Otis Spann and Jimmy Witherspoon - T'aint Bobody's Business If I (We) Do!

Here is a great tune that gets riffed by many artists on many themes.

The title is often translated into south side Chicago Irish spoonerism. as the declarative"I Don't Shive a Git, " or the interrogative " Who Shives a Git?"

It is a black blues song and belongs in the fingers and voices of African Americans.


A Singular treatment by Otis Spann



Pluraled up by Jimmy Witherspoon.



"Ain't Nobody's Business" or "'Tain't Nobody's Biz-ness if I Do" is an eight-bar vaudeville blues song that became an early blues standard. It was written in the 1920s by pianist Porter Grainger, who had been Bessie Smith's accompanist, and Everett Robbins. The song was first recorded October 19, 1922 by Anna Meyer with the Original Memphis Five. Other early versions include Sara Martin (with Fats Waller on piano) (December 1, 1922 OKeh 8043), Alberta Hunter (February 1923 Paramount 12016), and Bessie Smith (April 26, 1923 Columbia 3898). Porter Grainger's lyrics to the song were copyrighted in 1922, thus they are now in the public domain.

Ward Power, Accountability and Future - Recycled With Rahm

" Alpha Mike Foxtrot, Breeders! Vote Democratic! Thanks for Playing!"


Mayor Rahm Emanuel today said the remaining 340,000 Chicago households that don’t have curbside recycling will get it by the end of 2013. Hip, Hip, Hipster* Hooray! Soon the Breeders will leave! Breeders are the people in the neighborhoods - lower middle class taxpayers who own homes and have children. They do not have disposable income. They have recycled income - debts, mortgages, Catholic school tuition and taxes - lots and lots of taxes.

For the past year, this simple, humble and damn fine looking reader and writer has posted on the once looming and now attached Garbage Grid and the its end-game.

The administration says it can afford to expand the recycling program because pickup has become more efficient in the six months since two private firms started competing with city crews . . .

The Garbage Grid is all the rage - ask Detroit, Buffalo and Cleveland. This is plan that divides city services ( snow-plowing, tree-trimming, garbage collection and, of course, the Sierra Club's Raison d'uriner dans son pantalon, Recycling) by a geographic grid, where once a Ward Boss controlled, directed and dispensed services. You see, Chicago's Charter gave us a weak Mayor form of urban government, whereby the City Council, aldermen, really governed and the May'r appointed heads of departments. One might think it were t'other way around. T'aint.

April 1st, April Fools Day, was the launch of the garbage grid which the 50 lambs of the City Council offered up themselves to Rahm -the boss of this here Sanhedrin - knifing and holocaust ( Old Timey Barbecue) to follow.

Yesterday's announcement that more Wards will have curb-side re-cycling soon was met with Yeas! Chicago media is as pliant and bending-of-will as all 50 endangered Chicago aldermen.

The endgame is the shrinking of Chicago from a city of neighborhoods to an Urban Center - when the population leaves the neighborhoods due to crime, poverty, poor city services and schools, there in lies the opportunity to smart-size everything down to an urban center - green open-spaces for walking,biking, capering, stolling, mincing and hand-holding among the magnificent gardens and tree-scapes, great non-smelly public transportation to and from business to townhouse, condo, loft, rehabilitated stone crafted buildings, entertainment, and life-style happy venues. Not a beer-belly in sight!

This will be a pricey Urban Center and it already happens to be, but if one can afford such a Utopia, and the better folks certainly will, who cares? We get Blue Recycling Dumpsters! Finally!


Though the costs for city crews to pick up recycling are still greater than 50 cents more per bin than Waste Management and Metal Management Midwest, Emanuel left open the possibility that he will continue to split recycling duties in Chicago between public and private crews for the foreseeable future.

"What will happen, every six months (Streets and Sanitation Commissioner) Tom (Byrne) and his team will evaluate this, and then at one point, if somebody brings down the price even further, we'll rip that band-aid off," Emanuel said. "That's why I want to keep competition in place."


Following this swell trade off of neighborhood autonomy by the aldermen we elected, the guys on the Blue Trucks will smarten up their CVs. Mick, Steve, Hector, Swede, Sticky, Madison and Headsy will no longer manage our waste, plow our streets of snow, trim our parkway trees, or fix the sewer lines 35 ft. from our ejector lines.

They will have sold their Raised Ranches Cape Cods and Georgians and moved on to Peotone, Manhattan, and Custer Park swelling the populations of Will and Kankakee Counties, because Waste Management and Metal Management will have smart sized Streets and Sanitation into an exhibit at the Field Museum.

The Chicago Phonebook will now be found in the Lists provided by Craine's Chicago Business -Top CEO's, Top Lawyers, Top Doctors, Top Community Activists, Top Donors Forum 500, Top Sports Figures, Top Billies - Corgan and Dec.

I imagine, cynical old bastard I be, that Waste Management and Metal Management have already made a verbal, or at least a twitched, agreement to bundle the Rahm 2016 Presidential Campaign. How could I even think that?

The two private firms have served roughly half of the 241,000 Chicago households already in the recycling program and the city has handled the rest.


History.

Once Ward Autonomy is gone as political and historical memory, the neighbors and breeders can just bugger off and like it.


* From the Tribune articles comments - Reads like David Axelrod parade of Grassrooters:

Thank you Mayor Emanuel for the hard work on this important service. Besides saving millions of tons of recyclabe waste form landfills when children in families get used to recycling in the bin it sets a mind for life on environmental mindfulness. We win in so many ways.

Privatize the entire operation. It will be cheaper. Wast Mangement picks up my recycling. One person is on the truck and he does everyting. The city has 2-3 on a truck. Waste Management drivers make less than the political hack city drivers and no pension costs. The the bankrupt city can lay off the policital hacks and save a lot of money. They will probably be moved to other job with higher pay and less work.

When will the city change regular trash pick from a ward by ward map to a grid system that could save the cuty $30 million a year?? The mayor is always crying that the city is strapped for cash, here is a simple solution that is easy to impliment that saves millions

This is the Jewel in this Crown of Thorns!

speaker, we can't have random people coming into the ward yards. they could trip and fall, get hurt and sue the city.

on the other hand, what a great idea for oh, waht 6 - 8 more ward jobs. good union men to assist the citizens of our wards with their recycling. this assistance given as a distraction so ya don't notice the 15 - 20 union city employees sitting around playing cards, bbq'ing, have a few beers with the game on tv.

"O Ye of Little Faith?" - It Might Just Be Enough to Be a Church, But Steve Chapman Thinks Otherwise

And when he entered into the boat, his disciples followed him: And behold a great tempest arose in the sea, so that the boat was covered with waves, but he was asleep. And they came to him, and awaked him, saying: Lord, save us, we perish. And Jesus saith to them: Why are you fearful, O ye of little faith? Then rising up he commanded the winds, and the sea, and there came a great calm. But the men wondered, saying: What manner of man is this, for the winds and the sea obey him? Gospel of Matthew - 23-27 Douay-Rheims Bible


Speaking of Tempests in a tea-cup - I read Steve Chapman, the poor man's David Brooks Conservative voice at the Chicago Tribune, well before break of day. Chapman is too cute by half and nearly as accurate.

This week, Newsweek decided to deconstruct Christianity with the words and counsel of Andrew Sullivan - a gay Catholic Conservative Sarah Palin stalking Christopher Hitchens without the makings.

