrations, because he had some really bad news - lay-offs are coming and it is THEIR fault.

THEIR (THE HAPPY ELECTORATE OF ILLINOIS REGULARS) consists of anyone and anything. Well, me for example. I voted for Pat Quinn. I was happy to help Pat Quinn, Catholic League guy with a compelling narrative of personal thrift and devotion to the working guy.

I knew better. Pat Quinn is hobbled by the powerful interests that got him elected. It was long dusty road to the Governor's Mansion. Pat Quinn mowed his own lawn, while George Ryan hired kids from Greenwood Street in Kankakee. Pat Quinn buried his 'personal opposition to abortion' in favor of his very public support of a Woman's right to choose to kill her unborn child. Pat Quinn saw the rise of public service unions as adding votes and not subtracting tax-dollars from Illinois' once robust middle class. Pat Quinn agreed Green every step of the way and drank gallons of Andy Stern's SEIU Purple Kool-Aid.

I remember when one of the parents of a couple of my students in Kankakee was vigorously organizing State, County and Municiple clerks into one of the one big unions, shortly after AO Smith, Roper and other industries left Kankakee County. He argued that getting clerks, secretaries, go-fers and others into a public sector union would build an army of voters.

Skilled trades and indutrial unions were all about cutting a trail to the middle class by dint of skills acquired and voctional advancement. SEIU changed all of that.
An unskilled worker was paid not by a standard collective bargaining agreement between a union and a private manager, but via legislation that is politically goaded. Vote this way and get support. That worker's dues were subtracted from his State, County, City, or State funded hospital, school district, or whatever paycheck.
Those dues went back to the one big union. The SEIU janitor remained a janitor and was doled out benefits after the right legislative session. The SEIU janitor is yet a janitor.

Pat Quinn the Governor is about to lay off that long serving janitor. Pat Quinn is the Governor looking for nickels in my basement couch. They're not there. I used them to buy Illinois ethanol gas at Kean.

Demographer and scholar Joel Kotkin has been the Jeremiah of economic disaster coming at the hands of the Progressive Philistines for years.

California's Progressive Template Governor Jerry Brown is Pat Quinn writ large.

Here's what he has going on:

In its modern origins California was paean to progress in the best sense of the word. In 1872, the second president of the University of California, Daniel Coit Gilman, said science was "the mother of California." Today, California may worship at the altar of science, but increasingly in the most regressive, hysterical, and reactionary way.

California's dominant ruling class—consisting of public-employee unions, green jihadis, and Democratic machine politicians—has no real use for science as Gilman saw it: as a way to create prosperity for its citizens. Instead, the prevailing credo of the state has been how to do everything possible to return to its pre-settlement condition, with little regard for what that means to the average Californian.

Nowhere was California's old technological ethos more pronounced than in agriculture, where great Californians such as William Mulholland, creator of the Los Angeles Aqueduct, and Pat Brown, who forged the state water project, created the greatest water-delivery system since the Roman Empire. Their effort brought water from the ice-bound Sierra Nevada mountains down to the state's dry but fertile valleys and to the great desert metropolis of Southern California. Now, largely at the behest of greens, California agriculture is being systematically cut down by regulation. In an attempt to protect a small fish called the Delta smelt, upward of 200,000 acres of prime farmland have been idled, according to the state's Department of Conservation. Even in the current "wet" cycle, California's agricultural industry, which exports roughly $14 billion annually, is slowly being decimated. Unemployment in some Central Valley towns tops 30 percent, and in cases even 40 percent. . . . Of course, the self-described "progressive" mafia that runs California will point to Silicon Valley and its impressive array of startups. But for the most part, firms like Google, Twitter, and Facebook employ only a small cadre of highly educated workers. Overall, during the past decade the state's high-tech employment fell by almost 4 percent, while Texas's science-based employment grew by a healthy 11 percent. The sad reality is that turning T-shirt-wearing kids like Mark Zuckerberg into multibillionaires doesn't do much to reduce unemployment, which even in San Jose—the largely blue-collar "capital" of Silicon Valley—now hovers around 10 percent.

Magazine cover stories and movies cannot obscure the fact that entrepreneurial growth—the state’s most critical economic asset—has now stalled. In fact, according to a study by Economic Modeling Specialists Inc., last year the Golden State ranked 50th among the states in creating new businesses.

California remains rich in promise, home to spectacular scenery; a great Pacific location; leading firms like Apple and Disney; and a still-impressive residue of talented, diverse, entrepreneurial, and ingenious people. But the state will never return until the success of the current crop of puerile billionaires can be extended to enrich the wider citizenry. Until the current regime is toppled, California's decline—in moral as well as economic terms—will continue, to the consternation of those of us who embraced it as our home for so many years.

Illinois is the reflection of California. Take a good look. I quit THEIR, here.



http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2011/09/06/general-il-illinois-budget_8661451.html

Pope Asinus Lardum I -Gaudeamus Habemus Papam!

“Human life begins when the fetus can survive outside the womb, . . .
“Some people, I guess, just like to be the uterus police, the bossypants of other women’s reproductive parts. And that has always struck me as really, really weird.” from the Washington Post

Pope Asinus Lardum I (Michael Moore) Progressive Pontifex Maximus

Glad he could straighten that out, in between bites.

Joseph Epstein and Some Literary Lives Not Worth the Trouble

I was working as a janitor at Orchestra Hall, while I attended Loyola University in Chicago between 1970-1974. They were the Solti years. I soaked in the greatest and most soul stirring music by the most disciplined and finest craftsmen in the musical arts.

Whenever the symphony rehearsed or performed the maintenance staff was like the crew of submarine being pinged by an enemy destroyer. Silent running. No vacuums; no noise; no grab-assing! Though we were all union members of Elevator Operators, Janitors, Electricians, Painters, Stage Hands and Stationary Engineers unions, violating the silence could get one tossed from the job.

During those times and many others I studied.

Like the music I soaked in Ruskin, Chaucer, Bacon, Wordsworth, Bellow, Bashevis Singer, O'Connor, Tolstoy and Turgenev. The professors at Loyola, Jesuit and Lay shaped the study to good effect. One of the more difficult authors in the entire canon of English studies, for me anyway was Thomas Carlyle and of his works Sartor Resartus the most difficult.

