No One Was Dressed Like Bishop Walsh at Chicago's Comic Con

On Saturday it rained and was pretty crumby in general and I had wanted to do some walking with a particular young lady. Plans for a day in Lincoln Park and a visit to the Conservatory, or the Peggy Notebaert Whatever, were out of the question.

Using what nominally passes for brains, I read that there was a Comic Book Convention at McCormick Place - C2E2. I love McCormick Place, or the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Whatever. I am also the press, in manner of speaking. I brought by credential letter from Chicago Daily Observer and purchased a ticket for the young woman whom I intended to keep dry.

We parked very close to the North Entrance and entered the vast warehouse of conventions past and to be. Walking with us were Star Wars, Star Trek, Doctor Who, Captain America, Incredible Hulks, a score of Green Lanterns, Harry Potters and Battle Star Gallacticans of every rank, solar system and moral compass.

At the registration and press desk I was asked by a tough looking fifty something Babe, " What're you decked out as, Honey?"

The woman who resembled every third person in line for kielbasa and kapusta at Bobak's on Archer noted my standard-issue middle-aged Joe College attire - pressed chinos, open collar blue button-down oxford cloth shirt under a V-neck Allan pain Shetland bedecking a frame of tightly muscled and nicely defined homo erectus to which I replied, " A 19th Ward, close-knot ethnic helot, my good woman."

She gave me the twice-over, " Nice. Should be hit at every booth. NEXT!"

In we strolled. The largest Fantasy Exhibition C2E2 features artists, entertainers, writers, comic fantasy game producers, used comic (graphic novels, or whatever)vendors and toy sellers. There was a big section dedicated to autographs from Fantasy Icons and actors. The biggest names that I noted were Sean Astin -RUDY! and Val Kilmer. Val Kilmer is a very good actor, who played the ultimate Western Icon - Doctor James 'Doc' Holiday in the movie Tombstone. Sean Astin played Rudy who triumphed over size and ability with heart to play a few downs at Notre Dame, thanks to Dan Devine.

Kilmer and Astin were lonely. There were massive lines to see - actors who played roles in Doctor Who, or whatever. I did not get it. I asked one of the security guards shepherding costumed autograph seekers, "what gives? Val Kilmer is a great actor why is he not choked with supplicants?"

" He was not on Doctor Who, or whatever."

Riddle solved. Val Kilmer played a real flesh-and-blood heroic person. Sean Astin played a real and still breathing, though under legal scrutiny, hero. The two fine actors represented flesh and blood historical folks and not the Fantastic.

This was the largest exposition of Fantasy and I had been exposed.

We arrived at McCormick Place at about 2:30 and pressed through the throngs and phalanxes of Storm Troopers, Wizards, Caped Creatures and stuffed leotards of every size and shape with the heavy percentage going to the morbidly obese.

My guest and fellow traveller is diminutive, sylph-like damsel and she was a terrified within this press of flesh as a three-year old with her hung-over Mom and Aunt Tootsie on Black Friday.

This was a Fantasy Feast! Fantasy helps the young make sense of this earth and world. The earth we can not do much about, but we can make a world by drawing things to us and with the Grace of God it is people. Fantasy can also be a sanctuary from hurts, slights, and horrors. Like meditation and prayer it can be a tool to create the world as it should be and how we might like it to be and get us to act better.

Fantasy should be taken in sparing portions, like food, drink, meditation and prayer.

Val Kilmer and Sean Astin put in time on the chairs with professionalism and stoic charity, from what I observed. They are two very good guys it seems. The Dr. Who, Gallactican, or Marvelous actors, I could not see for the throngs of devotees. Kilmer and Astin played and represented people who actually had drawn breath and were ignored by the Fans of Fantasy.

The day before I turned eleven, I was sitting in my desk along with my classmates at Little Flower Grammar School at 80th & Honore eagerly awaiting my copy of the Treasure Chest. Treasure Chest was a comic book published in Ohio and distributed to Catholic Grammar Schools. It featured games, puzzles and stories about heroes of American History and the Catholic Faith. We read about Dr. Tom Dooley, a Navy Doctor helping Vietnamese refugees tortured and threatened by Ho Chi Minh, Capt. John Barry of County Wexford -The Father of the US Navy, Elizabeth Seton, Brother Edmund Rice, Mother Cabrini, Father Francis Duffy and Wild Bill Donovan, Enrico Fermi, Casimier Pulaski, Madame Currie, Gregor Mendel, Mother Auley, Carroll Family of Maryland and of course JFK, always drawn and illustrated by a guy named Joe Sinnott. Funny how memory works much like fanasty.

After several hours with the Incredibles, Hulks, Star Ship Troopers, Wonder Women, Green Lanterns and the Fantastic hundreds, it was time to take the escalator back to the ground floor and the North Parking Lot. All through the day, my thoughts and associations turned to the woman at registration - Tough babe;Bobaks, Kielbasa, Peirogi, Kapusta, Stuffed Cabbage!!!!

My love and I eschewed the food court fare and motored to the fantastic Warsaw Inn Polish Buffet at Cermak & Mannheim. We talked about Fantasy, Whimsey and WTF? witnessed that day.
I had read wonderful article written by Jillian Melchior for The Daily on Thursday, April 12, 2012 about Bishop James E. Walsh ( click my post title) which we placed into perspective.




On November 7, 1963, me and my classmates were awaiting next issue in the series about Maryknoll Missionary and Bishop of China James E. Walsh who continued to suffer in a Chinese Communist prison. Bishop Walsh was a super hero who refused to turn the keys of the Church and the Keys of the Kingdom over to Chairman Mao. Bishop Walsh refused to abandon the people he had christened and confirmed in the Faith. Bishop Walsh was a tough guy - he could take it and like it. He took it for a decade and change and was only released from the Reds, when Nixon decided to make nice with Mao.

Val Kilmer or Sean Astin could play Bishop Walsh without make-up.

I watched them take it and like on Saturday.

