Trapped by Happiness? Have a Cold One in a Very Cold Place

The Coldest Beer in Chicago - tap your own. 

Mellow out. Enjoy the benefits of Christianity without the pain, as Mustapha Mond encouraged the mellow folks of Huxley's Brave New World. 

Have a cold one.

I like beer as much as the next twenty or thirty guys, but where I like it best is in a chilled glass and a warm place.

Long a draft beer man, I have quaffed, sipped, guzzled and turk'd pilsners, lagers, ales and stouts from every vessel but a beautiful woman's boot.  She wouldn't come across with the footwear, for some reason.



Beer from Boots, Dunkels, Dimpled Pints, Solo Cups, kegs,  bottles or cans is wonderful.  Unless it is a really bad beer. These would gag a maggot, but I was more than happy to pound them down once they were chilled to a frosty 42 degree,  Then, and only then, were they potable.

The after effects were crapulous - From the Late Latin word crāpulōsus, dating back to 1530-40. See crapulent, -ous: 1530s, "sick from too much drinking," from Latin crapula, from Greek kraipale "hangover, drunken headache, nausea from debauching." The Romans used it for drunkenness itself. English has used it in both senses. Related: Crapulously ; crapulousness.

That was unwise.  Where such drinks were consumed was determined as much by the initial selection of drink - , broke, underage and furtive.   The fewer nickels in the palm determined the caliber of the content consumed.  The younger the dumber and always sneaky.  We drank under the stars in alleys, burned out grocery stores on Ashland Avenue, in Dan Ryan Woods, at Rum Valley on 79th at the viaduct on 2200 West.

With legality, the settings improved and could chart our rise from impecunity to working class and eventually burgher middle class.  We drank where we were moist comfortable, biker bars, dives, slop-shutes, holes in the wall, lounges, discos, pubs, clubs and scenes. " A tavern chair is the throne of felicity," growled Dr.Samuel Johnson. Felicity and courtesy reign together,

To me a great place to have a beer, or any beverage, is in a friendly, unpretentious inviting, warm and welcoming licensed premise that attracts people from all walks of life.  Keegans Pub ( now Barney Callaghans) at 10618 S. Western hosted such a clientele.  I  noted in December, 2008:

The Great Mount Greenwood Southwest Observer a wonderful neighborhood website offers a recent poll of Local Pubs and Watering Holes.
County Armagh's and Now Chicago's Own Bernard Callahan's Keegan's Pub is ranked at the top of some very fine Saloons here in the 19th Ward.
Keegan's Pub
10618 S Western
Chicago
773-233-6829
Keegan's Pub is headquarters to a group of wits, workers and wunderkinds that could body slam any Mensa Chapter west of Alexandria, Egypt in its best day and serves the most laboriously crafted 'pint of plain' - Guinness this side of foamy brine.
Get thee to Keegan's soak up some laughs, nuanced analysis of the day's events and the creamy goodness of that Old Black Magic brewed at St. James's Gate Dublin.

There was a jukebox available for customers, but commanded for level and intensity by the bar staff and  if Black Dog appeared to induced the same psychological effect upon an intoxicated patron teh volume was adjusted accordingly.  Dark wood and black leather furnishings added to the Irish Pub look and feel, as well as walls decorated with Padrig Pearse's Poblacht na héireann proclamation, photos of writers, rebels and neighborhood reprobates.  Conversation was key.

Most great watering holes, saloons, taverns, Cervecarias and Piwiarnias are poor man's clubs. Richard M.  Daley killed off most of Chicago's great clubs of this kind in favor of hipster haunts and scenes with music at Wagnerian levels of discomfort and banning chat entirely. You can't talk you drink more. More Revenue.  Move-on!

Today in DNAinfo Chicago I read about the coldest place to quaff a beer.

LOGAN SQUARE — The latest bar to join the neighborhood has serious do-it-yourself vibes.
Logan Square's first "pour your own beer" taproom, on the ground floor of the "L" luxury apartment building at 2211 N. Milwaukee Ave., debuts to the public Saturday. . . .The way it works is customers will be given a card when they walk in, which they will enter into a slot above their chosen beer or wine tap. The bar is offering a rotating selection of roughly 40 beers and 10 wines on tap along the back wall, decorated with city grid maps. 

Using Pour My Beer technology, iPads will measure the ounces and tabulate the cost of each beer, eliminating the need for traditional bartenders or servers. Staffers will be stationed near the wall to assist and give suggestions.

For folks who don't want to go the do-it-yourself route, the taproom also a small traditional bar tucked in the corner, where customers can order beer and cocktails made with locally-made spirits from bartenders.