The work originally was a series of offerings found in Fraser's Magazine that purported to be philosophical commentaries on the life and works of Diogenes Teufelsdröckh whose development of the philosophy of clothes was to have been a very big deal. It wasn't and that was the joke. Carlyle being a lowland Scot was about as funny as a Quaker on Valium.

What I took away from the work was the very real understanding that literary artists could be absolute drips, crabs, bigots, bores and humbugs. I would wish to spend time with the living breathing Thomas Carlyle as I would with Studs Terkel. Both gents are asleep with Kings and Counsellors and in a very good place - for all of us.

I love to read and I like to read people who remind me of my better professors - the men and women who soaked themselves in their disciplines. While I was a high school teacher, I worked to be a better teacher by reading and subscribing to the better literary journals. One of the best was American Scholar edited by America's Montaigne -Joseph Epstein. it was in the pages of American Scholar where I discovered Gary Saul Morson who defended literary criticism fro the waves of fashionable idiots like Noam Chomsky. Morson, like Epstein taught at Northwestern, is a brilliant Tolstoy scholar. I am a Thackeray geek; Tolstoy was as well; therefore the connection of interest.

Morson and Editor essayist Epstein are fierce defenders of the humanities and the unifying purpose of art and politics. They confound the Marxists and Semiotic Totalitarians who have dominated literary discourse and academic studies for far too long.

The American Scholar is no more, but Joseph Epstein whirls his pen dervishly in defence of the literary arts.

Joseph Epstein is the "Retailor of the tailors" to use Carlyle's translation for his dense satire. I subscribe to the purportedly Jewish magazine Commentary, as much because Joseph Epstein proses there regularly as anything else.

Last month, Epstein took a look at the literary critic Alfred Kazin, whom, like Noam Chomsky - the Rodney Dangerfield of the Humorless, everyone worships, but no one reads. Here is a Fun Size bite of Joseph Epstein:

The writers Kazin most strongly admired were William Blake​ and Ralph Waldo Emerson and Simone Weil and Jean-Paul Sartre, advocates of life intensely lived but with an emphatically preacherly vein added. Kazin resembled them all in never being in doubt about his own superior rectitude. He thought himself an American Orwell, his heart always in the right place and keen to take up a position in what used to be known as “the third camp,” scorning, that is, Communists and anti-Communists alike. “I have never recovered from the thirties or wanted to,” he wrote in Writing Was Everything. “A son of the immigrant working class whose parents were tortured by poverty, I hardly needed the depression to be suspicious of moneyed power, or to see that in this society money is the first measure of all things and the only measure of many—or to learn for myself that there is no way in America of being honorably poor.”

Kazin preferred to think himself a writer rather than a critic. But in his noncritical writing, without a book or author to intervene between him and the reader, his personality comes through and putrefies everything with his self-righteous sourness. Like Emerson and Thoreau, he was a blatantly self-approving writer, and the strong element of confidence about his own virtue spoils much of what he wrote apart from his criticism, including his autobiographies.

The first of these, A Walker in the City, which in his Journals he refers to as “my Walker poem” and “a fable of youth, sweetness, and search,” today feels overwrought, overwritten, straining for lyricism: “Somewhere below they were roasting coffee, handling spices—the odor was in the pillars, in the battered wooden planks of the promenade beneath my feet, in the blackness upwelling from the river.” Lots of such passages occur in a book that often reads as if written by Walt Whitman bloated on matzah brei. The other two volumes of Kazin’s autobiography are blighted by Kazin’s need to score off enemies, left and right, real and imagined. Remove these portions about his enemies and the books go up in smoke.

( emphasis my own! Matzah Brei - is Jewish Scrapple sans pork)

You can soak up Joseph Epstein by clicking my post title. If Studs Terkel is a "Chicago Treasure" he is surely in his proper place, now; Joseph Epstein is readily available. Thank God!

Explosion Rocks My World - Fire at Fabled Franconello's

Photo Det. Shaved
A phone call after 11 P.M. is never good news. My daughters went to the Carrie Underwood concert at Ravinia with their Aunt Gail last night. Nora dropped off Clare at 11:30 P.M. and headed home - kids all accounted for. Early this morning, Nora called and left me this message -"There were fire trucks and cop cars all over Western at 103rd last, when I went home. I wonder what happened." I found out up at Kean Gas when I got my coffee; I could not be more sickened unless I were awakened at the sound of 'Well Good morning, darling. . .' and the sight of Chaz Bono's head on the pillow opposite to mine.

Tragedy. A gas fire erupted at the best restaurant south of Heart of Italy -Franconellos.

By William Lee
Tribune reporter
9:35 a.m. CDT, September 5, 2011

A suspected gas leak sparked an explosion that ripped through an Italian eatery in the West Beverly neighborhood on the city's South Side, officials said this morning.

No injuries were reported in the blaze at Franconello Italian Restaurant, 10220 S. Western Ave. The blaze was called in about 11:57 p.m. Sunday and was struck out by fire crews within 20 minutes authorities said.

The blaze caused heavy fire and structural damage to the building, leading to the collapse of a south wall on the structure's second floor, according to the Chicago Fire Department.

Fire officials suspected the fire was caused by a gas explosion, but fire investigators hadn't pinpointed the cause, officials said.

A representative with Peoples Gas couldn't be reached for comment this morning.

First opening in fall 1993, the restaurant was a partnership between friends Frank Russallo and Nello Sabatina, who combined their names to come up with the restaurant's name.

The friends took a former lawn equipment shop and transformed it into a slick, yet family-friendly restaurant known for its pastel and mauve tones, open kitchen and bottles of fresh oil that adorned every table.

Neither owner could be reached for comment.

wlee@tribune.com

Twitter: @MidNoirCowboy

Franconello's is a happy place, where family and friends throng the tables sagging under the weight of the portions. The staff are the friendliest people. Singer and beauty Susan Tunney is one of my favorite waitresses and owner Nello is the Beverly Uncle hosting the party seven days a week.

The food is magnificent.

I hope the loss is temporary.

Happy Labor Day! Old Merle has it Covered

Merle Haggard and the Strangers sum up the nature of it all . . ." 'long as his two hands are fit to use."



God Bless All Who Labor!

