CTU Boss Jesse Sharkey Wants Forest Claypool to Pick up Another Govt. Pension, After Getting Bounced from CPS

The ISO have found a leadership position within the CTU in the form of Jesse Sharkey, who is vice president. And Sharkey turns out being a run-of-the-mill sellout artist working to undermine teachers' conditions and benefits. This can't go on forever, they're running on borrowed time. I expect they think they're stalling until martial law is placed on the United States as part of a new authoritarian framework, which they will no doubt welcome. Comments from ISO member International Socialist Website

 
"He (Forrest Claypool) is unfit to be CEO.  He has earned the contempt of teachers and parents across the city" Jesse Sharkey ISO/CTU

Wow.  Harsh.

You won't read the above comment in your Sun Times, Sneedless to say, nor will you read this anywhere in the Chicago Tribune, but the Boss of the CTU, which just made Rahm rollover again, wants career grifter and poly-pension portfolio collector, Forrest Claypool out as CEO pf CPS and into the starting blocks of yet another pension package. This was in DNAinfo Chicago

Three days after the teachers union reached a tentative agreement on a new contract with the district, Sharkey, the union's second in command, said Claypool had "run the system off the edge of a cliff."
"He is unfit to be CEO," Sharkey said. "He has earned the contempt of teachers and parents across the city" by threatening mass layoffs and deep program cuts to schools.
Sharkey, however, stopped short of calling for Claypool's ouster.

Forrest Claypool herded with Progressives, but used Regular Democrats and then cast them into the darkness.


Never do a solid for a Lefty.

Forrest Claypool has put the gratitude blade into the kidneys of scores of City Hall and Cook County regulars, as well as fellow Progressives,but nowhere near the hundreds of working people at Chicago Park District, CTA and CPS in exercising Claypool policies of smoke and mirrors - fire long-time competent employees and hire more very temporary unskilled 'apprentices.'

When Claypool was Rahm Emanuel's CTA CEO he orchestrated the vilification of Amalgamated Transit Workers President Bob Kelley in months long Orwellian Morality Drama featuring Pastor Pfleger, Danny Davis, Bobby Rush, ex-cons and community activists, because Kelly stood up for his people.

The Chicago Tribune and the Sun Times pooh-pooh notions that Claypool is a fraud at best and louse in fact.

Now, the International Socialist puppet master of Chicago Teachers Unions, Jesse Sharkey ( another buzzcut Bolshevik, like Jon Podesta and Locke Bowman, for those of us keeping track) wants Claypool's wispy scalp the lodge pole outside of his CTU wickiup, in order to show off to his tribe the Medicine of ISO.

Strong Medicine.  Ask Leo Trotsky.

Well, I gotta go along with Red Jesse.

Forrest Claypool is a skunk of the first waters. However, I would rather not watch Forrest Claypool collect another pension.  

Homework for Our Sun Times Watch Dogs - Connect the Dots Between Cop-Hating Policy and Jamie Kalven's Real Estate Ventures

“We'll go wherever the conversation takes us, but our point of departure will be an exchange about the stories our lives become in the world — the narratives we construct with our actions, the narratives others impose on us, strategies of narrative self-defense (including silence), and questions of narrative stewardship and responsibility.These issues, which are present for anyone who intervenes and acts in the world, are boldly dramatized by the lives of Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn.” Jamie Kalven

You just gotta say, 'Dude' when Jamie Kalven appears. You just gotta.



Here's some weekend fun!  I tried to make homework fun when I was an English teacher.  Well, unless I wasn't pissed off, or feeling sorry for myself because Catholic high school's paid such crumby salaries. . .sorry. . . .and I attempted to give the kids a chance to make some intellectual inquiries that were of some use to them. Make up a Canterbury Tale of your own that makes fun of your English teacher, or the guy working at Belscott's who never seems to bathe.  Go fishing on the mighty Kankakee River and do a Nick Adams Story like Old Ernie. Stuff like that.

I have one for the very best investigative journalists in Chicago - the Sun Times Watchdogs  a changing band of brother reporters.   The Watchdogs of the Sun Times, far too often confused by the editors with the always hapless Andy Shaw, presented the fruits of Jamie Kalven's labors - the long list of beefs against cops going back to 1967 - and never once mention Jamie Kalven.

Just wondering.  The CRs listed are the ones that came after Kalven's Citizens Police Data Project and the subsequent Justice Department inquiries, but shucks it's Jamie Kalven!

Now, how about some extra-credit!

Do a fun piece on Jamie Kalven, because this week he is all the rage!

I would like the Watchdogs to connect some dots for us - here is the clue - Real Estate!

Task: Find out how many real estate ventures Jamie Kalven had connected to Allison Davis and Altegeld Gardens and offer a commentary.  Was it interesting?  Was it lucrative> Does it have impact on Policing?  Bet it does.

Jamie Kalven is not only an activist but he is a well -insulated Progressive real estate player! He used to present himself as a real estate novelist a la Billy Joel, but has Google washed that past.

Yesterday DNAinfo informed all of us that Jamie Kalven - the hard-hitting Real Estate Novelist, Venture Marxist and founder of the Invisible Institute ( leading the way for a Shakman-like Empire in Cook County) - papered the City of Chicago with more than 40,000 copies of his findings

HYDE PARK — If you haven’t read Hyde Park journalist Jamie Kalven’s four-year-long reporting project on corruption in the Chicago Police Department, it’s about to become almost unavoidable.
Starting this weekend, Kalven will distribute to 400 locations across the city 40,000 free copies of his 20,000-word, four-part series on an alleged criminal gang of drug dealers operating within the police department for nearly 10 years with the knowledge of police leadership.
Kalven has become the leading voice on problems within Chicago’s police ranks. He has released documents showing officers subject to frequent complaints from the public go unpunished and was an early voice pointing out problems with the shooting of Laquan McDonald by officer Jason Van Dyke.

Not only that, but also - there is a Jamie Kalven Mythology roll-out Nationwide! It's sensational - in the real meaning of the word!

James Warren of Vanity Fair and formerly Chicago Tribune calls it a hit that only needs a great musical score!

Imagine “The Wire,” “Serpico,” “Prince of the City” and “The Shield” rolled into one. It's why Hollywood producers should read “The Code of Silence” and give Chicago freelance journalist Jamie Kalven a call. . . .It's also a tale both of how mainstream media often blows law enforcement coverage and how potentially important stories run smack into journalistic conventions and just get lost. . . .His expose is like the grittiest fictionalized drama: dirty cops, abject poverty in crime-ridden projects, people wearing wires, murders to silence informants, the good guys being demonized and put in real peril, and ultimately a department hierarchy looking the other way.

Set it to music, Chief Keef!

 Can you say Hamilton?  How about Kalven?  Too, close to that other Calvin - the Klein guy?  Maybe.  How about Jamie!  Jamie, Lad! Right out of Master of Ballintrae. Sen-SAYSHUNAL!