The beer selection will rotate as the seasons change. Right now, summery beers like Empirical Brewery's Up Cork Passion Fruit Pale Ale and 21st Amendment's Hell or High Water Watermelon Wheat Beer are the focus.

"Our goal is to put as many different beer brands through these taps as possible," said Enarson, who added that lineups will be posted on the taproom's Facebook and Twitter pages in advance.

This will be a hit.  Beer that tastes like grapefruit, apples, watermelon and passion fruit has its fans, "I’m getting huge onion and garlic nectar, coffee ground  for sure, sage, and a trace-hint of  fecal too. Also exotic hops."

I was getting, " This is a nice beer."

 The IPA drinkers who scorn un-hoppiness and embrace global happiness will market-drive this venture.

Maps of City Grids bespeak the death of neighborhood and soul-less spirituality that is the culture in the driver's seat.  Rahms city grid for garbage collection was nail in Ward autonomy's coffin.

Here soma-like IPA's with alcohol contents exceeding  ABV 8% tapped from cold-steel panels will be self-yanked, avoiding a chat with the barkeep.

This will be a hit with our gotta have it now demographs and avoid the frustrations of having to wait one's turn, until Master Tap-tun arrives to serve the center of the universe.

As I said, this Logan Square venture will be a sure fire hit.  That is sad to me. Cold beer in a warm place seems preferable.

When yanking your own beer pull, you will not need to leave your comfort zone,  "I get overripe Velvetta, cheesiness, Parm, and tangy on the palate. It’s a little bit of Slim Jim."

GOP is the Swamp: Save Your "Passion and Personal Integrity" Nonsense for an IRS Audit and Repeal ObamaCare

 

". . .  it turns out that the GOP-controlled Congress can't seem to pass any meaningful laws at all. Either they have forgotten how, or the divisions in their own increasingly radicalized caucus are proving too difficult to surmount. Whatever the explanation, thus far these GOP legislators are on track to be the least productive group since at least the Civil War.
Now, okay, technically the Ryan-McConnell 115th Congress is so far actually a bit more active than recent Congresses, if you measure by the 43 laws that President Trump has adorned with his garish signature. Obama was at 40 at this point in 2009. George W. Bush had signed even fewer midway through 2001. But sheer number is not the best way to think about how much is being achieved. As The Washington Post's Philip Bump pointed out, a majority of the bills signed by Trump thus far have been one page long, meaning many are just symbolic or ceremonial." The Week

Can't argue with that.  The GOP is and has been a country club for egos with a hoggish appetite for personal gain.  Halliburton did not invent itself. Mind you, the Democrats are far more slavishly addicted to both avarice and pomposity, but they are are loyal - psychotic, obnoxious, goofy and very loyal.

I honor loyalty.

The GOP honors . . . honors . . .sorry nothing comes to mind.

Susan Collins, Rand Paul,  Ted Cruz, Aunt Lindsey Graham, Red-eye John McCain are but a handful of the oafish and preening goofs who care more about themselves than the State of the Nation.  These patrician wannabees smooched Caligula's rump for eight years and now want to gum up the work of draining our national swamp.

I am a Democrat.  There are many like me.  We voted for Trump, because some of us have met Barack Obama and are underwhelmed by him and know the Clintons to be almost as rotten as Dick Durbin, Rahm Emanuel and Richie Daley - almost.

We live in rogue states, like Chicago.

Obama Care is a Ponzi scam that has further enriched the pharmaceutical giants, raised Blue Cross/Blue Shield premiums and eliminated smaller insurance options for most Americans.  The creeps crow that 'more Americans are enrolled!'  Swell.  How about treated? Fewer than 1 in 5 Americans are better off. Do the math.

As a whole, Americans are not better off now than before Obamacare was enacted. It's time for a change. A change toward patient-centered reform that empowers individuals to control their health care dollars and make their own decisions.
Market-based reform would put individuals in charge of their own health care and reward value by creating consumer pressure on providers to increase quality and decrease costs. Reform should be about individual choice, not government mandates.

Not an hour goes by that some GOP Man of Conscience tries to out do the NPR ninny-hoodisms of Susan Collins, as tiresome a virago as Elizabeth Warren.

Conservative, Neo Con, Moderate, or Tea Party Republican - you are there to vote away a national disaster.

Repeal.  Fix later

Save the bullshit for Chris Matthews, Jake Tapper and Judy Woodruff.

Sun Times Crows For Elitist Chicago

CityHall Vision for All  of us in most meighborhoods . . . and that Vision for all of them and the tourists. 

