Hic Jacet ! Going Dark!

This site is going dark as of tomorrow. I'll be writing and posting but not for public viewing. It is good practice.

Ave atque Vale! Been the grins.

Chicago's Poet J.J. Tindall - This is Poetry

Chicagoetry: Saturday Afternoon
By J.J. Tindall
Saturday Afternoon

Music, if music, is divine,
the sub-atomic matter of divinity.
Not as a god but as a god might be.
He savored the complacencies
of a beer run, illumined by siren song,
the luminous trill of a woman's voice
in Spanish--not the tyrannous bleat
of emergency engines--sluicing through
ash-grey alleys like invisible water
through caverns of Indian-corn brick,
fluttering, flirting and luring,
lute en fleur.

A brook of invisible gems, supple
and turbulent, a careening of lush atoms.
Spanish is music-upon-music to the non-Spaniard
in the works. He encountered a church
festival in the parking lot of Iglesia del
Nazareno, a carnivale of faith and family,
pulsating with popular rhythm and blues.
Children darting and dancing, setting pigeon
flocks--flecked in ash--undulating, supple
and turbulent. Young couples embracing,
husbands and wives in intense conversations
of labor, pain and enduring love.

Visible, culpable: keyboards, trap-set
and bass guitar, with a chorus of three (a trinity).
Music invisible, but real as rain.
The Spanish did not batter his heart
with mythy rhetoric. Divinity pressed upon him
in lush, sub-atomic reality, whorling and whooshing,
like a jettisoned flock of scavenger birds.
Like swirling birds, not a seething, humanesque god.
The more human, the less humane. The less humane,
the less godly. Music, if music, is miracle,
luring lush hearts from deifying life's inherent pain,
not as a god but as a god might be.

October 19th, Black Robes: The Feast of the Jesuit Martyrs of North America

Let your loins be girded and your lamps burning,
and be like men who are waiting for their master to come home from the marriage feast, so that they may open to him at once when he comes and knocks.
Blessed are those servants whom the master finds awake when he comes; truly, I say to you, he will gird himself and have them sit at table, and he will come and serve them. If he comes in the second watch, or in the third, and finds them so, blessed are those servants!

Today's Gospel: Luke 12:35-38


In the 17th Century, the Catholic Church was recovering from decades of Protestant revolt. The Church took a hard look at itself and began to Reform. As part of that Reformation, the Order of Jesuits ( Society of Jesus) was formed by a Spanish soldier named Ignatius Loyola and organized according to military science with a clear and single mission - Progagate the Faith.

In 1646, French Jesuits appeared in North America and quickly converted the Huron Nation to Christianity covering an area from what is now New York to well north and west of Quebec.

Words strive in vain to convey to a comfortable world the virtue of the first missionaries, and to describe the difficulties confronted by these heros desiring to implant Christianity amid the savage nations of the north. Building materials, chapel accessories, everything in effect had to be imported from France; the Indian languages were varied and difficult; customs were at best non-Christian; insects infested the woods where they dwelt; the tribes were migrant and had to be followed from place to place. There were less belligerent ones who responded rapidly to the pacifying and sanctifying influences of the Faith, but the Iroquois of the northeast were dreaded, and it was to them that the eight martyrs all fell victims, over a period of seven years.

The Indians called the Black Robes. They were talented men of science, medicine and military professionals. They were the result of the Church's long hard look. The Catholic Church is taking that long hard look again and so are Catholics themselves.

These men were giants.

St. Jean de Brébeuf (1649), St. Noël Chabanel (1649), St. Antoine Daniel (1648), St. Charles Garnier (1649), St. René Goupil (1642), St. Isaac Jogues (1646), St. Jean de Lalande ,[6] and St. Gabriel Lalemant (1649).


These were some tough and dedicated men.

I feel particularly small and petty in their shadows.

Imagine!

Lookee Here!

Dan Green -Chicago Water Department Hero!

