Gay Marriage Grave Dancing on the Closing of St. Gregory

St. Gregory the Great High School in Chicago's Edgewater neighborhood is closing at the end of the school year, the school has announced on its Website.St. Gregory, 1677 W. Bryn Mawr Ave., was the Archdiocese of Chicago's first co-ed high school. This marks the school's 75th year, but it has been plagued by declining enrollment and large deficits. In recent years, the school, which prides itself on its diverse student body, has made several moves toward survival, renting out part of its building and focusing on a technology-heavy curriculum.
But in recent years, St. Gregory's had fewer than 150 students, and in some years, the Archdiocese subsidized its operations to the tune of more than $500,000.

Chicago Tribune -12/08/2012

Richard Craig Friedman ·  Top Commenter · Washington University in St. Louis

Had the Church had a more contemporary attitude about homosexual couples adoption, this result might have been avoided.

Reply · 4 · Like · Follow Post · 13 hours ago ( emphasis my own)

This Result?  A Catholic School is closing after 75 years of service to Chicago. The closing of a Catholic high school that takes care of immigrant children and special needs kids?  Here is what happened immediately after Pat Quinn signed the Religious Liberty and Civil Union legislation: 

After passage of Illinois’ civil union law, Catholic Charities refused to alter its long-standing policy of not placing foster children in the homes of co-habiting adults including those in civil unions.  After a legal and legislative struggle – during which the Governor said he could not “condone discrimination” – the state refused to continue foster care and adoption contracts with Catholic Charities and forced the Church out of the foster care and adoption business.  Similar outcomes could extend to theChurch’s other public ministries such as the provision of affordable and senior housing, parochial schools, medical services, counseling, youth groups and facilities management. Illinois Catholic Conference

Civil Unions came to Illinois with the stroke of the pen of a governor educated in Catholic schools from grammar school to college and seemed to undo those years at Northwestern Law. Quinn has always been much more comfortable with fashionable Leftists than with his Church.  Governor Quinn listens and acts according to the dictates of Fred Eychaner, Boss Terry Cosgrove and the Commie Guru of Illinois Dr. Quentin Young.  Faith matters, but not any where near as much as campaign money and agenda politics voters to this sad example of a Governor.

A few states made homosexual marriage happen and Civil Unions is and has been the goal for gay activists in Illinois. The goal is not so much making sure that gay partners have all of the legal rights as spouses, as it is to  allow the State to define marriage.  Any disagreement, much less opposition to that goal is pilloried as hateful.

The comment by Mr. Friedman was the very first kick at the cat and the Catholic Church.  Is this the gay position? to whirl dervishly on the grave of a Catholic school? Well, why not.  The pedophile scandal is applied to every mention of the Catholic Church and is done with invoked vigor and glee by Rainbow Sash Catholics and Chick Fil A abstaining doctrinaire politicians who deny that priests who raped little boys were not homosexual. That's the fact, Jack.

No one wants to deny two men, or two women the right to partner up, live with each other and love one another.  A partner is not husband or a wife outside of marriage and marriage is about the natural development of a family. That requires a one man and one woman. Calling  it whatever one wishes does not make it so.

Mr. Friedman is a an MD who specializes in the psychiatric nature of homosexuality and a man who has written 'groundbreaking books' and articles and landed academic posts with Columbia University and now at  Washington University in St. Louis .  A very well educated and successful  person, Mr. Friedman. Yet, Dr./Mr. Friedman gleefully attributes the closing of a venerable Catholic school to homophobia - not so. Catholic Charities allows married couples to adopt children - not even civilly united heterosexuals may adopt.

Mr. Friedman is not unlike many columnists, activists and politicians who take great delight in developing the tautology of hate for people who do follow their inclinations, opinions and goals.  This is nothing new, but it is more commonly accepted in our society to poison every well and gleefully celebrate any and every opportunity hone their argument with unrelated facts. One particularly fatuous Chicago ink-slinger did so only this weekend in a very strange article that at once mocks the United States Supreme Court as irrelevant, while attempting warn the justices of dire consequences were they to rule in any way unfavorable to Homosexual marriages, or allowing government to define marriage itself. This puffed-up gent proclaims that unlike everyone who disagrees with him, he lives' in a fact based world' 

 For instance, the United States Supreme Court announcing Friday that it will take up the issue of gay marriage — ruling on a pair of cases, one in New York, one in California, that go to the heart of the matter — is both dramatic and meaningless.Dramatic because this is the first time the high court has weighed in on this. And meaningless because the issue has already been decided. To realize that the gay marriage question has been settled, all you have to do is look at the way public opinion breaks down into a direct relationship between age and approval. The younger a person is, the more comfortable they are with the idea of gay marriage. The older a person is, the more likely they are to be uncomfortable with the idea that homosexual citizens should be allowed to marry and form families.. . .Why am I so sure?Because I live in the fact-based world. They weren’t bad swimmers. Women, it turned out, could cast ballots just fine. Jews paid their hotel bills like everybody else.

There is no factual basis to keep gays from getting married. They don’t make worse husband or wives, they aren’t inferior parents on any measure. The data just isn’t there.

Zero sum.  Zero is a number and that equals the number of children born to two gents who co-habitate. There are no birth control products in a lesbian home;  likewise, a devout married Catholic heterosexual couple, to be sure; the outcome differs, however: husband and wife procreate - they have children and create families.

Homosexual couples must step out of nature to acquire children.

Unlike laws, there are permanent things -marriage is between a man and woman, always has been.  Procreation is the object - you know to build a family: e pluiribus unum.  A man and a woman become one and that is until death.  There are permanent things and no matter how manner pieces of legislation, or polls, or op-ed pieces, or snotty self-serving cracks attempting to vilify others will undo this fact.