Studs Terkel? Labor Day Celebrates Working People Not Posers

Lefties live on a diet of BS. The more BS they shovel in, the more strident they become e.g. the Chicago media call SEIU Big Labor. Whenever labor is used in newsprint, think SEIU. Remember the Big Box BS? Jane Addams has an expressway named for her; why?

Jane Addams, truth to tell, stabbed the Amalgamated Meat Cutters in the back in Sept. 1904, after a violent and horrifically hot summer on strike against the Meat Packers. A vote was called to continue the strike at the union hall on 47th & Ashland. Hours later a Jane Addams and her delegation of short-haired women activists, who pretended to stand with the strikers, met with union President Michael Donnelly. Three hours later Donnelly called off the strike. The Amalgamated Meat Cutters got nothing. Donnelly faded into obscurity and died under mysterious circumstances. Try finding anything on Michael Donnelly in modern labor history, the Chicago Encyclopedia, or anywhere on the web. He was as Orwell warned, disappeared. Like the old timey Lefties are wont to say, 'You could look it up!' I did. Go through the New Times and Chicago Trtibune 1904 archives -fascinating reading. (STRIKE IS ENDED; MEN SURRENDER.
Chicago; Sep 9, 1904; ProQuest Historical Newspapers Chicago Tribune (1849 - 1985))

Jane Addams has a nice stretch of highway running Northwest toward here home town Cedarville, IL. Jane Addams got herself a Nobel Peace Prize, taking credit for the work of others.

This morning, Carol Marin offered another heaping helping of BS and called for a Studs Terkel rant for Labor Day. Why? Don't ask. He's a treasure.

I miss Studs.

I miss his laugh. His martinis. His stories. But this weekend, I’m missing what he would say about working. Or — for so many desperate Americans right now — not working.

It is Labor Day weekend and the news is grim:

In August, there was no job growth, the first time in a year there has been no monthly jobs growth.

Studs Terkel died Oct. 31, 2008, at 96. He was the greatest listener of the 20th century. Armed with a tape recorder, a brilliant mind and an insatiable curiosity, he asked normal, everyday people what they thought and felt.

He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1985 for his book The Good War, and received the Presidential National Humanities Medal in 1997.

But it’s his 1974 book, Working, that’s on my mind.

The unemployment rate remained stuck at a dismal 9.1 percent in August.

Work helps define us. Gives us pride. Puts food on the table and pays for the tuition that sends our kids to college. And yet America, a huge swath of it, is not working right now.

Studs did exactly what? He recorded people's stories and did not share the royalties and won awards, and played records on Public Radio and spun yarns on Public Television.

Studs did alright for himself. I grew up in a fiercely union house. I have met real labor heroes and a very few villains.

There are old timers who actually had their heads spilt by company goons. Like combat veterans of WWII, Korea, Vietnam and our current wars with Islamist terror, they never cashed in on their efforts.

Studs Terkel did pretty well on their efforts however. Like Jane Addams, Studs Terkel is remembered because of the diet of BS, than by any real efforts.

I met Studs Terkel once when my late wife Mary was a waitress at Arnie Morton's in the early 1980's. I was waiting for Mary to get off work and she introduced me to Studs. I was teaching English at Bishop McNamara in Kankakee and came home to Chicago on the weekends. I had read Working, in fact Hots Michaels, the great jazz pianist for the old Scuttlebutt Lounge and Chicago Chop House, Mount Carmel grad and life-long pal of my uncle Jack was featured in Working. I asked about Hots. Studs asked 'Who?' Hots Michaels he is featured in the beginning of Working.

"Oh, yeah, . . .Hots," and the man of people got up tossed two bucks on the table for Mary and shuffled off to Buffalo.

My uncle Jack, Hots Michaels and a bunch of guys including Nelson Algren played cards together. It seems that Studs Terkel played a few times. Hot Michaels was a great musician and Chicago legend. My uncle Jack was a stationary engineer at the water station on 35th Street.

Studs Terkel put Hots in his book. I am sure Hots Michaels never saw nickel one, nor did he care.

Studs Terkel had his work and his success. Labor Day is about labor and the fight for a living wage, an eight hour day, and the dignity of work.


The late Tom Roeser respected working men and women. He knew Studs Terkel.

Her( Carol Marin) first column was to celebrate that 14-carat phony with a self-embroidered history of radical activism from yesteryear, Studs Terkel, 96, a self-promoting agnostic windbag who named one of his kids after declared Communist stage actor and singer Paul Robson and , to hear Terkel tell it in his rasping voice which thrills his listeners since they fathom the real man of the street is talking… marched with the Wobblies, braved assaults from the club-wielding goons in the Armour strike, endured beatings with Walter Reuther in the Detroit sit-down strikes of the 1930, fought the white racists who opposed blacks swimming off a South Side pier in the 1920s, was black-listed because of his opposition to that hideous Joe McCarthy…all the stories inflating in coloration by the year-some invented out of whole cloth--while Ms. Marin beamed expressively and accepted his supposed man-in-the-street lingo as true genre.

As the late Steve Neal, no conservative, pointed out in a column Terkel never did anything of note for the “working class,” is in reality a b.s’ing blatherer of tales who would long since have been thrown out of a neighborhood bar for inculcating terminal boredom, since he has lived far longer than most and has license to exaggerate scandalously without fact-checking. Aside from a brief acting career on early TV, Terkel’s has done nothing noteworthy except to snap on a tape recorder and capture stories from first-hand participants for which, as a canny capitalist, he paid nothing but from which he made a fortune for himself-beginning with “Division Street America.” A self-proclaimed man of the people, he deliberately never learned to drive and rides a bus, taking care to sit by the window where he, festooned in his red-checked shirt, can be quickly glimpsed. I debated him once at Bughouse Square. A coward when confronted, this giant puff ball self-inflated turned into a clawless pussy cat. I actually went easy on him after he caved. It was the first time he was ever called on any of his stories because his recollections were at variance with history. Marin the dilettante swallows it all.

Labor Day and every day lets lay off the BS. It makes fat heads.


http://www.suntimes.com/news/marin/7429803-417/labor-day-needs-a-studs-terkel-rant.html

The Voice of Truth - The Great Joe Williams

Human Beings are the only creatures on earth who engage in companion conversation, posses intellect, and are graced with volition.