Every left leaning magazine, broadcast outlet, talk-hub, podcast, website, newspaper and cop hating rag in the nation, Huffington Post, Slate, Jet, Vanity Fair, Al Jazeera, and, of course, NPR, are picking up James Warren's Poynter Piece - Meet Jamie Kalven.

James Warren not only wrote the Vanity Fair fallation, but seems to be the media's go-to narrative, which can only mean legal and cultural policy to follow close on the act - root and branch.

Jamie Kalven is talking up a plenty his own bad self! Kalven lays out the coordination orchestrated over decades of Burge Bashing and honed sharply during the Richie Daley Final Days.  A tiny Polish bartender female was horribly beaten by drunken monster, taking the day off as a cop, and that was caught on camera.  Kalven lays out just how quickly two leading Lawsuit Lotto Lawyers welded up the off-duty heroics of Abbate to the Burge Mythology = Futterman and Bowman.

The joint motion created a situation in which the public interest was unrepresented. Two law professors who specialize in police abuse cases — Craig Futterman of the University of Chicago and Locke Bowman of Northwestern University — intervened on behalf of the public. They argued that if the city was allowed to “buy its way out of” the judgment, it would have no incentive to make the necessary reforms. Judge St. Eve ruled against the city, holding that the jury verdict regarding the code of silence “has a social value to the judicial system and public at large.”
In their effort to have the code of silence verdict set aside, city lawyers argued that the CPD had enacted significant reforms since the 2007 bar incident. And they emphasized that the department was now led by a new superintendent who would not permit such behavior to go unpunished.

Did it?  Seems to me things dragged not at all.

Kalven leaves out the looong Koschman Case championed by Carol Marin.  Why is that?

The Sun Times played code of silence with louder frequency than a Packey Webb Ford's jingle and the masterpiece of a Locke Bowman return to fray with the Batman of Burge Bashing and Jon Burge Mythology Author horry old G. Flint Taylor and together they fronted for the Carol Marin aggrieved and the completed welding job on Systemic Racist Code of Silence Culture of Corruption  that was G. Flint Taylor-made for a spot at Penny Pritzker Park.

I sure would like to see some real investigation by our Watchdogs.

I would like to be brought fully up to speed on Jamie Kalven and all of his works.

This is extra credit.  You are not being paid to do this.   Have fun!  I hope.

Kristen McQueary Warns of Rahm Emanuel's Turd Therm, er, Third Term!

“I know she has begun to hate everyday Americans,” wrote her campaign manager, John Podesta, in an email. Wikileaks
 

The smart, honest and bovine scat -free member of Col. McCormick's Editorial Board is Kristen McQueary.  A reporter, special feature and political opinion columnist, who wore out her Keds chasing stories for the venerable Daily Southtown, Kristen McQueary retains her chops as an editorial board member.

That confuses me.  She is on the Chicago Tribune. 

But, Hey! So is the one of the only authentic voices of middle America, John Kass.

Well, I guess if they want some readers to look at Mary Schmich, Eric Zorn, Ron Grossman, Rex Huppke and read Bruce Dold's anonymous nonsense that the reverse logic of the Col.'s Tower must toss some Kielbasa and Spuds before the Swedish Fish and Gummy Patch Worms out onto the sidewalks for Stosh, Stell, Nacho, Al, Ruby and Monroe.

Kass and Kristen are the wholesome nutritious inducements for the empty calories. No candy until the meat and spuds are ate up. 

God.  No wonder Hillary Hates everyday Americans.

Kristen McQueary Loves Us!

She is one of us.  You can catch her rolling her eyes over the business end of a Fat Tommy's hot dog, at bad softball calls all summer up at Kennedy Park.

Kristen McQueary is one of us and does not treat people with contempt, but respect and hard-won facts, figures and opinion whether we agree or not.

She gets to it right off the bat.

In  three years, Chicago voters will be back at the polls weighing candidates for mayor. That's a long time for Mayor Rahm Emanuel to rehabilitate his relationship with voters, should he decide to seek a third term.
More to the point: Three years is long enough for voters to forget.

That we do.  We might not forgive, but we easily forget.  That is why Americans need a free uncorrupted press.

Kristen McQueary is a fine example.   Like a BevMom, McQueary points to our bikes left on old Jack McNicholas's lawn and the twenty or so empty Capri Sun Juice bags tossed here and about.

The city's and Chicago Public Schools' finances have tanked. Instead of tackling the budget books immediately in 2011, Emanuel embarked on the politically safe route of borrowing money for operations and counting it as revenue. He wasn't honest about the need to downsize city government and yes, raise property taxes. Even if Gov. Bruce Rauner signs a law that enables the property tax increase Emanuel pushed through City Council last fall, the money won't be enough to meet the obligations city leaders have racked up. Not even close. The city's pension funds remain dangerously underfunded, and the Illinois Supreme Court on Thursday rejected a plan to fix two of them.

Fleeing crime-ridden neighborhoods for the suburbs are Chicago's lifeblood: sturdy, middle-class families who embody this city's poetic "big shoulders." Carl Sandburg would be alarmed.
Despite that backdrop, Emanuel and the City Council spent the last few months touting new tourist attractions and bike paths, boasting of the elimination of a tampon tax, and proposing an increased fine for not picking up dog poop, which is contributing to a growing rat population citywide.
You can't make this stuff up.

Would that were the case, Mrs. McQueary.  Laid out for us are all the things we tend to forget about with the passage of time and cascades of idiotic Council Ordinances and taxes.

Kristen McQueary gives voice to the things we tend to forget with a sharp, but loving "Patrick Francis! Get back here and pick up all of your 'last few months touting new tourist attractions and bike paths, boasting of the elimination of a tampon tax, and proposing an increased fine for not picking up dog poop, which is contributing to a growing rat population citywide.' Now, take care of your things!  Remember that!  Get busy!"

Alright.


In 1961 Steve Allen* said, Chicagoans had an "unneurotic voice."   It is a clear, uncomplicated, direct and authentic voice.

Kristen McQueary is a diva!





* Going Home  Chicago Voice 49.00

The Danger of Quality - Bill Knapp's is Delightfully Pestiferous!

 

One of the things that our customers grew to expect from our restaurants was quality food. They could count on the fact that the Bill Knapp's name stood for good, traditional, quality food. Retail shoppers today have those same expectations. If it has our name on it, they expect it to be good! - Bill Knapp

Family owned businesses are the only places I choose to champion.  I grew up on 79th Street, which according to Professor Eileen McMahon had businesses for every need from obstetrician to mortuary.
We went to Weiss's Five and Dime, Frank's Full Service Department Store, bought Whoopee Cushions and fake Dog Poop at Reilly's Trick Shop, got regular boys haircuts at Max Esposito's Barbershop, bread, cakes and cookies at Highland Bakery, bought new gravel agitators at Shapiro's Shoes, fidgeted at DuBois' Studios for 1st Communion and Graduation pictures and browsed Raymar's Terminal Merchandise for low-end values and Civil War era chewing gum at a penny a dozen. My Mom would take me to Lithuanian Doctor Anthony for a tetanus shots after every unsanctioned visit to Raymar's .