Gay Marriage will no doubt slide in safe here in Illinois.  We can expect many more such graveyard polkas from the likes of Richard Craig Friedman.

Mel Torme Sings Steely Dan

Hep cats.


Heppest of Cats

"It's a Civil Right! Right Now!"Illinois Gay Marriage Now! A Call from a Capital Voice Piercing His Mom's Floors From the Basement Where He Lives!

The child becomes largely what he is taught; hence we must watch what we teach, and how we live." -- Jane Addams

3:26 AM: Young Corinthinian Dick of Springfield, Illinois bounds to his feet thrusting the latest polling on the artificial sweeteners effect upon the Gay Marriage Illinois Juggernaut . . . .

Look at this!  Public Policy Polling’s recent Illinois survey asked Illinoisans about gay marriage. A plurality supported it…Do you think same-sex marriage should be allowed in Illinois, or not?It should …………………………………………………. 47%It should not ……………………………………………. 42%Not sure …………………………………………………. 11%
My word, "Not Sure" about what?  That You are too stupid to breathe!  Obama Won Get Over It! He's Our Gay President and what illinois is all about!  Old white people are stuck in the last century, nothing new. If I’m the Democrats, I want this on the ballot in 2014, this could be a huge boon to them. Progressives and people under 30 would be coming out to vote in higher numbers and definitely tip the scale, even if it would be a rough hear for the president’s party (which I think the House Republicans will temper down for them). I  see this as a civil rights issue. Most people in southern states wouldn’t have voted anti-slavery and I doubt women’s suffrage would have passed by popular vote.Human rights should never be dependent on popular vote or a gift from the majority to a minority.20 year olds are in favor by about 70%, according to Pew. This won’t be an issue that much longer. Particularly since the sky didn’t fall in Washington state today.I couldnt agree more on this being a Civil Rights issue! doing away with legal discrimination wasnt “popular” when it was racial, gender, etc. I hope the US Supreme court puts this issue to rest soon on a national basis!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Vocem  Mater -"Dickie?????  Dickie !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Richard, you answer me!!!!!!!!!!"

Corinthian Dick - "What!!!!!!!!"

Vocem Mater - " To Whom are you shouting and what about?"

Corinthian Dick - " No one!  God!!!!!!!!  Nothing, go to sleep!!!"

Vocem Mater - " It is three A.M. and you are still crafting and reading your polemics! Turn off that damn laptop! Now!  I have to be at the Schnuck's in three hours!"

Corinthian Dick -" Is it my problem that you have a low-end job?  You should have gone to Oberlin like me."

Vocem Mater -" You were there for six years!  It killed your father.  All you ever seemed to do was watch movies about JFK, or the California Raisins."

Corinthian Dick - " I hold the only BS  Le genere film étrange, l'inquiétant et politique de confrontation 
in this stupid town."

Vocem Mater "Won't get you dock spot at Tenney Food Sales! Burston Marsteller, your comic book store buddy, is a  shift boss at Tenney's maybe you could . . . ."

Corinthian Dick- " . . .waste a life like you and your spouse?"

Vocem Mater - "I wish you'd date some nice girl, get a job, and stop watching TIVOs of Rachel Maddow all day. You have been in this basement since 1993!  I have just about had enough!"

Corinthian Dick - "Go to bed!!!!!!!!!!!!! . . . . You MUST be up for  Schnucks in two and a half hours! Stupid cow.  Didn't even vote. . . . . Oh. Mom were outta White Cheddar SmartFood popcorn  get three bags Burston says they are on sale at Schnucks!"

(Pregnant Pause) 
Vocem Mater - " Why wouldn't I just get four bags. . . ."

Corinthian Dick - " God, Yes! Get four get six!!!!! Just don't forget!"

Rahm and the Professors -A Mayor and the Napoleons of Crime

The law professors, Craig Futterman of the University of Chicago and Locke Bowman of Northwestern, both have brought numerous misconduct cases against the Police Department during their careers. Futterman currently represents clients in a suit related to the department’s defunct Special Operations Section, and has said the code of silence judgment could aid his case.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel has taken two good steps toward yanking the string on the Gordian knot that is Chicago's hairball - the Progressive University/Media/Lawsuit Lotto Machine.  This Machine makes the one begun by  gambler Michael Cassius McDonald ( burried in the 19th Ward's Mount Olivet Cemetery) and developed by Aldermen Bathhouse John, Jonny De Pow, and Hinky Dink seem fresher smelling than Andy Shaw's skivvies at the end of the month.

Now, our Progressive political Machine holds that convicted murderers are only prison because of a red-headed Dutch cop who used mythical torture devices on the appendages universal of Honors Students Turning Their Young Lives Around, Breeders are evil carbon foot print step dancers and Terry Cosgrove is Dr. Martin Luther King, Good Jews Hate Israel, Good Catholics is an oxymoron,  Asian Carp have more rights than unborn child, Chick Fil-Ay is Bull Connors, Forrest Claypool can hold down a job and Toni Preckwinkle's boy Kyle is just a sterling youth.

Mayor Emanuel took the smart step to 'encourage' the tiny Polish bartender to reconsider her settlement with the option to poop-can the Code of Silence gambit that stands to make millions for the Lawsuit Lotto Lawyers ( Loevy, Taylor, Bowman et al) and burnish the undeserved reputations of Northwestern and University Centers for Law as Gold Digging.

Now, this particular gambit is intended to not only further undermine any and all faith in police officers, but also net millions of tax-payer dollars in lawsuits.  The recent 'outrage dujour' is corkscrewing its way into the public zeitgeist via the the media bosses concerning clout, cop omerta and nepotisic privilege.

Mayor Emanuel also decided to to treat gang-funerals for what they are - Savage Displays of Contempt.