Max Weismann explained that every hummingbird , lark, finch, coyote and whale sings the same song, but only human beings can do this -





Too great voices -Joe and Nancy Wilson:

Biography
by John Bush
Joe Williams was the last great big-band singer, a smooth baritone who graced the rejuvenated Count Basie Orchestra during the 1950s and captivated audiences well into the '90s. Born in Georgia, he moved to Chicago with his grandmother at the age of three. Reunited with his mother, she taught him to play the piano and took him to the symphony. Though tuberculosis slowed him down as a teenager, Williams began performing at social events and formed his own gospel vocal quartet, the Jubilee Boys.

By the end of the '30s he had made the transition to the Chicago club scene, and appeared with orchestras led by Jimmie Noone and Les Hite during the late '30s. He sang with Coleman Hawkins and Lionel Hampton during the early '40s, and toured with Andy Kirk & His Clouds of Joy during the mid-'40s (making his first recording with that band). Still, lingering illness kept him sidelined from active touring, and he worked as a theater doorman and door-to-door cosmetics salesman before his first minor hit for Checker, 1952's "Every Day I Have the Blues."

Finally, at the age of 35, he got his big break when in 1954 he was hired as the male vocalist for Count Basie's Orchestra. He soon helped audiences forget the absence of Basie's long-time vocalist, Jimmy Rushing. Indeed, he did more than just pull his own weight during the '50s; he became a major star in his own right and helped revive the lagging fortunes of the Basie band. His first (and best) LP, Count Basie Swings, Joe Williams Sings, appeared in 1955, containing definitive versions of "Every Day I Have the Blues" (already his signature song) and "Alright, Okay, You Win." "Every Day" hit number two on the R&B charts, and sparked another LP -- 1957's The Greatest! Count Basie Swings/Joe Williams Sings Standards -- spotlighting Williams' command of the traditional pop repertory. Even while performing and touring the world with Basie during the late '50s, Williams made his solo-billed debut LP for Regent in 1956, and followed it with a trio of albums for Roulette.

Despite an inevitable parting from Basie in 1961, Williams stayed close to the fold, working in a small group led by Basieite Harry "Sweets" Edison, then formed his own quartet in 1962. For his RCA debut, 1963's Jump for Joy, the lineup included jazz greats Thad Jones, Clark Terry, Snooky Young, Kenny Burrell, Oliver Nelson, Urbie Green, and Phil Woods. He recorded two more albums during the year -- At Newport '63 and Me and the Blues -- and hit another peak in 1966 with an LP for Blue Note, Presenting Joe Williams and the Thad Jones-Mel Lewis Orchestra. Though he toured consistently during the '70s, his recordings fell off until a pair of mid-'80s LPs for Delos, Nothin' But the Blues and I Just Wanna Sing. After the former won a Grammy Award for Best Jazz Vocal Performance, he landed a recurring role on the popular television series The Cosby Show and signed a contract for Verve.

Live appearances at Vine St. resulted in material for his first two Verve albums, Every Night: Live at Vine St. and Ballad and Blues Master. Still in extraordinarily fine voice, Williams recorded two more albums for Verve and toured constantly during the '90s. He appeared again with Count Basie's Orchestra (led by Frank Foster), released several albums through Telarc, and remained one of the most talented jazz vocalists in the world right up until his death in 1999.

There are no birds going on the entertainment circuit doing Joe Williams Calls and not too many humans either.

Vouchers: Eric Zorn Calls it "Pixie Dust" But He Calls For A Stall to Avoid Getting Pinned!

A Stall gets a warning, then penalty points awarded to the opponent and then disqualified.

The financial losses in Indiana this year to public schools and the gains to parochial schools will amount to rounding errors.

But that enrollment limit will grow to 15,000 for the next school year, then the cap will come off the year after that.

So give it a few years. We'll then be able to study firsthand the largest and most ambitious voucher program in the country and see whether, this time, pixie dust has somehow conquered fear and history.

Eric Zorn in chair of Public Education Team Fish.

Pixie Dust? So a State like Indiana denies Gold Dust to the education lobby ( teachers unions, bus companies, vendors, cafeteria's serving tax-funded mandated healthy-choice meals to kiddies, special ed co-ops, and etc.) and therefore a social injustice is prefabricated. Well yeah.

Inquiry, science, data, tests and measures, expectations and outcomes, graphs, and logarithms are pulled out of the John Dewey sandbox and put on display by Diane Ravitch. Awed quiet descends upon the cowed masses. Eric Zorn trucks out the Dewey sand buckets, shovels and rakes once again.

However, Eric Zorn and the opponents of School Reform ( see education lobby above) are not crowing victory and going for the pin on the wrestling mat of public debate.
Nope, Eric Zorn is coaching the pencil-necked geeks on the mat to 'fish' off and stall. The referee gives a warning and then calls penalty points against Team Zorn - Point Vouchers! Stalling! Points get added to the lustier and more honest opponent and eventually The fish of Team Zorn get disqualified.

For a clear assessment of the Milwaukee Voucher Program, click my post title and scroll down to pages nine(9) and ten (10). The lads explain the math. John Dewey, the Daddy of Public Education demands that inquiry is the Alpha and Omega - where you want an argument to end is the beginning of all inquiry.

One very cogent critic of Diane Ravitch's Inquiry states this

Vouchers have seen at least modestly positive results for test scores in several studies, and have boosted graduation rates and college attendance everywhere that question has been studied. (The latest study of Milwaukee found that students who received vouchers for all four years of high school graduated at a 94% rate, compared to 75% for equivalent students who stayed in the public school system. The college attendance rates for the two groups were 54.4% and 34.5% respectively.)

In the overwhelming majority of studies, vouchers have also boosted the performance of public schools as well.

"They do allow more privileged constituents to divest from the education of Milwaukee's inner city children."

It's very odd to describe the recipients of vouchers as "more privileged," given the income limitations. Are you one of those people who classify impoverished inner city residents into the "privileged" and "not-privileged" simply based on who decides to pursue a voucher?

Indiana had the political will enact school reform by making school vouchers and school choice a reality. That scares the bejesus out of the education lobby that is so thick (literally and rhetorically) here in Illinois.