People bought good food at neighborhood groceries and National Tea Company, or the Hi-Lo until Jewel ran them out of business and suits, sport coats and dresses that lasted.  Quality meant it tasted, looked, felt and proved that working people purchased good things.

Now, we have CVS, WalGreens,WalMarts, Targets, TJ Max, Marshall's, Doc in the Box Med Depot, TGIF and WTF Friday's Eat Same troughs.

Quality is something that stirs memories.

No south sider of my three score and change years can ever forget the glories of Dressel's Cream Cakes at 6630 S. Ashland Ave. - they were what special occasions are all about.

In summers we would go to the Irish Riviera's of Wisconsin, Michigan, or Indiana.  The Hickey's tended to pilgrimage on Michigan's Red Arrow Highway and stay at Cassio's Cottages owned my Mr. Cassio from St. Mary of Mount Carmel Parish on 69th & Hermitage.

On the way up, we would stop at Bill Knapp's restaurant outside of St. Joe where they had exquisite donuts called Dunkers - two inch cakes shaped like a Pierogi for dunking in milk, coffee, or tea. They were of the fry-cake variety and extra crispy on the outside. But the Cadillac breakfast supplement was the glazed dunkers and the Rolls Royce was the Enrobed Donut & Dunker - a great donut enrobed in thick real chocolate.

County Fair Foods, owned and operated for more than 50 years by the Baffes Family, sells Bill Knapp Dunkers.

I have no kids at home . . .at the moment . . .and I dare not buy a box of eight - because I'll ate all eight.

Quality is out there. It is not under Arches, or in a big box warehouse.

Pensions Looted for Profit is Re(a)d Meat - Tim Novak Rides Again!

“Valerie Jarrett served as a board member for several organizations that provided funding and support for Chicago housing projects operated by real estate developers and Obama financial backers Rezko and Allison Davis. (Davis is also Obama’s former boss.)…

"The old social actionists are largely men of action, doers, not talkers. The new social actionists are intellectuals...They are masters at manipulating words and sometimes ideas...They are fervent crusaders." Andrew Greeley - "Catholic Social Action"

I rarely agreed with Fr. Andy Greeley.  Social change is brought about by people who actually, not virtually, do good. Real people, like Father George Clements and  Fr. Dan Mallette actually Marched for Civil Rights with Dr. King, because they followed clerics like Bishop Bernard Shiel who founded CYO - he did not advocate for it.  People in the action have little to do with "do-gooders' who never seem to leave the plush Oak Park and Hyde Park dens. It is easier to get behind masters at manipulating words and sometimes ideas. 

Newspapers rarely talk about people in the action, other than snag a quote that justifies the words of an Advocate, Activist, or Office Holder.  Most columnists go to the pap of preachy, pontificating poltroon's who give good prose, like Claypool, Quigley, Schakowsky, Durbin, Quinn and Mell in Chicago because they are policy people and do-gooders. Pap is easy to read and nod-with-ruminent conviction and chew the cud of vegan issues.  A few, like John Kass of the Chicago Tribune, go to people in the action and presents their lives and struggles mired in the bog created by policy wonks.

Investigative journalists, the best anyway, go where facts have ignited a prairie fire.  The worst are jigsaw puzzle masters of making facts fit a narrative.

Reporters, investigative reporters, connect the dots hidden from the public.  Even those of us who read and remember quite a bit have not the time, nor the opportunity to often go 'beyond' the story.  People must do their jobs, raise their kids and the millions of dollars of taxes Progressive thinking political insiders loot from the commonwealth.

I am a pathological reader, I read everything from Cosmo to Commonweal, from Pepsodent tubes to the runic script on top of light bulbs.  Love to read.

I also love to read works that have something to do with the truth.  Editorial boards tend to present only a prefabricated package of political proselytism - Vote for Kim Foxx, or Mark Kirk is not really Dick Durbin's purse puppy.

The Chicago Sun Times, in my opinion, has the wackiest Editorial policy mandate that seems to have been crafted by retired and bonged-up Weather Underground and Catholic Call to Action cranks.  That's just me.

However, I believe that the Sun Times has the best investigative reporters Dan Mihiapoulos, Chris Fusco and Tim Novak, when they are not saddled with editorial constraints, or Andy Shaw and Carol Marin.

Tim Novak is a terrier.  He is the only reporter in Chicago to maintain a jeweler's eye on the connections between the political grifters and the Progressive machine emanating from Hyde Park and Kenwood.

The Fifth Floor, Real Estate, TIFs,  Big banking, the CHA, Slum Lording, Chicago's Department of Planning and Development and the White House are all players with the peoples pensions.

Sewer deals for Daley cousins seem as nothing compared to Valerie Jarrett.

Today, Tim Novak keeps the heat on the most powerful people plaguing Chicago.

Over the past nine years, two nephews of former Mayor Richard M. Daley have been involved in separate plans to redevelop a rundown warehouse on 15 acres of polluted land in Little Village just north of the Stevenson Expressway.
It hasn’t turned out well for Chicago taxpayers.

First, taxpayers have to make up for $4.2 million in city pension money invested on behalf of teachers, police officers and other city workers that ended up squandered on failed development plans involving Daley’s oldest nephew, Robert G. Vanecko.
Now, taxpayers stand to lose another $4.1 million on the same property at 3348 S. Pulaski Rd. That’s the amount of a property-tax break given to a second redevelopment deal for the site.
This one involves Vanecko’s first cousin, Patrick Daley Thompson, an attorney who helped the developers get the tax cut last year shortly before he was elected alderman of the 11th ward — the family’s power base for six decades.

Well them boys are "in the action."  Not for social good, but for profit in the name of Progress. There is so much more and Tim Novak delivers! He connects the dots of the contemporary ledger and double book accounting to the days of yore and actually gives us context that a Chicagoan can sink teeth into and gnaw healthy opinion into being - we are screwed not by the usual suspects, but by the do-gooders!

 The story of how the polluted Pulaski Road property became toxic for Chicago taxpayers begins in 2004, when Daley was still mayor. That’s when Vanecko — his sister’s oldest son — went into business with Allison S. Davis, the Chicago attorney who gave President Barack Obama his first job out of Harvard Law School, and Davis’ son Jared Davis.

Operating under the name DV Urban Realty Partners, their idea was to redevelop properties in some of Chicago’s most downtrodden neighborhoods. And they were aiming to get government pension funds to invest $100 million to bankroll their plans.
They had a hard time securing investments from pension funds, though, until the Chicago Teachers Retirement System agreed in early 2005 to put in $25 million of the money it held toward teachers’ retirement pay.