Sullivan has full media agreed upon standing as an important voice. It plumb evades me. Nevertheless, Mr. Sullivan gets syndicated nationally, along with other strange speaking sophists and bunko-artists like Michael Eric Dyson, Roger Simon, Jonathan Alter, and always hilarious Roland S. Martin. Interesting to note each and every one of those nationally recognized voices were silenced here in Sweet Chicago by the gales of laughter stormed up by readers of the Chicago Tribune, Chicago Sun Times, The Daily Defender and other news outlets.

Andrew Sullivan commands us to "Forget the church. Follow Jesus."
Andrew is just down right hissified that religion has become so politically polarizing.

Organized religion ( read the Roman Catholic Church) is mean, because Catholics who are largely Catholic are disgusted and angry by the Obama Regime's HHS Mandate, along with antipathy to Homosexual Marriage. Catholics are the Jews and Evangelical Christians of the New Millennium - fair targets for group hate. Mormons are really in for abuse in the months to come as well.

Mainline Protestant religions and secular Jews melted away decades ago into Unitarianism - the are spiritual but not necessarily religious and certainly not judgemental. They can be identified as State Religionists with Bill Moyers as Supreme Pontiff.

Jews, Evangelicals, and Catholics know that Jesus not only said "Follow Me, but also added this biblical (Gospel - Matthew the Taxman again) imperative -"And I say to you, that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it. " Tough to parse that one away, there Andrew.

Conservative voices like David Brooks, Andrew Sullivan and Christopher Buckley validated Barrack H. Obama's parking pass in the drive way at 16 Pennsylvania Avenue in 2008 and beyond.


Not be left out of the faux-conservative Obama bandwagon, Steve Chapman does a great Amen to Andy Sullivan's dumps Churches and Follow Jesus the Community Activist:

So a lot of people who are not conservative but once would have gone to worship services have decided they don't belong. They see the GOP claiming to represent the will of God and run the other way.

"Each year, fewer and fewer Americans identify as secular Republicans or religious Democrats," write political scientists David E. Campbell and Robert D. Putnam in the current issue of Foreign Affairs. "Formerly religious Democrats (except among African-Americans) have drifted away from church, and formerly unobservant Republicans have found religion."

That may sound like a reasonable trade for conservative Christians. Who needs skeptics and scoffers anyway? But it has some side effects they may come to regret.

One is that they are losing leverage and consideration in one of the two major parties. President Barack Obama's proposal to make religiously affiliated universities and hospitals provide contraceptive coverage to employees might not have occurred if religious folk were more numerous in the Democratic ranks.

Another consequence is that making the Almighty synonymous with political conservatism breeds contempt for faith. Young people now are far more likely alienated from religion than their forebears were. In the 1970s, only 12 percent of people in their 20s disavowed any religious affiliation. Today, 33 percent do.

The change has a lot to do with the fact that "millennials" tend to be liberal or libertarian on social issues. When they hear Republicans invoking the Bible to justify banning same-sex marriage, many deduce that Republicans are too intolerant to bear — and so is the Bible.

The people with no religious affiliation lean strongly Democratic. In 2008, 75 percent voted for Obama, compared to 45 percent of Protestants and 54 percent of Catholics. Even in 2010, a Republican year, 68 percent of them voted Democratic for Congress.

The Republican practice of spurning "none/other" voters (basically, all who don't identify themselves as Christians) could turn out to be a fatal error. The Georgetown University blog Nineteen Sixty-four says they are now so numerous that "Obama could lose both the Catholic and Protestant vote to the Republican nominee — even lose badly — and still win re-election."

As the nonreligious proliferate, the GOP may find it has foreclosed any chance of winning their votes. What it hears from this group comes straight from the old country song: "God may forgive you, but I won't. Yes, Jesus loves you, but I don't. They don't have to live with you, and neither do I."

Chapman starts his piece with a lame joke about God the Father being a Republican, but His Son is a Democrat. I am a Democrat and as I recall from my parents and Catholic teachers, there are two Testaments but one Bible. The later Christians believe to be the fulfillment of the former.

Andrew Sullivan and Steve Chapman argue that if you are to be considered a sophisticated devotee of secular goodness and citizenship, you need to be un-Churched. Get un-Churched and get hip with the State - the Progressive Vatican.

Perhaps, Mr. Chapman hears the giggles among the helots and pew-Occupiers. Perhaps, he is looking for the same comfortable bedding found by lambs who left Chicago's caustic giggling Rubes and Patriarchal religionists: Roger Simon, Michael Eric Dyson, Jonathan Alter and the always hilarious Roland S. Martin.

That Progresive manger has great straw ( pays well).

I'll stick with the Rock.

Religion is not a 12 -Step Program, Political Caucus, or try-out for Salon. It is like trying to train for a sport*. Religion is a tough and heavy set of weights strapped to our ankles while we sprint and struggle up many flights of stairs. We practise religion and some times we manage to actually strengthen ourselves, but we do not get up those stairs on our own. We have voices shouting encouragement, warning, remonstrance and judgement. It is up to us to continue the climb. If we quit, as we often do, it does us no earthly good to make up an excuse. " The coach don't like me; he favors the Italian kids; I broke my ankle last summer; I need to feel good about myself. Some else will carry my load."

Those of us who make it to the top know that run down is easy, but there is another set stairs to follow.

The young people, whom Chapman and other clever dicks call the Millennials, might find fulfillment on Saturday nights, club hopping, or boozing, or dancing with their friends. They need a voice to tell them that lying bed until noon or beyond on Sunday morning and moaning, OMG!!! God! Christ! is not church service. They generally get there after trusting the faith in spite of the tempest.

We of little faith, belong to a huge strong and very unpopular Church. If you belong to a club you go the meetings. Those meetings started with eleven and shortly twelve, because Judas Iscariot's self esteem was challenged. The demographics found in Acts of Apostles pointed to a very healthy development. Romans thinned out the numbers considerably, but this Church managed endure the Big Government Mandates of the Julio-Claudians and the Praetorian Emperors.

Obama is a cupcake compared to Domitian, so far.

* Past Acquaintance -Jesus, Hickey, you were the biggest Pu$$y of all time!

Your Humble Correspondent - Well, runner-up, anyway.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/ct-oped-0405-chapman-20120405,0,7104250.column

Hey Mr. President Transparency ! Which Cabinet Member Tried to Diddle the Russian Spy?

An Obama Cabinet Member Was Seduced by One of These Russian Agents -on the Left the more traditional femme fatale Ms. Anna Chapman and on the Right the care worn and tired fingers and frame of Mrs. Murphy - I gotta know - Who and Why.

The Obama Cabinet Extant When Mrs. Murphy Snagged a Fish.

A female Russian agent got "close enough" to a sitting U.S. cabinet member that the FBI felt they had to swoop in and arrest the lot -- but it wasn't the famous femme fatale Anna Chapman, federal officials said today.

Chapman, the seductive 20-something SoHo spy, was named by a British newspaper Monday as the reason the FBI decided to finally round up the Russian ring, which had long been under surveillance, in 2010. The paper cited an interview conducted by the British broadcasting network the BBC with the FBI's counter-intelligence head Frank Figliuzzi. Instead, Justice Department officials told ABC News Figliuzzi was referring to another of the arrested spies, Cynthia Murphy. . . . According to court documents relating to the spies' arrest, Murphy had been in contact with a fundraiser and "personal friend" of Hillary Clinton, who took the office of Secretary of State in January 2009. The fundraiser, Alan Patricof, said in a statement in 2010 had retained Murphy's financial services firm more than two years before, had met with her a few times and spoke with her on the phone frequently. Patricof said they "never" spoke about politics, the government or world affairs.

President Obama is, and has been, like the guy in the old Ulster poem by Thomas Russell - "The Man from God Knows Where*."