Fantasy with out a lifeline to reality is drifting in space, it seems to me; anyway, or whatever. Comic books used to represent heroism grounded in reality as well as fanatsy. Today's Graphic Novels? Whatever.



http://www.c2e2.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Sinnott
http://www.maelmill-insi.de/jscbi/TreasureChest.htm
http://www.maelmill-insi.de/jscbi/TreasureChest.htm

Vote the Helm & O'Connor Team for Amundsen LSC -April 19th

Bill Helm gets things done . . .for the people he serves.

LSC's are that important. Here on the far south side, the 19th Ward neighbors ensured that 19th Ward residents were voted to the Chicago Ag School LSC.

LSC's are too often political agenda push-pins for the likes of Mike Klonsky - a devout Leftist.

The Amundsen LSC has two career public servants, men of genuine and tested ability running for that LSC on April 19th.

Though many miles from my neighborhood, Amundsen LSC deserves to have Helm & O'Connor helping out and not some plants from an activist farm.

I have known Bill Helm for fifteen years as man of integrity, intelligence and innovative thinking. Bill is no grandstanding, photo-op celebrity, but a hands-on, set-up-the-chairs and stay-to-clean-up after man who is all about doing the job and making sure others get the credit.

Bill is teamed up with young man named Brendan O'Connor. That speaks loudly for Mr. O'Connor.

Bill Helm makes things happen, for other people. He told me,

The only way to vote is by showing up at Amundsen on Thursday, April 19th, between the hours of 6 a.m. and 7 p.m. If you drive, there is free parking in the lot on Damen, just south of Foster. While it may seem hard to believe, their are actually 7 people running for the 2 spots so this is an election where every vote does count. We think that if we can get 75 votes, the Helm & O'Connor Team will win!!

Helm & O'Connor for Amundsen LSC

William A. Helm has been an active and dedicated member of the community for over twenty five years.His deep sense of responsibility to the community, coupled with his belief that civic engagement can effect positive change, has led him to volunteer his time and talents to many organizations and projects in the neighborhood. Mr. Helm was the former Deputy Superintendent of the Cook County ForestPreserve District. As Deputy Superintendent of the Forest Preserve District, Mr. Helm was responsible for balancing the yearly budgets and after his tenure left the FPDCC with a budget surplus, one of the only local government units to have a surplus rather than a deficit. He is now a Director of Operations for the Illinois Department of Transportation.
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A staunch supporter of the Chicago Public Schools and an ardent advocate for sufficient public school funding, Mr. Helm has been an active member of the Local School Council at Amundsen High School since 1996. During his tenure on the LSC, he has successfully leveraged private andgovernmental relationships for the benefit of Amundsen High School and will continue to cultivate those relationships to ensure that every student at Amundsen High School receives quality education.
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As a former member of both the Winnemac Park Advisory Council, and Welles Park Advisory Council, Mr. Helm, along with many other dedicated community neighbors, spearheaded fundraising efforts to create play lots for the families and children of the ward to play in and enjoy. He also helped, through the incredible generosity of the Jorndt family (proud alumni of Amundsen High School) to transform
Amundsen’s campus to include
Winnemac Park and JorndtStadium, which is
commonly referred to as the ‘Crown Jewel of Parks’ in Chicago.
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Valuing and respecting the vital contributions senior citizens have made and continue to make,in the ward, Mr. Helm has helped plan and organize appreciation luncheons and various events for seniors during the holidays and throughout the year.
What's the single most pressing issue at your school, and what role do you envision the LSC playing in addressing it?
Currently, the LSC is in the process of selecting a new principal for Amundsen High School. Principalselection is undoubtedly one of the most significant and impactful duties required of the LSC. I am committed to selecting a principal dedicated to advancing the quality of education at Amundsen by expanding the IB program and Smaller Learning Communities. I am also committed to opening up the principal selection process by asking for vital feedback from neighbors and the teachers at Amundsen.
What prompted you to run for LSC?
Quality public education is absolutely necessary for a healthy society. Since 1996, I have been dedicated to making Amundsen High School a viable option for parents to send their children to and will hopefully continue to advance that goal. Thank you

Chicago's Pleonastic Schnook and the Science of Snobbery Against Faith

Now Thomas, one of the twelve, called the Twin, was not with them when Jesus came.
So the other disciples told him, "We have seen the Lord." But he said to them, "Unless I see in his hands the print of the nails, and place my finger in the mark of the nails, and place my hand in his side, I will not believe."

John 20:24-25

Religious zealotry is alien to me —but I understand that lots of people are fired up by their own creeds, and hot to impose them upon anybody and everybody, eagerly using any tool at their disposal, from little tracts left in bus station restrooms to fanciful doctrine jammed into public education disguised as legitimate science.

But this ploy must be resisted. Primarily because we live in a diverse society now. This issue lingers because not everyone has gotten that memo, and pools of fervent consensus exist — lots of fundamentalist villages in Tennessee, apparently. This encourages the grouped faithful to convince themselves that everybody thinks the same, or should. They don’t and shouldn’t. That’s why science is appealing — the atomic structure of hydrogen is unchanged whether you are Protestant or Catholic, Jewish or Muslim.

Neil Steinberg- Chicago's scornful schnook

The dimensions of the atom which forms its structure is a function of radiation power change that the atom undergoes. As the atomic component masses in a material are initially accelerated to near light speed there is a mass change and a shortening of its dimensions,(The electron orbital radius is relatively responding accordingly)
This is relative to the atomic temperature energy changes.The mass structure changes phase as a function of temperature power and the time that the radiation power that the atom in the mass structure responds to.
Never the less the architecture of the atom keeps its form unless a Nuclear fusion occurs due to extreme gravity field pressure and temperature energy changes between interaction of the atoms.

An good example is Hydrogen nuclear fusion which causes a new structure assembly into Helium atom transformation.