As soon as Charter schools became a reality in Illinois, SEIU and the Chicago Teachers Union went judge shopping and politician corralling in order to 'allow' the unionization of Charter Schools ( Ralph Ellison Charter just west of Catholic Leo High School), in order to bring the blessings of public education to Charters and make them ultimately disastrous public schools.

Catholic, Dutch, Jewish, and Independent schools outperform public schools. Leo High School, where the only privileged person in this hoary structure is me, serves African young men from Englewood, Gresham, Brainerd, Grand Crossing, Chatham and a white kid from Canaryville and sent every one of last years graduates off to great schools armed with scholarship based upon achievment money. Our ACT scores rose by 4.5% points in the last two years. It is not brain surgery, nor is it Pixie Dust.

Public Education is a disaster because it has, nor wants, fairness. All Public Education wants is more tax-payer dollars.

The Stall is for fish in wrestling - kids that are too timid, too weak, and too unskilled to grapple on the mat. The Stall sometimes employed to avoid outcomes - a pin, a decision, a loss. Pixie Dust? Naw, just the rules. If you can't compete, you lose.

Stalling (you get one warning before you are penalized and points are awarded).

The first and second time you are penalized, your opponent is awarded one point. The third time you are penalized, your opponent is awarded two points. The fourth time you are penalized, you are disqualified. (Except for illegal starting position or false start - you are cautioned twice, then one point awarded for each infraction, but you will not be disqualified. In the event of Flagrant Misconduct, you are ejected from the match on the first offense, you lose the match, and 3 team points are deducted).


http://blogs.chicagotribune.com/news_columnists_ezorn/2011/09/heres-some-school-choice-for-you-lets-choose-to-wait-and-see-on-vouchers.html

For the 69th Street Loafers:1965 -Mohair Sam - The Coolest Guy That Is What Am!

Mostly Italian from 69th and Hermitage. This includes: 68th and Wood Street Lil Loafers and 68th and Damen Lil Loafers. In 1959, they congregated at 66th and Honore.

I have two words for all the aging Loafers, Louie George's!

GOP Blows Off Toes Again. President Obama Played Them Like A Martin Six-String

Chicago Tribune

Obama asked to schedule a rare joint session of Congress for a prime-time address about jobs the Wednesday after Labor Day. In a rare, if not unprecedented, rebuff in modern times, Boehner (R-Ohio) rejected the president's request and recommended the following night.

A speech next Wednesday, in which Obama wanted to unveil his plan to improve the U.S. jobs picture, would have upstaged a televised debate among Republican presidential candidates at the same time, which the White House said was a coincidence.

By Wednesday night, the president gave in.

Did he, or did he again yank down the puce golf britches of the GOP?

I get asked all the time, "How are you yet a Democrat?" It's easy; take a look at the GOP.

The Grand Old Party have tendency to turn gold into lead; cotton candy into spun glass; opportunity into disaster and victory into what they generally get.

UPDATE: I received this note from journalist attorney Dan Kelley -"You may be right on the scheduling issue and Boehner.

But what does it say about the National Democratic Party that in my adult lifetime, since I began voting in presidential elections, the Republicans have held the White House for twenty-four years out of a possible thirty-two?

Anyway, this upcoming election may very well be a watershed for the USA for good or for bad." I bow to Mr. Kelley's hiostorical sensibilities and fault my own assessment to the Illinois GOP, more than the GOP nationally.

The GOP depends upon the thoughtful folks in tasseled loafers, who occasionally stick a finger out of the sliding window over the green of the last hole of the back nine and test the mood of nation. "Another Old Fashioned on my chit, Birmingham. Birm, what's the mood about the economy in the Hood? Get a fresh glass and less ice."

Yep, the GOP will blow their toes off anytime opportunity sticks the 5PM bell at Checkered Britches CC.

Last night House Speaker Boehner, who grew up above a saloon, swept floors, and humped empties as a kid and a Democrat, allowed GOP Foursome Amnesia to allow President Obama to pull down his Patina Chinos around his two-toned golf shoes.

The President asked for a joint session of Congress to unveil his jobs plan, not Barack H. Obama, the President of the United States. That should be enough said; the President Speaks. Dignity of Office aside, Speaker Boehner walked onto the political empties shute and down among the fruit flies, and assorted green, clean and brown bottles of foreign and domestic bottom slimes.

President Obama is Chief Executive and Commander in Chief. Barack Obama got into that office through political strategy and tactics and soaring rhetoric.

If the GOP were anything like the Democratic Party, that I know, their eight candidates would have gallantly, albeit cynically, bowed to the President and graciously declined to appear at NBC/Politic Debate with Brian Williams on Sept. 7th.

As it is President Obama, after enduring a no-doubt misty-eyed John Boehner's protestations of 'No Fair! What about OUR debate on the swell NBC/POLICO Debate with Brian Williams,' seized the high ground. NBC? Politico? Gee, when I get invited to pot-luck supper run by cannibals, I generally offer, "Wish I could, but there is free gums scrapping at Old World Dental that I do not want to miss." The GOP? They step right into the pre-prandial hot tub with all the vegetables just a swimmin'!

The President played the GOP gamefully. His jobs speech might be something that is packed with soaring rhetoric and ammo for his opponents in 2012. The President will face-off against the New Orleans Saints and the Green Bay Packers instead. The over and under on that one?

The GOP candidates should have immediately and respectfully declined the NBC/POLITICO Debate in deference to the President. So what if the President's Horses and Men planned it on the same night before he went on vacation in Martha's Vineyard, he is the President and he played the GOP for the tasseled Country Club dandies that they happen to be.

When John Boehner says 'seize the high ground,' they call in the earth movers take the mountain down. While President Obama spends alot of time on the golf course, he does not get the amnesia caused by whiffing the chemicals sprayed on the greens.

President Obama will lose his audience to the NFL on Sept. 8th, but that was the plan all the time.

Yep, I'm still a registered Democrat. In time, the Party of the working man will shake of the goofs who have kidnapped the DNC, say no thanks to Planned Parenthood, see Marxists for what they are about and truly are, protect the middle class, honor all religions, end abortion and smarten up.

The GOP, it seems will remain in the 19th Hole. No wonder the Tea Party is so attractive.

