John McCain: Gov. Blagojevich School Choice Could Be Good For You

Every day that the Walking Pharmaceutical in Armani Suits* jabbers away to Paddy Fitz, the collar around Governor Rod Blagojevich** must feel like Ed Schultz's busting at the stain of fleshy waves like Cuchulain in Yeats' poem battling the sea -

'Stared on the horses of the sea, and heard
The cars of battle and his own name cried;
And fought with the invulnerable tide.'

Pressure. Grace under fire as calamity washes with greater fury, requires the weapon to check insurmountable foe -Fate.

I mean, Jeez, even Pat Quinn is coming on like an uncaged pit-bull from Vick's Doggie Day Care.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-quinn-recallapr07,1,3433388.story

Hey, Milorod,here's a Boss Idea! It's Keen! It's Hip and Happenin'!

Do the Maverick! It is the Dance craze sweeping the Nation and John McCain is the Maverick Mambo King!

Break with the public school lobby on School Choice. Give the taxpayers something. Anything.

You have nothing to lose on this one. No need to worry about tossing Jan Schakowsky Obama's seat ( She would be a Lousy Choice and Illinois has had enough Losers in the National Spotlight); no need to worry about Lisa Madigan's, Alexi Giannoulias', orDanny Hynes' growing popularity and good sense; no more worry about Tony Rezko - well maybe a little bit.

You'd be the good guy for a change. Get to dancing, Guv! Do the Maverick Mambo! Be Like McCain!

Take a look at the fine Heritage Foundation Study of Illinois School Choice Initiatives linked above with my post title. Look at all the boondoggles that allows Arne Duncan to cry-out that 190 Million Dollars is not enough for his Tax-Dollar Dry Vac - 'CPS students are now being murdered with bats; only last week they were gunned down! Think of the Children!'

School Choice - Vouchers is the only real change that will improve our miserable public schools and Vouchers will relieve Illinois Tax-payers of an ever-mounting burden.

Do the Maverick Mambo, Guv! Get all John McCain on us in Illinois. Hey, it can't hurt you. You may even lose some of that tightness around the collar.

* Stuart Levine - the professional Board Appointee in the Tony Rezko Trial who has testified to ingesting - Coke- Meth -Uppers & Downers and just about everything but Testor's Glue - well, the trial just started. Hey Jan Schakowsky love Stuart and She want to be our U.S. Senator, well, after all her hubby is an ex-Con:
From Today's Tribune Jan on Stu: "Mazel Tov to you, Stuart, on this special occasion," wrote Democratic U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky in another letter included in the program. "Your strong philanthropic efforts and outstanding leadership have contributed greatly to the Chicago area and beyond."

** Got that great Rod Frown that was originally posted at Steve Rhodes Great ( even though he thinks I'm a cave-dwelling troglodyte) Beachwood Reporter . Read it at this link:

http://www.beachwoodreporter.com/
Thanks Steve.

John McCain: Neil Steinberg's 'Riot of the Heart' is Important Reading

Chicago Sun Times columnist Neil Steinberg writes from the heart and uses a powerful noggin in support of that organism. Today, again, Neil Steinberg sticks his neck out with commentary on the debate about race, begun when Barack Obama's bat-guano crazy Uncle Jeremiah's bitter and hateful lectures on themes of victimhood and loopy conspiracies sprinted around the media. Barack Obama was in the jack-pot for not explaining exactly how his close and decades-long discipleship to Wright does not, in any way, affect his own view of America.

Like a good politician, Senator Obama changed the subject and deftly avoided answering the question and simultaneously crafting an artificial National Dialogue on Race: Black America ( really, the Victim Cottage Industry) tells everyone else how horrible whites are, have been and shall always be, while the monologues plays out. This National Dialogue consists of the position that White Supremacy makes life hell on earth for black Americans - now, nod with conviction.

Dollar Store black author and showman,Michael Eric Dyson celebrated the Anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King's assassination with this bit of prose:

“Before 1965, King was upbeat and bright, his belief in white America 's ability to change by moral suasion resilient and durable. That is the leader we have come to know during annual King commemorations. After 1965, King was darker and angrier; he grew more skeptical about the willingness of America to change without great social coercion.

King's skepticism and anger were often muted when he spoke to white America , but they routinely resonated in black sanctuaries and meeting halls across the land. Nothing highlights that split -- or white America 's ignorance of it and the prophetic black church King inspired -- more than recalling King's post-1965 odyssey, as he grappled bravely with poverty, war and entrenched racism. That is the King who emerges as we recall the meaning of his death. After the grand victories of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the 1965 Voting Rights Act, King turned his attention to poverty, economic injustice and class inequality. King argued that those "legislative and judicial victories did very little to improve" Northern ghettos or to "penetrate the lower depths of Negro deprivation." In a frank assessment of the civil rights movement, King said the changes that came about from 1955 to 1965 "were at best surface changes" that were "limited mainly to the Negro middle class." In seeking to end black poverty, King told his staff in 1966 that blacks "are now making demands that will cost the nation something. ... You're really tampering and getting on dangerous ground because you are messing with folk then."

Neil Steinberg offers a profound antiphon to the all-too familiar voices in the Media who would verbally nod with conviction over Dyson's pettifogging nonsense:

Of course they had cause ( to riot -infinitive, my own) -- their lives mired in poverty, cramped by lack of opportunity, rubbed raw against racism, and their best hope for change, a man of enormous wisdom and eloquence, cut down by a white racist.

But were they right to do it? I'd say no. Who did they hurt? They hurt themselves -- burned their own community, killed and wounded each other, largely.

Connect that to today. I'm not commenting on the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, personally, because I don't know him and refuse to judge him based on snippets posted by political shills. But his infamous "God damn America" is an attitude not unknown in the black community, where victimhood and bitterness and anger are too addictive for some to avoid.

We see this attitude in Wright's congregation, and its fervid, knee-jerk reply to critics -- we were wronged! Which shows they don't understand that many Americans don't know and don't care about the troubles they've seen, but do notice and do care when somebody trashes our country -- a riot of the heart, as it were. Like the West Side rioters, they only hurt themselves or, rather, they hurt the first black candidate with a real shot at the White House.