City workers bust tail for all of us. Last winter, I watched my neighbor Steve Riordan plow miles of City roads working around the clock; Water Department teams repaired burst water lines in Morgan Park in sub-zero weather. Today, the Tribune reports about Dan Green who pulled a man from a blazing wreck.

A city water management worker on his way to an overnight shift late Sunday rescued a man whose pickup truck slammed into a metal bridge support beam and burst into flames in the Brighton Park neighborhood, police said.

Just before 11 p.m., Daniel Green, 36, an emergency crew dispatcher for the Department of Water Management, was stopped at the eastbound traffic light on Pershing Road at Western Avenue when a northbound Ford F150 crashed into a support beam. Within a minute, the truck was engulfed in flames, said Green.

"I didn't really pay attention until he hit the pole," said Green in the parking lot of his job just after midnight Monday.

Green and a bystander rushed to help the man, who appeared to be in his 60s or 70s. The two forced the driver's side door open. About eight men then carried the unconscious man to a nearby sidewalk and waited for paramedics to arrive. "This guy was dead if we didn't get him out," said Green, adding that the man was slumped over the steering wheel.

Police at the crash scene said the man was semi- conscious when paramedics took him to a hospital.

Preliminary reports said witnesses saw the truck slam into a bridge support beam from an overhead railroad, said Police News Affairs Officer Amina Greer. The man was taken in stable condition to Mount Sinai Hospital, Greer said.

Police called Green, "a good Samaritan," who pulled the man from the truck before it became fully engulfed in flames, she said.

Mike Houlihan's Latest Film -Her Majesty 'Da Queen World Premiere November 13th at IAHC

If there are any flies on Mike Houlihan, they must be pretty active wee lads! Mike Houlihan hustles like a 70's Disco King. The man is a prodigy. His lastest film "Her Majesty 'da Queen" World Premiere is coming to Chicago's Irish American Heritage Center.

Mike Houlihan's Newest Film to Première at IAHC

The Irish American Heritage Center will host the world premiere of Mike Houlihan's new documentary "Her Majesty, 'da Queen" on Saturday night, November 13th at 7:30PM.

The film is a sneak peek backstage at the annual St. Patrick's Day Parade Queen Contest and captures all the humor, heartbreak, and excitement shared by over 100 young women each year as they vie for the crown. Many of Chicago's most endearing Irish-American personalities are also featured in the film in intimate interviews during the pageant.

"Her Majesty, 'da Queen" was edited from video shot at both the 2009 and 2010 queen contests. This one-hour program is a prologue to Mike Houlihan's epic documentary "Our Irish Cousins", which is currently in post-production. "Cousins" was shot all over the US and in Ireland and reveals the Irish American experience in all it's glory, humor, and sprit.

The screening of "Her Majesty, 'da Queen" will begin at 7:30PM with introductory remarks by filmmaker Mike Houlihan and finish up with a Q&A with the audience and a post-screening party in the Fifth Province. Pub.

The Irish American Heritage Center is located in Chicago at 4626 North Knox with free parking available. For more information call 773-282-7035.

Houlie moves like a Kenyan at a Marathon.

Fear and Frustration Driving People, Mr. President? Nah. It's Prayer and Wide Awake Living

WEST NEWTON, Mass. - President Barack Obama said Americans' "fear and frustration" is to blame for an intense midterm election cycle that threatens to derail the Democratic agenda.

"Part of the reason that our politics seems so tough right now and facts and science and argument does not seem to be winning the day all the time is because we're hardwired not to always think clearly when we're scared,” Obama said Saturday evening in remarks at a small Democratic fundraiser Saturday evening. “And the country's scared.”

It is tough being President. It is easy wanting to be President. President Obama is sounding more and more like Michael Scott on the TV show The Office with each passing day. Michael Scott is the Manager of a paper company branch office and how the poor guy ever became so is part of the program's charm.