To thrive, a major city must keep re-imagining all of its streetscapes and neighborhoods. Sun Times

Without Vision the People Perish -The Book of Wisdom

The Chicago Sun Times has long lost any credibility to Chicagoans, people who live in its neighborhoods, attend its schools, pay its ridiculous fees and fines, while enduring the endless parade of grifters, grafters and goofs in public office, due to media stooging and propagandizing.

The Chicago Tribune has caught up to the Sun Times, but it continues to feign independence. Hal Hardick's bumshell of a yawn about working class boors needing to be replaced by working class boors of another race is an example Medill magic making Rahm seem to care, really care about the feelings of people universal.  Inspector Joseph Ferguson's pre-wrapped gift to Rahm needed more trumpet time.

You see the pipe trades and tangential trades unions were the first to wildly support Mayor Emanuel for his ludicrous second term.  They delivered.  Rahm can not reciprocate and therefore must send a message - the door on 5 is closed.  He slit the throat of his 'friend' Barrett Murphy in very public manner, in order to shore up his support of an African American lawsuit against close-knit ethnic ( media code for white, Catholic and usually Irish racists) leadership and rank and file in the Chicago Water Department.

E-mails revealed that pipe trades people engage in racist, homophobic and sexist banter.  Lord have Mercy, what a shock.

E-mails in the future will reveal similar attitudes, because " Dominance hierarchies exist in numerous social species, and rank in such hierarchies can dramatically influence the quality of an individual’s life. " — Robert Sapolsky.  The sword cuts two ways. Irish out and African American's in - Oh, wait a minute.  That's right.  The Irish still are dominant hierarchy of most trade unions.

Rahm needs time to work out exactly what the seismic shift in ethnic hegemony in the Water Department will mean to him and his brother elites.

The Tribune plays for time.  The Sun Times plays for the long game. The long game is for the zero-matter voter - people who buy in and play along.

The Sun Times chirped this brain-fart of an editorial

Sun-Times Editorial Board- To thrive, a major city must keep re-imagining all of its streetscapes and neighborhoods.
Chicago succeeded on that score last week as state and local officials unveiled their latest redevelopment plans for Lake Shore Drive from Grand Avenue north to Hollywood Avenue.

We don’t know where the money will come from, or even how much it would cost overall. But we hope some of the beguiling notions laid out in the plans inspire city leaders sufficiently to  lift at least some of these ideas off of the drawing boards and move them to reality.Among the concepts are straightening the hazardous S-curve near Oak Street Beach a bit, adding park land and installing more bike and pedestrian pathways. The goal is to speed traffic, ease pedestrian and cycling congestion and minimize flooding on wavy days. Construction won’t begin until 2019 at the earliest.

Ideas that fell by the wayside in the planning process include a light rail line and sending the Drive underground through a tunnel below Oak Street Beach. (emphasis my own)

Now, why did I highlight those locations for this 'visionary' miracle?  They ain't in Englewood.  They ain't in Back of the Yards. They ain't in New City.  They sure as hell ain't in Brighton Park.

Vision for city means the whole city, not just the choice chops of real estate with pretty infrascture.

The elitist vision is Chicago -50th Ward,  47th Ward, 46th Ward, 44th Ward, 42rd Ward, 41st Ward, 33rd Ward, 32nd Ward, 26th Ward,  20th Ward, 11th Ward, 5th Ward, 4th Ward, 3rd Ward, 2nd Ward, 1st Ward.  Roughly 75th & Lake shore Drive to Evanston and O'Hare Airport to the Loop.

These sixteen Wards represent who and what is important to Progressive Democratic Chicago - the global city.

Englewood, Brainerd, Grand Crossing, Gresham, Morgan Park, Beverly Mount Greenwood will be allowed to be mirror images of Ford Heights, Robbins, Markham, Harvey and Dalton.

From the garbage grid through this plan of limited scope and vision, Progressive Democratic Chicago is about shrinking the map and eliminating the neighborhoods.

Rahm's vision would never consider placing a trades school in Englewood when one can turn neighborhood Lindblom High School into a Magnet school, benefiting very few students living within walking distance.

Rahm's vision, like Richie Daley's seeks to get the most for the fewest number of people and shed the skins of all others.

Imagine if Rahm, the two Chicago newspapers, the bow-tied tweedy goofs at our private but public policy driven universities actually cared about people, homicides, justice, or the future.

Imagine.  Putting resources into neighborhood values-centered education that would help kids from K-12 develop skills that would make them competitors, who placed service, pride in work and family above getting over on people. Kids could learn and develop the skills necessary to become pipe-fitters and engineers and gain immediate admission to apprenticeship programs.  Kids need to know that 1/8th is larger than 1/16th and much larger than 1/32nd -Rahm's CPS has not managed to divine that mystery for generations of kids. Imagine that.