We're a civil sort in our wee place
so we made the circle wide
round Andy Lemon's cheerful blaze,
and wished the man his length of days
and a good end to his ride.
He smiled in under his slouchy hat,
says he: 'There's a bit of a joke in that,
for we ride different ways.'

That is most evident, Mr. President. There are things that we dour folk will never know, until after the November vote tally, or perhaps not. President #44 is a mystery wrapped in a compelling narrative. Catholics voted largely for President Obama and once in, demanded that Catholic icons be removed from Georgetown and that University of Notre Dame sic the cops on senior citizens and priests while the President was cowled with a Doctor of Law hood by smilingly compliant President Father Jenson. In time at all, St. Xavier University had its religious identity stripped by the President's NLRB, while Navy Seal Team 6 took out Osama Bin Laden. Then after the Birth of Christ 2011, HHS Czarina Kathleen Sebelius, a Vichy Catholic Cabinet member, announced the Obama Regime's assault on religious liberty.

'There's a bit of a joke in that,
for we ride different ways.'

You may say. There is just too much that we dour folk are not allowed to know like, these simple nuggets of President Obama's identity.

1. Occidental College records -- Not released
2. Columbia College records -- Not released
3. Columbia Thesis paper -- "Not available"
4. Harvard College records -- Not released
5. Selective Service Registration -- Not released
6.. Medical records -- Not released
7. Illinois State Senate schedule -- Not available
8. Your Illinois State Senate records -- Not available
9. Law practice client list -- Not released
10. Certified Copy of original Birth certificate -- Not released
11. Embossed, signed paper Certification of Live Birth -- Not released
12. Record of your baptism -- Not available
13. Why were you getting "foreign student aid" as a college student?
14.. Which countries "passport" did you have when you visited Pakistan in 1981?

We caught a glimpse of the Man From God Knows Where in the White House last week thanks to hot microphone, as the President begged Vladimir Putin's guy for patience in order to see his Flexibility.

I believe that the President can be flexible when he wants to, after all he promised Transparency - note the 14 items above, please. Perhaps this latest Russian/Obama White House flap-doodle can help.

A couple of years ago, the FBI grabbed a whole bunch of Russian Spies. One happened to be planted as a New York haus frau, working mom and 5 o'clock scholar attending Columbia University, Mrs. Cynthia Murphy was tasked by the KGB, or whatever they call their spooks these days, to suck intel out of graduate students, professors or anyone with links to the White House.

Another spy was a ginger haired knock-out libido launching Femme Fatale -Anna Chapman.

On Monday, it was discovered by the Independent of the UK that a member of the Obama Cabinet was about to be the paramour of a Russian agent; hence the FBI sweep up of Muscovite's on the Hudson.

Speculation naturally turned to the toothsome Ms. Chapman. Some libidos just can not shed their patriarchal instincts and also some Cabinet member who swore an oath, like the President's and every kid in uniform, to protect and defend the Constitution and the land that we love, wanted to swap pillow talk with Russian sexpot.

It turns out that Cabinet Member was not hot to trot for Ann Chapman, but Mrs. Murphy. Go figure.

Now, I can understand seduction. Never happens to me, mind you, but I can fully appreciate the carnal divining rod's tyranny. I am also a very shallow man. Let's see - the Red Head, or Mrs. Murphy? Me without sin? Not a chance. Tempered mind you by a full Catholic education K- Grad School and a full appreciation of the Temple of Christ - which in my case is like a Yellow-hammer's tar shed on the Rt. 113 side of the Kankakee River - home but no palace, my manky frame and mien Kampf be. I might error on the side of Ms. Chapman. Again, I am a shallow man.

I gotta ask, rhetorically, if not personally, Mr. President - Which Cabinet Member wanted to diddle Mrs. Murphy? If I were running for office, I would be asking that question couched this way -

" Mr. President, you were offered the Keystone Pipeline, but opted for the Sierra Club's Alternative Fuel Narrative. A natural gas pipeline or a narrative? In that context, Sir, consider that one of your appointed, unelected Cabinet Members eschewed a dalliance with Russian Spy Hottie Anna Chapman for the care-worn hand of Mrs. Murphy. Which one, or God save us, might it have been all memebers of your Cabinet, chose Mrs. Murphy?"

I believe that out Flexibility Challenged, but self-stated ly Fully Transparent President might answer, " The American people are tired of your Time Warped disregard for transforming America and the World and your War on Women. To quote the Irish poet, and I am a Son from Moneygall, 'There's a bit of a joke in that,
for we ride different ways.'

Fellow dour folk - keep the horse, please change the rider in November.
*

The Man From God Knows Where

Into our townlan' on a night of snow
rode a man from God knows where;
None of us bade him stay or go,
nor deemed him friend, nor damned him foe,
but we stabled his big roan mare;
for in our townlan' we're decent folk,
and if he didn't speak, why none of us spoke,
and we sat till the fire burned low.

We're a civil sort in our wee place
so we made the circle wide
round Andy Lemon's cheerful blaze,
and wished the man his length of days
and a good end to his ride.
He smiled in under his slouchy hat,
says he: 'There's a bit of a joke in that,
for we ride different ways.'

The whiles we smoked we watched him stare
from his seat fornenst the glow.
I nudged Joe Moore: 'You wouldn't dare
to ask him who he's for meeting there,
and how far he has got to go?'
And Joe wouldn't dare, nor Wully Scott,
And he took no drink - neither cold nor hot,
this man from God knows where.

It was closing time, and late forbye,
when us ones braved the air.
I never saw worse (may I live or die)
than the sleet that night, an' I says, says I:
'You'll find he's for stopping there.'
But at screek o'day, through the gable pane
I watched him spur in the peltin' rain,
an' I juked from his rovin' eye.

Two winters more, then the Trouble year,
when the best that a man could feel
was the pike that he kept in hidin's near,
till the blood o' hate an' the blood o' fear
would be redder nor rust on the steel.
Us ones quet from mindin' the farms
Let them take what we gave wi' the weight o' our arms
from Saintfield to Kilkeel.

In the time o' the Hurry, we had no lead
we all of us fought with the rest
an' if e'er a one shook like a tremblin' reed,
none of us gave neither hint nor heed,
nor ever even'd we'd guessed.
We men of the North had a word to say,
an'we said it then, in our own dour way,
an' we spoke as we thought was best.

All Ulster over, the weemin cried
for the stan'in' crops on the lan'.
Many's the sweetheart and many's the bride
would liefer ha' gone to where he died,
and ha' mourned her lone by her man.
But us ones weathered the thick of it
and we used to dander along and sit
in Andy's, side by side.

What with discourse goin' to and fro,
the night would be wearin' thin,
yet never so late when we rose to go
but someone would say: 'do ye min' thon' snow,
an 'the man who came wanderin'in?'
and we be to fall to the talk again,
if by any chance he was one o' them
The man who went like the win'.

Well 'twas gettin' on past the heat o' the year
when I rode to Newtown fair;
I sold as I could (the dealers were near
only three pounds eight for the Innish steer,
an' nothin' at all for the mare!)
I met M'Kee in the throng o' the street,
says he: 'The grass has grown under our feet
since they hanged young Warwick here.',

And he told me that Boney had promised help
to a man in Dublin town.
Says he: 'If you've laid the pike on the shelf,
you'd better go home hot-fut by yourself,
an' once more take it down.'
So by Comber road I trotted the grey
and never cut corn until Killyleagh
stood plain on the risin' groun'.