Then, the pension funds for police officers, municipal employees, city laborers and the Chicago Transit Authority also agreed to invest.
Altogether, the Davises and Vanecko wound up with $68 million from five public pension funds.

Man, if the editorial will of Chicago newspapers matched the grit of some of it's reporters, maybe a couple of dollars might be left in the kitty at the end of a Moody's evaluation.

This is meaty wholesome goodness in font!  It will put off the vegan offal digestions of 'edgy,whip-smart and Progressive voices in our city.

Eat more Chicago! Thanks for the red meat, Mr. Novak!

Why Are 'Useful Idiots" Always Millionaires? From Bill Ayers to Jamie Foxx

No Charmin for using, much less squeezing in Caracass, there Jamie!



Three-year-old Ashley Pacheco cries while receiving an injection as her mother Oriana watches at the University Hospital in Caracas, Venezuela in late August. Two weeks after Ashley scraped her knee, she was screaming in a hospital, fighting for her life as her family scoured Caracas for scarce antibiotics. Venezuela is running short on 85 per cent of basic medicines. As the health care system collapses, the tiniest slips, like a little girl?s tumble while chasing her brother, are turning into life-or-death crises. (Photo: AP)

 “At this challenging time of President Hugo Chavez’s passing, the United States reaffirms its support for the Venezuelan people and its interest in developing a constructive relationship with the Venezuelan government. As Venezuela begins a new chapter in its history, the United States remains committed to policies that promote democratic principles, the rule of law, and respect for human rights.” President Obama 2013

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Actor Jamie Foxx has met with President Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela.
Foxx, who won the Oscar Award for "Ray" in 2004, visited Maduro in the presidential palace in Caracas. State media said Foxx was there to support the country's socialist revolution and attend the signing of an agreement between Venezuela and its allies for the construction of houses for the poor.
Foxx posed for photos with the deeply-unpopular president of the economically embattled South American country.
In a national address Tuesday, Maduro praised Foxx's work. Foxx hasn't commented publicly on what motivated his visit.
Several U.S. celebrities have visited Venezuela to support the country's socialist revolution over the years, including actors Sean Penn and Danny Glover.

In 2013, Hugo Chavez kicked the bucket and his apprentice Jefe Maduro took over Venezuela and in three years cork-screwed the population into the ground with miracle of socialism. For three years, the land of Chicago White Sox Hall of Famers Louis Aparicio and Oswaldo José "Ozzie" Guillén Barrios has been plagued with riots, toilet paper shortages empty food shelves and government elimination of human rights.

A three year old girl scrapped her knee and two weeks later, because of the Single Payer Health Care System of Hugo Care, the child was at death's door.  National Socialized Health Care - Compasinos!

This is because, ". . .President Chavez used oil money and foreign debt to fuel consumption and went on a campaign of nationalising private companies — more than 1,000 we are told — that his Government regarded as not working in the interest of the Venezuelan public.
But President Maduro, blinkered by his loyalty to Mr Chavez, has added to the problem, and his policies have taken Venezuela to the sad place it is today.
Surely, the people of this great country, which has the largest oil reserves in the world, deserve much better than this.
The question is: Do they have the will and stamina to continue opposing the Government and the State institutions that support it?"

Nah.

President Obama has not uttered word one about this tragedy on-going daily in South America.

Bill Ayers, a trust fund baby Terrorist of '60's turned "distinguished scholar of education" at University of Illinois Chicago Campus ( Cement City), cut his Marxist baby teeth on Cuban  sugar cane, on money his Daddy squeezed out of Commonwealth Edison users in Chicago.   I imagine the University of Michigan hemp toker had a swell time as Fidel's guest during this halcyon harvest of youth.  I rode the "L" to Loyola, until Jim Molloy offered rides from the south side, while he was in the Police Academy in senior year.

James " Molly" Molloy, like Dan "Sarah" Burns were two Leo High School bad asses given girl's names by  sisters who did not want baby brothers.  Molly became Chicago Police Department Deputy Superintendent under Superintendent Terry Hillard, Dan Burns became a real estate cartographer and engineer and Bill Ayers became a domestic terrorist all around the same time.  I became a high school teacher.

We all did pretty well.  Three of us worked at it and Bill Ayers was handed his and became a leading 'useful idiot.' America has always had useful idiots and almost to a person they were children of privilege - front of the liners, wealthy and not well-to-do.

John Reed
Roger Nash Baldwin
Lincoln Steffens
Armand Hammer
John Dewey
Jane Addams

Bill Ayers' Dad had clout aplenty and he needed his boy Bill's past laundered.  I believe Bill Ayers was laundered by Abner Mikva, Dr. Quentin Young, Richie Daley, Stan Ikenberry, Amalgamated Bank and many others.  In 2008, Bill Ayers' apprentice, Senator Barack Obama ran for and won the Office of President of the United States.  The grey whiskered cane-cutter of the 1960's, was snug on the Board of Directors of the Woods Fund. a Distinguished Scholar at Cement City and a frequent visitor of Bolivarista nations in South America, especially Dictator Hugo Chavez's Venezuela.

Gee, I think that just might be enough links.

Now, I read that Oscar winning actor, comic and TV ad Pitchman Jamie Foxx went down to Caracas to aid President Maduro in his time need and understanding." Foxx posed for photos with the deeply-unpopular president of the economically embattled South American country.In a national address Tuesday, Maduro praised Foxx's work. Foxx hasn't commented publicly on what motivated his visit."

That gives the guy a little wiggle room.  Just visiting a nation without any Charmin to use, let alone squeeze, I guess,

Rather, like the Hollywood clowns who preach about " The More You Know" on TV and shove political, cultural, religious and life-style opinions up the noses of the Americans who made them wealthy people, Jamie Foxx is tending to the 'the right side of history's" knitting.  No doubt for a fee.

The most strident voices for 'social transformation' never walk the walk.

Bill Ayers stayed in capitalist America.

Lenny DiCaprio jets to Global Worming screeds.

They are all pretty much useful idiots for whomever, whatever, or wherever what counts as genuine, historically accurate and true about America a bad thing.

They wear the Armani, drink the Clicquot, drive the Ferrari Sergio and fight the people who maintain all that is true, good and helpful to others.

The useful idiots from Roger Baldwin, to Bill Ayers, to Jamie Foxx will always be around, but they are never with us.

Republican Fiorello La Guardia and Others - Why I am Still a Democrat. We Lost the Way With Policy

I get told all of the time that I am 'no Democrat.'  I am also told I am no George Clooney.  No skin off of my broad manly ass.

I voted against Barack Obama in 2008, because, like a boxer, the 'guys' were bringing him up way too fast.  As long as the pugilist trope is open, also, because in 2003 at the Saber Room in Hickory Hills, Illinois on freezing and blizzardy night, Illinois State Senator Barack Obama got all pissy with me.