President Obama does not and did not have the experience, nor the basic instincts to be President of United States - nice guy, I guess, but insubstantial. He is the product of collective wishful thinking on the part of the DNC, their cash cows and the American media. If I had not actually experienced the man Barack Obama ( executive director of Woods Fund 1995, Congressinonal Candidate 1st District, Illinois State Senator) I could have become an Obama enthusiast. Instead, I hitched my vote to John McCain who quit running for President on September 9th 2008 at the Bush White House "Holy Poop The Sky Is Falling!" Economic Summit.

Two years and change into President Obama's hapless Administration and the National Warranty expired very early, like the 2010 Impala* which is already being recalled - the seat belts get unhitched. Given President Obama's penchant for automobile tropes, I thought that fitting.

Nope, people are not fearful or frustrated they are Royally pissed.

Mass was packed this morning and the folks of Sacred Heart Catholic Church in the Washington Heights neighborhood prayed for the President after the Gospel - here it is

1 And he told them a parable, to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart.
2 He said, "In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor regarded man;
3 and there was a widow in that city who kept coming to him and saying, `Vindicate me against my adversary.'
4 For a while he refused; but afterward he said to himself, `Though I neither fear God nor regard man,
5 yet because this widow bothers me, I will vindicate her, or she will wear me out by her continual coming.'"
6 And the Lord said, "Hear what the unrighteous judge says.
7 And will not God vindicate his elect, who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them?
8 I tell you, he will vindicate them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of man comes, will he find faith on earth?"

The devout Patriots, mostly Democrats, prayed for Our Presdent and our Congress to defend our country,

We are praying like Hell and are as mad as Hell. I voted last week.


* GM Too Big to Fail? Failed just dandy.

General Motors and its Chevrolet Impala model.

Vehicles affected are 2009 and 2010 model year Chevrolet Impala sedans and the recall is down to concerns over a seat belt issue which means that the front seat belts could separate in a crash, according to Cheryl Phillips over on The Examiner. Over 300,000 vehicles are affected by this recall.

GM will begin notifying owners of these vehicles around October 25 and customers will be requested to take their cars into a local GM dealership where reinstalllments will be carried out on any seatbelts found not to be properly anchored. Both front seat belts will be inspected but it should be pointed out that there have not been any reports of injuries or deaths resulting from this problem.

http://www.onlykent.com/20101017/gm-chevrolet-impala-recall-2010-over-300000-details/

Style -Sinatra, Martin and Crosby

Bing Crosby) [Dean Martin]

Some people dress 'cause they dress when they dress,
But he gets dressed to get dressed.
(It's only a hunch but I bet you a bunch)
(He wears suspenders, a belt and a vest,)
[From the tip of his toes to his head,]
[He looks like an unmade bed.]

You've either got or you haven't got style.
(If you got it, you stand out a mile.)
A flower's not a flower if it's wilted,
(A hat's not a hat till it's tilted.)
[You either got or you haven't got class.]
[How it draws the applause of the masses.]


(You either got, or you haven't got,)
[Got or you haven't got,] ,

You've either got or you haven't got style, (got or you haven't got style).
[If you got it, it stands out a mile,] (if you got it, it stands out a mile.).
With mother of pearl kind of buttons,
(You look like the Astors and Huttons.)
[You either got or you haven't got class,] (got or you haven't got class.)
How it draws the applause of the masses.


(You've either got, or you haven't style) [got or you haven't got style}
(Style and charm seem to go arm in arm,) [seem togo arm in arm.].
[A flower's not a flower] (if it's wilted,)
[A hat's not a hat till it's tilted.]
(You've either got or you haven't got style,) [got or you haven't got style,]
[If you got it, you stands out a mile,] if you got it, you stand out a mile
(Got it you stand out,) got it you stand out a mile.


You've either got or you haven't got, (got or you haven't got,)
[Got or you haven't got,]

Come on , get some clothes on, we're gonna be late for breakfast.

STYLE:
Written by: Sammy Cahn
Written by: Jimmy Van Heusen
With Dean Martin and Bing Crosby
Arranged by: Nelson Riddle ? Nelson Riddle
From the Album: The Complete Reprise Studio Recordings
From the Film: Robin and the Seven Hoods
Label: Warner Bros. ? Reprise
Recorded: 12/3/63 ?

http://www.jumbojimbo.com/lyrics.php?songid=4125

Obamaretta - Gilbert and Sullivan Bedamned!