Gang funerals in Chicago will be treated like “gang events” — with pat-downs and police muscle — because gang leaders have shown “no respect” for neighborhoods where those funerals take place, Mayor Rahm Emanuel said Wednesday.

One day after Chicago Police officers showed up in force at a gang funeral, Emanuel warned gang leaders to get used to it. Gang funerals will no longer be treated as sacred events.

The Mayor has taken baby steps back to common sense.  The goofiness, packaged and sold as good old American Atticus Finch Higher Criticism. However that road back to honesty and good sense has been potholed aplenty.


Chicago traded in a political machine for the lawsuit industry. Beginning with Michael Shakman's legal whine,  in 1972, aged to perfection by the likes of Dr. Quentin Young, the ACLU, Judge Abner Mikva and Dawn Clark Netsch, bottled by the University of Chicago and Northwestern Centers for Dopey Everything and the very lazy Chicago editorial boards, decanted by the Loevys Pere et Fil, G.Flint Taylor, Craig Futterman and Locke Bowman, Chicago's cup runneth over with lawsuits, gang-shootings, gelded law enforcement and hand-wringers wondering 'just how can we celebrate the funerals of Honor Student Thugs, yet appear serious about public safety.'

Yep the City That Worked was a machine crafted by part-time Aldermen and full-time saloon keepers, gamblers and nickel snitchers that somehow managed to attract industry, commerce and the arts.

Once little Mike Shakman was able to judge shop his way into the Shakman Decree Industry, the doors were flung wide open for our current University/Media Complex/ Ambulance-chaser Complex that has created Chicago's Thug Comfort Zone. 

Upon Shakman's shoulders the City of Big Shoulders fits snuggly.  Patronage went conveniently chameleon with the rise of job-hopping players like David Orr and  Forrest Claypool and disappeared where it did the most good - at the precinct and Ward level.  Nepotism became more Byzantine with Daleys and Hyneses, as they were eclipsed by Jacksons and Preckwinkles and still no goods and ever fewer services were available to to citizens and taxpayers.  Millions for Ceasefire, but not one cent for the defense of children and elderly in Englewood, Brainerd, Deering, or Grand Crossing - you know, add more cops to the streets.

I'd take Chicago's old timey corruption any day; those old crooks left something in the city budget and actually managed to do some good. Progressives pick the public bones dry and then render the leavings down to fertilizer and hold the departed in complete and lavish contempt.

I have yet to hear a sound explanation for the public boon resulting from Shakman Industries .  Likewise, I understand the acknowlege the success of the Orwellian control professors and Commie lawyers exercise over gutless politicians and lightly educated editorial board members.

Rahm Emanuel did two good things this week - he brought ants to the Gangbanger Funeral Picnics and swiped the salary swill away from Fetterman, Bowman, Taylor and the Loveys Pere and Fil, for the moment. That is until they can Judge Shop and get Judge Gettleman who is always happy to rule for nonsense over the public good.

Let's hope that he does not cave, as he did to CTU Commissar Jesse Sharkey and his puppet Karen. Lewis.

If Rahm Emanuel repudiates the nonsense of the Marxist Brahmins, he may bring back a little common sense to Chicago politics .

What's Wrongful About This Picture?

Behind grieving relatives stand Chicago's most vigorous opportunists.  What occupied Locke Bowman's and G. Flint Taylor's interests and concern for the eight years leading up to Chicago's latest media driven Ox Bow Incident?

2004:April 24: David Koschman and four friends head to Chicago’s Division Street bars for a night of partying.
April 25: In the early morning hours an argument ensues between the Koschman group and a group of four which include R.J. Vanecko, Bridget and Kevin McCarthy and Craig Denham.
Later that morning Nanci Koschman receives a call that her son is in the intensive care unit at Northwestern Memorial Hospital.
May 6: David Koschman dies at Northwestern Hospital.
May 20: Police conduct a lineup with R.J. Vanecko at the Belmont and Western Police station.  No positive ID is made, according to police.
2011:Jan. 4: Sun-Times reporter Tim Novak requests the Chicago police reports from the Koschman investigation through the Freedom of Information Act.
Jan. 18: Chicago police release a heavily redacted report stating the Koschman case remained an open investigation.
Feb. 28: The Chicago Sun-Times publishes its first piece on David Koschman. NBC5 News reports its first piece on Koschman, including the first interview with Nanci Koschman.
March 1: Chicago police “close” the Koschman case stating that R.J. Vanecko threw the punch that killed David Koschman, but he did so in self-defense.
March 24: Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez, in her first comments on the case, says no favoritism was given to Vanecko; that Koschman initiated the fight; and said her office could not find a single report or case file relating to the Koschman investigation.
Dec. 15: Attorney’s representing Nanci Koschman call for a Special Prosecutor. Those calling for the Special Prosecutor were Locke Bowman of the MacArthur Justice Foundation, Flint Taylor of the People’s Law Office and Andy Shaw of the Better Government Association.
2012March 29: A hearing is held at the Criminal Courts building on the motion to appoint a Special Prosecutor.
April 23: Judge Michael Toomin appoints Dan Webb as Special Prosecutor.
Dec. 3: Vanecko is charged with one count of involuntary manslaughter in Koschman's death.

Source: http://www.nbcchicago.com/blogs/ward-room/Timeline-David-Koschman-RJ-Vanecko-Richard-Daley-181887991.html#ixzz2EBnvZfYI 

These two Cadillac Commies, or Lamborghini Legal Lamprey Eels, were collecting millions of tax-payer dollars.

If these two  'wrongful'  parasites are involved you can be sure of a legal lynching with the media measuring the rope and more grief than a grieving mother deserves.

Mohair Sam -Le plus cool Guy, qui est ce qui suis

Two-button Mohair suit, a set of Stacy Adams on the old dogs, pockets full of spending loot and no end of unqualified self-confidence.