At an amateur boxing exhibition hosted by Leo Boxing Team, I was tasked with squiring around the presenters - elected officials, local notables, high school coaches and such persons who would honor the boxers with a trophy. Orland Park Police Chief Tim McCarthy, the man who saved Ronald Reagan and Illinois Representative Kevin McCarthy were also present, along with Chicago Alderman Walter Burnett.

Senator Obama was visibly agitated when I instructed him, " Senator, give a trophy to each boxer; hold up their arms together, thank the judges and then you can give your spiel."  The Senator whined, " How in the Hell am I supposed to get in there?  Where's the Gate?"  My response, " Are You #$%^ing kidding me? Climb though the ropes."

I did not vote for Barack Obama in 2012, because he totally lived up to my very low expectations set by my previous meetings with him and the fact that Valerie Jarrett was running the show.  I could be wrong, but nothing has convinced me other wise.

Each year, fewer people of substance, worth an good grace stand for public office and throngs of mean-spirited, shallow, smarmy, not-very-bright and corrupt people become Aldermen, State Representatives, State Senators, Congressmen and Senators.  Out of thin air we learn that a Kim Foxx is smarter than Minerva and more constant than Calpurnia.  Toni Preckwinkle, a humorless dim bulb and Cook County Board President insists so, though I doubt Toni could tell you Minerva and Calpurnia were not members of the Vandellas.

I am at soul and heart a Democrat nevertheless.

I admired President Truman, JFK, Senators Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Hubert Humphrey and Old Mayor Daley.

I grew up learning how politics and good politicians can help people suffering during hard times.  The Ward bosses took care of people with disabilities, the elderly, the homeless, the disenfranchised, the immigrants and troubled without a policy road map, or programs.  I am a Chicago Democrat, because that is what we were. In Kankakee, kids were Republican, all except for John and Marion McKenna's kids and the Shapiros*, for the same reason.   A politician who took care of people -not because of policy - did good and deserved support.

One of my heroes was Republican New York Mayor and Tammany Hall Fiorello " The Little Flower" La Guardia.  I learned of him when I was about seven years old and my Mom and Dad went to a musical at Drury Lane Theatre in 1959.

I asked my Dad about the play.  He told me it was about a great man, a Republican Mayor.  I asked immediately, "In what country?"

I learned that it was far away New York City.  I tried getting my head around a 'great man' who was a Republican - like Mrs. Witry - the only one on the planet as far as I knew.

He told me a story about this Mayor La Guardia that I re-read recently on Christian website - one that is prbably verboten to a 2016 Stronger Together Democrat.  A guy by the name of Brennan Manning wrote this which coincided with my Dad's yarn of yore:

A story is told about Fiorello LaGuardia, who, when he was mayor of New York City during the worst days of the Great Depression and all of WWII, was called by adoring New Yorkers ‘the Little Flower’ because he was only five foot four and always wore a carnation in his lapel. He was a colorful character who used to ride the New York City fire trucks, raid speakeasies with the police department, take entire orphanages to baseball games, and whenever the New York newspapers were on strike, he would go on the radio and read the Sunday funnies to the kids.
One bitterly cold night in January of 1935, the mayor turned up at a night court that served the poorest ward of the city. LaGuardia dismissed the judge for the evening and took over the bench himself. Within a few minutes, a tattered old woman was brought before him, charged with stealing a loaf of bread. She told LaGuardia that her daughter’s husband had deserted her, her daughter was sick, and her two grandchildren were starving. But the shopkeeper, from whom the bread was stolen, refused to drop the charges.
“It’s a real bad neighborhood, your Honor.” the man told the mayor. “She’s got to be punished to teach other people around here a lesson.” LaGuardia sighed. He turned to the woman and said “I’ve got to punish you. The law makes no exceptions—ten dollars or ten days in jail.” But even as he pronounced sentence, the mayor was already reaching into his pocket. He extracted a bill and tossed it into his famous sombrero saying: “Here is the ten dollar fine which I now remit; and furthermore I am going to fine everyone in this courtroom fifty cents for living in a town where a person has to steal bread so that her grandchildren can eat. Mr. Baliff, collect the fines and give them to the defendant.”
So the following day the New York City newspapers reported that $47.50 was turned over to a bewildered old lady who had stolen a loaf of bread to feed her starving grandchildren, fifty cents of that amount being contributed by the red-faced grocery store owner, while some seventy petty criminals, people with traffic violations, and New York City policemen, each of whom had just paid fifty cents for the privilege of doing so, gave the mayor a standing ovation.
Brennan Manning, The Ragmuffin Gospel, Multnomah, 1990, pp. 91-2

Mayor La Guardia was a complex man.  His father was an Italian Catholic atheist and his mother was Jewish.  La Guardia was Episcopalian, which is Catholic without the rules - they have have been a moveable feast from Horny Henry 8 on to this day.  He was a reformer, but not a scold.  He lived the life and not the policy.

I will not vote for a politician who who can not act like an honest human being, because of policy.

To me that is what I learned a Democrat must be.  Or, a good Kankakee County Republican. 

Garrison Keillor Wannabe Says, 'White Privilege' is Urban Armor All

Ed McClelland is Bullet Proof

"In Englewood, the South Side neighborhood that spawned Chief Keef and Lil Durk, who won record deals by rapping about gang violence, almost 65 people have been killed this year. Whites are far more likely to oppose gun control than blacks, but we’re not the ones getting shot."  Ed McClelland: Master of the Non Sequitur!

“It is a grave obligation to be a Lutheran, and to represent order and justice and kindness and the truth in this world.”  Garrison Keillor - kidding on the square

At County Fair Foods the other day, I suggested to  two of my African American pals that they turn in their race cards for the one I'm holding. A guy says that White Privilege makes you bullet proof.   Antony said, " That's damn white of you, Hickey!"  George laughed, "What about that  white Art Museum N@##$% from Berwyn.  That Tattooed rug lit him up."

Gents, I argued, That was not in the Hood, to use the euphemism.  That was in the whitey is vulnerable zone - you know "crimes of opportunity" venues: Gold Coast, Milennium Park, Museums and Fests Universal"

They thanked me for the suggestion and went, one to vegetables and the other to Mike Benson at the Butcher section.  I felt good.

Hey, anything for my pals and this is one dangerous city, not for whitey, but for people of color.  Glad I didn't say Colored People, or George would have tuned me up, as he is a Chicago cop.

Be a Caucasian, or a white and lose the bullet magnet quality that comes with Twelve Years a Slave, ChiRaq and four hundred years of  unresolved slavery.  Cash that obsolete race card. Get on white side of history.  Everyone else has.

Jews were slaves of the Egyptians and then they traded in their cards for white and became oppressors of victims universal in the West Bank, Gaza and Golan Heights.  Jews, however, were required to undergo a few centuries of pogroms and eventually the Holocaust, but the got over it.