Click My post title for Neil Steinberg's fine Column

Sister Wendy Beckett: 'My real world is a world away from bustle"

My first experience with a nun occurred in the late 1950's at Little Flower Grammar School at 81st & Honore on the south side of Chicago. It was not a good one; similar experiences cascaded through my eight years at LFG.

My only ally, it seemed, - ( Hey, every one got clouted - except the snitches and they are now DNC Super Delegates) in my personal 'world's collide' with the Religious Sisters of Mercy was my County Kerry bog man Grandfather.

Unlike most, Hickeys, Old Lawrence understood. 'Pay them no mind, so, Páidín ( in Chicago phonetics, sounds like Pat-Sheen, translates to Paddy) , they're a shower of Hairy-faced Old Galway Bitches!'

Later in life, bumps, clouts, psychological warfare notwithstanding, I taught with some incredible women who 'took the veil.' The Sisters of Notre Dame - Helen Kavanaugh, Helen Larsen, Theresa Galvan, and the brilliant Madeline Lamarre. These girls could teach, filet a Kankakee River Channel Cat, work a beer glass like Bricklayer John McKenna and direct all of their actions to God.

I read a book about Sister Wendy Beckett, a South African born Sister of Notre Dame, Art critic, television star and contemplative. What struck me was Sister Wendy's attitude toward all things: 'everthing that happens in Life is a means to an end and I happen to believe that the end is God.' Sister then went on to compare the Rape of Lucretia by Tarquin to Cezanne's The Abduction - and wittily and smartly points to the nature of contempt for human beings intrinsic to the act of Rape.


Sister Wendy's life is spent in Caravan - in American, a trailer, a tornado target - at the bottom of a hill on which sits a Carmelite Contemplative Convent. As a contemplative, Sister Wendy has taken a vow of absolute silence and speaks only to the Superior of the Convent and rarely at that.

She talks a plenty - through her writing. Sister Wendy is a brilliant scholar and master of Art, who understands the nature of artistic expression and can explain the work of the World's Masters to this dumb as dirt know-it- all whose mouth goes like a duck's ass 24/7:

"Art is beauty and God is beauty. If you can get people to look at art; you are bringing them closer to Him, even if they don't know His name."

"My own definition of beauty is that which perpetually satisfies us. You look at it again and again and there is more of it to satisfy us. I would say that beauty is very much an attribute of God - He is essential beauty. But only those of us who have been fortunate enough to have faith know where beauty comes from. For the others, they are responding to beauty and responding to Him, though they mightn't be aware of that - they are responding to the pure, free, strong, loving spirit of God."

Sister Wendy

Got it in one take, Sister Wendy - and without a knuckle to the noggin. Thank You!

Click my post title for the TV series on Sister Wendy

Here is what Sister Wendy has been doing in the contemplative life -
Books

2001
Sister Wendy's Impressionist Masterpieces
Sister Wendy's American Masterpieces

2000
Sister Wendy's American Collection
In the Midst of Chaos, Peace (with Mary J. Dorcy and Dan Paulos)
Sister Wendy's Book of Muses (with Justin Pumfrey)

1999
Sister Wendy's 1,000 Masterpieces (with Patricia Wright)
My Favourite Things: 75 Works of Art from Around the World

1998
Sister Wendy's Nativity
Inner Life: A Fellow Traveler's Guide to Prayer (by David Torkington; foreword by Sister Wendy)
Sister Wendy's Odyssey: A Journey of Artistic Discovery
Sister Wendy's Book of Meditations
Sister Wendy's Book of Saints
The Mystery of Love: Saints in Art Through the Ages

1997
Sister Wendy's Story of Christmas: Adventures in Art
Sister Wendy in Conversation with Bill Moyers: The Complete Conversation (edited by Karen Johnson)
The Wisdom of the Apostles (compiled by Philip Law; introduction by Sister Wendy)
The Duke and the Peasant: Life in the Middle Ages (with Jean De Berry)
Max Beckmann and the Self

1996
Sister Wendy's Grand Tour: Discovering Europe's Great Art
Pains of Glass: The Story of the Passion from King's College Chapel, Cambridge (with George Pattison)

1995
Sister Wendy's Meditations: Meditations on Joy
Sister Wendy's Meditations: Meditations on Love
Sister Wendy's Meditations: Meditations on Peace
Sister Wendy's Meditations: Meditations on Silence
A Child's Book of Prayer in Art

1994
The Story of Painting
The Gaze of Love: Meditations on Art and Spiritual Transformation


Series

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2001
Sister Wendy's American Collection

1998
The Saints with Sister Wendy
The Much Loved Friend: Portrait of The National Gallery

1997
Sister Wendy in Conversation with Bill Moyers

1996
Sister Wendy's Grand Tour: Discovering Europe's Great Art
Sister Wendy: Pains of Glass
Sister Wendy's Story of Painting
Early Art
The Renaissance
Baroque to Romanticism
The Age of Revolution
Modernism

John McCain: School Choice, or More of This? CPS Anti-Violence Meeting Erupts in Violence

Public Schools have eliminated values ( religious or civic) forsake of a pale Political Correctness: when you stand for nothing, expect the consequences.

Catholic, Protestant, Jewish Muslim, Independent schools have stated core values in the mission statements.

The ACLU and the political bosses of the Public School Lobbies have killed the educational immune systems in Public Schools. Where Faith, Patriotism, Civic Values, Family Traditions are not welcome the synthetic gang sub-cultures flourish.

Witness the outburst of violence at a Chicago Anti-Violence Meeting at a Chicago Public high school yesterday.

An anti-violence rally at George Washington High School turned ugly Thursday when a series of fights broke out in a crowd of students being dismissed for the day.

Parents and students had gathered at 3 p.m. to protest what they said has been escalating violence between black and Latino students at the school, at 3535 E. 114th St. on the Far Southeast Side.

Tensions between the groups have persisted for years, parents and students said. But this week has been particularly violent, with several flare-ups that caused some parents to pull children out of school for their safety. Several parents said they would not allow their children to return to school until the violence was addressed.

The protest came on the heels of a larger rally Chicago Public Schools held earlier this week calling for an end to the shootings that have claimed 20 students this year.

John McCain is the only Presidential Candidate of any Party who leads on School Choice.

Click my post title for the latest example of what happens when schools stand for nothing.