This here is a howl! Huge Hat tip to Anne Leary's Backyard Conservative!



Next week - Jerry " Governor Moonbeam" Brown's California Revival of John Ford's Senecan Tragedy'Tis Pity She's a Whore!

How to Restore Dignity to the Democratic Party - Show the Dopes the Door!

Departed Desiree Rogers always seemed the perfect metaphor of everything that has destroyed the once great Democratic Party - she brought absolutely nothing to the Party but arrogance and self absorption, but was a huge voice. Desiree, like Jan Schakowsky, Mike Quigley, Debbie Wasserman-Scultz,antony Weiner, Austan Goolsbee,Janet Napolitano, Valerie Jarrett, Arne Duncan, Andy Stern, Anna Burger,Eric Holder, Van Jones, and America's endless parade of protected nitwits, are shills for abortion, leftists agendas and corporate opportunists. It is time to consign these empty suits to the children's' table . . .again.


“These are naive idiots who’ve come out of academia and have never done anything real in their lives, and they are actually in power,” he said. “These are the people we never let in the room when we had serious business to do. Now they’re running the country.” Democratic Strategist Pat Caddell

I remain a Democrat. The Progressives of the National Democratic Committee hijacked the Party, took power, won the White House, ruined the American Economy for generations and all without the help of GW Bush, polarized the Nation, set-back race relations, fast tracked corruption with the Green Futures Market, and trampled on Foreign Policy. I remain a Democrat, for same reason that say the Memorare, the Nicean Creed, attend Mass, and do a couple of laps around the rosary despite Drum-banging Lesbian Wannabe Nuns and Ordained Idiots who undermine the Faith.

There are more great priests and nuns than the dopes, but the dopes have been allowed the microphones and bullhorns for too long.

Likewise, the very people that no self-respecting elected official would have had anything to do with thirty years ago are now the DNC operatives and national Party leaders.

Democratic Strategist and fellow helot Pat Caddell rails at President Obama, the DNC door-keeper for now and against the lunatic fringe that has usurped authority -

“My problem with Obama started the day he blew up public financing of presidential campaigns,” Caddell said in an interview with The Daily Caller. “He’s the man whose done the most to destroy whatever integrity there was in campaign financing.”

Obama declined public funding of his presidential campaign in 2008.

The administration’s attacks, Caddell said, on groups like the Chamber of Commerce and donors like the conservative Koch brothers reek of McCarthyism.“I was the youngest person on Richard Nixon’s enemies list. I take this stuff seriously. What they’re doing is Nixonian – it’s McCarthyite,” he said.

Caddell, who has worked for a number of presidential campaigns, including Joe Biden’s in 1988, said making outside money an election issue is a risky strategy for the Democrats. “You’re 21 days out from an election and this is what you’ve got? That’s it? Nothing about jobs or the economy?”

It won’t be pretty for his party, Caddell says. “Come the morning of November 2, they’re going to have a cold shower. It’s going to be an Arctic temperature.”

It is time for some genuine soul-searching in the Democratic Part -Federal, State and Local.

Nothing is on the Square -Especially For Us Squares -God Speed the Bad Days for Mr. Vrdolyak

“Hey, not even fishing is on the square.” Edward Vrdolyak

Only on Powder Horn Lake, Alderman. There is where us Squares are. There and in Albany Park, Gresham, Morgan Park, Mount Greenwood, Canaryville, Chinatown, Pilsen, Chatham, . . . Edward R. Vrodolyak respected and honored the Square.

Edward V. Vrodlyak was sentenced by Judge Milton Shadur, but Federal Judge Richard Posner bullied the press and the 7th Appellate Court to reverse a Judge's decision -the judge who actually heard the case, weighed the evidence and determined the sentence of probation.