For a wheen o' days we sat waitin' the word
to rise and go at it like men,
but no French ships sailed into Cloughey Bay
and we heard the black news on a harvest day
that the cause was lost again;
and Joey and me, and Wully Boy Scott,
we agreed to ourselves we'd as lief as not
ha' been found in the thick o' the slain.

By Downpatrick goal I was bound to fare
on a day I'll remember, feth;
for when I came to the prison square
the people were waitin' in hundreds there
an' you wouldn't hear stir nor breath!
For the sodgers were standing, grim an' tall,
round a scaffold built there foment the wall,
an' a man stepped out for death!

I was brave an' near to the edge of the throng,
yet I knowed the face again,
an' I knowed the set, an' I knowed the walk
an' the sound of his strange up-country talk,
for he spoke out right an' plain.
Then he bowed his head to the swinging rope,
whiles I said 'Please God' to his dying hope
and 'Amen' to his dying prayer
that the wrong would cease and the right prevail,
for the man that they hanged at Downpatrick gaol
was the Man from God knows where!

Our Martial Law President - An Executive Warning to SCOTUS?

Before we turn to the President's assault on the Supreme Court, let's remember Friday March 16, 2012. Just before all the St. Paddy's Day set-to's:

As folks headed out to happy hour last Friday evening, President Obama signed an executive order that could potentially give him the power to institute martial law in the United States in times of peace or during a national threat.
The National Defense Resources Preparedness Executive Order will give Obama power over “resources and services needed to support such plans and programs.”
Many Americans were shocked to find out that this order gives the president practically unlimited power over US citizens and their property. All in the name of national security of course.
In the order it states, “in the event of a potential threat to the security of the United States actions are necessary to ensure the availability of adequate resources and production capability, including services and critical technology, for national defense requirements.”

Okay? Now to the potential threat - the United States Supreme Court:

US President Barack Obama on Monday challenged the "unelected" Supreme Court not to take the "extraordinary" and "unprecedented" step of overturning his landmark health reform law.

Though Obama said he was confident the court would uphold the law, the centerpiece of his political legacy, he appeared to be previewing campaign trail arguments should the nine justices strike the legislation down.

In a highly combative salvo, Obama also staunchly defended the anchor of the law -- a requirement that all Americans buy health insurance -- as key to giving millions of people access to treatment for the first time.

"Ultimately, I am confident that the Supreme Court will not take what would be an unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress," Obama said.

. . . a potential threat to the security of the United States actions are necessary to ensure the availability of adequate resources and production capability, including services and critical technology, for national defense requirements.”


President Obama hates Congress ( House & Senate, but House more so) and he has said so in thunder. No less a source than the NYT told us just so and it was repeated in New York Magazine just after Christmas, or as the Obama Regime calls it "The Holidays"

There has always been a distinct chilliness between President Obama and official Washington. Even ideologically sympathetic Democrats in Congress tend to quietly, and sometimes not so quietly, complain that he is ignoring them. Helen Cooper reports today in the New York Times that there's a reason members of Congress feel that Obama ignores them — he hates them:

More noteworthy than Mr. Obama’s spending the short flight calling his longtime aide is what he did not do: schmooze with Washington politicians. No one from the New Hampshire Congressional delegation traveled with Mr. Obama on the plane, a perk that presidents often offer to lawmakers to foster good will.

Mr. Obama, in general, does not go out of his way to play the glad-handing, ego-stroking presidential role. While he does sometimes offer a ride on Air Force One to a senator or member of Congress, more often than not, he keeps Congress and official Washington at arm’s length, spending his down time with a small — and shrinking — inner circle of aides and old friends.

That shrinking circle includes . . .Valerie Jarrett.

After the celebration of the Birth of Christ, The Holidays, came unelected Commissar Kathleen Sebelius's HHS Mandate against Religious Liberty, which followed last April's NLRB stripping of religious identity from Chicago's St. Xavier University* by recently unelected Commissar Mark Gaston Pearce. Last May 26th, the Chicago Regional NLRB Czar ( unelected) ruled that the oldest Catholic college in Illinois ain't:

Based on the entire record of this proceeding and for the reasons as set forth
below, I find that the University is not a church-operated institution within the meaning
of NLRB v. Catholic Bishop of Chicago, 440 U.S. 490 (1979), and, therefore, conclude
that the Board may properly assert jurisdiction over the University in this case.

Joseph A. Barker, Regional Director
National Labor Relations Board
Region 13
209 South LaSalle Street, Suite 900
Chicago, Illinois 60604

Dux ergo locutus est de lege! Roma Locuta est, my ass, Y'all!

I, Pat Hickey, find that most days consist of seventeen (17) hours because I am asleep for seven. I likewise find that eating a sleeve of Oreos, smoking a few Marloboro Reds, and sucking up a plateful of linguini with red clam sauce is a fine workout!

The Supreme Court is now hated as much as Congress, because things are not going all that well for former University of Chicago Adjunct Law Faculty Constitutional Dude and current Chief Executive Branch holder.

Three Branches of American Government - two bad and one just awesome. Congress and the Supreme Court and the U.S. Constitution just do not seem to understand the transformative and unprecedented President. Without Congress, or the Constitution, or the Supreme Court, not to mention the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, President Obama could and would do so much. Like he told the Russians last week, give him some flexibility and he can do whatever he wants. He said the same thing about immigration -

“As I mentioned when I was at La Raza a few weeks back, I wish I had a magic wand and could make this all happen on my own,” Obama told the group, according to the Washington Examiner. “There are times where — until Nancy Pelosi is speaker again — I’d like to work my way around Congress.”

President Obama is getting all of the help he needs from a media concentrating only and solely on the Florida shooting incident and how bad his enemies and opponents happen to be. Ignore the obvious and look to the possibilities - that is Obama Regime in full.

What's the end-game. Normally, I would say it would be the November Election 2012, but I would not count out the possibility of Martial Law. Hey, April's NATO Summit in Chicago might do the trick, Occupy Everything is always game for some mischief, Rev. Al could whoop up race riot and full coverage from dopes at MSNBC ( If A$$holes could fly, MSNBC would be an airport!). Anything is possible and that is what Obama is all about Audacity! He has been the Executive ( eleceted and unelected) Order President with 115 total as of today and they have been dandies. Martial Law could nicely consign Congress the Supreme Court and the Constitution itself to irrelevancy.

That would make everything Obama wants and demands possible.

We don't have a Reichstag around about that could suddenly catch fire, of course, and I am sure the fire coverage for Capitol Building that houses the Congress is all paid up. Shucks, any body can be a bad guy these days, especially with unelected powerhouse like Eric Holder ( do you ever wonder why he is still employed?) and Janet Napolitano going after grannies, kids in wheelchairs, Gibson Guitars and Amish Milk Farmers.

Think of the possible! It is what the Obama Presidency has been all about.

*

UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT
BEFORE THE NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS BOARD
REGION 13
SAINT XAVIER UNIVERSITY1
Employer
and Case 13-RC-22025
ST. XAVIER UNIVERSITY ADJUNCT FACULTY
ORGANIZATION, IEA-NEA
Petitioner
DECISION AND DIRECTION OF ELECTION

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/03/16/executive-order-national-defense-resources-preparedness

http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/executive-orders/obama.html
http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2011/12/obama-hates-congress.html

Mr. Phoenix Raises the Bar on Easter Eats!

Let me have men about me that are fat,
Sleek-headed men and such as sleep a-nights.

Julius Caesar Act 1, scene 2, 190–195

Swift was fat; Addison was fat; Steele was fat; Gay and Thomson were preposterously fat—all that fuddling and punch-drinking, that club and coffee-house boozing, shortened the lives and enlarged the waistcoats of the men of that age.