Be Real Americans GOP 8 - Bow to the President and Don't Debate

Politico and NBC News have announced the eight confirmed participants for the September 7th Reagan Library debate in Simi Valley, California. Of course, the list is missing former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty who's place will essentially be taken by Texas Governor Rick Perry.

The GOP, each and every one them, should bow to the dignity of the Office of the President and decline the offer to debate on the NBC/POLITICO forum scheduled the same day as President Obama's Speech before a joint session of Congress.

Eight individuals could show the Nation that service comes before politics and give the President full national attention.

The President said he would give his Big Jobs Plan Layout after Labor Day; it so happens to fall on the scheduled debate night. Give the man America's ears - wide open.

Romney, Perry, Bachman, Gingrich, Cain, Santorum, Paul and Huntsman send Brian Williams, your amiable host, your regrets.

http://www.2012presidentialelectionnews.com/2011/08/eight-candidates-confirmed-for-september-7th-gop-debate/

Time for Valor; Time for Illinois School Vouchers

Catholic Baby Boomers will remember this Text- a full study of Valor. Something Illinois elected officials lack aplenty. It is time for Valor;time for vouchers!

Schools Apps First Year Performance at Illinois Public Universities and Colleges
Go to the related story »
By Diane Rado, Jodi S. Cohen and Joe Germuska
August 31, 2011 The newly-released High School-to-College Success Report shows how Illinois public school graduates fared when they became freshmen at the state’s universities and community colleges. The ACT company tracked more than 90,000 students who graduated from public high schools between 2006 and 2008, and then enrolled full-time at an Illinois university or community college that fall. The data do not include students who went to a private college or out-of-state. For each high school, families can look up average high school GPAs and grade point averages earned at each public university and community college that students attended.


Leo High School raised its ACT score by 4.5 points in under two years. It did so the old fashioned way, by teaching - that and the fact that retired CPS Math Teacher Denny Conway and Dr. Jack O'Keefe of Daley College (ret.) come in and coach ACT Prep -gratis.

According the Urban Myth -Catholic Schools have selective enrollment and admissions. Correction: Leo High School's enrollment is highly selective -Leo High School turns no student who wants to succeed away. If the student's family can not meet the costs of tuition, Leo Alumni and the Big Shoulders Fund provide the money.

Teachers work at Leo because they love the guys, not in the Sesame Street manner, but like Ditka loves football.

If a public school employee saw the 2011-2012 salary and benefit pay-out to the Leo Administration, Faculty and Staff they'd get the twizzles, the miseries, the conniptions and the vapors.

The pay-off for these teachers is the kids. No riots, no disrespect, no incidents.

Our guys are adolescent males, let's not kid ourselves. The trick is that the teachers here at Leo, like most Catholic school, are here because they want to be here. Doing what makes you happy can not be legislated in Springfield or Washington D.C..

The Parents of kids in Catholic schools are people carrying the burdens. The Teachers sacrifice to be sure, but the parents carry the load. They pay for public education and then get pounded with the ever increasing cost of Catholic Education. Catholic education delivers and public education always has reason for failure -'not enough tax-dollars'

Everyone got misty-eyed over the Superintendent who declined his $ 800,000 per year salary. Lovely gesture, that; but, how in the name of Ward Bond does anyone in education get to a salary of $ 800,000. I venture to say, that the generous gent socked a away more than few shillings and will re-coup any loss accrued on Speaker Circuit and television appearances.

The Superintendent of Chicago Catholic Schools, the energetic Sister Mary Paul McCaughey, is a Dominican nun with a vow poverty and her salary goes directly to the Order. Talk about a tax!

Indiana now offers real school reform -Vouchers. It is working. Illinois is still controlled by Planned Parenthood, teacher PACS, SEIU and other political money 357 Magnums. Those Magnums helped elect State Governors, Senators and Representatives and remain pointed at the temples of the elected.

A few independents,like my former State Representative Kevin Joyce(D.), fought the PACs and managed to retain his seat with heart and honesty alone.

School reform will never happen until Vouchers become available to parents.

All you need for proof, is the violence, vandalism and vociferations tossed at Catholic Messmer Preparatory School in Milwaukee, WI. - that is a disgrace. The Teachers Unions, SEIU and their pals attacked the school.(click my post title and read more about this disgraceful event)

It is time for courage. It is time for School Vouchers in Illinois.

President Obama Declares Chicago's St. Xavier University -" A Secular School"

SEIU, like Planned Parenthood, paid good money for this President and he , by God, Delivers! President Obama has his NLRB guys out counting nuns - St. Xavier on 10rd Street in Mount Greenwood didn't have enough Hoods on the Board. Ergo, The Cougars* *ain't CatLick.

St. Xavier University was founded in 1846, the oldest Catholic school in Illinois. Its corporate member is a Catholic body with the "powers for the governance of" St. Xavier, that "links the University to the [Catholic] Church and makes it an officially recognized member of the Church."

St. Xavier's Board of Trustees must have at least four nuns from the order that founded the school, and, according to its bylaws, its governing body must "ensure [St. Xavier] continues its educational and religious mission."

After quoting these sources and many others, NLRB's regional director concluded in true Orwellian fashion that "the evidence establishes" that St. Xavier is "a secular educational institution or university."

To support this astounding conclusion flying in the face of the facts (not to mention common sense), NLRB claimed a 1979 Supreme Court affirms this authority.

Yet that case -- NLRB v. Catholic Bishop of Chicago -- actually says the complete opposite of what Obama's NLRB claims.

In an instance of deja vu, the Supreme Court in Catholic Bishop considered a challenge to an NLRB order asserting authority over lay teachers at Illinois Catholic high schools. (Sound familiar?)

NLRB claimed that it had no authority over a church but that it possessed power over church-related bodies that are not purely religious, such as schools. The court considered whether the National Labor Relations Act granted NLRB such power.

Now, that's Change! No longer Catholic enough for President Hide-the-Crucifix.

http://washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/op-eds/2011/08/now-obamas-nlrb-tells-church-school-its-not-religious-enough#ixzz1WXPqu1jE

*

Orland Park Patch -

By Tom Ritter
The Cougars are expected to be a powerhouse again this year. According to a SouthtownStar article, the Cougars are right where they want to be with their No. 2 national ranking. They will open the season at home on Saturday at 6 p.m., hosting Olivet Nazarene.