I really can not say enough about this fine man. Let's hear here from my betters -
















My Personal Favorite - Love this cat's DunLap's Disease!@




Now, You Do It

You Will Never Catch G. Flint Taylor Doing This to a Homeless Man, Woman, or Child

NEW YORK  — A tourist’s snapshot of a New York City police officer giving new boots to a barefoot homeless man in Times Square has created an online sensation.
Jennifer Foster, of Florence, Ariz., was visiting New York with her husband on Nov. 14, when shs she was about to approach him, she said the officer – identified as Larry DePrimo – came up to the man with a pair of all-weather boots and thermal socks on the frigid night. She recorded his generosity on her cellphone.It was posted Tuesday night to the NYPD’s official Facebook page and became an instant hit. More than 325,000 users “liked” it as of Thursday morning, and over 79,000 shared it.
Thousands of people commented, including one person who praised him as “An officer AND a Gentleman.”e came across the shoeless man asking for change in Times Square.

Wine Mess - 23nd Illinois Regiment Outside of Lexington, Missouri 1862

Lt. Aloysius May
Why are you so into Pinot*? It’s like a thing with you.

Col. James A. Mulligan ( Commanding Officer of Mulligan's Brigade)

I don't know. It’s a hard grape to grow. As you know. It’s thin-skinned, temperamental, ripens early. It’s not a survivor like Cabernet that can grow anywhere and thrive even when neglected. Pinot needs constant care and attention and in fact can only grow in specific little tucked-away corners of the world. And only the most patient and nurturing growers can do it really, can tap into Pinot’s most fragile, delicate qualities. Only when someone has taken the time to truly understand its potential can Pinot be coaxed into its fullest expression. And when that happens, its flavors are the most haunting and brilliant and subtle and thrilling and ancient on the planet.  

 
I mean, Cabernets can be powerful and exalting, but they seem prosaic to me for some reason. By comparison. How about you?

Lt. May
What about me?

Col. Mulligan 
I don't know. Why are you into wine?

Lt. May 
I suppose I got really into wine originally through my ex-C.O.. He had a big, kind of show-off cellar. But then I found out that I have a really sharp palate, and the more I drank, the more I liked what it made me think about.

Mulligan
Yeah? Like what?

May
Like what a fraud he was.

Regimental Sergeant-Major Colman Enright

No, but I do like to think about the life of wine, how it’s a living thing. I like to think about what was going on the year the grapes were growing, how the sun was shining that summer or if it rained…what the weather was like. I think about all those people who tended and picked the grapes, and if it's an old wine, how many of them must be dead by now. I love how wine continues to evolve, how every time I open a bottle it's going to taste different than if I had opened it on any other day. Because a bottle of wine is actually alive—it's constantly evolving and gaining complexity. That is, until it peaks—like your ’61—and begins its steady, inevitable decline. And it tastes so fucking good.

Col. Mulligan

Really?  Did anyone ask your opinion?

*

The Wine Dialoguefrom the film, Sidewaysby Alexander Payne & Jim Taylorbased on the novel by Rex Picketty

Tales of the South Side: The Late Svebjon "Hike" Sorben Returns to Ground

Svenbjom "Hike" Sorben ( 1939-2012) - Suddenly

Fans of low hurdles were saddened to hear of the passing of The Saltating Swede, Svenbjom "Hike" Sorben who wowed the crowds of Old Calumet High with his bounding athleticism on the track and field cinders and across many lawns in the Highland section of Chicago's Auburn Gresham neighborhood in the mid-1950's.

Hike Sorben was  the only son of Tilda and Torbjorn Sorben, who operated a Swedish meats, herring (smoked pickled & creamed), pickle and cheese store at 85th & Racine. Svenbjom leaped over footstools and toadstools, mattered not.

While in grammar school at Cook Elementary, Svenbjom took on the name Hike while playing prairie football in the vacant lot between the houses in the 83 Hundred Place Block on Morgan Ave. with his pals Spats Cullina, Dibs Thompson, Nose Banacheckovich, and Just Plain Bill Smith. Every  time the word 'Hike' was called by Dibs for Nose to snap the pigskin young Sorben would bound over not only the offensive line but the defense as well.

At Calumet High School, Hike Sorben single-handedly accounted for more track and field points than any athlete in the school's history capturing high and low hurdle, as well as, low, long, and high jumping honors.

A poor student, Hike never matriculated to a quality post secondary education, nor did his short-lived military career as an Air Force mail-sorter burnish his once sterling record of achievement.  Sorben was asked politely to leave the military two years earlier than his required enlistment agreement due to his penchant for bounding over base shrubbery, barbed wire fences, barracks bags and napping Airmen.

He became a US Postal letter sorter and moved to Wyoming in 1970, where he competed in local track and field events until his 2012 visit to the Grand Canyon.

Services closed to the public and family.

Why Allow Gang Bangers a Church Burial?

November 26th one dead and one wounded at a gang funeral in Chicago.

On Monday, a gang funeral was interrupted by gunfire.  Jesus did not tell Dismas, " This day you shall be with me in paradox."  A paradox is a statement that defies logic like " A gangster's Church burial."

My neighborhood is littered with 9mm casings fired in salute to a departed gangbanger on the way to Mount Hope Cemetery.