Thackeray on the English Humorists

Lent's Over. . .almost. On Friday, March 30th, I fasted and tried to pray with some lust and consequence specifically for Religious Freedom.

For 24 hours, I subsisited on water and lime. Not really a great big Joe Bidenesque deal.

On that very day, I read about Mr. Charles Phoenix, Humorist, Author, Chef and heo of the first order.

Mr. Phoenix welcomes the Risen Christ with this spendid appeal to the human heart - An Easter Lamb Meatloaf.

As long as I’ve been performing my Big Retro Holiday Slide Shows, funny Easter lambcakes have been part of them. Year after year, I’ve threatened to buy one of those classic two-piece aluminum lambcake molds and bake one myself. This was the year!

So finally, I went online and two days later a baby sheep shape arrived. But when it came time to actually use it, I was feeling a bit more savory than sweet and decided my little lamb should be molded meat. Yes, ground lamb would’ve been more apropos, but I opted for some good ‘ol ground cow. Yum.

After baking both halves of the meatloaf mixture,
I “glued” the back and front of the li’l lamb with mashed potatoes and placed it on a generous mound of more mashed potatoes.

Now the fun part: giving him his coat of curly wool by squirting the rest of the mashed potatoes through a star-tipped pastry bag, finishing the mound with frozen peas and corn and framing him with halo-esque quartered carrot burst! And, oh, his little pea eyes and carrot nose.

After concocting the Cherpumple, Astro-Weenie, Chiristmas Tree, Light up-Jello Tree, Frosty the Cheeseball Man and now Easter Meatloaf of Lamb, I’ve finally figured out: “Don’t just cook your food, craft it too!”

Here’s to Easter Meatloaf of Lamb and YOU!

Charles Phoenix
March 30, 2012

There is hope for Mankind, when a hero like Charles Phoenix helps us take down the purple and black, shower off the ashes of penitence and look to the Resurrection.

I would have opted for the ground lamb, but then again, I am but a harmless drudge.

Explaining ObamaCare and the HHS Abortion Mandate

When life needs a guide-book, there is no better source for context or compelling narrative to ease one through the twisted maze than poetry. The Song of Solomon, The Pslams, Essay on Man, Paradise Lost, Absolam and Achitophel, Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot have helped me at times. When that failed, I generally turned to prayer (real poetry) and if that failed, I did some yard work or scrubbed out the shower stall. Poetry generally works.

It is tough to get one's head around the Obama Administration - regime more accurately - and its insistence upon group think and the Constitution.

However, only the poet Adam Rex seems to have his delicate fingers on the pulse political and fully explains the nature and intent of the Obama Regime and Big Government itself.

When Frankenstein
prepared to dine
on ham-and-cheese on wheat,
he found, instead,
he had no bread
(or mustard, cheese, or meat).
What could he do?
He thought it through
until his brain was sore,
And thought he ought
to see what he could
borrow from next door...

Rex 2006

Eureka! Dominus in caelo, e quis!

Read this poem and then apply the principles of criticism - Deconstruction(Jacques Derrida, Paul de Man), Marxist -Gender -Inclination, or Queer Theory , Structuralist Linguistics of Ferdinand de Saussure, as you choose.

Dusty old me, I cling to the New Criticism of the hillybilly theorists -Johnny Crowe Ransom and believe that words matter and a 12-gauge splatters!

The Mills Brothers - When Cool Never Postured

Sometime, along the way to today, talent and professionalism got masked with pretense. Whether it happens to be a strutting, pouting, skeletal woman jamming her way along a fashion run-way, an NFL receiver spiking the football in the end zone and dancing like he had been nailed with Tazer, an academic goof sneering at his students, or some pretentious rock and roller mouthing political platitudes instead of paying attention to the three chords and hook, we have allowed the icon to replace the talent. Cool can't be airbrushed, dubbed over and is never manufactured, much less purchased. It is a simple recognition of God's talents loaned for a while and their ability to bring happiness to others.

The Mills Brothers performed within the vortex of Jim Crow America - a mere bag of shells to these men. The Mills Brothers, like jazz pianist Errol Garner and NFL legend Gale Sayers, put it all on field. They took very simple tunes and lyrics, often considered square, and wove a Baroque with full respect for their audience and the song itself. That's cool.

Here's a whole bunch of Cool - fifty years of it 1930's - 1980's

No sneering, no pouting,no irony and no non-sense - all business and that's Cool.

National Day of Prayer and Fasting - Mary Immaculate, Patron of the United States, Pray for Us

I am a singularly profane man. From the time that I first heard my Dad, paternal uncles and their father let flood torrents of colorful, witty, gargantuan oaths, curses, profanities and maledictions I was hooked.

After joining my cousins in baiting my Kerry-born bog man of a grandfather with accusations impugning his citizenship -"You ain't even American Grandpa!" - and other such words learned and encouraged to be dispensed at their rage-a-holic Pater from Uncles Bart, Sy and Donny, like Bog-trotter, Culchie, Turkeybird and Greenhorn, I would delight in his ripostes - " You shower of bastards! Christ Jesus Almighty, you'd put that suffering Man comfortably back up on his Cross, so you would."

Balanced to this delight in profanity was the devotion learned from the better gender of Mom, Aunts, and Granny who'd wash our mouths out with soap and shoo us off to Saturday's and Father Gerrity's confessional box and the litany of penitential prayers.

The HHS Mandate of the Obama Regime ( a genuine shower of bastards) is no surprise, but certainly not to be taken lightly.

I am spending the day in prayer and fasting. As Joe Biden once said in front of a Hot Mic - "This is a Big @#$%ing Deal."

Damn my eyes and profanity.

Anyway. I had a coffee this morning and will ingest only water and lime for next twenty four hours. BFD? I hope I so. I also plan to pray for our Religious Liberty which is under attack. Be assured, I read all the Chicago Papers, the New York Times, Salon, Mother Jones, New Republic as well as Commentary and American Standard. I read a alot, because I am useless with mitre box, saw, screw driver and pliers. Reading and writing have been the tools of my trade - teaching - and by most accounts I was pretty good at it. I am pretty well schooled in my discipline (British, American and World Lit)and up on the schools of critical theory.

That said, I am in awe of the written and spoken word. Words matter. That is why the media is pouring out vitriol on my Church. The Catholic Church is the only opposition to America's plunge off the cliff. Abortion, Infanticide and Eugenics are a Trinity of monstrous associations to horrific acts in any and all languages. That is why they are perfumed with euphemisms and false contexts.

The Obama Regime ( I call it that, because I believe the President is totally scripted) is desperate to fundamentally change America and the World. People of good will can and do disagree about politics and policies, but that is not possible these days.

Like the NLRB's totalitarian fiat to strip St. Xavier University, Chicago's oldest college founded by Catholic nuns, of its Catholic identity only last April, January's monstrous HHS Mandate is no shot over the bow of Boat of St. Peter. It is a broadside aimed at the heart of Catholic belief and religious liberty itself.

It is not about getting college kids a gross of rubbers each semester on the Federal dime, or abortifacients to confused and anchorless young ladies who believe that sex is love, it is about our freedom to believe that our earthly actions have consequences.

Religion is ridiculed, and it was so in Chaucer's, Shakepeare's and Hawthorne's time. However, English literature begins with Anglo Saxon translations of The Our Father, the devout The Dream of Rood and The Harrowing of Hell and later the wonderful medieval Morality Plays. It took a village to build a Cathedral.

It only takes neglect and ridicule to create ruins.

For one day, I will glutton not, profane only at gun point and pray. This is the least I can do and I am pretty good at doing the least.