Some Science guy. ( emphases my own -of course)

Religion and religious beliefs are targets of bullies. You see religion is big to most folks and the end of religious belief is God and no one is Bigger than God - but science. Immanuel Kant, a guy who never travelled more than forty miles from his Prussian Königsberg, is the grand daddy of scientific zealotry, evident in our Chicago lummox's column.

Science was once the means of getting to the Truth. Science was used by Franciscan Schoolmen in the 13th Century as means supporting Faith. Muslims, Jews and Christians had a big part in this effort all the while slaughtering one another in the Holy Land.

These days people of faith are zealots, bigots, Rubes and people of science are better dressed, thinner, and handy with the babes.

Science in the West can be traced to John Scotus Erigena, Duns Scotus, William of Occam, and Roger Bacon, insular Irish and Brits - the last three gents belonged to the Order of Friars Minor -Franciscans.

All of these guys got in Dutch with Popes and Princes and it is believed that John Scotus Erigena ( Irish John from Ireland) was murdered by monks unhappy with this works on the Psuedo Dionysius, or that he gulped down the last of the beer.

Faith and science had a bumpy road, we got here.

Religion can be blamed for the Inquisition and Science can be blamed for Chernobyl.

Neil Steinberg seems to be painting with a very broad brush again - Religious Zealots, he warns, are asking that the Bible might get a mention in a science class. Chilling? Well, to the thin blooded I suppose.

Science errs. Ask the rocket boss in North Korea, if he is still drawing breath.

Religion can be a huge pain in the ass - ask any Coptic Christian in Post Spring Egypt.

Consider the words of Thomas the Twin in today's Gospel "Unless I see in his hands the print of the nails, and place my finger in the mark of the nails, and place my hand in his side, I will not believe." Now that is Pure Empiricism that would made Immanuel Kant plotz."Ja! Out stehen! Es bleibt immer ein Skandal der Philosophie und universelle menschliche Vernunft, dass die Existenz von Dingen außerhalb von uns ... haben sollte, lediglich auf Glauben angenommen werden, und dass, wenn es jedem auftritt, daran zu zweifeln, sollten wir nicht in der Lage, ihn mit einer hinreichenden Nachweis zu beantworten. " ("It always remains a scandal of philosophy and universal human reason that the existence of things outside us ... should have to be assumed merely on faith, and that if it occurs to anyone to doubt it, we should be unable to answer him with a satisfactory proof.")

That particular Koingsberg goof required certainty.

It is said that the citizens of Königsberg set their clocks according to the position of the gray presence of Professor Kant on his daily walk down and back the same street every day. It is said that the only time he missed his walk at the exact same time was when he first discovered Rousseau's book, Emile, and became so engrossed that he forgot his walk.

Imagine this - Kant would walk his dachshund while immersed in prolegmnas of intense import. He would return home after verifying each and every Linden tree, wrought iron fence, post and building on the route - several trees were removed and Kant could not find his way home with any certainty. It rained. Some religious zealot had to go out bring the man of science home and in out of the rain.

Dr. Samuel Johnson said, "Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully."


http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080925193830AAkTPrI

http://courseweb.stthomas.edu/paschons/language_http/essays/Kant.html

Steve Rhodes - A Real Newsman: CTA Failure to Launch New Rail Cars Makes N. Korea Look Like NASA in the 1960's

" Claypool! What's all this, then???? This simply will not do, my good man. These bloody Sino-Canuck Bombardier Wheels are bloody well defective! I suspect foul'd play. The Games afoot! . . .again. What?"

CTA officials said the no-bid component had nothing to do with scuttling the deal and that Emanuel had encouraged it all along.

"Very early, even before he took office, he asked me how we might turn this billion-dollar expenditure into an opportunity for jobs," said CTA President Forrest Claypool, who was appointed to the post shortly after Emanuel's inauguration. "So when I took office we took that mandate and ran with it."

Claypool described the Bombardier proposal as a "very, very rare potential for a win-win. The goal was a noble one. "

Chicago Tribune April 12, 2012

North Korea, which had described the launch as that of a space satellite, said the rocket failed soon after lift-off and plunged into the Pacific. ABC News

"Through an aggressive but targeted public, community and government relations campaign, Bombardier sought:

* To inform CTA officials, local government and business leaders of the growing presence of Bombardier as a part of Chicago-area commerce and industry.
* To educate key constituencies about the successful engagements Bombardier has with transit agencies in other major areas around the country and the world.

* To build a team of allies to welcome them into the market and feel comfortable with the company's products and level of customer service.

* To create a favorable impression the Chicago media market by highlighting and promoting unique attributes and initiatives of the Bombardier Transportation N.A. to specialty and general market media.


Mission not yet accomplished.

Steve Rhodes Beachwood Reporter



North Korea fired its missile with all of the potency of an ED addled mope.

Closer to home Forrest Claypool's masterful roll out of Bombardier rail cars last year matched the young Tyrant's magic moment yesterday.

Unsatisfying.

North Korea is impotent, but dangerous.

CTA is in the hands of a master job jumper with the Illinois Progressive imprimatur. Failure to roll: Launch, Roll, Noble Goal.

Steve Rhodes highlighted the excellent and tenacious work of Chicago Tribune reporter John Hilkevich who unearthed cast off wheels of the Bombardier CTA Boondoggle from China to Canada to the Fifth Floor of City Hall and various phone lines and cyber-relays of the CTA with pith and poignant note.

Steve Rhodes has more integrity than Marcus Aurelius on a full breakfast. The Beachwood Reporter is the only news clearing house in Chicago untainted by cant, compensation. or courtship.

Dig how he do roll - Beachwood Reporter Ethics Pledge

http://www.beachwoodreporter.com/house/beachwood_ethics_statement.php


NBC tried to buy Steve Rhodes a couple of years ago and was told to pound sand in thunder.

You do not need to agree with Steve Rhodes or the talented staff of the Beachwood Reporter and he and they could care less. The point of journalism is to give truth a place at the table set with too many dishes and places by gluttons, drunks and dummies.