Politicians do not imagine, they appropriate. A recent article in the Chicago Tribune by Anne Little told the story of Olmstead's Riverside.  That is vision.

Frederick Law Olmstead created the only ideal living space in Cook County - Riverside, IL.  He came to Chicago with a whole vision - you know holistic. He wanted a respite from Chicago and its teeming neighborhoods packed with competing ethnicities.

 "The city, as yet, has no true suburb . . . in which urban and rural advantages are agreeably combined." Olmsted envisioned Riverside as a sylvan retreat where "the conveniences peculiar to the finest modern towns" would be combined with "the domestic advantages of a most charming country."

Daley and Rahm, with help from the globalist academics, pared down Chicago closing neighborhood saloons, eliminating parking, section 8 housing scams, paying off ludicrous lawsuits without the slightest challenge, looting pensions for foreign (Russian & Red China ) investments, race baiting, eliminating Ward autonomy until neighborhoods became empty of middle class values and initiatives and hope deserts.

The Sun Times has been the most obedient servant in these efforts.

Today's huzzah for a piecemeal streetscape for disposable income demographic as if it were Dan Burnham resurrected is just one more nail in Chicago's coffin.  Vision my broad manly ass.  Chiacgo is going to Hell - a Progressive Democratic Hell.

Hell is a place where the bartenders are physicists, the accountants are historians, the traffic engineers are experimental psychologists, and the clothing shops are run by geologists.

Those Fracking Russians! Colluding Up Some Sand With Green Activists

Frack Free Illinoisfracking

Tens of millions of dollars are moved from Russia through Klein “in the form of anonymous donations” to a U.S.-based nonprofit called the Sea Change Foundation. Newsweek

 My buddy, Stu Haugen, gave me a heads up on some Russki Collusion.

Since 2014,   Putin has been colluding with Obama bundler and environmental-oligarch Tom Steyer to put an end to fracking.

Top U.S. government officials who have acknowledged the connection between Russian and environmental groups include former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, the Democratic nominee for president in 2016.
In 2014, Clinton delivered a “private speech” in which she discussed Russia’s financial support for environmental groups, the letter says. The speech was included in documents released by WikiLeaks, it says.
An Oct. 10, 2016, report in The Washington Times quoted Clinton as saying:
"We [the State Department and the U.S. government] were up against Russia pushing oligarchs and others to buy media. We were even up against phony environmental groups, and I’m a big environmentalist, but these were funded by the Russians to stand up against any effort, ‘Oh that pipeline, that fracking, that whatever will be a problem for you,’ and a lot of that money supporting that effort was coming from Russia."

Fracking is a modern method of getting cheaper fuels.

Can't have that,  any more than cheaper health care, according to the American elites.

While Donald Junior has stepped on his . . .finger, shall we say . . .with the e-mail dump from people who set him up like pay-day-loan customer and given the elites more combustible oxygen to burn out any thoughts other than Putin and Trump collusion, environmentalists  have taken Kremlin coin to fight fracking.

I saw this in North Utica, Illinois where I spent a glorious 4th of July.  There was this huge sign coming into town from I-80.  La Salle County, Illinois and Hegewisch as well as Whiting, Indiana have been targeted by Green activists for some serious activism and now it appears that like most Left-of -Center initiatives - grassroots come from far, far away.  In this case Vlad Putin's Russia. Fractrakker is one method and resource for activists who would not know Wisconsin Drift from Loess Over Bedrock, but would bus happily over to Starved Rock, or the Pierogo Festival to anti-Fas up a storm.

That said, fracking is controversial.  I have yet to set a match to a water faucet in Hegewisch, Whiting, or Utica and get immolated.   People have had problems.  Farmers are surrounded by sand pits, as more mining operations take hold in La Salle County

"Mining frac sand is a lot like mining regular sand except it's wildly profitable, and that's why everyone wants to do it," said Todd Vencil, managing director of equities research at Sterne Agee, a privately owned brokerage firm based in Birmingham, Ala.
The company paid $8 million to buy the land, according to property and state records, and it expects to invest $25 million to $50 million to get the mine running, according to company filings.
The rolling corn and soybean fields near Starved Rock State Park, 95 miles southwest of Chicago, are coveted by multinational corporations for the fine-grain sand deep below the rich soil. Known as Ottawa white, the sand is uniformly circular — perfect for drillers who pump a mixture of sand and chemicals into fracking wells across the nation.
"In the world, there are not that many — geographically speaking — deposits of very high quality northern white sand that has the technical specifications that are in greatest demand. One of those areas is in Illinois, and it's close to the surface of the earth," said Robert Stewart, executive vice president of strategy, corporate development and communications at Eagle Materials. (emphases my own)

La Salle County is not new to controversy - that was one of Com Ed's nuclear stations built to fight America's dependency on OPEC - remember them?  Nuclear power had environmentalists screaming doom to the loam, because La Salle County might be at seismic risk ( earth quake) and I might become an NBA power guard - the odds are about the same 1-357,143.