The Cougars men's soccer team also received NAIA Top 25 honors, coming in at No. 25 in the rankings, according to the school's athletics site.

Reprobates All! Us Cavaliers Mean What We Say . . .sort of.

Cavalier Poets fought Cromwell's Roundheads Ironsides Army -Guess who won? Answer at the bottom.

I was chatting with a couple of Leo Men about the return to the books. Poetry puts many of the guys off. It will do that.

Poetry is deception. What ain't? The trick is in getting to what matters, but also the consequences of what matters. Poetry is music and as such the words should have a rhyme and a rhythm. Music at one time was part of the mathematics curriculum. Math really got started when guys wanted to build pyramids. Pyramids are tombs for kings.

See? Deceptive.

I told the guys to give the stuff of poetry a chance. By the stuff of poetry, I mean the things you should know. Meter, rhyme, and the rhetoric. It's not brain surgery, nor is it coal mining.

Here's some of the stuff I talked about.

The Author of the poem I mention was Col. Richard Lovelace (1618-1657) an Errol Flynn kind of guy - I had to explain Errol Flynn: think of Han Solo with a better vocabulary.

I keep my Norton Anthology of English Literature near my cluttered desk. It should be the only text book any high school teacher(no pictures and no Teacher cheat sheets) of English uses, but that is me.

The Glossary of Literary terms is superb, as is the historical treatment of each author and age.

First off, Cavalier Poetry is not Rap duets by Antawn Jamison and Tony Parker

The Setting of the poem is a prison cell where Col Lovelace, and other warrior poets who sided with Charles I in his fight with Parliament ( think President Obama against the Congress), found himself awaiting his fate. Lovelace was a well-educated Cavalier (meaning cavalryman - he had a string of horses that he used in battle.) and as such he believed that Charles Stuart as King of England Scotland and Ireland was anointed by God. Follow the King and you follow God. The Cavaliers lost to the Puritans behind Oliver Cromwell and his Round Heads ( they all had short hair).

The Characters are the Speaker, probably Lovelace himself and Althea, a classical name for a hot babe - the Cavaliers used names like Lucasta, Althea, Cinthonia, and such as idealized women. Some historians believe that Althea was a name for Lovelace's girlfriend Lucy Sacheverell.

The Figures of speech in the poem include metaphor ( When Love with unconfine'd wings), anaphora ( bringing back in Greek:

Our careless heads with roses bound
Our hearts with loyal flames
When thirsty grief in wine we steep,
When healths and draughts go free—

When I shall voice aloud how good / He is, how great should be

Here, Lovelace presents all of the possibilities that getting free will be.

The whole poem is a paradox the guy in the cell and chains is a free man.

The Theme of poem is a man is free even in prison and the real prison is to found in the love of one woman.

WHEN Love with unconfin'd wings
Hovers within my gates,
And my divine Althea brings
To whisper at the grates;
When I lie tangled in her hair
And fetter'd to her eye,
The birds that wanton in the air
Know no such liberty.

When flowing cups run swiftly round
With no allaying Thames,
Our careless heads with roses crown'd,
Our hearts with loyal flames;
When thirsty grief in wine we steep,
When healths and draughts go free
Fishes that tipple in the deep
Know no such liberty.

When, linnet-like confin'd, I
With shriller throat shall sing
The sweetness, mercy, majesty
And glories of my King;
When I shall voice aloud how good
He is, how great should be,
Enlarg�d winds, that curl the flood,
Know no such liberty.

Stone walls do not a prison make,
Nor iron bars a cage;
Minds innocent and quiet take
That for an hermitage;
If I have freedom in my love
And in my soul am free,
Angels alone, that soar above,
Enjoy such liberty.

Like I said it ain't brain surgery, nor heaving coal. It is fun, or it can be.

The fun comes from placing the poem in its proper historical context and that should be the work of the teacher. The Cavaliers were strange dudes* to say the least. Many were serious reprobates and a few were even cowards like Sir John Suckling - they also happen to have goofy names, by and large, that matched their flair for fashion - long perfumed hair, curled and set; lace shirts and long flowing capes and facial hair that seem manicured by lawn specialists.

They were accomplished soldiers and given to drinking their asses off, as well as having their wicked ways with women. They were schooled in poetry and music and dance in order to get noticed by the King and the ladies. They used poetry to advance careers and moves on the women. They had cavalier attitudes - Carpe Diem Seize the Day, Gather Ye Rosebuds & etc. They were more concerned with appearances and the rules that govern appearances in all things.

In the English Civil War, these poets were the King's cavalry. They looked swell and refused to wear armor as it was ungentlemanly. Their tactics were to neatly ride parade in line before the enemy and fire a volley from their pistols.

The Cromwellian Ironsides Army of Roundhead wore breast plated armor and helmets and charged full force into their enemy.

The Cavaliers were slaughtered and Charles I had his head cut off by Cromwell.

The Roundheads won for a short time and there is no Roundhead poetry.

That is a little bit of a reason to consider poetry, when gearing up for Friday Nights under the lights. Go all Cromwell on the football field, but after a good shower and the application of a fine manly scent, read your Althea a poem by John Denham, Robert Herrick, or Col. Lovelace.

Screw Suckling - he hired thugs to do his fighting. True facts.

Here is a great book on Cavalier Poets and this is from a review of that book - Reprobates: The Cavaliers of the English Civil War by John Stubbs

Few stock figures are more easily recognisable than that of the Civil War cavalier. From his broad-brimmed hat with its ostrich-feather plume to the soles of his high-cut leather boots, he presents the image of the silk-suited, dandified man of war: recklessly brave, immorally hedonist and, in his readiness to take up arms for a despotic king, irretrievably – if romantically – “wrong”.

Chicago's Networked Activists Say, "Bring The Kids! The G-8 Riots Will Be Great!"

Your Bush 4 Defendants:GLN's Buddy Bell, Jeff Pickert, Kevin Clark and GLN's Andy Thayer will back for the G-8 Riots! Bring the Kids!

I have a dash above room temperature I.Q. - I think the tests were racist, or skewed against my cultural background. That said, I know that the media ignores whom they wish to ignore.