1958 St. Pat's 79th Street Parade- Click My Title for Full Video

Tom Stumpf sent me this wonderful color slide show of the 1958 St. Patrick's Day Parade that marched from Ashland to Halsted on 79th Street. Note the absence of goofy green hats.

Leo High School is the dominant institution of the parade route and continues to be an Auburn-Gresham Anchor.

Get a load of the great floats including Dressler's Baker and Borden's Dairy.

Terry McEldowney, himself a 79th Street Institution, leads the keening on the anthem South Side Irish which chonicles the litany of Catholic Parishes that comprise - the South Side Irish.

Thank you Tom Stumpf!

John McCain: The Democrat Convention: What Really Happens at 3AM!

MSNBC - The Tool Shed's Bloated Fop - Gracie Olbermann and his identical twin Rachel Maddow the Gender Neutral Doublemint Twins of Fatuous Commentary -take every opportunity to slight the Honor, Ingerity, Service and Age of Senator John McCain.

John McCain is the only clear choice for Americans.

This is Howard Dean's Democratic National Committee's Dream Team- Democrat Convention!

Party or Not?

Hat Tip to American Patriot, Free Spender, Tax Smart and Ale Genius, Patriot and Patron - San Francisco's Vietnam Veteran Author - Mike McQuade!!!!!!

Click my post title for the very funny Olbermann Watch - Old Woman Olbermann never gets the time right and he's never been broke

John McCain: School Choice is the Answer to Righting the Political and Economic Disaster that is Our Public Schools

( Hat Tip to Illinois Review's Matt Gauntt - click my post title for more)

Leo Men like Mike Joyce (above) Volunteer to mentor and coach black young men into colleges and universities 93% go on to college. Jack O'Keefe and Denny Conway, two retired Educators do Math and English Prep every Saturday Free of Charge - No Marches. No Dollars.


Yesterday, Arne Duncan, who attended University High in Hyde Park a Blue Chip Independent School, threatened that 190 Million was the minimum CPS would accept from Illinois Taxpayers or the Chicago Taxpayers get it good and hard with a brand spanking new Property Tax. Had one last Fall, Arne, and the Irish Chapstick ( Preparation H) was just starting to take effect.

Politics, taxes, homicides, marches, pronouncements are all nice and everything, thanks very much, but I'll decline - just the same.

School Choice. That's what I want.

With School choice, Public Schools will become accountable through serious competition with University High, Leo, Mount Carmel, Luthers South, North and East, Latin School & etc.

Families will choose where they wish to send their sons and daughters and not be limited by economics - race and class if you will.

After work today, I will drive a bundle of study Guides over to Denny Conway's House so he can prep for the Voluntary Coaching he and Jack O'Keefe ( two retired educators and Leo Alumni) do for Leo High School Seniors. These guys and many other Leo guys step up and help kids boost their ACT Scores and it costs - not Nickel One!

These two retired Leo Men arrive here on Saturday mornings and conduct intense coaching for college bound Leo Men. No March. No Tax Dollars. Just genuine concern for kids.

Bill and Melinda Gates conducted a study linked below that points to the appalling graduation rates in American High Schools - Public Schools. Sadly, no where in the conclusion do I see any consideration for School Choice. Chicago Public Schools graduated about 5 in 10 kids. Might as well teach children very early in life to buy all the Lotto Tickets they can lay hands upon! Here's the Conclusion of the Gates Study:

EPE Research Center
April 2008 Cities in Crisis | 14
Conclusion
When they are not being labeled “obsolete,” America’s high schools have often been described as existing in a state of crisis. As this report has demonstrated, that observation is particularly apt for the school systems serving the nation’s very largest cities. A significant share of recent public debate in education-policy circles has revolved around the challenges we face as a nation ensuring that all students graduate from high school, diploma in-hand and well-equipped to face the world and excel in their adult lives. This is an aspiration that would apply whether an individual student’s path from high school leads to further education, occupational training, or immediately into the world of work.
If three out of every 10 students in the nation failing to graduate is reason for concern, then the fact that just half of those educated in America’s largest cities are finishing high school truly raises cause for alarm. And the much higher rates of high school completion among their suburban counterparts – who may literally live and attend school right around the corner – place in a particularly harsh and unflattering light the deep undercurrents of inequity that plague American public education.
It is often remarked that knowledge is power. The good news is that a movement is afoot to better arm educators, policymakers, and the public with the information they need to more accurately assess the nature and severity of the graduation crisis in their communities and around the country. Innovative efforts to turn around low-performing high schools are also underway. The bad news, however, is that the challenges we face may be more grave than many had suspected or that some are still willing to acknowledge. And when it comes to providing every student with a high-quality education, we have not come as far or moved as fast as most of us would like.
In forging a way ahead, it will be essential that we not lose sight of the disparities highlighted in this report, which portray two very different worlds that exist within the nation’s public education system. As efforts to understand and combat the graduation crisis advance, this movement must proceed hand-in-hand with a fundamental commitment to creating a public education system in which earning a high school diploma is the norm for all students in every community, and where dropping out is a rare exception.

( Emphasis My own) Rare indeed - as Rare as a 'Round on the House' at Bennigan's - invisible.


John McCain is the only Presidential Candidate for School Choice . I caught Senator Obama on Milky Matthews' Hardball Campus Tour, last night. When the issue of inner city schools came up Senator Obama cited Public School Lobby Dogma Chapter and Verse: More Programs ( Federal) More Tax Dollars.

We can not keep putting chips on Public School Roulette Square BLACK/RED 36 - It ain't on the Table.

http://www.americaspromise.org/uploadedFiles/AmericasPromiseAlliance/Dropout_Crisis/SWANSONCitiesInCrisis040108.pdf

McCain: Daley states, 'That's Right! You Know What Time It Is!' - He's 'Bout To Bust a Property Tax Cap, YO!

Only Hours after bringing Chicago Public School Homicides to its knees with a dramatic and well-publicized March around Thompson Center, shots were fired near Morgan Park High School in my neighborhood.

With his usual aplomb, Daley went Old Testament on the City Tax-payers. Daley and Arne Duncan, both proud products of private education, promised to bust a cap- Property Tax Cap - the one that was raised last Fall, if Gov. Blago does not come up with the trump for Arne's National Laugh, in the ear of Chicago Tax Payers.

That's me. I take the weather personally.