Fracking is good. Even Obama's energy Czar Ernest Muniz said so, “The natural gas boom, in particular, has led to the displacement of high-carbon coal with low-carbon natural gas producing fewer emissions. ”  The Obama EPA released a report that many of the myths about dangers to drinking water were revealed to be myths and uncomfortable falsehoods. 

That will not stop the Birkenstock irregulars from boarding buses and holding news conferences for the nodding public.

Fracking is the Green beef du jour in Illinois. The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) is heavy in Illinois and owns many State Representatives and State Senators. The NRDC is home to Robert Redford and Leonardo DiCaprion, as well as Illini activist Henry Henderson.  Henderson is a veryfrequent Huffington Post expert poster on things Green and as far back as 2013 has attempted to stop fracking in its steps

But our overall position on fracking has not changed: unless and until we have strong, protective safeguards on the books, we should not start fracking in Illinois. Certainly, plenty can happen between this point and the Governor’s desk, so while we are encouraged by what is currently in the bill (check my colleague Ann Alexander’s blog for a rundown of the technical issues addressed in the bill that has been introduced), we will remain vigilant for any weakening of the standards. A watered down version of the bill as it stands today might point to the need for other options in the Land of Lincoln.

Well, Illinois politicians are moved by their wallets Henry.

It sure seems that groups like NRDC needed to put the touch on Putin

 Contrary to what Russia’s propaganda machine and its environmental allies have told news consumers in Europe and America, fracking is safe, effective, and enormously beneficial, Nick Loris, an economist and energy policy analyst with The Heritage Foundation, said in an email to The Daily Signal.
“If successful, an anti-fracking campaign is depriving Americans of good-paying jobs and affordable, dependable energy,” Loris said. “Despite smears and outright lies from environmental activists, smart drilling and energy extraction technologies have been proven to be safe.”
“It feels like every week a new study is published, confirming what we already know,” he said. “Hydraulic fracturing does not contaminate drinking water. The facts and history of hydraulic fracturing, a history that dates back more than half a century and over 1 million fracked wells, indicate that many of the fears associated with the process are grossly exaggerated or flat-out unsubstantiated.” Newsweek. 

Well, frack me crosseyed!

Better ask Vlad for more dough.

In the mean time - How About that Trump Kid?

When A No-Class Hump Talks Down to the Middle Class About Class

"I'm that same David Crockett, fresh from the backwoods, half-horse, half-alligator, a little touched with the snapping turtle; can wade the Mississippi, leap the Ohio, ride upon a streak of lightning, and slip without a scratch down a honey locust." - Congressman David Crockett
(David) Brooks's conclusion is clear:
Davy Crockett was a gangster rapper.     Dr. Cleveland

"I suck...I can’t remember what I said but my mother told me I was extremely stupid.” - David Brooks*

Few public persons make my skin crawl like " cultural commentator" David Brooks.   Many other Americans feel the same about Brooks.

David Brooks is the go-to-voice of the elite against everyone else,  in the drag of a ' sober, sane and pliable conservative.'  You can read David Brooks in the American elitist rags, New York Times and the laughable Washington Post and watch Dave on PBS, ABC and other organs piping away for a corporatist elite America.

Brooks is a faux- person and author of the marvelously dull Bobos in Paradise.  I read it. It stinks on ice.  For cultural commentary go to P.J. O' Rourke, a man of intellectual heft and wit, but for pure oleaginous butt-munching propaganda, ask Dave Brooks.

Brooks is famously ludicrous for drooling over Barack Obama's smartly creased britches and Babesplains politics with the the bumptious Mark Shields and the prissy virago Judy Woodruff.

Today, this smarmy dope complains that the upper-middle class ( people with way more money than I will ever dream of) is ruining America, because Dave sees them as Hippies with too much time, treasure and absolutely no talent.  These  moneyed Hippies, like Dave himself, hold college and advanced degrees over the souls of the masses as proof that they are a priori better persons than high school diploma and GED people, but vastly superior to the people their policies enslave. This Brooks fart-in-a- windstorm of an Op-Ed for the New York Times offers servings of smarm like this:

I was braced by Reeves’s book, but after speaking with him a few times about it, I’ve come to think the structural barriers he emphasizes are less important than the informal social barriers that segregate the lower 80 percent.
Recently I took a friend with only a high school degree to lunch. Insensitively, I led her into a gourmet sandwich shop. Suddenly I saw her face freeze up as she was confronted with sandwiches named “Padrino” and “Pomodoro” and ingredients like soppressata, capicollo and a striata baguette. I quickly asked her if she wanted to go somewhere else and she anxiously nodded yes and we ate Mexican.