I am aware of Forrest Claypool's resume and remain as underwhelmed by his obvious talents and charms as I have for years. The Bombardier Boondoggle ( click my post title for a thorough close reading of John Hilkevich's work by Steve Rhodes) more than lived up my expectations.

For any summary and fair redaction of what is going on in Chicago go to the Beachwood Reporer. You will get a considered opinion free of Mammon's tickle.

Brewer's Droop, ED, Failure to Launch result from many factors.

Corruption ditto.

Kevin Myers defines the germ of corruption this way - Corruption is made possible by low standards: what is unpunctuality, but a disdain for rules?

The plumbers or electricians who don't show up on time are the building-blocks that make possible the Ziggurat of large-scale corruption. Kevin Myers last column for the Irish Independent

Myers' point; what we accept; we get - good and hard and with great regularity.

We accepted Blago. Some folks fully accept Forrest Claypool -


Here's little more on Chicago CTA Bombardier Navigator Forrest " Noble Goal" Claypool.

http://hickeysite.blogspot.com/2012/03/rahm-wasnt-bilked-in-day-took-many.html

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2012-04-12/news/ct-met-cta-bombardier-20120412_1_cta-president-forrest-claypool-cta-lawyers-cta-officials

Obama Tax - Not Buffett, Not Reagan, Not JFK, Not Bush, but Maybe the Bono Tax - Hell, Even "U-2" Will Skip to Holland

" And upon this Rock . . .I shall . . .Uh, . . .an Unpresented, er . . ."

Pecunia Non Olet - Money does not stink.

So this President gave another speech where he said it was “crazy” -- that's a quote -- that certain tax loopholes make it possible for multimillionaires to pay nothing, while a bus driver was paying 10 percent of his salary. That wild-eyed, socialist, tax-hiking class warrior was Ronald Reagan.

“He thought that, in America, the wealthiest should pay their fair share, and he said so. I know that position might disqualify him from the Republican primaries these days but what Ronald Reagan was calling for then is the same thing that we’re calling for now: a return to basic fairness and responsibility; everybody doing their part. And if it will help convince folks in Congress to make the right choice, we could call it the Reagan Rule instead of the Buffett Rule.” President Barack H. Obama

President Obama has fuel for his fires. Like a fourteen year old boy with a box of Blue Tips and a yet un-Green cityscape (formerly called prairies in Chicago) full of cast off Goodyears, Firestones and knock-offs, the President manages to spark distractions from his apologetic, miscued and failed Presidential time served.

Instead of a crafting and presenting a sound bi-partisan path to recovery and prosperity, President Obama has deftly avoided his homework for now going on . . .his full term. Rather, he has chosen to divide the nation by race, class and religion. I guess that is pretty much DNC, MSNBC, ACLU and Planned Parenthood political savvy at work.

In response to no budget at all and as counter to the Ryan Budget, as well as the Obama Deficit Commission's recommendations, President Obama is opting for the Buffett Rule.

Warren Buffett, that is; not Jimmy Buffett. This is the ever-popular tax rich populist, Us v. Them gambit employed with so much heat in Ireland, Portugal and Greece.

Yesterday, President Obama took a page from the Rachel Maddow NHS snarky playbook and tried to stretch the Buffett tax into a Reagan tax. Fair enough. That's savvy politics.

In reality, rich folks no matter how really, really, really committed to Social Justice, Peace, Health and fighting Poverty Globally they might be, their piles of well-earned loot will find a haven from the broiling waters of mandated obligation.

There is no more self-statedly committed Man of the Cause than the Mick singer Bono of the formerly Irish and now global rock band U-2.

U-2 fans wave Irish Tri-colors, the old Orange White and Green and wail the anthems of 'What They Have Been Looking For. . ." U-2 packs the house and the fields beyond, good luck to 'em!

Ireland's economy went down like Bobby Brown. Still on the canvas. Bono preached that the government was obliged to address poverty. The Irish Government complied and set a tax-loophole cap.

Bono and U-2's pounds, crowns, guineas and Euros buggered off to the Netherlands. Rich people can afford sound principled and law abiding financial advice, no matter what one's political, social, moral, and ethical outlook. An avuncularly chubby and charitable candy maker's profits found equally safe and happy returns on their Swiss Bank investments, as any former Geheime Staatspolizei gold tooth collector.

Pecunia Non Olet - unless it is the DNC and Obama Campaign 2012.

President Obama will use any crisis Trayvon Martin, Wisconsin Recall, the up-coming NATO Chicago Weekend, beating the Bishops, or good old MSNBC Class War to squeak out a win in November.

The Buffett tax should be called the Bono Tax, because once Hollywood, Wall Street, Trial Lawyers, Al Sharpton and Michael Moore are asked to buck up, like Bono, they will bugger off.

Picking up the loss of the 1% will be the tax-paying 46%: skilled tradesmen, teachers, cops, firemen. pawn-shop owners and bail-bondsmen.

Pecunia Non Olet. Some people do.

*

The U2 frontman regularly meets political leaders to lobby on behalf of developing nations and has visited countries including Ethiopia and Mexico to try to improve the lives of the world's poor.

But U2 sparked criticism in 2006 by shifting part of their business affairs from Ireland to the Netherlands
At the time, Irish politicians branded U2's move a cynical ploy, leading to accusations that, while the band were urging the Government to give more money to relieve poverty, they were denying it the funds to do so.

Last year, U2 members were the highest-earning musicians in the world, raking in approximately £80 million.

Protesters also aim to draw attention to what they say is the 'bigger picture' of the impact of tax avoidance on Ireland's economy.

They plan to float an oversized bundle of fake cash across the crowd, from an Irish tricolour on one side of the spectators to a Dutch flag on the other, during the band's set at the rock festival in Somerset on June 24.

Tax expert and anti-poverty campaigner Richard Murphy said: 'If Bono thinks he is A spokesman for U2, who are on tour in Vancouver, was unavailable for comment yesterday and Glastonbury organisers also declined to comment.