Public Schools are tragedy and Chicago Public Schools are Blood Tragedy ( Marlowe, Jonson, Ford)- the shockingly violent sister of the genre. CPS kids die from homicide. People kill those kids. The guns do not go off by themselves. People kill other people because they feel comfortable doing so - we live in a Thug Comfort Zone.


We live in a Thug Comfort Zone, because thugs are fearless - they suffer no consequences. The sorry state of public education in Chicago contributes to the Thug Comfort Zone, as do the more moronic members of the media, lawsuit addicted radical lawyers, radical 501(c)3 University Think Tanks and gutless politicians.

School Choice will help end the violence, by forcing Arne Duncan to make his school's accountable through competition.

John McCain is a Federalist who will lead for School Choice. The Federal Government will encourage States to act on School Choice.

Here's Insane Arne D on what you need to know:

Chicago Schools CEO Arne Duncan said $180 million in new state money is the "bare minimum" to allow the district to expand kindergarten, evening classes and foreign-language instruction, among other programs.

The threat comes after Daley raised property taxes last fall. Additionally, the City Council increased the real estate transfer tax as part of a CTA bailout that also included a quarter-cent sales tax increase that took effect Tuesday. Come July 1, the Cook County Board's 1 percent sales tax increase will hit taxpayers.

Get to Marching' Arne!

The rest of us, let's get to John McCain's leadership on School Choice.

You know what time it is!

Click my post title. for the story on Daley's Threat

John McCain: Meet John Kass!

Today's Reuters piece reports that John McCain feels that Americans are too cynical - really? Sorry- comes with being a life-long smart-ass and punching bag. And there in lies the rub; I make a crack and expect one in kind. Not so, too many very loud Public voices in Cable TV, Print and especially on Talk Radio. Say anything - no consequences.


Senator John McCain at 71 years of age and five of those years being tortured with great regularity, is sprinting around the country, while a bloated fop on MSNBC- The Tool Shed, Keith Olbermann makes cracks about his age and lifetime of service.

"But when healthy skepticism sours into corrosive cynicism our expectations of our government become reduced to the delivery of services. And to some people the expectations of liberty are reduced to the right to choose among competing brands of designer coffee."

Olbermann and his androgynous twin Rachel Maddow make a point of sneering at Honor, Service and Commitment, because they were spawned by the forces of indulgence and self-satisfaction.

Not so, Chicago Journalist, Columnist, wit and 'fly-in-the-ointment' that greases Illinois public corruption, The Chicago Tribune's John Kass. John McCain would have no difference of sentiment from John Kass - identical values it seems to me. From Wikpedeia - My C-Minus Intellect's Canon of Facts:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Kass

John Kass is a Chicago Tribune columnist.

The son of a Greek immigrant grocer, Kass was born June 23, 1956, on the South Side of Chicago and grew up there and in Oak Lawn, IL. He held many jobs - retailer, ditch digger, waiter - before becoming a student of film at Columbia College in Chicago. There, he worked in the student newspaper and gained the attention of Daryle Feldmeir, president of the media department and previous editor of the Chicago Daily News. Feldmeir and media professor Les Brownlee helped Kass to obtain an internship at the Daily Calumet in 1980, where Kass worked as a reporter until he left for the Tribune.

Kass lives in the southern suburbs of Chicago with his wife and twin children.


[edit] Style of Writing
Kass uses his bully pulpit to rail against corruption in government and highlight the impact of corruption on taxpayers. In September 2003, he wrote about Federal indictments handed down in a scandal involving city contracts. Kass wrote, "what drives the criticism is the obscene amounts of taxpayer dollars that go to [Mayor Daley's] pals. In deal after deal after deal, the attitude is that his guys can take what they want and the people in the neighborhoods better shut up about it, while higher taxes put more and more pressure on families to pay for the deals."[1]

Kass often writes nostalgically about Chicago's bygone days. He describes one of Chicago's famous steakhouses by writing, "[Gene and Georgetti's] is a hangout where information is traded, among politicians, insiders, reporters, wise-guys, salesmen, consultants, from the buttoned down to the gold chains crowd. And what makes it work is that they serve the best steak in the city, period. The service is impeccable without being showy and the drinks are honest. Gene's is a part of the old Chicago, the city as it was before so much of the downtown was turned into a theme park."[2]

A frequent target for Kass is Richard M. Daley, the long-time Mayor of Chicago. Kass once wrote, "Investigations into massive affirmative-action contract fraud and the Hired Truck scandals, and a series of convictions have pressured the mayor and his inner-circle, who, when it came to cronyism and contracts, once behaved as if they were untouchable. Now, the mayor has jumped on the reform bandwagon, at least publicly, frantically offering good-government initiatives, even as the feds bore in on the source of his absolute power: His patronage armies that dictate politics and policy on the local, state and federal levels, electing his favored candidates, but also crushing those he doesn't like, getting rid of them in party primaries."[3]

In his columns Kass is a frequent critic of what he terms as the "combine" of Illinois politics, wherein powerful elements of the Illinois Republican and Democratic parties unite for the purposes of political corruption.

Kass also writes about lighter topics, particularly beer can chicken.
Kass's column appears on page 2 of the Tribune's news section.

John Kass goes out of his way to pin-prick the vanities of public men and women whose public actions indicate that they feel somehow above the Law and those they were elected to serve. Kass is the best Chicago Public Writer since Finley Peter Dunne, who invented the 'Public Persona' style of writing with his character Mr. Dooley. Only the Chicago Tribune's Daniel B. McGrath, the Sports Editor, is Kass's superior in crafting simple declarative sentences. Dan McGrath is recognized nation-wide as a great sports writer. Writer indeed,

John Kass is no cynic - far from that group of wily Greeks who used words to circumvent the Law and even Ethics.

Kass is locked to ethikos - what ought to be. The Romans touted morals ( mores - customs or traditions, the Greeks locked ethics into Man. John Kass does not give - in Chicago terms - a 'fat rat's ass' about niceties or politically correct boondoggles. Like Dryden, Swift, Pope, Thackeray, Twain, and Mencken, Kass roots out the deeds that make life miserable for most of us.

Senator John McCain, meet John Kass.

Senator McCain worries that,

"Many Americans are indifferent to or cynical about the virtues that our country claims," the former Vietnam prisoner of war will say.