The Greeks were "house ENWORDS" to the Romans, then the Turks, then the Nazis and then IFM.

The Italians and Sicilians were also slaves of the Greeks, Romans, Muslims, Vikings, Normans, French and Hitler and over here are still not treated anywhere near like white people - ask the late Justice Scalia.

The Poles were slaves of the Russians, Napoleon, the Prussians and then the Russians again.  Over in America they ain't white - they are close-knit ethnics and ignored by NPR, when there are so many LaQuan McDonald's and emerging nations to think about - in hushed tones. Oh, and they are Jew Haters,Black Haters and will never be Vegan.

St. Paddy was a slave to the Irish and then enslaved them as devout overly pious sexually repressed Christians who flocked to the Union banner and got slaughtered at Antietam, Fredricksburg, Gettysburg, Cold Harbor, the Wilderness and St. Petersburg and what was left became racist cops, judges, aldermen, real estate moguls, bankers and even a President. The Irish only got sort of white after JFK.  Then of course the Irish became slave of Planned Parenthood, the ACLU and the Unitarian Church - which the 'better' Micks want the Catholic Church to become.

The Arabs are the people I know of in all of history who were never slave - always slave traders.

Things get better. Only if you go full white.  I am an American Paddy.  I had a number of good jobs that allowed me to work and get a college education, become a teacher, marry and daddy-up three great kids, write and live the life!  It is privilege to serve.  It has been a great privilege to serve my African American neighbors, in my small way.  Things are deadly for those neighbors.

I know that.  I walked all over Auburn Gresham, Englewood, Grand Crossing, Bronzeville and Chatham between 1995 and the present.  Bullets have been fired at me by someone in the sociodemographic and geographic concentration of interpersonal gun violence on at least nine occassions and two very close calls.   The first time a bullet whizzed past my right ear I called my Dad a veteran of Bougainville, Guam and Iwo Jima and described the sound.  He asked, " Did you fill your union suit?"  No, not at that moment.  " You will the next time.  Hit the pavement with your ass facing the shooter," he admonished.  Why?  " So you won't take it in the noggin."

Subsequently, I took "it" in neither rump, nor noggin. Bullets freed of the gun's magazine do not know the path they take. I was blessed by God and poor shooting skills of GDs and Vice Lords.

Nothing personal.  Bullets are color blind.

Silly me, I thought I was blessed by God's grace and good fortune when the GD's decided to "ride the Nine down " on my Cracker ass that sunny day in 2002 at 79th & Sangamon.  To paraphrase Pastor Pfleger,  'I'm white, and this is mine! I just gotta get up and step into the plate.'   'Oh, damn! Where did you come from? I'm white! I'm entitled! There's a black man stealing my bullet!'

Oh, Wait a minute!

Did I worry about getting shot? Hell, yeah!  Trouble is - I had stuff to do that placed me in the shooting gallery.  I have waited on corners at 10 PM with students until the parents arrived to pick them up from a field trip, or visit to a donor, because that is my job.  I walked over to Rev. Corey Brooks' church on Dr. Martin Luther King Drive right on 'O' Street to give him a heads-up about Action 40 and Progress Illinois planned ambush protest, because he is a good guy and a friend of the school.

Did I worry? Sure, Pat and Ginny raised no foolish children. But there are fools aplenty waltzing on the terra.

Ed McClelland,  the hilariously and unabashedly white man who will soon become the Garrison Keillor of the next generation and writer of homey, awe-shucks books that really lift the veil on white working class people in the rust belt who harbor such deep seeded racist feelings that they are often mistaken for lovers of humanity, knows that white privilege makes Caucasians bullet proof.

His book Nothing But Blue Skies was Michael Moore-job on rust belt America, where the capitalist system is to blame for misery and not the globalist policies of people like Bill Clinton, GW Bush and Barack Obama that sold everyone and everything with trade deals.  It offers the same Lake Woebegone tonality of celebrating the chumps who suffer in Illinois, Michigan and Ohio, where "“Drive-ins and classic-car shows are to the Midwest what Civil War reenactments are to the South: remembrances of the region’s last glorious era.”

Obama said pretty much the same thing with his Bible and Gun Clingers speech.

Today, the Chicago Tribune in its relentless task of driving larger wedges between neighbors offers Ed McClelland's unasked for opinion on ballistics and white privilege.

Even in the midst of a gang war, I had no fear of getting shot. Why? Because I’m white.
There’s a ridiculous trope — put forward by the makers of TV crime dramas, auto alarm systems, handguns and attack ads against soft-on-crime politicians — that white people who set foot in the inner city are prey for African American criminals. Even my black neighbors believe it. “I think Caucasians who walk down this street are pretty brave,” one of the sneaker store owners told me.
“I think the black people are brave,” I said. “They’re the ones who get shot.”

Edgy!  Yep.  Make a stupid claim and wait for Eric Zorn, Mary Schmich, Bruce Dold and the Editorial Board to circle the wagons and proudly stand with the stupid statement - that is what passes for journalism in ChiRaq.

Yes.  Black people get shot. White privilege is a neologism employed by limited capacity group thought slaves.  Black, white red, yellow, brown and henna people are killed because thugs feel comfortable in doing so here in Chicago, because policies have gelded the police, created the cottage industry of Wrongful Everything on the Justice System and the Lawsuit Lottery, writers like Ed McClelland and editors who love writers of Ed McClelland's stamp.


This guy is not Audie Murphy!  Murphy ignored bullets and slaughtered Nazis - maybe not.  Ed McClelland is only slaughtering common sense.  This guy is Garrison Keillor!

I can do without either. That is white privilege.

Let's Toss Up Bouquets of Prayers for this little Hero - Beau Dowling

 

Beau Dowling: Sixteen Months Old and Ready to Duke it Out with Cancer


Last week I asked anyone within pestering distance to toss up some prayers for Ryan Rusch who was undergoing another in a long series of life-threatening operations.

Ryan is doing handsomely.

Beau Dowling of St. John Fisher Parish in West Beverly is undergoing cancer surgery as I type these words.  Don't make the little man do it on his own.

As I stated then there is nothing more heart breaking than a sick child and this little man and his young mother, father and siblings need arm loads of prayers.

As in Ryan Rusch's need, I suggested the Memorare - the sure fire tug on the blouse of Our Lady.
This prayer seems to work its wonders in every circumstance*.

REMEMBER, O most gracious Virgin Mary, that never was it known that anyone who fled to thy protection, implored thy help, or sought thy intercession was left unaided. Inspired with this confidence, I fly to thee, O Virgin of virgins, my Mother; to thee do I come; before thee I stand, sinful and sorrowful. O Mother of the Word Incarnate, despise not my petitions, but in thy mercy hear and answer me. Amen.