The band's manager, Paul McGuinness, has previously claimed: 'U2 is a global business and pays taxes globally... at least 95 per cent of U2's business takes place outside of Ireland and as a result the band pays many different kinds of taxes all over the world.'

Bono has been reluctant to explain the tax strategy, but the band's guitarist The Edge has admitted: 'Of course we want to be tax-efficient – who doesn't?'

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1394422/Saint-Bono-facing-huge-Glastonbury-protest--avoiding-tax.html#ixzz1rpLSX5M6

Planned Parenthood's 40 Days of Prayer to Baal - Get A Load of This Mountain of BS - Baby Slaughter.

"They have built also the high places of Baal, to burn their sons with fire for burnt offerings unto Baal, which I commanded not, nor spake it, neither came it into my mind." (Jer. 19:5.)


I'd rather get tossed buck-ass nekid and covered in mouse musk into a deep pit packed with pythons, adders and boas, than sit in a hotel lobby with some forty something dowager decked-out in Anne Taylors going on about the importance, dignity, operation, hygiene, and fascination of her vagina.

Good people can and should disagree. I am very uncomfortable listening about , much less discussing, a woman's . . .gizmos, much, much, much less what she does with, or to it.

This Dude's a Prude, I reckon.

It is my problem - the word is appropriate to biology class and biology class alone.

I am not interested, nor charmed by any communication of about, for, by or including a woman's plumbing. Vagina, is a lovely word. Abortion is a hideous word.

I honor, worship and revere women. . . even really affluent, schooled, opinionated, self-absorbed and fundamentally stupid women. Men, don't get me started on us. When it comes to stupid, we a tale a back seat to no living thing. Men and women, with whom I would very much avoid if at all possible, insist that Abortion is Prayer and prayer should be for abortion.

The same meatheads that insist upon dialoging about a woman's vagina, uterus, or, you know any hollow muscular organ located in the pelvic cavity of female mammals in which the fertilized egg implants and develops - that monologues, keeps patriarchs out of and needs to contraceive, have devloped a prayer ritual in honor of abortion, infanticide, eugenics, governmental support in blocking the birth of babies, and celebrating blank expressions, low voices and really bad fashion sensibilities, never disappoint.

If want want ludicrous, crave contrarian courtesy, honor hypocrisy, value vaginas ( I prefer the more patriarchal euphemisms myself)and love the buffet Planned Parenthood provides.

Here are just a few of the prayers ( to which Deity, other than Baal, who demanded the blood of children better than Beijing in Spring) for some NPR-doped folks from the pandering to pious Planned Parenthood and Goofs in Stiff Collars.

From Life News.com
* “Day 1: Today we pray for women for whom pregnancy is not good news, that they know they have choices.” Kill the baby, or not - 50/50. Some choice, there Sophie.

*”Day 36 Today we pray for the families we’ve chosen, May they know the blessing of choice.” Who chooses a family other than a bust-out dead-beat cousin?
I choose the House of Windsor! Great salaries, health plans and breeders guides.

* “Day 38: Today we pray for a cloud of gentleness to surround every abortion facility. May everyone feel calm and loving.” Who wrote this Judy Collins? Yes, yes, yes a cloud of gentleness before Dr. Sweetbritches scalpels and sucks out the babies brains.


Get a load of the mugs on the Trouser Snake Family Singers, or whatever the hell that choir of Baal. Lovin' that vest, Dude. Kinda got that Latter Day Kenny Rogers thing going.

And one wonders how I am this way. I'll pray that these goofs wake up, but, to tell the truth I'd rather chat about vaginas and feminine health products with Terry Cosgrove. Better make that Cecile Richards of PP; Terry Cosgrove's no huge vagina fan, I am given to understand.

God Bless Life News!

These Billboards Tell It All - Life Begins With Conception and Abortion Ends Lives

Normally, I hate billboards. Billboards sell stuff we do not need, generally speaking - Kathy & Eric, Hennessy VSOP, Pay-day Loans, Hot Babes on Poles.

Yesterday, as is my wont and obligation, I got in the Malibu to go to Harte & Sons Printing in Oak Lawn, and Rescigno's in Hickory Hills, Illinois about issues with our Spring 21st Century Leo Mailing.

Both destinations require a trip on 87th Street West and I was delighted to see the three billboards above posted by folks who have tried to convince too many Americans that abortion is no more than murder for the sake of convenience. These billboards are not the intrusive or shocking representations of the horror that is abortion, but actual teaching exercises in the Facts of Life - Conception is Life. The photos are eye-grabbing and sweet and also instructive. I noticed these wonderful teaching aids between Morgan Street and Cicero Ave. on 87th Street.

I believe that they will do some good, but the just might be misplaced, as they seem to be preaching to the choirs. 87Th Street cuts through African American, Hispanic and white ethnic Catholic neighborhoods of breeders - families with lots of kids.

Perhaps these might better serve the cause of Life by being posted in more affluent neighborhoods, or in close proximity to college campuses.

Blacks, Mexicans and white ethnic Catholics tend to welcome children. I know my block is loaded with little guys and so are all of the blocks several miles from 108th Street.

Who demands abortion? People inconvenienced by a Life.

Sadly, college age girls away from their parents for the first times in their lives -The majority -- 56 percent -- of women who terminate their pregnancies are in their twenties. Teenagers between 15 and 19 make up 19 percent of abortions, although this percentage has dropped substantially in recent years. ( Guttmacher Institute* no less).

Academics tend to be all for abortion, sadly, and young people are encouraged to believe that a conceived person is mere tissue.

I hope that more such billboards find great signage opportunities on all the roads leading to and from America's colleges and universities, as it just might be the only lesson our kids might learn that life is precious and begins with an act of love.

I have a sneaking suspicion that Leo Man Dick Walsh, founder and President of Americans for Life, came up with the trump to make this all possible.