That is Justice? No, that is public opinion. Public opinion has nothing to do with what people actually think - that is why abortion is tagged Choice and SEIU is called Big Labor, or unions. Public opinion is the rigged deck of cards shuffled by a closed club of social engineers, agenda soaked columnists and editorial boards, and opportunists who are protected.

Edward Vrdolyak was an effective public official, a tough in-fighter, and a guy with full and respectful understanding of the public - the working people*, the tax-payers, the home owners and the Squares who work 8-14 hours a day to meet the cost of living and still manage to care for their neighbors, the Law and defend their country.

The Editorial Boards and iconic columnists are doing the bidding of Closed Club America and have tossed history down the Orwellian memory hole - it was Edward R. Vrdolyak working for Mayor Jane Byrne who registered the hundreds of thousands black men and women who stood on the political sidelines back in the late 1970's -it was boss Vrdolyak Head of the Democratic Party of Cook County who did that. Vrdolyak invented the Harold Washington Movement. That is a fact. Long before Slim Coleman and Lou Palmer ever looked at the books of registered African Americans, Edward Vrodlyak was doing the work. History is not cute, but what is done to history by the Closed Club is cute as hell - in Ireland they are called Cute 'Hoors.

Edward Vrdolyak had his day in court some time ago and faced the judicial music.

Federal Judge Richard Posner, a leading member of the closed club of social engineers et al., changed the score.

If you wonder why there is a Tea Party boiling over in this country consider what has happened to Edward Vrdolyak.


*

Hegewisch is a real place, and it's not in Harry Potter-land. But mention it to Chicagoans and 75 percent of them will give you that tilted-head, pursed-lipped look of Huh? Where?

It is, in fact, a neighborhood of Chicago, as south and east as the city goes. It's possible to play Twister with left hand on Chicago, left foot on Burnham, Ill., and right foot on Hammond, Ind.

It's a lovely and leafy place — bungalows in a row with tidy, manicured lawns. Lots of Polish surnames. Among them: the Dombrowskis, proprietors of Club 81 Too on Avenue M. It's a bar with a separate restaurant that's only open on Wednesdays and Fridays. If you ran this ambitious of a seafood operation with a short staff, you'd be open only twice a week too.

My first visit here on a Friday evening was greeted by Leo Dombrowski, a white-haired man in a Hawaiian shirt. There's his sister, Joan, apron omnipresent, full of institutional memory and sass. Brother George stands guard behind the bar. And the memory of brother Frank "Big Cheese" Dombrowski, its longtime manager until his death last year, looms as large here as his stout frame.

All Chicago Veterans Invited to Leo High School Veterans Observance on Friday November 5th

Photo courtesy of Beverly Review

On Dec. 8, 1941, the day after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, Lou Knox tried to enlist in the Marines, but he was turned down for having an overbite.

Knox graduated from Leo High School in 1942, enrolled at DePaul University and was eventually drafted in February 1943.

“At that point, they would take you if you were warm,” Knox said.

A native of the parish of St. Columbanus Roman Catholic Church on the South Side, Knox served 34 months in the U.S. Army during World War II. He was a member of Darby’s Rangers, an elite special operations unit whose members were the first American soldiers to see combat in the war. He scaled a cliff in the south of France and was the first American soldier to enter Rome. He also met the king and crown prince of Norway. During his tour, he was wounded twice and received both the Purple Heart and the Bronze Star.

Now 87 and a resident of Tinley Park, Knox will recall some of his World War II experiences when he participates in the annual Leo High School Veterans Memorial Observance on Nov. 5. The event—co-sponsored by Leo High School, the Leo Alumni Association, Windy City Veterans, the Veterans Leadership Program, American Legion Giles Post #87 and the Chicago Commission on Human Relations—will take place in the school’s courtyard on 79th Street near Sangamon Avenue at 11 a.m. The event is open to the public.

Caroline Connors -Beverly Review

All Veterans, Veterans Organizations, Serving Members of the United States Military, All Federal, State and Local Law Enforcement Officers, and Firefighters are honored by Leo High School.