At one time, gangsters were refused burial in Catholic services.  Dean O'Banion is one of the most notorious of examples. In our "Well, Who's To Say" culture, Mr. & Mrs. Pecksniff have staked out the moral high-heap and wring hands that God forgives all.  He do?  Why did He knock out Ten Big Rules?  Thou Shalt Not Kill is a pretty heavy favorite in all cultures.  Gangster Culture stands rigidly opposed to God and His Decalogue:

I am the LORD thy God - Nigga, Please!
Thou shalt have no other gods - Bling, Benjamins, Bitches
No graven images or likenesses - Represent How???????
Not take the LORD's name in vain - Dayem!
Remember the sabbath day - Is the sabbath every Saturday
Honour thy father and thy mother -  Lemme two-twelve wit' you for second, holla at you

Thou shalt not kill -some hot spitters !Bear with us or bear witness, live to die, it's on nigga!
Thou shalt not commit adultery -  no hoes bro ain't neva been no lames 
Thou shalt not steal -  I'm a ride baby til the judge give me a verdict yeah! 
Thou shalt not bear false witness -'cause the chedda brings change in the game 
Thou shalt not covet -Money and murder you my nigga my jelly preserver 

 The sentiments are gangstah -every race, cred and color.

Live the LIFE and get dead.  Fair play to you. Once departed exit without fanfare from all or any of us.

No Mr. & Mrs. Pecksniff might chirp, " Who's to judge?"  Who is to say? Everyone has a right to burial rites?

On the other hand, Catholic burial rites are to be refused to the following, unless they gave some sign of repentance before death:

1. Persons well known to be guilty of apostasy, heresy or schism;
2. Those who asked to be cremated for anti-Christian motives;
3. Manifest sinners, if the granting of Church funeral rites to them would cause scandal to Catholic

Family of the departed? Do give them (Gangsta Cuz) a nice fitting send-off, but one that remains unblessed by the very church and creed gangsta life spits upon. At family expense, as well.

Perhaps, the person who feels that faith and community have no part in his life and does everything in his power while drawing breath to befoul what they represent might not require church and community send-off when it is time to take his case to God Almighty.

Rest In Peace: John "Jack" Gallapo- A Quiet Hero of Korea

 Chicago Fireman John " Jack" Gallapo (left) and Chief Jim Corbett spent their wonder years in Korea as Marines. Here they are in 2011 at the re-dedication ceremony for Leo High School's Medal of Honor Hero John Fardy, USMC.

 Gallapo, John J., Jr., USMC - Awarded: Silver Star - Korean War

 Gallapo,Jr., John "Jack" Ret. CFD, Veteran USMC. Beloved husband of the late Joyce M. Gallapo (nee Walsh); loving father of Michael (Maureen) CFD, Robert (Gay Marie) CFD, Jane Hoff, John (Lauretta), and William (Anna) Gallapo CFD; cherished grandfather of 12; adored great-grandfather of 6; fond brother of the late Lois (the late AI) Wegenast; dear brother-in-law of Lorane Ryan and Patricia (Henry) Thompson; dear uncle of many nieces and nephews. Visitation Wednesday, from 2:00pm until 9:00 pm. Funeral service Thursday, 10:30 am at Curley Funeral Home, 6116 West 111th Street, Chicago Ridge. Interment private. Past president of Chicago Fire Fighters Union Local #2, B.A. Local #2, 60 year member of Cement Mason Union Local #502, presently serving as Sargent of Arms. In lieu of flowers, donations to the Chicago Fire Department Widows and Orphans Fund, 20 South Clark, Suite 1400, Chicago, IL 60603 would be appreciated. 708-422-2700

Christ, welcome home a hero. 

Puck Fair August 10, 1977 - When I met Hector Piggott

 

I have seen quite a bit in my three score years on the old Terra-  phones went off the wall and into my pocket, slide-rules became calculators, televisions won't work unless I pay not only my light bill, but a fee to a cable company.  Yes, it has been one interesting glide on the old pavement. Shucks, in no time at all Governor Pat Quinn will sign legislation that Noel Coward could have used with Clifton Webb ( both gents were gayer than 1890 picnics) to start having little Noel Webbs, or Clifton Cowards and singing show tunes around the Steinway in the parlor.

Wild stuff. Now, I have been to three Puck Fairs, fourteen Kankakee County Fairs, three hog call contests, but I have never seen anything like Hector Piggott.

 Ah, the The Puck Fair - packed pubs and plethorae pints; food items that would sicken a starving goat - like King Puck Himself. Voila! Black Pudding Eggs

Puck Fairs, you ask?  The Puck Fair* takes place in the town of Killorglin, in County Kerry Ireland.  I have been to three as I stated.  The Puck Fair is a wild festival notable for the hosting of Travellers from all over the British Isles. The Travellers are gypsies - folks who move about in Caravans, or recreational rolling homes - campers, RVs. They tend to be adept in the roguish arts -three card Monte, con games, bucket drop artists and the odd thief, or twenty in a score.

The Puck Fair is named for King Puck - a goat who is placed in a tower for the three days of the fair.  You will see fire walkers, bearded ladies and beardless laddies, snake charmers and charming snakes on two legs or less.  It is quite fun.

In 1977, after my sophomore of teaching high school, I went Ireland.  On August 10th I went to my sophomore Puck Fair - my freshman year Puck Fair took place in 1974, the year I took my Artium Baccalaureus from Loyola University, but had not encountered the Prodigious Hector Piggott, it was Golden '77 that this encounter took place.

I had a good time at the fair and generally kept my wits about me ; being a Catholic high school teacher blessed me with impecunity and thus, a small level of restraint as far as potent potables. I took in the sights and sounds and smells and generally avoided over-indulgence and occasions of getting my ass-kicked by the Pikeys, or the locals.  I was not lured to games of chance by Hibernian Hucksters nor gulled into an unseemly amorous ambush by the slatternly sirens who seemed to crowd out the causeway. Lovely samplings, but I declined.

It was a sign proclaiming - The Prodigious Piggott in the Tent Beyond -Absolutely NO Women Allowed, Clergy Included that hooked this fish.

For an entry fee of three Shillings, about $1.75 at the 1977 rate of exchange, I had to witness this marvel. Within a shabby and wind-torn canvas, there were no seats and barely room for man and boy, but wedged in as the show began.