Pray it up. I won't kill you, or cost you nickel one.

* for any 'Yeah, Butt'ers:

In the Memorare the claim is made that the Virgin Mary has never left unaided a soul who asked her intercession. But when I prayed the Memorare for my intention, the situation for which I prayed got worse, not better. This has shaken my faith. What happened?
Answer
The wording of the Memorare is not intended to oblige the Blessed Mother or God to answer your prayer in the exact manner that you specify. It is a statement of utter trust, said with faith that the Blessed Mother and God will always answer the prayers of the faithful, even if the answer given is not the one for which the supplicant hoped.
It is possible that the Blessed Mother did help you in your particular trial. Perhaps she obtained for you the grace to carry your burden with courage and patience. Perhaps she obtained for you the grace to delve more deeply into your Catholic faith through prayer, which is what you did in fact do. By all means, keep praying the Memorare for your intention, keeping in mind Jesus’ example of prayerful supplication for the relief of trials: "Father, if thou art willing, remove this cup from me; nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done" (Luke 22:42).

I Am Not Deplorable; Off Putting, Maybe. I Vote Like Uncle Bud

Despite intense outcry from the medical community and reproductive rights advocates, Texas isn't budging on a proposed rule to require the cremation or burial of fetal remains. Texas Tribune

Texas reminds me of Uncle Bud!

My political hero was my uncle and the Hickey family patriarch after the death of my grandfather - Larry "Bud" Hickey. Bud was the oldest male child of Laurence and Nora Hickey -7535 S, Marshfield, Chicago Zone 20.  Bud's six brothers and six sisters were equally as centered as the white haired guy with a permanently ironic look of quizzical sarcasm.  Bud was white haired from his teens and when the draft started in 1941 before the war started, an old biddy remarked to Granny Hickey, " thank the Good Lord, your boy Larry is too old." He became a U.S. Army master sergeant (naturally) and fought in the Pacific.

Uncle Bud was the Chief Engineer for Cook County Hospital from the 1950's until the 1980's. He was then made the Chief Engineer of Cook County by George W. Dunne. Uncle Bud and his large family lived in Meyer Hall - the former Cook County Hospital Doctors Residence at Taylor and Wolcott -because Uncle Bud was on duty 24 hours a day. The great surgeon and former Director of Admissions for Loyola Medical School, the late Dr. James H. Kennedy,MD once told me that as young resident at CCH he told, "See the Medical Director, but, above all, pay attention to Larry Hickey."

When Abortion, got its bloody foot in the door of the American soul in the late 1960's, Progressive forces, like the bed bugs now scourging urban Americans, bullied politicians with Policy,  False. tickling Policy. In the late 1970's, Cook County purchased an incinerator for the sole purpose of burning aborted fetuses.

Uncle Bud installed the gas operated incinerator and welded its doors shut. No human beings would be burned in Bud's Cook County Hospital. The incinerator - it operated, but absolutely no babies were burned. The children would be buried with human dignity. You see, Uncle Bud was a Catholic, when that meant something, and Catholics, at that time, were prohibited from cremating the human body. All of that was parsed out by clerical Vatican II Cupcakes, don't you know.

News of this got out. The Policy hit the fan. Uncle Bud told Dunne, "Fire Me, but those doors stay welded shut."

George Dunne ended abortions at Cook County Hospital, except to save the life of the mother, because he agreed that Cook County Hospital had become no more than, in the Cook County President's own words, 'an Abortion Mill,*'

Uncle Bud and George Dunne were Democrats. both were 'retired.'  New Cook County President Dick Phelan bowed to Planned parenthood as Cook County President and the soul of the Democratic Party was sucked out of the husk of the automaton that knows only dollars and the brute exercise of monolithic political power.

Uncle Bud's story is from the late 1970's.  So I am deplorably old fashioned, or so Hillary remarked to Barbra Streisand and six figure ticket holders at recent HRC fund-raiser.

Deplorable ideas?  Abortion is evil, not health care.  That is a big one for me.

Deplorable taste? I never wore a Nehru jacket, a dickie, a turtle-neck, beret, Greek Fisherman's hat, Peace button, tattoo, ear ring, nose ring, shower ring, Leisure suit, or bell bottom anything. And I dated, married and date exquisite looking women.  Honor bright.  Don't know what's wrong with them, but I am happy about it.

 In fact, I wear pretty much the same style suits, shoes, shirts, sweaters and attitude, that I did in my formative 1960's wonder years and my public life as a teacher, husband, father and citizen.

I don't listen to Techno, Disco, Hip-Hop, Gangsta, Metal, or Adele. I love classical, Celtic (not the PBS crappola), Jazz, Garage band 60's rock, Outlaw Country, Mexican Campesino music, Polkas, Blue-grass and Motown almost as much as Keeley Smith, Sarah Vaughan, Ella Fitzgerald, Sinatra, Antônio Carlos Jobim, Mel Torme and Marvin Gaye.

I can not stand when people who should know better sneer at working men and women during the very speech they are giving to bully up their votes. Happens every time a progressive Democrat and far too many Republicans un-zipper their teeth.

Principles matter.

I will vote the way Uncle Bud and my Dad would vote.

Texas is Ok and Uncle Bud would approve.

Corporatist State- Owned Whole Foods and Starbucks! Englewood is Kennilworth!

 

The Rahm Smoothies - a little ginger, a little honey and maybe more than a little Hal Baskin, maybe?

Whole Food shoppers you are subsidizing Englewood
Eggs are $1.99 in Englewood vs $3.099 in Lincoln Park
Milk is $1.99 vs $4.19 in Lincoln Park
Gallon of vanilla ice cream $3.99 vs $5.99 in Lincoln Park
When you shop at Whole Foods ask for the Englewood prices. Comment from Chicago Tribune Editorial

        

And if you go chasing rabbits

And you know you're going to fall

Tell 'em a hookah-smoking caterpillar

Has given you the call - Bruce Dold Editor Chicago Tribune

When Bruce Dold is told to get excited about something by the powers that be in this Rube Berg of a Banana Republic* he fairly micturates until he pounds out a mirthful tittering of gleeful Alice in Engelwheel hop about . . . whatever.

Today's cheer leading exercises is an especially hoydenish delight!

It's been said of Deerfield, Sauganash and countless other communities: This must be a nice place since it's got a Whole Foods and a Starbucks.
So what happens when you plunk down two of the country's most culturally powerful brands in impoverished Englewood? Do these stores become just a sideshow to the violent crime, or can they change perceptions about the quality of life in one of Chicago's most beaten-down neighborhoods?

Yes!!!!!! Number 2, Bruce !!!!!!!!!       Perceptions stop the trajectory of bullets!

I live in the 19th Ward, racially diverse but no Whole Foods. Would Dold et al opine a la Betty Davis from Beyond the Forest?



You bet!  This is Urbs in Horto, Dude!