In part, he says, it is because some have suffered economic dislocations while others profit as never before, and in part, it is a "reaction to government's mistakes and incompetence and to the selfishness of some public figures."

He comes close to calling some Americans spoiled, saying they are cynical because "the ease which wealth and opportunity have given their lives led them to the mistaken conclusion that America, and the liberties its system of government is intended to protect, just aren't important to the quality of their lives."

Senator, point to John Kass and more of us will get things right.

John McCain: "Heroes" Ad Leads off with Teachers

The Choice is ours. John McCain is a public servant who lives what he believes and believes what is best about America.


John McCain's video ad "Heroes' Leads off with Teachers and his most inspirational teacher, Mr. Ravenel: English Teacher and Football Coach . Click my Post Title and learn something.

John McCain is the only candidate running for President of the United States with a clear position on School Choice. Given the very sad state of America's public schools, School Choice is the best and only means of saving public education.

John McCain: Arne Duncan, Phd. Piled High and Deep! School Choice Arne, Is the Only Way to Help Yourself and the Chicago Public Schools

Leading Cancer Specialist Dr. Krop E. PayCheque informed the disappointed children of the 101st Airborne Division's Precision Bicycle Marching Team that raccoons often have their way with tired carburetors and there is absolutely nothing that serious members of the League of Baseball Hotties could do - or improve upon - at this time.

And for more clarity on the crisis facing tax-payers and the deplorable state of Chicago Public Schools we have CPS CEO Arne Duncan:

From Today's Tribune

Clarke's slaying, like every other student killing this year, left Chicago Public Schools chief Arne Duncan speaking about the need to get rid of guns and hold manufacturers accountable. Last year in CPS a record 34 students were killed during the school year.

Tuesday's rally will put more heat on lawmakers, Duncan said.

"This is a public health epidemic. We are struggling to find the cure for AIDS, we are struggling to find the cure for cancer; we know the cure for this public health epidemic -- getting rid of guns," said Duncan. "We need political courage."

You need a much looser collar size. You need air to the brain-pan, Arne!

We all need School Choice.That's Arne up there in the photo of his classmates who did not attend Chicago Public Schools either - see how he pays attention!


Photo: Arne Duncan Top Row Extreme Right - His Left - Tall Guy.

Code Stupid Part IX; Obama Explain ISM's Connection to Trinity - ISM was part of the Easter Attack on My Church!

Easter Sunday - Six thugs attacked worshippers. Interviewed as a 'witness' to their planned 'Action' was International Solidarity Movement (ISM) operative Kevin Clark.

Chicago Tribune's Stacey St. Clair told me last week that she had no interest in looking into Kevin Clark and ISM Involvement in the assault of worshippers by a group calling themselves Catholic Schoolgirls Against the War.

The Canadian Press is looking into ISM and its close involvement with Rev. Jeremiah Wright and Trinity Church:

But Obama’s association with the ISM through his church and lobbying in Chicago goes even deeper than just his past links to Al Awda and Ali Abunimah. His pastor, Jeremiah Wright, and the Trinity Union Church of Christ in Chicago, are both equally involved with the ISM.

Since 2001, the ISM has been tasked by the PLO and other Arab irredentist groups with getting new generations of American college kids to consider democratic Israel as somehow a violator of human rights, all the while as the Palestinian Arabs who practice open anti-Semitism, honor killings, and the murders of their own people as well as Jews, as commendable practices. At their 2003 national organizing conference at Ohio State, ISM activists set out to deconstruct American narratives about Israel as a democratic state with firm support from secular radical Americans of Jewish ancestry. In one workshop set up to discuss ways to put a good face on suicide bombings, ISM activists spoke of new ways of reinterpreting the Bible so Israel did not belong to the Jews, but to the Palestinians.

Click My Post Title for the Full treatment of a dangerous radical group (ISM) with Islamist Terrorist.

Senator Obama has some vetting to do.

ISM witnessed and act of terror on my Church.

The Chicago Tribune had better light a fire under Ms St. Clair.

John McCain: School Choice and Not Marches, or More Studies, or More Homicides Will Improve American Education

Over the weekend, another Chicago Public School student was murdered and the Chicago Public School's respond with a March on Thompson Center for stricter gun laws - Chicago has the strictest Gun Laws in America - but 'now we really mean it!'

Hundreds of Chicago Public School students are expected to converge on the James R. Thompson Center Tuesday morning, urging state legislators to enact stiffer gun laws after a student was killed in the parking lot of the Simeon Career Academy on Saturday.

More than 400 Simeon students will be bused by the district to attend the protest outside the Thompson Center, which houses Illinois state offices. Students from other schools such as Jones College Prepatory (sic) High School are also expected, officials said.
The protest comes in the wake of Saturday's slaying of Chavez Clarke, 18. On Monday two Dunbar Vocational Career Academy students who also had been taking Saturday classes at Simeon—Samuel Hill, 17, and Ronald Little, 19—were charged with Clarke's killing.

Chicago Tribune Today.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-simeon-shooting-webapr01,1,4255642.story

The Chicago Public Schools will bus 400 students and their chaperons ( I hope) to Thompson Center. It is to be presumed that Chicago Police Department will be called upon to increase their presence at Thompson Center. The kids will be hungry after the march - lunch must be provided. Teachers need to eat. Gas? It's on your dime, Taxpayer.

No instruction at Simeon today! This will be a 'learning, sharing and wonderful experience for the children.'

Leo High School is only a few blocks from Simeon. Teaching is going on full boil. Parents sacrifice to pay tuition costs and Leo Alumni pour tons of dollars to help.
As a result, 93% of all Leo graduates goo on to colleges and universities. It ain't brain-surgery - it is teaching, discipline, commitment.

There is no other choice, but Leo High School. Calumet High School. Simeon. Harper. Of, that's right Harper is closing. Arne's happy the kids are marching to demand stricter gun laws. Three Card Monte, Kids! Pick a card! Too fast - Lousy Schools means we need stricter gun laws.

This March Demands! This March Costs! This March is another in long string of cop-outs. Parent Failure; More Gun Laws; More Time; More Bureaucracy; More Arne Duncan Boondoggles; More Rufus Williams Social Events in Stella Foster Columns!