*Abortion Stats

Age of Mother Percentage
Less than 15 0.4%
15-19 17%
20-24 32.6%
25-29 24.1%
30-34 14.2%
35-39 8.9%
40+ 3.2%
Marital Status
Married 17%
Separate/Divorced/Widowed 15.6%
Never Married 72%
Race of Mother
White 36%
Black 30%
Hispanic 25%
Other Races 9%
Religion of Mother
Protestant 37%
Catholic 28%
Other 35%
Prior Pregnancies
Previous Abortion and Birth 36%
None 27%
Previous Birth 25%
Previous Abortion 12%

Source: Guttmacher Institute, 2011, August. Facts on Induced Abortion in the United States.

Reading Michael Moriarty - A Primer for James Joyce

riverrun, past Eve and Adam's, from swerve of shore to bend 1
of bay, brings us by a commodius vicus of recirculation back to 2
Howth Castle and Environs. . . . Coming, far! End here. Us 13
then. Finn, again! Take. Bussoftlhee, mememormee! Till thous- 14
endsthee. Lps. The keys to. Given! A way a lone a last a loved a 15
long the
Finnegan's Wake - James Joyce PARIS, 17. 1922-1939

None of them (George Soros, Vlad Putin and President Obama) reached their present standings by dint of a warm heart. Michael Moriarty - Canada 2012.

I had a a very good student at La Lumiere (1988-92) who wanted to read Finnegan's Wake by James Joyce. I asked the young woman* if she had read Dubliners and she replied "No."

Had she read, Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man? Again, "No."

Ulysses? " No,"

How about Chamber Music, Pomes Penny each? " No, but heard that if you read James Joyce, you'll have an easier time with college admissions and it helps in the interviews.

It do. Joyce is tough. Have you read Milton? " No."

Dante? " No."

Have ever listened to the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem? " No."

Ever heard of Oliver St. John Gogarty**?

" No."

Okay. Let's start there with the song " Finnegan's Wake."


" No thanks. I have to meet my counsellor. Bye."

Oliver St.John Gogarty was a pal of young James Joyce and became a prominent Dublin surgeon and man of letters. Interesting name -Oliver = both St. Oliver Plunkett Martyr, but, also Oliver Cromwell whose Death Panels made Martyrs. St. John the Gospel writer and also a great Norman family name that is pronounced Sin Jin across the pond and Gogarty at the caboose. A typical Paddy name related to Fogarty - meaning the banished, or exiled. (O'hOgartaigh)

Gogarty was the Alpha Male and James Joyce the wingman. Gogarty was a superb athlete, gregarious, handsome, confident,physically courageous, and social. Jimmy Joyce, was bookish, sickly, quietly witty, brooding, shy, and angry.

Gogarty was at home in Anglo-Irish Protestant circles and could work a pint glass in a dirty Dublin Moore Street shebeen with honest Tadgh and Paddy. Young James Joyce affected the air of a Pre-Raphaelite genius and often had the living shite beat out of him, unless Gogarty were near-by. Later in Paris, Old Jim Joyce picked fights after getting a snoot-full of absinthe and then declaring " Deal with them, Hemingway!" - which the Oak Park bully did and glad to do so.

Gogarty authored As I went Down Sackville Street, a witty and amusing memoir of pre-WWI and Civil War Dublin ( 1910-1922) and scores of articles, poems, plays and sketches. He was a hero of the IRA during the Black and Tans War and later was elected to the Irish Senate.

James Joyce had a falling out with the Alpha Male in 1904 and imposed exile on himself from dear old dirty Dublin, Ireland and going to regular Mass on Sundays.

My student never asked me about Oliver St. John Gogarty.

James Joyce is on literary Olympus with Milton, Chaucer and Shakespeare. Gogarty is a fine bit of hill.

Joyce, like Milton read and absorbed words, sounds, rythms and rhymes in order to slowly develop works of genius. He did not begin with Finnegan's Wake. Nor should a sixteen year old girl. Nor should anyone. One must immerse oneself in the shallow waters before cliff diving in Mexico.

One of the best cliff-divers wielding a pen and keyboard is renowned actor Michael Moriarty. He passed another birthday on Friday April 5th. Mr. Moriarty lives in self-imposed political exile in Canada and could not be a happier man. He was angered by Bill Clinton, America's Alcibiades, and is appalled by the present occupant of the White House. I have a great deal of respect for Mr. Moriarty. He like Gogarty and Joyce welded to Vaughan Williams - an accomplished actor, musician, historian, journalist and fierce defender of the unborn.

I recommend reading Michael Moriarty, knowing that his prose is a plunge into the deep end of the pool. He is no silly bonhomie like Christopher Buckley, much less a timid titmouse like David Brooks; rather, he is liberal with literary and cultural allusions, lost on to many first time readers. His context is vast.

Click my post title for # 44 in his Michael Moriarty's Haunted Heaven.

* Last I heard this young woman held a Master of Arts and was near completion of her Ph.D. in English Literature.

** "He had a defect that prevented him being a companionable man: he had no reserve in speaking about people, even those he had cause to admire, even those who were close to him. If they had some pitiful disability or shortcoming, he brought it right out. It was an incontinence of speech... The result was that people gave him license and kept a distance from him." --Padraic Colum (emphasis my own)


O.St.J.Gogarty's "The Song of the Cheerful (but slightly sarcastic) Jesus" [e206]

I'm the queerest young fellow that ever was heard.
My mother's a Jew; my father's a Bird
With Joseph the Joiner I cannot agree
So 'Here's to Disciples and Calvary.'
If anyone thinks that I amn't divine,
He gets no free drinks when I'm making the wine
But have to drink water and wish it were plain
That I make when the wine becomes water again.

My methods are new and are causing surprise:
To make the blind see I throw dust in their eyes
To signify merely there must be a cod
If the Commons will enter the Kingdom of Good

Now you know I don't swim and you know I don't skate
I came down to the ferry one day and was late.
So I walked on the water and all cried, in faith!
For a Jewman it's better than having to bathe.