O GOD OUR CREATOR,
from your provident hand we have received
our right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
You have called us as your people and given us
the right and the duty to worship you, the only true God,
and your Son, Jesus Christ.
Through the power and working of your Holy Spirit,
you call us to live out our faith in the midst of the world,
bringing the light and the saving truth of the Gospel
to every corner of society.
We ask you to bless us
in our vigilance for the gift of religious liberty.
Give us the strength of mind and heart
to readily defend our freedoms when they are threatened;
give us courage in making our voices heard
on behalf of the rights of your Church
and the freedom of conscience of all people of faith.
Grant, we pray, O heavenly Father,
a clear and united voice to all your sons and daughters
gathered in your Church
in this decisive hour in the history of our nation,
so that, with every trial withstood
and every danger overcome—
for the sake of our children, our grandchildren,
and all who come after us—
this great land will always be “one nation, under God,
indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”
We ask this through Christ our Lord.
Amen.

The Dude Abides - Obama Doubles Down on Abortion

You will not need Hoodies, Burkhas, Hair-Shirts or that look of solemn sanctimony that every MSNBC lynch-mobber affects.

Tomorrow, is the Friday before Palm Sunday. President Obama believes Palm Sunday is another fund-raiser.

Nope, it is the day when everyone Huzzahed Jesus into Jerusalem and then screamed for his blood by Thursday night.

America has gone along with the slaughter of millions of children since Roe v. Wade.
That was the date we can set our moral watches as the start of the diminishing of the American Spirit. Believe me it is still here, but we, by that I mean me especially, need to dig deep in order to restore it fully.

President Obama is the first Planned Parenthood ( Abortions R Us, Inc.)President and he has delivered to Planned Parenthood since his inauguration. President Obama reaffired his commitment to abortion right here:



Let's be clear here, President Aborma -It's not Abortion; Its O'bortion! HHS instead of IHS (remember Georgetown?).

Tomorrow, I will try and pray and I will fast. I will take nothing but water and lime tomorrow and when I feel the need to drive over to Club 81 Too over in Hegewisch for the Walleye, I will try and remember and pray for my weaknesses, thoughtlessness, cowardice and complacency all while children were murdered.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. bishops have urged Catholics and "all people of faith" across the nation to observe March 30 as a day of prayer and fasting for religious freedom and conscience protection.


The bishops announced the daylong observance in a statement titled "United for Religious Freedom" that was approved March 14 by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' Administrative Committee.

They asked Catholics and others to join them in "prayer and penance for our leaders and for the complete protection of our first freedom — religious liberty — which is not only protected in the laws and customs of our great nation, but rooted in the teachings of our great tradition."


The bishops said that among current threats to religious liberty is the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services mandate that forces employers, including religious ones, to provide coverage of contraception/sterilization in their health plans.


Prayer resources have been posted on the USCCB website, www.usccb.org/issues-and-action/religious-liberty/conscience-protection/resources-on-conscience-protection.cfm.

Carol Marin Shilling For a Daley Grilling with Flint Taylor

If you are confused by the conflicting stories and waves of faux outrage concerning the 17 year old shot and killed in Sanford, Florida, you are supposed to be.

Sadly, the attention span for too many, but certainly not most Americans, is smaller than a Chicago columnist's ethical capacity. Real reporters get the news to people.

Most people recall several of America's leading race baiters and the race-centric pooches they collectively screwed: Jesse " Cut His Nuts Off" Jackson's and Crown Heights Al " Punkass Faggot"Sharpton - the lads who taught our President how to Hot Mic it:

1. Decatur Seven
2. Tawana Brawley
3. Crown Heights arson and murder
4. Duke La Crosse
5. Jena Nooses
6. Beer Summit


Not to mention Calypso Louis Farrakahn 24/7/365.

Anytime these goofs show up you can be sure that any issue touted as Race Issue of Century will implode. They are as magical to nonsense as MSNBC.

The real danger to truth remains with those considered to be legitimate journalists.
Here in Chicago there is no shortage of litmus tested Progressive goofs with columns.
Carol Marin, it seems to me, is the most successful and shameless.

Today, she hops into G. Flint Taylor's warm and snuggy Burge pouch. G. Flint Taylor, a monstrously talented slug of human being, has enlisted Carol Marin to further the Peoples Law Office pursuit of more tax dollars. Here is a gem out of Carol's box of nuggets.

For those who remain unmoved by the injustice ( Me! I'm very sceptical and 'unmoved' by the narrative, for example), the shame and the stain of a rogue band of white police officers who from 1972 to 1991 suffocated, beat and electro-shocked black male suspects to “persuade” them to confess — a fact no longer debated — there is another reason to care.

A Fact No Longer Debated? By whom? Ms. Marin that is one hugely debatable statement that lacks . . . facts. Name one police officer charged, much less convicted of police torture. Can't. Never happened and never will, because the Burge Torture Mythology demands no closure. There is no money in closure; no articles from John Conroy, Sasha Abramsky; no more chilling narratives of the House of Screams no one seemed to hear within its walls (you know, custodians, station hangers-on, pests, criminals, reporters, ADAs, visitors, or cops - of every hue and p[oint of view).

Jon Burge was painted into a tight corner by the ever patient G. Flint Taylor - Reds are very patient. Jon Burge is in Federal Prison because of perjury.

G. Flint Taylor should call Daley and anyone else involved in the Burge case - how about

1. Bernardine Dorhn who crafted the Electronic Torture Tale. I credit the odious Ms. Dorhn, the smarter and far more dangerous half of Billy Ayers, with G. Flint Taylor's media stink bait to lure the press and mythopoeically create the Burge Torture Narrative - the electronic testicle zapper that G. Flint Taylor had built and was allowed to bring to court. Who built that goofy gizmo for G. Flint anyway - it was not Urban Translator Wally Gator Bradley. Shoot, he and G. Flint were last seen wrassling on the court house floor for nickels and dimes.

Call Ms. Dohrn to witness and back track on the journalistic break crumbs leading to Dohrn's early posit that torture was systemic.

decades ago with the help of . . .

2. Sasha Abramsky of Mother Jones magazine who helped

3. The Many, many, many paged reports of John Conroy and ABC 7's Team Coverage which dropped breadcrumbs away from the forest for the trees, like the Boy Scout who said he SAW Burge Torture . . . Frank Sirtoff:

Sirtoff’s scout leader, Martin W. Conroy, who retired as a detective in 1995, says he remembers Sirtoff and the other boy “frequently visited at the youth division”. By telephone from his home in Texas, Conroy said, “I believe them. Why would they make it up?”

On Burge being at 39th and California that day, Conroy said, “If outside detectives made an arrest in Area 3, they might come there for an interrogation or to take part in it.”

Attorney Flint Taylor has represented alleged victims in 10 torture-related lawsuits

.

Frank Sirtoff, now in his 40s, lives in La Salle County, IL when last noted in the crime notes of the Ottawa papers - the poor man has had more than few brushes with the law. However, I am sure that he would make a very compelling witness. He was all the rage a few years ago, when G. Flint Taylor and his pet columnists impugned the character of Judges Boyle and Egan, but no an inconvenient truth.

Like the Trayvon Martin imbroglio, the truth about the Burge saga lies buried under the collective works and words of sneaks and opportunists.

Iconic news personalities and columnists play all over the field and toss race cards in order to keep thick paydays a-coming. As long as G. Flint Taylor goes unchallenged by a credible journalist in this town, the Burge Mythology will make Cadillac Commies wealthier and race relations impassable.

The Jon Burge Mythology parallels the Martin, Decatur, Crown Heights, Jena, and Beer Summit screw-ups.