The fact that Chicago Public School students are the top homicide demographic tells me that the problem appears to lie with the sorry state of Chicago Public Schools. Arne Duncan's March today will be another band-aid on cancer.

A National report details the atrocious failure of Public Schools. Chicago's failure is not in this AP Report. That will come out after - Chicago Public Schools reap more millions from my pocket, your pocket, your neighbors pocket and get to hear more Arne Duncan nonsense about this being 'Our Problem!' Click my Post Title for the AP Report on our crumby Public Schools. Arne thinks busing kids down to the State Offices at Thompson Center will let out the waste and the ineptitude on his shrinking coat.

You wear this jacket Arne. It is a snug fit.

Until, and only until States - like Illinois, adopt real and genuine School Choice for all Citizens. Get ready for more homicides and get ready for more waste of time Marches!

Only One Candidate for President Supports School Choice - John McCain.

John McCain: Honor and Redemption

JOHN MCCAIN 2008 LAUNCHES NEW WEB AD: "AMERICAN HEROES"

For Immediate Release
Contact: Press Office

Tuesday, April 1, 2008
703-650-5550


ARLINGTON , VA -- U.S. Senator John McCain's presidential campaign today released a new web ad. The ad, entitled "American Heroes," tells the story of John McCain's Episcopal High School teacher and football coach, William B. Ravenel, who had a profound impact on his life. The ad details the honor code John McCain has faithfully lived his life by, taught first by his parents and reinforced by Mr. Ravenal in high school.

"American Heroes" is scheduled to appear on national news and information websites.

VIEW THE AD HERE: Click my post titel for the immediate link!
Script For "American Heroes" (1:40-Web)

ANNCR: Our heroes help tell the story of America .

We know them well.

They've been inventors, athletes, rock-stars and presidents

They inspire us to dream.

Make the right choices.

Live up to their example.

But it's not always the famous who inspire us.

Sometimes the heroes we need are right in front of us.

For John McCain, one of his heroes was in the front of his high school classroom.

William B. Ravenel was that hero.

He was the English teacher and football coach who inspired students to live the honor code.

"I shall not lie

I shall not cheat

I shall not steal

And I shall turn in the student who does."

The teacher who believed in exoneration and redemption.

When one of John McCain's classmates violated the rules and admitted to the infraction.

It was John McCain who declared that forgiveness was the best remedy.

Mr. Ravenel was the teacher who helped John McCain understand honor and redemption.

In his days of learning, John McCain realized that teaching is among the most honorable professions.

The honor code in high school was much the same as the honor code John McCain's life taught him.

For John Sidney McCain, the honor code taught by his parents and reinforced by Mr. Ravenal in high school was just the beginning. ...

John McCain: Only Candidate Leads on School Choice

On the Endangered list - Any Progressive Voices wish to Call People to Action? Naw, there's no Tax-money in it for you!

The Archdiocese of New York and Brooklyn are closing Catholic Schools at an alarming rate. Click my post title for the story -

The greed of the Public School Lobby is only matched by the horrific incompetance intrinsic to that vice.

Public Schools in Chicago are mega million dollar sink holes, but also a handy political platform that allows politicians and activists, who directly benefit from these tax-funded atrocities attended by children and young adults, to rail and howl over homicides and anything but educational failure.

Crane High School was put on national spotlight when it was closed due to the murder of a student there - only to be followed by the death of an 18 year old student at Simeon High School. More money to Public Schools will be the answer to homicides, childhood pregnancies, morbid obesity, and the heart-break of psoriasis.

Public Schools control the tax dollar-thermostat for Chicago, Cook County and Illinois homeowners. There are no grown-ups puting a lock on that control.

School Choice and Competition for Quality of instruction is only way to stop the Public School Lobby from cranking up the furnace in which Illinois tax-dollars are burned up - passing the costs on to you the consumers.

John McCain is for School Choice - No Democratic Candidate is for School Choice.

Click my post title and read about the consequences of the nearly forty years of bondage served by New York Taxpayers to Public School Lobby and the largely Democratic politicians enthralled to its will.

It is time for Leadership on School Choice. It is Time for McCain.

John McCain on School Vouchers and Choice:

Vouchers needed where teachers fail
McCain believes school vouchers should be available to parents in order that they may place their children in the best learning environment for their particular needs. He feels that each and every child in every classroom deserves a teacher who is qualified and enthusiastic about teaching. “Some people just aren’t meant to be teachers, and we should help them find another line of work. Because if teachers can’t teach, our kids can’t learn.”
Source: www.mccain2000.com/ “Position Papers” 5/24/99 May 24, 1999

John McCain: Air America's Mark Green - What Being an A$$hole is All About

Mark Green's Bio:

Mark graduated with honors from both Cornell University School of Arts & Sciences (1967) and then Harvard Law School (1970), where he was editor-in-chief of the Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review.

Becoming a member of the Washington, D.C. Bar (and later the New York State Bar), he spent 10 years in the 1970s working with Ralph Nader, ultimately running Public Citizen's Congress Watch, the largest consumer lobbying group in D.C. In 1982, The Nation magazine said, "Next to Nader himself, Mark is the leading public interest lawyer of his generation." . . . yada, Yada . . . ( Yada Yaddas my own)

On March 1, 2007, he became the president of Air America Radio.

Next to Ralph Nader?? Most folks want to miles from Ralph Nader. This clown is a creme puffe!

I see his Tanned Own Bad Self on Cable - with way too much frequency. He must have sued more orphans and old ladies in New York than Leona Helmsly and has the cash cow to allow Mark Green ( he's got that 'Papal Me' third person about him that is the hallmark of all truly and highly competitive anal apertures) entree to the circles of jerks within the Democratic National Committee.

In fact Mark Green is an anal aperture of such diameter that he now columnizes on Huffington Post the Cry Sheet for Hollywood Morons and Progressive Goebbels.

Here's the Tan Green's thesis on John McCain:

Now that John McCain last week elaborated his economic and foreign policy views in major addresses, the weakness of his candidacy is clear: it's not that he'll be 72 if inaugurated but has a 72 year-old agenda. If you like gunboat diplomacy and pre-Depression laissez-faire economics, McCain is your bridge to the 19th Century.