American upper-middle-class culture (where the opportunities are) is now laced with cultural signifiers that are completely illegible unless you happen to have grown up in this class. They play on the normal human fear of humiliation and exclusion. Their chief message is, “You are not welcome here.”

Gee, unlettered people appreciate only Mexican, or Chinese, or Pizza?

Oh, Eat me!

Dave was braced, by a book.  I was braced by Officer Frank Sims, CPD at Hites on 79th Wood in 1969, because I was standing with Mike McKeating.

Eat me, again!

Most of my contemporaries chose entering the American workforce, the military and law enforcement over Loyola, DePaul, UICC, or Illinois State.  They own diplomas from CVS, Hubbard, Harper, Little Flower, Brother Rice, Leo, Maria, Bogan, Calumet, Mount Carmel, Weber, Lindbloom and De La Salle high schools and know all about not only soppressata, capicollo and a striata baguette, but also galumpki, dolmades, pierogi, pascki, mazukas and colcannon.

The guys who went to war in late 1960's and early 1970's also are familiar with pho, banh gio and corned beef and cabbage banh mi.

Yet, syrupy Dave wants all and sundry to accept the fact that the upper-middle class has somehow developed an invisible electric-eye security fence ready to zap the shins of diploma holders and scare them out of tony eateries.  "Yo, Dog!  Don't go there!  You need an advanced degree in Phallic Studies from Occidental.  The Dick Degree, Fool!**"

I don't know any Old Money people.  You pedigree'd scions of the Mayflowe with given names like Increase, Purchase, Atonement, Sodomy and Commerce.  People who drive beaters and wear clothes from the Truman Era handed down from Mater and Pater and open wrestling farms, or work in the State Department.

The guys I know who went to Brown, Yale and Princeton won  scholarships and played football and they went to work teaching high school, working with under-funded kids, Boeing Corporation and the NSA.  They were never asked to join Skull and Bones.

I know many nouveau riche folks - upper-middle class, or Brooks' Bobos.  One guy went to Notre Dame from a dirt farm in the Texas panhandle and became the leading Real Estate name in Chicago.  He treats janitors and cleaning crews like they were Saudi Royalty.   Another made dolls and billions and taught kids at Leo what hard work can do for good. Money is only a tool.   Happiness lies far beyond the curve the dollar sign.

I know bartenders and roofers who have read more Milton, Conrad, Turgeniev and Joyce than the English Department of De Paul University and understood what they wrote and why the wrote even better.

David Brooks wrote this piece because he was 'braced' by a study that agreed with the crap on the pages of Bobos in Paradise.

He is an elitist cheerleader and works for some very nasty people. As my high school classmate who took four years of Latin, would say, Lector cave, or Cave ne qui legit.  

Whatever! How about some Mexican.  That was not a question.




*Biography
David Brooks is an op-ed columnist for The New York Times and appears regularly on “PBS News Hour,” NPR’s “All Things Considered” and NBC’s “Meet the Press.” He teaches at Yale University and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is the bestselling author of The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achievement; Bobos in Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There; and On Paradise Drive: How We Live Now (And Always Have) in the Future Tense. He has three children and lives in Maryland.

**The Phallus: Occidental College:
It’s difficult to get to grips with the exact nature of this course – if you’ll pardon the pun. It’s cited as studies  “between the phallus and the penis, the meaning of the phallus, phallologocentrism, the lesbian phallus, the Jewish phallus, the Latino phallus, and the relation of the phallus and fetishism” but is actually a survey offered by this distinguished college’s department of critical theory and social justice.

A Note to Pope Francis - Distorted Visions Don't Contribute to Peter's Pence

" So, all of the Muslims in the wagon trains were scalped by the . . .Seventh Cavalry . . ."

“I am afraid there are very dangerous alliances between powers who have a distorted view of the world: America and Russia, China and North Korea, Russia and Assad in the war in Syria,”  - Pope Francis I

“I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism.” - Barack Obama

"There is no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people." - Howard Zinn


Pope Francis seems like a very nice man.  That said, I believe that he owns a very jaundiced view of America (United States), the American people and our values.