Friday November 5th, 2010 Program:

Invocation and Prayers by Father William McFarland

Wreath Laying

Singing of Our National Anthem and God Bless America by Ms. Catherine O'Connell

Pledge of Allegiance

Recognition of Veterans by

1. Leo School Leadership

2. Leo Alumni Association3. Taps and Dismissal

Leo High School
7901 S. Sangamon Street
Chicago, Illinois 60620 ( 773) 224-9600 extension 208 -Mr. Pat Hickey for more information

Tom Roeser - Chicago's Plutarch

Greece, by the turn of the first millennium, was a sad ruin of its former glory. Mighty Rome had looted its statues and reduced Greece to conquered territory. 1 Despite these circumstances, Mestrius Plutarchus (known to history as Plutarch) lived a long and fruitful life with his wife and family in the little Greek town of Chaeronea.

For many years Plutarch served as one of the two priests at the temple of Apollo at Delphi (the site of the famous Delphic Oracle) twenty miles from his home. By his writings and lectures Plutarch became a celebrity in the Roman empire, yet he continued to reside where he was born, and actively participated in local affairs, even serving as mayor. At his country estate, guests from all over the empire congregated for serious conversation, presided over by Plutarch in his marble chair. Many of these dialogues were recorded and published, and the78 essays and other works which have survived are now known collectively as the Moralia. . . .
Plutarch's plan in the Lives was to pair a philosophical biography of a famous Roman with one of a Greek who was comparable in some way. A short essay of comparison follows most of the pairs of lives. His announced intention was not to write a chronicle of great historical events, but rather to examine the character of great men, as a lesson for the living. Throughout the Lives, Plutarch pauses to deliver penetrating observations on human nature as illustrated by his subjects, so it is difficult to classify the Lives as history, biography, or philosophy. These timeless studies of humanity are truly in a class by themselves.

I looked at a replay of the Kirk-Giannoulias debate on NBC’s “Meet the Press” last night and was struck by the fact that the match-up shows the weaknesses and imperfectability of the human condition when squeezed by the vise of politics as nothing else has.
Nixon. A Success but Still Filled With Grievance.
Comparing it with the 1960 Kennedy-Nixon imbroglio which I have seen (in addition to its initial performance live) four times is fascinating. I am a great believer that experiences, good and bad, show up on people’s characters and faces beginning when they hit active middle age. In 1960 Nixon was 47, 5 feet 11 inches tall. 170 pounds, with wavy hair, brown eyes shaded by black, heavy eyebrows, a prominent ski nose, somewhat sagging jowls and a slightly protruding jaw—a face that narrowly missed being good looking. His health was generally adjudged as excellent but with a tendency to hypertension.

Tom Roeser

Plutrach paralleled the lives of the noble Greeks and Romans of history and myth- Theseus with Romulus, Themistocles with Camillus Cicero with Demosthenes, Phyrrus with Gaius Marius, Lysander with Sulla, Alexander with Caesar, Demtrius with Antony, andDion with Brutus - in all there were twenty three parallel lives.

Tom Roeser has been a public voice and an active civic leader in America from the time that he scooped an interview with First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt after WWII, through his work with the Nixon Administration on Civil Rights right up to today's feature in Chicago Daily Observer.

Mr. Roeser wears his heart on his sleeve and speaks with a clarity and simplicity that seems lost on the dodgy and self absorbed columnist icons who bore a hole through Chicago Readers with cant, smarm and agendas.

Tom Roeser offers context and historical fact.

Like the Greek historian of the 1st Millennium Plutarch, Tom Roeser has offered in his Sun Times and Catholic Wanderer columns, as well as his editorials for Chicago Daily Observer, parallel lives of American public figures -FDR/Coolidge; Lincoln/GW Bush; John Brown?Pro Life Activists & etc.

Today, in considering the tepid candidacies of Alexi Giannoulias and Mark Kirk Tom Roeser contrasts those figure with the stark contrast of accomplished men -JFK and Nixon.

Click my post title and give Chicago's Plutarch a read.

http://www.freewebs.com/delicianleague/