Pit bulls like Tim Novak of the Chicago Sun Times will dig their incisors into the rumps of 'bullet-proof' kin to powerful politicians. That is all good. Tim Novak is the absolute best and most honest of newsmen. He is interested in getting to the root causes of corruption. Novak is on the Daley/Davis real estate bonanza, as well as other crimes and misdemeanors of the nepotists.

However, no Chicago journalist ever bothers to connect the dots on the thick network of activists whose fibers form a Gordian knot of lucrative activism via academia, 501 (c) 3's, radical terrorism, public service PACs like SEIU, the media, lawsuit lotto lawyers, Brahmin agendas: Gay, Anti-War, Hamas, Cop Brutality (real and mostly imagined, Poverty Pimping, and tax-increase legislation.

Kevin Clark - a leader of the highly dicey International Solidarity Movement is also a Gay Liberation Activist who happens to work closely with self-proclaimed Catholic Anti-war activists, Hamas, and was the man who helped guide the late Rachel Corrie into the path of an Israeli Defence Force bulldozer. Clark led suits and protests against Peoria based Caterpillar for building bulldozers. Clark also spearheaded the Gaza Flotilla activism and the attack on Cardinal George one Easter Sunday a few years ago again using kids to do his work -Catholic Schoolgirls Against the War.



Then there is the ubiquitous Andy Thayer whose commercial challenged young would be Bolsheviks with his Thee You in the Threeth before blocking traffic and getting the challenged arrethted. That great Marilyn Katz-like video and so many others have been scrubbed on You Tube. You may remember it from 2003, a parade of earnest radicals in motorcycle helmets urged us all to See Them in the Street. Wasn't that a time, to paraphrase the Methuselah of Red Pete Seeger? Well here's activist Andy:



Andy, like the smarmy Clark, happens to be a Gay Liberation Activist which is nice, but he also works with Lawsuit Lotto Lawyer Jon Loevy who has made millions of dollars bringing suit against any and all law enforcement for any reason.

There also a parade of feminists nuns who shill for abortion and manage to wheedle money under the guise of charity who help the activists get gigs with Ariana Huffington, face time on WTTW and a pass from breaking the laws.

SEIU Joe Iosbaker has had a year of playing at Haymarket Martyr thanks to an FBI raid over his labors on behalf of Hamas. Joe wants Chicagoans to think of the G-* summit as a latter-day Republic Steel picnic (1937). Bring the kids in strollers and maybe the Bulls, not the team, but the old-timey Red handle for cops, will light up a few babies, when provoked by the Soul-Patched Knit-Hat Che T-shirt dweebs. " Cool Bix! Light the tires under Viaduct! Seatle!"

I believe ex- Professor Dave Protess has the bus wheel marks all over the back of his Brooks Brothers Oxford shirt, more because he shed light on the network of wealthy radical enterprises - I wonder way Professor of Law and Can't Practice Law NU's Bernardin Dohrn, who took a trip to Eygpt in solidarity just before the Gaza Flotilla disaster and the soapy Arab Spring, has not stood in solidarity with the Fagin of the Innocence Project? I know Chicago's supine media is not wondering the same thing.

The same clowns and posers, Andy, Kev, Joe, Sister Mary Forceps and their familiars, are there when trouble gets planned and never called on it.

The same geniuses vet our elected officials from White House on down to Commissioner of Side-walk safety.

Chicago activist Joe Iosbaker, who helped organize the RNC protests in 2008 and whose home was raided by FBI agents last October, said he applied for permits to hold demonstrations in Daley Plaza and Federal Plaza downtown the day the White House announced the city would host the summits.

So far, he has not heard anything about the status of the permits from the county about using Daley Plaza or the agency that controls Federal Plaza. City officials also have said organizers will not be able to apply for a permit for a planned march through the city until the first of the year, Iosbaker said.

“They told me they would get back to me in two weeks to let me know at least that we were in the process of getting the permit,” Iosbaker said. “That was nine weeks ago.”

Local activist Andy Thayer said demonstrations will be peaceful, despite a recent statement by police Superintendent Garry McCarthy that the department is preparing for “mass arrests” of protesters during the summit.

The remarks were especially galling given Chicago's mixed history of dealing with large demonstrations, Thayer said. Police in 2003 arrested about 900 people who marched to protest the start of the Iraq war, with some protesters held for up to 36 hours. The arrests prompted a class-action lawsuit, Thayer said.

“Statements like that from McCarthy have a chilling effect,” he said. “The city has a history of attacks on civil rights.”

Iosbaker noted that events like the G8 and World Trade Organization summits have seen some violence in their host cities. Iosbaker attributed the clashes to aggressive police, and said his group is planning to do nothing to disrupt the city or the conferences.

“What we want is a safe, permitted, legal protest,” Iosbaker said. “Something that parents feel safe bringing their babies in strollers to, and we want our voice to be heard.”

Should be a great outing for the whole family,Joe. Let us know how that all works out.

Chicago IndyMedia is a great place to see all these folks in a very postive light. Doing so would put me off my feed, but that's just me.

http://chicago.indymedia.org/newswire/display/24328/index.php

Kevin Clark--ISM/SUSTAIN interview in 2 partsAuthor
Rita Sand
Date Created
12 Apr 2003
Date Edited
12 Apr 2003 10:13:27 PM
Rating
•Current rating: 0
Kevin Clark recently returned to Chicago from serving as a human shield in the Israeli occupied territories as part of the International Solidarity Movement. In light of the killing of ISM member Rachel Corrie of Washington State, the shootings Brian Avery from New Mexico and Tom Hurndall of Great Britain, Clark describes daily life in Palestine and the brutality and dangers that Palestinians and ISM workers face every day. (article 2)

Andy Thayer is co-founder of the Gay Liberation Network (www.GayLiberation.net), a Chicago-based LGBT direct action group which has been a local leader in gay rights, anti-police brutality and anti-war organizing. As a leader in the local anti-war movement, he's helped organize most of the city's large anti-war protests for the last several years, including a march of 15,000 on Lake Shore Drive at the start of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. He's been arrested numerous times in various protests and was recently found not guilty of two felony counts from a January 2008 protest against the Chicago visit of President Bush. Last May he was among 30 LGBT activists arrested in the 4th annual gay pride demonstration in Moscow, Russia.