This is not a surprise as the Pope visited the United States for the only time in his life, after he became St. Peter's Successor. Pope Francis was squired around and reported on Washington, D.C., New York City and Philadelphia by people who have as yellow a vision of America (USA), its people and its history.  A simple look at the CBS coverage highlights the social and cultural agenda of the media more than it does the impact of the Pope upon Catholics in America - at least two features go to great lengths to condemn the conscience of a Kentucky county clerk and attempt to make her out to be liar, rather than anything else of moment. President Obama had spoken and LQBTQIAPK marriage replaced traditional marriage, to some minds.

President Obama seemed perfect for Pope Francis and vice versa.  President Obama is the first Howard Zinn indoctrinated President, as well as the first Planned Parenthood, LGBTQIAPK and Black President.  Howard Zinn affected the study of American history like no scholar since Francis Parkman.  Zinn is 100% wrong on his Marxist disdain for American history, the American people and American values.

Zinn believed that the Greatest Generation, our fathers and grandfathers, should be ashamed of their sacrifices freeing Europe and Asia from global totalitarians, " Should we not honor, instead of parachutists and bomber pilots, those conscientious objectors who refused to fight or the radicals and pacifists who opposed the idea that young people of one nation should kill young people of another nation to serve the purposes of politicians and financiers?"

No, Howard.

My Dad did not collect Japanese grenade fragments in tribute to Wall Street.  He liberated the Melanesians of Bougainville, the Chamorros of Guam and whatever was supposed to live on Iwo Jima. One more landing and there would have been bump in the Hickey DNA and I would not be typing this.

President Obama's America came from Howard Zinn, Frank Marshall Davis and Pastor Jeremiah Wright. 

The Pope is political and his politics seems to be much more strident than his fore-runners, including the sainted John Paul II.  His appointment of the ultra political Blase Cupich to the Chicago Archdiocese is a pretty clear indication that Pope Francis wants his bishops to lock-in with the  local political powers.  Blase Cardinal Cupich has locked step with Chicago and Cook County politicians like a ballroom dancer. As a result, Chicago political pastor Micheal Pfleger :

It’s a first: Father Pfleger tells Sneed the appearance of Cardinal Blase J. Cupich at St. Sabina’s summer kickoff rally and March for Peace in the neighborhood was the first time a cardinal from the Chicago Archdiocese had ever attended the neighborhood event.
“I’ve been inviting them year after year to no avail. And Cardinal Cupich came directly off a flight from a Bishops Conference in Indianapolis in order to make the march. Pretty special”

Pretty special indeed. Pfleger owns the Chicago media and just made Cardinal Blase bullet-proof.  Cardinal George was vilified by the political stooges on Chicago's newspapers, as well as radio and television. It appears that Cupich cares more about the good opinion of Michael Sneed and Jay Levine than he does about the people in pews at St. Bede the Venerable, or St. Pascal's.

Pope Francis sponsored Cupich and now Phleger sponsors him as well. Is that a vision thing?

You bet.

Pope Francis does not seem to like President Trump.  Fair enough.  However, while President Trump was in Poland and later Germany in defense of Western Civilization, Pope Francis grouped America(USA) along with Russia, North Korea, Syria and Red China as nations with 'distored visions.'

I do not recall America crossing the 38th Parallel in 1950, crushing speech in Prague in 1968 and sending millions of people to the GULAG as well as persecuting Jews, or sending tanks into Tibet, nor laying down gas on civilians anywhere.

The late Howard Zinn could straighten me out, I guess, but he has shed his mortal husk.

I do know that American Catholics ( I'm one) send the most financial support to Peter's Pence every year.  Yep.  America on average contributes almost 30% annually to the Pope's Pot.

People with 'distorted vision' don't crack open their wallets. People with 'distorted visions' don't run to join the Marines and liberate people from real oppression for three years.  They don't qualify for Honor Fights.

People with 'distorted visions' are political people, Your Holiness.

Payback Really is a Bitch! Cook County Purge of Teamsters, Guards and Anyone Toni Preckwinkle Don't Like.

Hyde Park 2006 Independence Day parade (left to right starting at center in light green): Preckwinkle as the Statue of Liberty, Illinois State Representative Barbara Flynn Currie as Uncle Sam, and Chicago City Council Alderman Leslie Hairston as Betsy Ross

I did a buddy of mine a solid. He asked me to help get Pat Quinn elected Governor for real in 2009 and Pat would do my buddy a solid.  I was dubious.  No Progressive ever does any one a solid.   I am old school; I supported and voted for Pat Quinn for Governor. I still need a shower on that one.

That sin of mine is the real reason why Chicago, Cook County and the State of Illinois are so screwed up.

We all do 'nice people,' a solid.