Whenever I enter in triumph and pass
You will find that my triumph is due to an ass
(And public support is a grand sinecure
When you once get the public to pity the poor.)

Then give up your cabin and ask them for bread
And they'll give you a stone habitation instead
With fine grounds to walk in and raincoat to wear
And the Sheep will be naked before you'll go bare.

The more men are wretched the more you will rule
But thunder out 'Sinner' to each bloody fool;
For the Kingdom of God (that's within you) begins
When you once make a fellow acknowledge he sins.

Rebellion anticipates timely by 'Hope,'
And stories of Judas and Peter the Pope
And you'll find that you'll never be left in the lurch
By children of Sorrows and Mother the Church

Goodbye, now, goodbye, you are sure to be fed
You will come on My Grave when I rise from the Dead
What's bred in the bone cannot fail me to fly
And Olivet's breezy-- Goodbye now Goodbye

http://www.themodernword.com/joyce/joyce_works_fw.html

Think About This!

Now, that I have your attention. Here is some information that you might not otherwise get from the Maintsream Media.

Interstitial Fluid, AKA tissue fluid, works in conjunction with lymph and plasma (the liquid part of your blood) to maintain your body’s internal pressure and make sure your organs and other fluids properly interact. Most interstitial fluids have a specific job and a specific name, like peritoneal fluid, which lubricates everything inside the abdomen, or pleural fluid, which coats the lungs to allow them to do that whole oxygen exchange thing so you can live. And you were giving air all the credit.

There. See?

From the only website that truly informs - Neatorama

On Religious Liberty - Straight Talk from an American Leader. No, it is not President Obama.

Timothy Cardinal Dolan - An American Leader

NBC's David Gregory



After Easter Mass, I caught Archbishop Designate Lori of Baltimore on Meet the Press.

NBC jumped the smelt years ago, I know, but watching it for thoughtful news and commentary is like going to a strip club to pray for chastity and pure thoughts. . . which I have done in my salad says, God forgive me.

David Gregory is an especially adept pole dancer, greased with unctions of group thought. He also reminds me of Whitey Whitney, one of Beaver Cleaver's pals from the old Leave it to Beaver show. Whitey always seemed to have fifty-three teeth in his yaper; likewise, David Gregory.

Yesterday, Whitey Gregory interrupted Archbishop Designate William Lori, when the Baltimore prelate argued that Obama's HHS Mandate is but one in series of attempts to restrict religious liberty.

Cardinal Timothy Dolan presented the facts and the context with simple human clarity.

Over at the equally gamed-up CBS Cardinal Dolan held the aging hack at bay.

“Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2012/04/08/archbishop-of-new-york-obama-contraception-mandate-a-dramatic-radical-intrusion/#ixzz1rXuuolqs

In ink, it is still very straight talk from a leader.

Dolan explained to “Face the Nation” host Bob Schieffer that, although he is concerned about getting “too involved in politics,” the reason he is at odds with President Barack Obama’s White House isn’t his own doing.

“I do worry about that, Bob,” Dolan said. “And this is a good place for me to remind everybody, we didn’t ask for this fight. I don’t enjoy it at all. I wish I was out here on ‘Face the Nation’ answering other questions and you probably do too. We didn’t ask for the fight, but we are not going to back away from it. . . . What I say is this — yeah, I don’t think religion should be too involved in politics,” Dolan continued. “But I also don’t think the government and politics should be overly involved in the Church, and that is our problem here. You’ve got a dramatic, radical intrusion of a government bureaucracy into the internal life of the Church. That bothers me. So, hear me say, hey I would like to back away from this. I’ve got other things to worry about and bigger fish to fry than this. Our problem is the government is intruding into the life of faith and into the Church that they shouldn’t be doing. That is our read on this.”

Now, that, boys and girls, is soaring rhetoric, I believe in.

Whitey, Gilbert and Larry Mondello, ( NBC, CBS, CNN) have Beav's back always. President Barack Obama is the Beaver.


Whitey Whitney:

He’s a diminutive slip of a boy with a high nasal voice and hair that just might have turned blond-white from nervousness. . . .Whitey can be a pretty crafty conniver, and he will always be remembered as the wise guy who got Beaver to climb up onto the soup billboard.

http://www.leaveittobeaver.org/gang.htm#Whitey_Whitney

Meet The Hacks - David Gregory Only Interrupts ArchBishop Lori

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

What is the nature of the War???? Allow the Pope of Time Magazine and Congressman Cleaver full throated support for that War while denying it exists and then interrupting Archbishop Lori at every turn.

Slimey, Dave.

Waffen SS Veteran Günter Grass, Nobel Laureate Wants to Get the Jews He Missed

That's Nobel Laureate and Waffen SS Gunter Grass on the right sporting the Swastika - note the absence of gun to his head.


“Why do I only say now, aged and with my last ink: the atomic power Israel is endangering the already fragile world peace?” Günter Grass Nobel Laureate and Waffen SS

I read Günter Grass when my high school English teacher, Jerry Rohm, said "If you ever want to read some self-serving bullshit, read Günter Grass." I read the Danziger Trilogoy - it was no Studs Lonigan.

It was post WWII plea kopping - " I was just serving." A youthful indiscretion, like the late House Speaker Robert Byrd's Klan-a-copia ( D. WV).

The Yeah, Butters will demand " How about the Pope?"

Young Pope Benedict was conscripted into a Flak ( anti-aircraft) unit at the tail end of the war. Günter Grass joined the elite of eugenics minded Aryan killers - the Waffen SS.

The Tin Drum was about a maniacal kid who believed that he was completely spiritually evolved at birth and joined a NAZI USO showband of dwarfs, fell in love, twice, became a famous jazz drummer and went nuts. It is tailor-made for intellectual frauds and loaded with obscurantist images and 'who's to say' nonsense about actions and obligations. Two others are lousy reads.