While the spotlight currently focuses on clashing Democrats, the mainstream media has lazily bought into the narrative that McCain is a straight-talking maverick, just as so many concurred that W was a compassionate uniter in 2000. But when it comes to war, economics and ethics -- as our 7 Days program discusses -- the Republican nominee is now no straight-talker and no maverick.

This from an Ambulance Chaser! Here's more Yada Yadda . . .

McCain's maniacal repetition of buzz phrases -- "the surge is working! we are winning! surrender is betrayal! -- expose him as a militarist itching for more war-war, not more jaw-jaw, in Churchill's phrase. Yes, he served honorably and heroically in Vietnam and has experience after decades in the Congress. But based on his catastrophic misjudgments in the Middle East and his unwillingness to learn much of anything from America's failures in Vietnam and Iraq, he's flunked the so-called Commander-in-Chief test. By urging more troops and more years, he's out-Bushing Bush. Some maverick.


A Jack and Queen, Mark, that is some Maverick! McCain's maniacal repetition of buzz phrases - expose him as a militarist????

Let's see. 'Fired up, ready to Go! Ready to Go! Yes we Can!' Yes We Can! Warmonger Barry!

Then the Shyster tries to dodge the punch that he himself is tossing:
McCain's Ethics:

But that 20-year-old episode alone should not be enough to tarnish him now. His work since then on McCain-Feingold and against Jack Abramoff deserves praise. But there are other current examples of helping those who help him in give-to-get politics, as when the FCC chair reprimanded him for interfering in a proceeding on behalf of a big donor and patron. Shades of 5 percenters in the Truman years.

'Zounds! Shocking! A Reprimand? Howls of Scorn! Arianna Huffiapoulus put Master Thespian Steven Weber ( Star of what?///) on this! - BTW - Huff Po is a veritable Who's Snooze of Hollywood - kind of talent Petrified Forest Gumps.

Mark's Seven Day campaign against John McCain! Seven more days of this? Oh, How will John McCain stand up to such treatment??? Merciful Marigolds, Margaret!

For more Tan Green giggles - Pipe the U-tube piece of Mark Green begging for votes from savvy New Yorkers during one of his many defeats - click my post title for a full view of this Yutz! Next to Nader? Why Mark Green - You Stand Alone!! Que Queso, Hombre!

Mark keep tossing the Beachballs!!! Air America - It Fills the Balloons!

Gabby Barry Obama's Cracker Barrel Funhouse - Set a Spell!

'Right There's Where the Big Man went Back into the sea . . .'


Hat Tip to John Rubery - Marthon Pundit


Click my post title for the whopper yarned up by Gabby Barry back in Atlanta a while back - after a new snappy yarn around Gabby Barry's Cracker Barrel!


http://marathonpundit.blogspot.com/


Why, pull up a cracker barrel and let Old Gabby Barry spin a whopping good yarn that'll tickle yer funny bones and melt your hearts . . .Well, you see now, it was way back in '69, when my Pappy went a lobster prospectin' offa Martha's Vineyard Hawaii, I was just a sprat then, ya see and I mighta gotta couple a couplets just a . . .tad off'n this here drama-poem . . . let's see, now . .

Ol' Pap Obama borry'd a skiff that leaked like the Bush Administration when Scooter had couple a pulls from the Old Clay Keg, ya see ( Old Gabby Barry pulls out and snaps open a Buck knife and commences to whittle away at a piece of driftwood) and that old skiff 'n he rode out through the surf offa Nantucket, Hawaii. Surf was particular sharp and durn'd if that Ol Skiff didn't sprung a leak and the Atlantic -Pacific Ocean started a bubblin' up through the planks and Pap set to all the balin' and a whupping the wet stuff up over the gunwhales and the waters wouldn't help none 'cuz they was that determined to have Ol Pap. Pap was a By-God Kenyan and No Kenyan'll allow that old bubbly stuff to stop him. No, Sir!

Well Sir, ( Gabby Barry sets down the driftwood and goes snake-eyed) the Atlantic-Pacific said "She'd have Pap - the Ol Sea-Witch Herself!

Pap, weren't a swimmer; and he was an Economics Major Lobstering Man! Down the Old Ocean pulled Pap!

Pap went into what he thought was a dream - he dreamed of a Huge black car a flyin' like a BOAC 727! A Huge Black 1967 Oldsmobile Delmont 88. And down in the foamy brine it plunged! SA WHOSH! Down into the foamy brine! A Giant of Man popped through a busted window of the '67 Delmont and swam like a Mark IV Torpedo straight to where Pap Obama - a Kenyan Lobstering' Economics Man - was sinking to Davvy Jones' Locker.

Down Pap Obama went and he thought he's gonner when he's grabbed by the powerful fist of this mighty man around the scruff of Pap's brand new White Arrow Shirt Size 14 1/2" collar - Pap was wiry.

Pap was groggy and poppin' in and out of his dreamy state. He sorta came to . . . and saw the Huge Man with Thick curly hair and a Manly Jaw-line that woulda done Tom Mix Proud, Sir!

The Man was not even wet.

Pap managed 'Thankee, Stranger.' But the Big Man Moved off to the Surf Again.

'Where to Friend?,' yelled Pap.

'Gotta Go, Mary Jo . . .' and into the crashing surf offa Martha's Vineyard Hawaii disappeared the BIGGEST MAN Pap would ever hope to meet. That Big Man Saved Pap's Bacon! Pap give up the bacon - an all manner of pork with time -but Pap was a-mighty troubled.

'Why'd that Big Feller call me Mary Jo? My Name's Barry Senior! Ain't that wonderment?'

Well young 'uns. I'm done with my yarn and done a whittlin' this here $100 Dime outta this here driftwood an' it's got Ol Pap's likeness on it. Can I make Change, or what, young fellers? Now, scat - listen to yer folks, eat yer vegetables, mind yer manners, an believe ever' word ya here on MSNBC- The Tool Shed! Now, scat and get to yer chores! See you all, next week, around Gabby Barry's Cracker Barrel!

John McCain: That's the Ticket -Jack and Charlie, or Jack and Bob?

Picking a VP for the winning ticket in 2008 will be troublingly nice work for John McCain over the next few months.

With several solid choices in his quiver, Senator McCain will choose an able and loyal # 2 Executive to help him lead America during this time of War on Islamist Terror. Solid legislative leaders and thoughtful statesmen who have worked with the honor and integrity of John McCain are coming into the mix.