 We got a Starbucks over by the 103rd Street Station and CVS, but more people go to Kareem's Dunkin Donuts on 104th & Western, even though it has not the culturally powerful brand-age cache of Starbucks, but then again at Double D's you don't need to pick Arabica coffee grounds out your gums after a few swallows.

Aside from my snide remarks, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?

Is a neighborhood only a fit place to live because two of the country's most culturally powerful brands plump their rumps within its confines?

Or, is neighborhood a place where most, if not all of the people look out for one another, respect one another and behave like citizens.

Well, Whole Foods and Starbucks are political players and 63rd Street has been a Development mess for Chicago's Planning & Development Department for more than twenty years.  Elder Hal Baskin has his mitts wide open to all venture opportunists and get-out the vote - for a wad of cash surety at the Ward level of the 3, 6, 15, 16, 17 and 20 Wards.  Six, count 'em six Wards for one Neigh. . .  (sorry) Community - an impoverished, delapidated, dangerous and gang-infested Community.

Much like Hyde Park?  Could be?  Really,Bruce?

My 19th Ward encompasses Beverly, West Beverly, Morgan Park and Mount Greenwood. Huge difference.  Hal Baskin, a Democratic Party legitimized activist and Gangster Disciple Emeritus has 'reached out to touch' every community development project.

I have had the pleasure of waving bye-bye to a handcuffed Hal in the back of a 6th District Chicago Police squad car, when he and the Englewood Task Force tried to shake down Leo High School.

Lord knows the trouble I've seen!

Activist arrested at school protest
September 02, 2004 

Community activist and former gang member Hal Baskin was arrested for allegedly shoving a police officer Wednesday during a protest outside Leo High School on the South Side, authorities said.
Baskin, who has run for alderman several times and was once an associate of convicted Gangster Disciples kingpin Larry Hoover, was charged with misdemeanor battery, mob action and obstruction in the incident shortly before noon near the Catholic school at 7901 S. Sangamon St., police said. 

Two patrol officers confronted Baskin and several others after they saw a group of people with signs step off the sidewalk and obstruct traffic on 79th Street, Chicago police spokesman David Bayless said.

Baskin, released from custody at Gresham District police headquarters about 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, said the protest was a peaceful appeal to the school to hire two neighborhood men for a construction project. He denied shoving the officer and said the group was on the sidewalk but was forced onto the street at times by police.
"Common sense would tell you that I've been doing this for 25 years. I know not to lay hands on a police officer," he said. "Why would I do something idiotic like that?"
Police alleged that when the officers asked the group to get out of the street, Baskin responded by shoving an officer. Three others also were arrested. Attempts to reach school officials were unsuccessful.  Chicago Tribune

Not really, we said plenty and none of it printable, this a few years before Corporatist Mayor Daley and his boy Rahm pulled all of the teeth out CPD.  Imagine cops putting the bracelets on Elder Hal today?

Well, just because Hal Baskin tried to pry open construction wallets universal in Englewood for more than thirty years, does not necessarily mean that he still has his huge mitts dug deeply into the britches of two of the country's most culturally powerful brands.  We won't know that, because the newspapers will never tell.

Bruce Dold is now editor of Chicago Tribune and he takes orders from City Hall and the most culturally powerful brands (Disney, Starbucks, Whole Foods, Audi et al) and you, the consumer, pay the prices and the get to feel good in knowing that you have stopped the laws of physics (speeding bullets) and the thug impulses in Englewood - home to some great people and some really nasty thugs.

Our society buys into nonsense when nonsense is the only thing being offered.

Some do well in such a society ( an Oligarchy) and most try to survive.

Nice one, Bruce.

* Corporatism, also known as corporativism, is the sociopolitical organization of a society by major interest groups, or corporate groups, such as agricultural, business, ethnic, labour, military, patronage, or scientific affiliations, on the basis of common interests.

Hickey's Diversity Leg of Lamb

Diversity Leg of Lamb Ready for the lid and six hours of slow cooking magic


My Grandma, Nora ( nee Sullivan) Hickey, came to Chicago in 1912 from a one room cabin with a dirt floor outside of Caherciveen, County Kerry.  Nora had seven sisters and a little brother; she was the oldest and the family threw an American Wake for her, before heading to Queenstown in Cork and trip over.

She landed at Castlegarden, NYC and immediately upon release from Immigration took a train to Chicago.

Here, she worked in the kitchen 'a great home' on Prairie for the rich Yanks run by an African American woman and several Mexican women as her assistants,

Here, Nora Sullivan learned from the hands of the daughter of a slave and escapees of the Revolutions in El Norte how to properly prepare food.

Unlike so many Irish families in America, the Hickeys ate more than boiled grey beef, mashed spud sand cabbage.  We grew up with spices!

My Mom was a lousy cook until my Dad showed her how to make dishes other than burned pork and canned carrots.

The males in my family are exceptional cooks.  I ain't too bad.

I have recently fallen- in -love -all over again with the Hamilton Beach slow-cooker (AKA crock pot) and have larded my thick bones with soups, ragouts, Lancashire Hot Pots, cassoulets, goulashes and slum gullions of every variety.

Craving goat tacos a la Birrieria Ocotlon on east 106th in South Chicago - I used lamb shoulder and chops.  Not bad.  I also got tired of chewing down on missed bones.

Leg of Lamb - big bones - was the key.

Per the male sense of opportunity, Spices, vegetables and herbs became intriguing dramas.  The resultant dish comes from wonderlands and influences - Japan, Mexico, the Caribbean.

Here it is.

Celery chopped one cup

One large Vidalia Onion chopped

Two large Poblano peppers - cut lengthwise

One large red peppper  - cut length wise

Two Lbs Leg of Lamb whole and bone-in trimmed of fat

1/2 cup of Caribbean Jerk Spice for lamb rub

1/4 cup of Kikoman Teriyaki sauce

Big bunch of Cilanto

Methode:

Layer Celery Onions on the bottom of the Crock

Apply heavy doses of Caribbean Jerk rub to the trimmed leg of lamb and place over the celery and onions and then pour 1/4 cup of Teriyaki sauce over the lamb

Layer Poblano and Red Pepper strips over the lamb.

Turn Heat indicator on high and cooked covered for six hours - longer if you wish.  Then remove the leg bone and joints from the lamb - the meat will shred and fall away.

The natural fats and water in the vegetables will make a superb broth. Chop and sprinkle cilantro over the individual portions. 

Eat this with tortillas, flat breads, rice, coucous, or spuds. Here she is with about four hours of cooking.

I have not had any complaints and even a few lascivious notes from women in Morgan Park with whom I have shared portions and the recipe.

Voila!  Six hours and change later- The lamb falls away at the touch.  I will let this cool; pop in the ice box and serve it later with couscous.

Let me know how this works out for you and if it does not, keep it to yourself.
 Me?  I'm on it!