Here is the poem that will be touted and sung by Jew hating parsers:

What Must Be Said

Why do I stay silent, conceal for too long
What clearly is and has been
Practiced in war games, at the end of which we as survivors
Are at best footnotes.

It is the alleged right to first strike
That could annihilate the Iranian people--
Enslaved by a loud-mouth
And guided to organized jubilation--
Because in their territory,
It is suspected, a bomb is being built.

Yet why do I forbid myself
To name that other country
In which, for years, even if secretly,
There has been a growing nuclear potential at hand
But beyond control, because no testing is available?

The universal concealment of these facts,
To which my silence subordinated itself,
I sense as incriminating lies
And force--the punishment is promised
As soon as it is ignored;
The verdict of "anti-Semitism" is familiar.

Now, though, because in my country
Which from time to time has sought and confronted
The very crime
That is without compare
In turn on a purely commercial basis, if also
With nimble lips calling it a reparation, declares
A further U-boat should be delivered to Israel,
Whose specialty consists of guiding all-destroying warheads to where the existence
Of a single atomic bomb is unproven,
But through fear of what may be conclusive,
I say what must be said.

Why though have I stayed silent until now?
Because I think my origin,
Which has never been affected by this obliterating flaw,
Forbids this fact to be expected as pronounced truth
Of the country of Israel, to which I am bound
And wish to stay bound.

Why do I say only now,
Aged and with my last ink,
That the nuclear power of Israel endangers
The already fragile world peace?
Because it must be said
What even tomorrow may be too late to say;
Also because we--as Germans burdened enough--
Could be the suppliers to a crime
That is foreseeable, wherefore our complicity
Could not be redeemed through any of the usual excuses.

And granted: I am silent no longer
Because I am tired of the hypocrisy
Of the West; in addition to which it is to be hoped
That this will free many from silence,
Prompt the perpetrator of the recognized danger
To renounce violence and
Likewise insist
That an unhindered and permanent control
Of the Israeli nuclear potential
And the Iranian nuclear sites
Be authorized through an international agency
Of the governments of both countries.

Only this way are all, the Israelis and Palestinians,
Even more, all people, that in this
Region occupied by mania
Live cheek by jowl among enemies,
In the end also to help us.

(empases my own)

Poetry? If you like polemics, I suppose.

I joined the Knights of Columbus, as a Catholic committed to my Church and also the discount on draft beer and later The Moose, in order to dine at the Kankakee County Moose for the absolute greatest prime rib or walleye in three counties. I am ashamed of my motives always ulterior, but certainly not the company I kept.

Günter Grass' bought the program. Only God knows what he did as a Waffen SS 10th SS Panzer Division Frundsberg. 10th SS Panzer Division Frundsberg was comprised of conscripts drawn from volunteers - Herr Grass had already tried to join the Kriedsmarine's submarine force.

In contrast, Pope Bendicte, the very same age as Herr Grass, by the way -

Following his 14th birthday in 1941, Ratzinger was conscripted into the Hitler Youth—as membership was required by law for all 14-year-old German boys after December 1939—but was an unenthusiastic member who refused to attend meetings, according to his brother. In 1941, one of Ratzinger's cousins, a 14-year-old boy with Down syndrome, was taken away by the Nazi regime and killed during the Action T4 campaign of Nazi eugenics.

In 1943, while still in seminary, he was drafted into the German anti-aircraft corps as Luftwaffenhelfer (air force child soldier). Ratzinger then trained in the German infantry. As the Allied front drew closer to his post in 1945, he deserted back to his family's home in Traunstein after his unit had ceased to exist, just as American troops established their headquarters in the Ratzinger household. As a German soldier, he was put in a POW camp but was released a few months later at the end of the war in the summer of 1945. He reentered the seminary, along with his brother Georg, in November of that year.

The disturbing thing is that the Nobel Laureate was comfortable with the left-wing intellectuals who so violently hate Israel and hold Jews in contempt.

His poem is no more than a Horst-Wessel-Lied (song) for Al Qaida and Hamas and fashionable anti-semites of the left.

Originally, the name Karl der Große (Charlemagne) was used for some time in 1943, but French volunteers in the Wehrmacht and the Waffen-SS used Charlemagne (33rd Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS Charlemagne (1st French)), so the honor title Frundsberg was chosen, which refers to 16th Century German landsknecht commander Georg von Frundsberg.
The division was mainly formed from conscripts and it first saw action at Tarnopol in April 1944. It took part in the rescue of German troops cut off in the Kamianets-Podilskyi pocket.
It was then sent to Normandy to counter the Allied landings. It and its "twin" Division, the 9th SS Panzer-Division Hohenstaufen, played an important part in holding the British Forces back in Normandy, particularly during Operation Epsom.
It retreated into Belgium before being sent to rest near Arnhem where they soon had to fight the Allied parachute assault during Operation Market Garden at Nijmegen, in the Netherlands, at which time it, along with the 9th SS Panzer, constituted the II SS Panzer Corps.
After rebuilding it fought in the Alsace in January 1945 before being sent to the Eastern Front where it fought against the Red Army in Pomerania and later in Saxony.
Encircled at the Halbe Pocket, the division took heavy losses but managed to break out of the encirclement and retreated through Moritzburg before reaching the area of Teplice in Czechoslovakia at the end of the war. At this location, the division surrendered to the Soviet Army.

Günter Grass

In August 2006, German writer and Nobel laureate Günter Grass admitted to having been an assistant tank gunner with the division after having been conscripted into the Waffen-SS at the age of 17 in November 1944. As Grass had always been an outspoken critic of Germany's treatment of its Nazi past, his surprise admission caused a great stir in the press.

Not really. The New Yorker LOVED it! Fabulous! (click my post title.

In 1969, Jerry Rohm told a bunch of Catholic high school students that the best way to sniff out bullshit, was to put it right under your nose.

Grass was piled with bullshit in 1969, and still reeks of it.

Parsing and killing history, is an easy path to killing Jews.

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!