A man in an Edwardian black cape that fair covered his naked ankles stood before the scores of gawkers. He was toothless, unshavenly homely and stood a full 6' tall.  With a flourish he opened the cape to reveal himself in his full Adam suit.   

The man of sixty years was gifted with Wedding Tackle that unprovoked and limp defied the hem of the cloak for mastership of his ankles.

"Them Canadian Mounties'd have no task trackin' this Yoke in the frozen North!"

" Cupid's Howitzer, so!"

"Aye, So! The Good Lord sh'pent long week plannin' that bosthun's pudding."

However, the Prodigious Piggott coaxed this appendage into full charge with a deft manipulation of his fingers and . . .. Behold Leviathan Itself!

The tent gasped in manly admiration and universal acclaim.  However, Piggott was not done.  With the Leviathan Rampant he managed to place three walnuts on a table and then proceeded to pummel each with a single stroke of Flesh Made Steel.

Sir Georg Solti never heard an applause like the one I added to in that tent.

In 1998, I returned to Ireland and the Puck Fair.  I was into the marrow of mid-life and recently widowed.  The entertainment afforded in Killorglin might knock the cobwebs from my soul.   I was astonished to see a sign pointing my path to a tent shrouding the majesty of  The Prodigious Hector Piggott.  I had to see this; my God, the man must be all of ninety.  He was.

He was yet a marvel of God's gift to man and talisman of the species.  Ninety years old and change and in his fullest of powers!

This time, however, once he had whaled the langer into full charge like a fire hose at 2/11 blaze, Hector Piggott placed three huge coconuts on the table and executed each one's demise with a single bludgeon from his Leviathan, sending chunks and bits of them brown hairy fruit in wide arches about the tent.

When the awed tent of Kerrymen retreated to Puck Fair Causeway, I had to ask The Prodigious Piggott - "Sir, why at your age did you select a larger and more robust target for your equipment?"

Drawing himself to his fullest height and the Edwardian Black Cape about himself, Hector Piggot cocked an eyebrow and offered,  " Me eyes ain't so good these days, Yank."

There by hangs this Tale.

*Puck Fair:1613 to Today : There are many legends which suggest an origin for the Fair, many of which are wildly inventive, but there is no written record stating when the Fair started. It can however be traced back to a charter from 1603 by King James I granting legal status to the existing fair in Killorglin.
It has been suggested that it is linked to pre-Christian celebrations of a fruitful harvest and that the male goat or "Puck" was a pagan symbol of fertility, like the pagan god Pan.

The origins of the fair have thus been lost in the midst of antiquity, and various commissions set up over the past two hundred years have tried in vain to date them. Evidence suggests that the fair existed long before written record of everyday occurrences were kept as there is one written reference from the 17th Century in existence which grants Jenkins Conway, the local landlord at the time, the right to collect a sum for every animal brought to the August Fair. This would suggest that the Fair was something already well established in the local community.

With special thanks to Max Weismann

Michael Moriarty's " Big Town Boy" - Big Time Jazz

My expatriate pal, a son of Canaryville himself, Michael Moriarty is one talented gent.  A captain of the stage and screen, Mr. Moriarty sails the keyboards and brings in boadloads of musical compositions that recall the best in jazz -America's greatest art form.

Not only that the the tall athletic Mick has a more than decent set of pipes.

Boys to Men - Only If We Skip Gender Fluidity

BOYS. . . Leo's Lioness -Aurora Latifi -THE Woman who Loves Them!

I crashed English teacher Robert Sills' 9th Period class yesterday.  I grabbed one of the guys to discuss an 'incident' that took place the previous Friday.  As I had guessed it was much ado about nothing, to quote Mayor Emanuel when his staff was caught illegally taping a dialog between Rahm and a reporter.  Taping a conversation is so gender fluidly passive that no such thing would happen here in a Catholic all male high school - one deals with a problem head on.  That methodology has worked for centuries.

When I returned the likely lad to his class, I decided to catch up on the group work and discussion concerning the plot of the Hunger Games. The story is about a young woman trapped in a futuristic dystopia created by males that requires a lottery to determine combatants of both genders, and I imagine those questioning their sexual preferences and identities as well. In sum, America is composed of a Capital dedicated to the pleasure and luxury of the wealthy, attractive and athletic class and the twelve surrounding impoverished Districts populated by industrial slugs, breeders and close-knit ethnics, or hillybilly bible and gun hugging helots.Interestingly this post-apocalyptic USA is called Panem, which is Latin for Bread.

The protagonist is Katniss, a mythical Diana/Atemis forest dwelling huntress and her male counterpart is Peeta, a gender fluid baker's boy.  One on one the chick would take out the dude, because she got game. . . Hell,she stalked game.

I asked the lads, "How about it?"

" There's some tough girls"

You may say. However, would a Katniss start for Leo at defensive tackle, or power forward?

There was a roaring answer to the negative.

I went into a summary of the Illiad and focused on the convention ( there are five to epic poetry) of beginning in the middle of things ( In Media Res) and explained the starter for the Achaens -the Greeks - was sulking in his tent: Achilles.  Achilles is what being a boy is all about.  He is like every one of the twenty guys in Mr. Sills' freshman English Class -petulant, argumentative, egoistic, angry, violent, willful and easily distracted,
In short, Achilles is all boy.  Our culture has no time, patience, or sympathy for budding males.

Boys are ignored, bullied and persecuted in grammar schools, because the schools are not meant for boys. . . . Sloppy, smelly, scatter-brained, bored, loud, disgusting willful boys. One of our Canaryville boys, a skinny, athletic little smart-ass in very bad need of a hair cut named Sal, has grammar school 'rap sheet' that is as thick as an Oak Lawn phone book with with disciplinary reports form Miss J, Mrs, B, Ms.K and Mrs. Q indicating a completely unrecalitrant blaggard, sloven and scoundrel destined for the gallows.