Carol Marin is shilling for G. Flint Taylor and the Burge Mythology.

There is no money to be made in basic fairness, much less the pursuit of truth.



http://motherjones.com/politics/2000/03/trial-torture-0

http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=news/local&id=4186371

Watch CBS Channel 2 - 6 Time IHSA Track Champs Leo High School Practicing on Leo's All Weather Track on the 2nd & 3rd Floors of Leo High School

After a spirited Leo Advisory Board meeting, a trip to Greek Town's Pegasus Restaurant for octopus salad with an absolutely splendid woman, a sinkful of my son's post-shift skillets and sauce pans detritus awaiting Old Dad's pot-walloping, a sound sleep and an earlier than usual rising to the day, I am about to head over to the hallowed halls of Leo High School welcome the crew of Channel 2 CBS.

This morning at 4:00 AM, or there abouts, Chicago's CBS will arrive to film and interview Coach Ed Adams and the sprinters, hurdlers, harriers and weight men of six time IHSA Track Champions Leo High School. President Dan McGrath and I will be around to sic and fetch.

The first teasre shot goes off on Channel 2 News at 5:15 AM and the feature will broadcast all morning.

This legendary school is the Alma Mater to many of the Midwest's most successful and giving leaders in every vocation: Bishop John Gorman, philanthropist Tom Owens, Chrystler Magnate Bill Koloseike, retired Chief Justice of the Illinois Supreme Court Tom Fitzgerald, one of the men who turned Egypt's economy around in the 1970's Frank Considine, ubiquitous civic, sport, religious, business and educational leader Andy McKenna, Boeing leader General George Muellner, U of I Educator Dr. Stafford Hood, Middleweight boxing pro Irish John Collins, Heavyweight boxing pro Thomas Hayes, Leo Coach Mike Holmes, Chicago Bulls execitive Curtis Cooper, Elevator Magnate Ken Mason, Comics, John Caponera, Bill Campbell, Kenny Howell and the great Paul Kelly, NFL stand-out Jason Jefferson, Leo Lion Bob Foster, attorneys of the damned Tom Durkin and Joe Power and Fathers Tom Mescall, John Sullivan and Bubbles McFarland.

Leo is not only the only Catholic school to win any track title in Illinois history, but also the only private school to so -and six times at that. Leo has no track.
Since 1926, Leo Track men have run, hurdled and vaulted on the marble floors of Leo High School's 2nd and third floors - not to mention the very vertical four floors of stairs recalled by every disciple of Brother O'Keefe, Brother Coogan, Brother Finch, Jimmy Arneberg, Bob Foster,Tom 'Malley, Jack Fitzgerald, Mike Holmes and Ed Adams. Walking them is a bitch and half, for this old fat boy. Sprinting them is the gradus to greatness.

Turn on tube this morning and watch some splendid young men work to beat the world.

I'll post the video, meself, ASAP.

Now, to 7/11 and on to Leo!

There had better not be a thing in the sink when I return, or I'll do them again. I mean it!

Sun Times Columnist Steve Huntley Nails It on ObamaCare

Steve Huntley is a gentleman and a thoughtful citizen; and he is also a columnist -rarissimo avium On this first day of United States Supreme Court deliberations on the constitutionality of Obama Care, Steve Huntley offers the core problem with this very bad legislation.

No matter where you may stand on President Barack Obama’s controversial health-care law, one point is indisputable: It is an expansion of the power of the federal government into our everyday lives.

That is the fundamental issue in next week’s arguments before the U.S. Supreme Court on the Affordable Care Act, a k a Obama­care, and its individual mandate ordering every person to buy health insurance or pay a penalty. Now, you can argue that’s a good thing in that uninsured people will eventually get sick and the costs will shift to the rest of us, either through higher insurance premiums or taxpayer-funded care.But this mandate is not about catastrophic insurance, meaning coverage that would protect an individual from bankruptcy-inducing medical charges — and the rest of us from being stuck with that bill. No, Obamacare is about the government influencing all aspects of medical coverage. That, as we’ve learned in recent weeks, includes the government managing details such as ordering church-affiliated hospitals and charities to provide free contraceptives, which cost a few hundred dollars a year, even if that violates the dictates of their conscience and religious beliefs.

Well done, Mr. Huntley!

No Fear Here - Americans v. Journalists. Scaroin? Really?

Initium sapientiæ est timor Domini Proverbs 9:10/Pslams 111:10/Acts of the Apostles 17:11

Well, four years ago you’d never heard of hopium, either. Then my colleague John Kass identified it as the drug being peddled by then Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama — a mellowing narcotic named for Obama’s relentless though unoriginal invocations of hope; a powerful political sedative that obliterated cynicism and left voters blissfully optimistic about the power of one man to transform and unite our nation. . . . Scaroin has nearly the opposite effect.

It’s not smoked, snorted, inhaled or injected. Rather it’s transmitted via stump speeches of Republican presidential candidates, notably the passages in which they attempt to scare voters with dystopian visions of the crumbling fascist nation that will be the United States of America if Obama is re-elected.

Eric Zorn

Fear is a now a political trope for the motivation to oppose goofy policy. Goofy is a very subjective adjective, don't you think? However, what adjective is not?

According to too many columnists and far too many 'reporters' subjectivity is the order of the day. Instead of considering the facts, they play at being little John Deweys in the Global Lab.

The template today is fear. One is fearful, timorous, vicious, superstitious, and foolish if one believes that it is murder to kill an unborn child, that sex, procreation and the ultimate expression of love is merely a lifestyle, that success is predetermined by race, inherited wealth, and never by achievement. One is timorous and quaking with rattles of terror unless one is a Progressive Secularist.

Well, Call me scared stiff!

BTW - Hopium was a hit because it is a true, accurate, and a very witty reflection of an original thought concerning a very hollow man in public life - President Obama. Nice suit; nothing inside.

Scaroin? It is to laugh, Eric. A lame racehorse ain't a Triple Crown contender.That said, I am afraid that I need to get to the barbershop. Could stand a trim.

Obama's Boring Rhetoric - Flat Earthers and Herring Chokers

Punching Above His Weight and Beyond His Pay Grade

I was underwhelmed by Barack Obama years ago, as a candidate for Congress, State Senator, South Side Irish Parade-walker, and he has lived up to my expectations as President.

Barack Obama always struck me as someone who told the same story, over and over and over and over. Jim Bowman, a Chicago newsman of great repute, posted this Danish observation about President Obama's Boring Rhetoric, once termed soaring rhetoric.



That boxing trope reminded me of the time I was handling the Illinois State Senator Barack Obama at the Lexington House at an amateur boxing night. My task was to bring celebrity trophy presenters to the square ring after a bout in order to award the pugilists. Senator Obama asked me, "Where's the gate?"

No, Senator, you climb through the ropes.

" I see."

Me too.

Man, even the herring chokers ( Swedes, Danes, Norwegians and other Vikings) know a flat fish when they catch one.


By the way, Yanks, how many times have you heard the "flat-earth" yarn these last two weeks?

The poor man has the personality of a dial tone.

I'm With Rahm! Don't Blow Town -Send the Kids to Catholic Schools

Mayor Rahm snug with Leo Catholic High School Heroes!

“Don’t head for the doors when your kid’s in fifth grade or sixth grade — for the suburbs — because the city of Chicago is going to give you a high-quality life with a high-quality education for your children,” said Emanuel, speaking in his office and flanked by Chicago Public Schools CEO Jean-Claude Brizard.

Chicago's mayor wants Chicago's middle class to stick around and fears they are hitting the road south, west and north out of town because CPS stinks.