Jeremy Bentham, the great 19th Century economist argued for the greatest good for the greatest number of people.  Can't argue with that.

However, for a Progressive, the greatest number is # 1.  That truth was argued to young President Teddy Roosevelt by glaciologist John Muir and still holds true today.

I did a buddy a solid and did not vote my own conscience.  I detested Pat Quinn's politics going all of the way back to the days when he carried water for a crook and a Progressive - Governor Dan Walker.
Quinn opposed all regular Democrats, because he wanted to be viewed as a Reformer ( aka - unskilled policy bully).

The Late Illinois Senate Leader Phil Rock was a Democrat of the old school - anti-abortion, anti-Marxist and true to the values that created the greatest standard of living in world history. Phil Rock kept goofs like Quinn at arm's length.  That was long ago, when being middle class was a good thing.

Pat Quinn and Dan Walker and Abner Mikva and Dawn Clark Netsch and Bill Singer and Jesse Jackson and Michael Shakman and Larry Bloom and Toni Preckwinkle and the late Red guru Dr. Quentin Young were dead set against  this middle class hegemony.

Toni Preckwinkle was a Catholic high school ( Visitation), when Pat Quinn was honing his Hyde Park Mafia ( Abner Mikva) chops.  Preckwinkle had a reputation as a humorless, racist ( hates whitey) and not very well read history instructor and those qualities made her an ideal candidate for IVI-IPO Democrats.

It took Toni three swings  with the IVI bat to unseat Tim Evans for Alderman of the 4th Ward, but the rest is the typical Progressive history - suck up to Regular Democrats, gain their trust, knife them in the kidneys and repeat, repeat, repeat and repeat while keeping the media with you.

Sometimes, the Feds get in the way of Progressive Independent and Reform minded Democrats -Larry Bloom (neighboring 5th Ward Alderman), IVI-IPO operative Bob Creamer and Illinois Governors Dan Walker and Rod Blagojevich come to mind.

When Reformer Larry Bloom went to school in 1999, Mikva Challenged Federal Judge was wont to complain about Federal prosecutors for  "prosecutorial zeal does not, as I perceive it, justify overstatements of the nature I find in some respects in this case."  Convict Larry Bloom whined, "I was mugged--not by any petty thief or street tough, but by agents of my government, our government."

Translated - "Larry Stole and cheated on his taxes but criminy . . .he's a Goo-Goo!"

Thus far, Toni Preckwinkle has escaped the eyes of the Feds.  Therefore, Toni Preckwinkle does what she wants and to whom she wants. It is now the Teamsters, who work for Progressive rival Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart.

Tit for tat?

Or a case of unintended consequences?

Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart’s office just got a letter from Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle listing 925 positions designated for layoffs — if a judge doesn’t allow a countywide sweet beverage tax to take effect by August.
• The kicker: Sneed is told 377 of those jobs, many of them held by Cook County Jail correctional officers, are held by members of the Chicago Teamsters Union.
So here’s the kick in the butt.
Recently, the Teamsters Union took out a full-page newspaper ad opposing the tax, which Preckwinkle vigorously backed.
“This sure looked like a shot across the bow,” a top Sneed source said.
“Or interesting timing that many of the designated layoffs were members of the Teamsters Union, which took out the ad opposing the tax,” the source said.

You see, Teamsters not only work as Correctional personnel, but also deliver Pop. Pop is a Progressive target, because fat kids love it and it rots teeth, creates obesity and goes great with salty snacks.

Teamsters deliver salty snacks.

Teamsters also deliver votes.

Let's get back to my sins.

I agreed to do a pal a solid.  I helped support Pat Quinn for Governor.  Running with daffy Pat filling the void left by reformer Rod Blagojevich, for trying to sell  a Senate seat to IVI-IPO Alumnus Barack Obama, was Toni Preckwinkle for President of Cook County Board to unseat Todd Stroger, created by Progressive patron Tom Hynes, to replace the late John Stroger, a Regular Democrat and gentleman to the backbone.

My pal was immediately stabbed in the back by Pat Quinn upon his election, because Quinn has the loyalty of a gnat.

Toni Preckwinkle rode Quinn's coat-tails, because of people like me.  I did a pal a solid and created the person taking jobs away from 925 families in Cook County.

That's Progressive.  Get people to do you a solid and then give it to them good and hard.

As Progressive Federal Judge Milton Shadur lamented when he was forced to sentence Reformer Larry Bloom, "It is true of law-enforcement agencies in addition to anyone else that if you lie down with dogs, you are likely to get up with fleas."

As the great Fats Waller once reasoned, " One never knows, Do One?"

Ain't that a Bitch, Judge?