In fact, this young bothersome scapegrace is scary smart - he picks up math at all levels like a Shop Vac.  Boys are not in the least like girls and must not be treated as such.

I have watched Illinois certified K-12 male teachers trained in gender neutral methodologies collapse into jello when confronted with a classroom packed with young males.  Boys get bored when teaching is boring, rote, unimaginative and unloved.  If a teacher does not love his subject, but demands a paycheck, boys will eat him for breakfast.

Our strongest teacher is a woman from Albania who loves boys and knows that boys learn differently from girls and knows her discipline inside and out.  Mrs. Aurora Latifi is better male role model than most of the boys have in their lives, despite her feminine grace and exotic beauty, because she loves men and demands their best - self-discipline, gallantry and masculine empathy.

I read a wonderful essay by a Canadian journalist Margaret Wente who summed up my experience in Robert Sills; 9th period English class, concerning the neglect and abuse of boys in our culture -

. . . in the modern world, boys are often treated as a problem. The dominant narrative around difficult boys – at least in the public school system – is that they’re unteachable, unreachable, disruptive and threatening. Many commentators – men as well as women – blame male culture itself for the problems with boys. In their view, what we need to do is destroy the death star of masculinity and all the evil that goes with it. What we need to do is put boys in touch with their emotions and teach them to behave more like girls.
This argument might make some sense – if you’re someone who believes that masculinity is nothing but a social construct. But people who care about real boys know that’s not true. They know you have to celebrate boys’ boyness – and work with it. Many boys’ schools are trying to do just that.(emphasis my own)

Leo High School most certainly does just that. Our boys range in age from 14- 94.  Merry-hearted boys make the best of Old Men. Real women, like Aurora Latifi recognize just that.  My guy Sal will either be a Nobel Prize laureate in math/science, or, if his public grammar school teachers are correct, some kind of James Bond villain.  I think the former.

The Jumbo ($96 Billion) Book - Gov. Pat "The Elephant's Child" Quinn and the Pension Python

  "How would you like to spank somebody?" said the Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snake.

"I should like it very much indeed," said the Elephant's Child.Rudyard Kipling (1865- 1936)



Quinn says the cartoon snake represents the squeeze the state's pension liability is putting on voters.  That liability is now estimated to be at least $96 billion and according to the governor it costs $17 million a day just to keep up.

Let's Hear it for Illinois' First Lummox!

Catch 'Something Cool' at Katerina's - Gayle Kolb Sings June Christy

The lovely Gayle Kolb, a south side girl with the pipes of a  sexy angel pays tribute to the great June Christy at Katerina's on Irving Park Road this Tuesday Night.

June Christy was the vocalist for the Stan Kenton Orchestra in the late 1940's and early 1950's, who was sensational artist who phrased lyrics like no one else.   Gayle Kolb is a Chicago born Jazz artist who fills the atmosphere with smart and sexy phrasing like no one else.

Get to Katerina's for Gayle Kolb's June Christy Birthday Tribute.

Ms. Kolb will be accompanied by the great Tommy Muellner on piano.



Katerina's $10 Cover -8PM Tuesday November 20th
  1920 West Irving Park Road  Chicago, IL 60613
(773) 348-7592 - For Reservations.

Journalism that Matters

All men are frauds. The only difference between them is that some admit it. I myself deny it.

H. L. Mencken

I would kill to know what this was about!

Jacey Eckhart - Another Magnificent Woman

General Petreaus had opportunity, distance and an aging marriage.  Out went fidelity.  The guy hooked up with a toothsome bit of baggage - a West Point and Harvard Educated careerist new woman.  The General had a close-cropped noggin which befitted his Samson role and like the long-tressed biblical warrior-judge of Israel went all Delilah weak in the knees for the athletically toned and wildly ambitious globe trotting stalker bint.

Sic Transit Omnia.

The General did not lose a battle, turn tail and run from the enemy, or loot the Officer's Club revenue.  Sadly, like too many males, the weaker gender, he went trappin' the wrong crick. 

Fidelity ( faithfulness) is the stay against age, distance, circumstance, opportunity, flattery and the libido.  Fidelity is a practiced virtue and one of most neglected in our shabby culture.  We are shabby because we make excuses instead of obligations.  Women, it seems to me, are much more adept at toughening themselves and their mates to fidelity. That we are all weak is given, but it is the woman who holds ledger of accountability.

A man will announce a birthday party for his six year old daughter with paternal bravado and promises of paternal largess; a woman will write and send invitations, plan, decorate, bake, purchase and wrap gifts and execute the activities for a household and yard stuffed with young miscreants and their mothers. Pater Familias will arrive hours late with a snootful and receive the hugs and squeals of Little Liza - "Thank You, Daddy!"

Women are magnificent!

In the wake of the Petraeus gossip, I caught the words of a young military wife who has watched her faithful husband go off to war, just like Mrs. Petraeus.  This young woman has a faithful mate.  She appreciates his fidelity and shares ideas with the other 800,000 military spouses who wave goodbye to their spouses - too often.

Jacey Eckhart is the young wife of a naval officer.  She enjoys a good marriage, because she and her mate work at it, rather than work on excuses. She is very much like the wives that I know of personally who say goodbye to ComEd linemen, Peoples Gas workers, cops, firemen, nurses, EMTs, and, yes, even teachers- people who into harms' way everyday.   Tomorrow is promised to no one, but that is not license to act like a jerk. These beautifully magnificent women, like the wives/husbands of military spouses,  work at mutual fidelity - the human races greatest insurance company.  Their spouses can not wait to come home.