The middle class ( cops, firemen, CTA drivers,Postal Workers, UPS folks & etc.) will never come up with the scratch to go to Chicago Lab, Francis Parker, Latin School, or even St. Iggy. Most Catholic Schools are not as expensive as St. Ignatius and are affordable. Leo High School's student body is comprised of kids from low-income families and every senior soon graduate has been accepted into a college program.


I agree with Mayor Rahm and Jean Claude, stick around, but send the kids to Catholic Schools -Chicago is packed with Catholic Schools -that is unless Obama gets his HHS Mandate shoved down our throats.

There's Catholic Schools aplenty. The cost of re-locating is brutal. There is as much crime in Hill Crest, Country Club Hills or Orland Park as there is in Englewood, or Scottsdale these days - did you read about motorcycle goof?

Chicago Public Schools stink on ice, Mayor Rahm and Jean Claude just admitted as much, Catholic schools (grammar and secondary) outperform CPS hands down at a fraction of the cost it takes not to have a kid graduate from high school, much less read above a 5th grade level.

Chicago is a great town! Stick around and send the kids to Catholic Schools - they'll get educated and learn not to do wildings and flash mobs at Rock & Roll McDonalds.

What sort of education do you want for your child? What sort of future do you want? It isn’t easy to answer those questions, but the answers really matter. And the school you choose can make a real difference.

Our schools provide many things that other schools don’t or can’t. We invite you to take some time to see what we believe in, see what we believe is important, and visit some of our schools before you make a decision.

We look forward to meeting you, welcoming you, and introducing you to the faith, focus, and achievement that Catholic Schools offer.

If you would like to speak with Catholic school parents near you to hear how their children are benefiting, fill out this form and we'll make that connection for you.

Chicago Media Follow Orders - No Coverage of Religious Liberty Rally Yesterday

Obama 2012 Campaign is deathly afraid of these people.


There were no less than a thousand people in Federal Plaza Protesting the Obama HHS Mandate.
One estimate had the crowd at 2,000, but I believe that it was a bit shy of that.

There was absolutely no Chicago Media coverage - yesterday or today; by that I mean the two big news dailies - The Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun Times.The Obama 2012 Campaign hopes to spend a billion dollars to get President Obama re-elected - the Chicago media is invested.

Both papers dutifully reported on a small march to protest the death of a Florida kid, whose tragic and horrific killing is no less soul-sucking as the daily gang-banger slaughters of babies and cops, but is now the national template for scab-pulling. The Obama regime has declared war on religious liberty and the media have eaten up its narrative. Obama is embarrassed and frightened by his very actions and intent and it seems to me, wants the issue clouded and quick. President Obama is the Federal government.

The Catholic Bishops and many, many other relligious leaders understand the threat that is the HHS Mandate and called for people of faith to rally against it. Rally they did, without any support or coverage from the Chicago Media.

The Federal court building cut the power to the stage and most of the speeches were given over bullhorns. Then the US Post Office offered electrical power. Fair enough.

The real story about the Rally for Religious Liberty is the Chicago Media going Syria on the truth.

The Media fills the buffet of bullshit that the public is invited to dine upon. It is heaping board. The Chicago Media has been flat out in support of Barack Obama from 2008 through his first term. What has Chicago, much less Illinois, benefited from an Obama Presidency? FEMA won't fund storm damaged Illinois towns. Chicago has the highest gas prices in America. Real Labor, not SEIU or their coalitions of low and unskilled workers unions, is hobbled. Property taxes are in the stratosphere. Black and Hispanic kids are gunned down in Chicago streets hourly and Police are sued by Obama lawyers. But, Obama is President.

I believe that Dave Axelrod and his cadre of spin-merchants and bundlers gave the Trib and the Sun Times orders to lay down. And lay down they did.

The Truth is the first casualty in war. The Mandate, The Obama Regime, and the compliant media stand proof of that fact.


Americans can handle the truth; it would be soul-stirring if the news media would provide even the most basic of facts: like, a rally was held in Federal Plaza on March 23rd at noon to protest the HHS Mandate and rally for religious liberty.

Not too tough, that.


https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&gl=us&tbm=nws&q=religious+liberty+rally+chicago&oq=religious+liberty+rally+chicago&aq=f&aqi=d2&aql=&gs_sm=12&gs_upl=2019l2019l0l3199l1l1l0l0l0l0l35l35l1l1l0

Obama 2012 Campaign Obeyed - No Report That More Than 1,000 People Rallied At Federal Plaza Today

Not Breaking News, Not Metro, Not Chicagoland. Nada, Zip, Nothing.

Dave Axelrod scares more Chicago newsies than Rahm without his breakfast, evidently.

I can almost hear Comb Over Dave's quietly petulant admonition to Bruce Dold and Thom McNamee -"President Obama will not be embarrassed by Catholics, Jews, Lutherans or other nutbags. Remember G-8? You too can be as gone. No protest because it did not happen; no coverage because it never took place. Now that is Coverage Mandate you can believe in! Now, scat!"

Did happen. Happened big, and thousands of Chicagoan saw it.

Religious Liberty Rally Draws a Thousand and Change in Chicago Today

The Yellow and Black Balloons are part of a Rosary chain built by the students from St. Cantius Catholic Church for the Religious Liberty Rally in Federal Plaza today.

With a complete media blackout and absolutely zero pre-event announcement whatsoever, more than a thousand citizens (I estimated the crowd in Federal Plaza at between one thousand and twelve hundred)stood in the rain to stand up against the HHS Obama Mandate.

Speakers included United States Congressmen Democrat Dan Lipinski (3rd) and Republican Joe Walsh (8th)as well as the head of B'nai 'Brith Chicago Joe Morris -President and General Counsel of The Lincoln Legal Foundation.

This was a respectful and polite throng of very angry people. The anger is palpable, because the respect is purely one-sided. President Obama has made it clearly evident that his will be done and religious people can keep their mouths closed, much as he and his script writers told the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Here are some photos of this afternoon's rally, which had its power shut off by the Federal Building, only to have power restored by the US Post Office, in Federal Plaza at Dearborn and Adams from Noon - 1 PM today.

The Great Communicators: History Without Parsing

President of the United States # 40 - Tear Down This Wall

Arriving in Berlin on June 12, 1987, President and Mrs. Reagan were taken to the Reichstag, where they viewed the wall from a balcony. Reagan then made his speech at the Brandenburg Gate at 2:00 p.m., in front of two panes of bulletproof glass protecting him from potential snipers in East Berlin. About 45,000 people were in attendance; among the spectators were West German president Richard von Weizsäcker, Chancellor Helmut Kohl, and West Berlin mayor Eberhard Diepgen. That afternoon, Reagan said,

"We welcome change and openness; for we believe that freedom and security go together, that the advance of human liberty can only strengthen the cause of world peace. There is one sign the Soviets can make that would be unmistakable, that would advance dramatically the cause of freedom and peace. General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization, come here to this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall! ”

President of the United States # 44 -Take Down The Crucifix, Crosses, and the IHS

The White House acknowledges that it asked Georgetown University, a Catholic institution, to cover up prominent Christian symbols for President Obama's economic speech this past Tuesday. The symbols, the letters "IHS" which stands for Jesus Christ, and a cross, are engraved on a pediment that stands behind the stage from which Obama delivered his address. Both the cross and the symbolic representation of Jesus' name were not hidden by the background drapes that the White House wanted for the event, and so the Administration asked the school to cover them.

"Decisions made about the backdrop for the speech were made to have a consistent background of American flags, which is standard for many presidential events. Any suggestions to the contrary are simply false."