Jacey Eckhart tells why

This weekend I treated my husband to the same scene that probably played out in the bedrooms of all 800,000 active-duty marriages. Ours was crowned with me stomping out of the tub clad in a towel and crying, “Please, please, promise me that won’t ever happen to us!”
My husband of 25 years thought this was the silliest thing I have ever said. And I have said a lot about infidelity through our own history of 7 deployments, 16 moves and 2 so-called geographic bachelor tours, when he was sent on assignment without us.
I don’t mean that either of us has jealous tantrums or that either of us is a cheater. I mean that when military life requires that you spend so much time apart, your marriage confronts one of the factors shown to contribute to infidelity: opportunity.
When we were first married, the opportunity was all mine. My husband was stationed on an all-male ship in the middle of the Persian Gulf. I was a 22-year-old girl who thought it was “no biggie” to go dancing with a bunch of naval aviators. “It was just dancing,” I claimed. “What are you so mad about?”
Later, the opportunity was all his. I was home with a baby and no friends, and he was making port visits. One night he woke me up with a call from a 7-Eleven in Daytona Beach, Fla. “Some girl was flirting with me a little too much,” he said. “I thought I should go get a Klondike bar instead.”
Although there are no firm numbers about infidelity and the military, I suspect that we are a lot like other Americans. From my experience as a military marriage consultant, I’d estimate that a third of military marriages are probably blighted by infidelity — about the same as civilian marriages.
And so we set up our little rules and policies to keep our marriage safe. We talk. We identify the rare, much-too-attractive individuals in our work and social circles whom we need to keep at arm’s length. Fidelity is ingrained in us now.
. . . What are our meager defenses against age and distance and opportunity? We talk about the Petraeuses as if we know them; we don’t, personally, but in a way we know their life story intimately. And now we know, as they do, that history isn’t enough to keep a long military marriage together.No, I think we always knew it. It is just that now we have a reason to look at this new fidelity and make our plans for the deployments to come.
We reassure each other. We discuss strategy. We laugh over our shared past. We head back to bed.

Women are magnificent.  Jacey Eckhart is a magnificent woman.

Jacey Eckhart, the spouse editor for Military.com, is the author of “The Homefront Club: The Hardheaded Woman’s Guide to Raising a Military Family.”

Eric Zorn Ignores the UN Declaration of Human Rights

Gay Marriage is serious about Illinois - Is Illinois Serious?

Eric Zorn carries more water than Gunga Din - he carried buckets for Rahm's Garbage Grid and has strenuously liquefied the parched tongues of Civil Union advocates, abortion on demanders and now for immediate Gay Marriage in Illinois. Today, close on the heels of Rahm Emanuel's latest nod to his money base and the Progressive zeitgeist tagging Gay Marriage as Priority Three, EZ barrels the basic human right meme:

 All Illinois can do now is hop on the train of history. The trend lines show it's about to roll over the obstinate states where legislators refuse to recognize the inevitability, if not the wisdom and justice, of same-sex couples getting the same rights to formalize their relationships that are enjoyed by opposite-sex couples.

The same rights?  Even the United Nations does not view gay marriage as a human right, much less a requirement to equate Stonewall with Selma, or recalibrate homophobia to school-yard bullying. That is for the journalists and academic procrustean bullies to pound away at once the funding comes through from the usual sources.

The United Nations lays out basic humam rights and specifically sites marriage -

United Nations Declaration of Human Rights

Article 16.

• (1) Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family. They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution.
• (2) Marriage shall be entered into only with the free and full consent of the intending spouses.
• (3) The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State.

The Civil Union Act, fogged as a Religious Freedom dodge by Greg Harris and company in the Illinois Legislature, immediately attacked Catholic Charities.  Catholic Charities was bullied out of its service to children without families.  Civil Unions just could not wait. Illinois got on the gay side of history and went to war on millions of Catholics.  How about that?

No Catholic ever said outlaw homosexuals (LGBTQ) or gay culture.  The opposite can not be said to be public knowlege.

Eric Zorn works the meme that Homosexual Marriage is a Basic Human Right.  Marriage is and has been a social contract between men and women for as long as Homo Erectus put two syllables together, Will and Grace, Glee, Modern Family and Ellen DeGeneres notwithstanding.

Illinois is bankrupt, to paint with as broad a brush as Zorn the Scrivener, families and businesses are doing the Exodus from this  Land of Progressive Pharaoh, school choice is unavailable to inner city and struggling rural families and our media do the bidding of Progressive PACS, academic eunuchs, and fiscal star gazers. Go Down, Moses!

Greg Harris armed with the fortunes of Henry Van Amerigen and Fred Eychaner, who wholly own a handsome portion of the Illinois legislators and the media in Illinois artfully bulled through the wildly misleading and divisive Religious Freedom and Civil Union Act, set the table for the Religious Freedom and Marriage Freedom Act, which was tucked away due to the Illinois fiscal collapse and the looming re- election of President Obama. He might be the 1st Gay President, but Barack wanted no rocks and hard places on his path.

The media and the elected officials who take the coin of the Pink Pharaohs argue the basic human right of sexual preference that can only be satisfied by the immediate recalibration of  the meaning of Marriage.

One may argue one's position, but do so with at least a wink to honesty. Gay Marriage will no doubt take effect in Illinois very soon, but let's not pretend that it will not be the result of vast piles of cash paid out in bribe money to clueless at best and spineless at most politicians.


UPDATE - I guess I hurt Eric's feelings:

ZORN REPLY -- Let me cut you off there, Beth. That's just Pat Hickey. More people would read his screeds if he wrote them with a Sharpie on a bathroom wall, which is where they belong. I'm not going to enable him by posting the link, though, as his arguments are ignorant, bitter and small. We don't need that here, now, do we?

Ignorant, bitter and small arguments.  Man I could be a Columnist!