I like Charlie Crist, Governor of Florida, who was off the dime in John McCain's Camp long before the snarlers of the extreme Right could ever be brought to service. I value loyalty and commitment and Charlie Crist has the Facta where others shout out the Verba.

Chicago Sun Times veteran correspondent and one of the best political journalists in America, Bob Novak, like Bob Portman of Ohio.

Click my post title for Bob Novak's prescience and declarative sentences. The world needs more writers like Novak who delivers crisp and clear information in simple declarative sentences. The DNC enjoys the purple prose of goofs who do a Thomas V. Pynchon routine with every post.


Here's some good prose from Novak:

While Sen. John McCain will not decide on a vice president for many months, Rob Portman gets the highest marks inside the Republican presidential candidate's organization.

Portman's background is legislative, serving in the House Republican leadership as a representative from Ohio; executive and economic, serving in George W. Bush's Cabinet as director of the Office of Management and Budget, and diplomatic, serving as U.S. trade representative. He comes from Ohio, a swing state, is young enough at 52 to contrast McCain, and conservative enough, earning an 89 percent lifetime American Conservative Union rating.

Jeremiah Wright -Well Past Time to Get Right with Italian- Americans, But Never Too Late!

Had Barack Obama's Pastor been introduced to the warmth, style, grace, devotion, patriotism, charity and musical genius of Italian Americans, he might not have uttered the ugly, bitter, hateful slurs against these great Americans.

Click my post title and pass this along to Rev. Jeremiah Wright - it is never too late.


Obama's Pastor Slurs Italians in Latest Magazine
By Penny Starr
CNSNews.com Senior Staff Writer
March 26, 2008

(CNSNews.com) - Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., pastor emeritus of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago where Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) has been a member for two decades, slurred Italians in a piece published in the most recent issue of Trumpet Newsmagazine.

"(Jesus') enemies had their opinion about Him," Wright wrote in a eulogy of the late scholar Asa Hilliard in the November/December 2007 issue. "The Italians for the most part looked down their garlic noses at the Galileans."

Wright continued, "From the circumstances surrounding Jesus' birth (in a barn in a township that was under the Apartheid Roman government that said his daddy had to be in), up to and including the circumstances surrounding Jesus' death on a cross, a Roman cross, public lynching Italian style. ...

"He refused to be defined by others and Dr. Asa Hilliard also refused to be defined by others. The government runs everything from the White House to the schoolhouse, from the Capitol to the Klan, white supremacy is clearly in charge, but Asa, like Jesus, refused to be defined by an oppressive government because Asa got his identity from an Omnipotent God."

Every issue of the magazine published last year included Wright's column, "The Message," in which he covered a range of subjects, including his views on other African-American churches as expressed in his April 2007 commentary "Facing the Rising Sun."

"In a world that is controlled by white supremacy, in a country that is on its way to hell in a hand basket because of lying politicians, in a culture that still thinks 'white is right' and with young people who do not have a clue as to our story, our history, our legacy or our destiny, we still have African-American Christians who are more concerned about 'bling bling' than about freeing our minds," Wright wrote.

In a nationally broadcast speech on March 18, Obama distanced himself from Wright by saying he "condemned, in unequivocal terms, the statements of Reverend Wright that have caused such controversy." But Obama also said, "I could no more disown him than I could disown the black community."

According to his federal income tax return for 2006, Obama gave the Trinity United church that year $22,500 in contributions.

The Clinton campaign has not commented on the controversy, but in an interview Tuesday with the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) said actions speak louder than words.

"He would not have been my pastor," Clinton said. "You don't choose your family, but you choose what church you want to attend.

"You know, I spoke out against Don Imus (a radio talk show host who was fired for making racially insensitive remarks about black female basketball players at Rutgers University), saying that hate speech was unacceptable in any setting, and I believe that," Clinton said.

"I just think you have to speak out against that. You certainly have to do that, if not explicitly, then implicitly by getting up and moving," she added.

Trumpet Newsmagazine started publication in the 1980s in Chicago and distribution expanded in March 2006 to several other cities, with broader circulation through subscriptions. On the magazine's masthead, Wright is named as the magazine's CEO and Wright's daughter, Jeri Wright, is the publisher.

Requests for comments from Jeri Wright, the magazine's marketing staff, and the Obama campaign were not answered by press time.

The last Trumpet to be published was the November/December edition, a double issue that featured a remembrance of "Pan-Africanist" Hilliard and a profile of Louis Farrakhan, who was the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement "Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. Trumpeter" award at the magazine's 25th anniversary gala late last year.

Farrakhan has called Judaism a "gutter religion" and said Jews are "bloodsuckers," as reported in The New York Times.

Trumpet Newsmagazine also included myriad articles and regular features geared toward the black community, ranging from health, parenting, music and the arts, to profiles of successful members of the community and tips on everything from dating to spiritual well-being.

Many political observers have said that Obama's speech last week limited the damage of the ongoing Wright controversy, but others say the issue is continuing to hamper his campaign.

"I don't think it's going to go away," Ralph Reed, a long-time conservative activist and political strategist who now runs Century Strategies based in Duluth, Ga., told Cybercast News Service.

"Because while Obama's speech was thoughtful and eloquent, it didn't address the central issue, and that's why he would have someone as such a close spiritual advisor with such extreme views," Reed added.

"Let me be clear," Reed added. "I don't think any candidate should have to answer for the theological views of their pastor, church or denomination. But (Wright's) were not theological views, but political statements."

"I think it's more likely to be a serious issue in the general election, more than in the primaries," Reed said.

http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewPolitics.asp?Page=/Politics/archive/200803/POL20080326a.html

Mike Houlihan's Tapioca -The Movie! at First Take Film Festival in Augusta, GA!

Chicago's south side Pride and Own - Mike Houlihan, wit, actor, writer, director, producer, boulevardier, John McCain Backer, free-spender, serial philanthropist, pugilist, patron of the arts,boulevardier, numismatist, and gum arabic Connoisseur announces

Hi Everybody


Our independent feature film, Tapioca, starring Ben Vereen & Tim
Kazurinsky, has been invited to screen at the First Take Film Festival
in Augusta, Georgia from April 8-12th. That's the same week as the
Masters Golf Tournament at Butler National. Is that cool or what! Come
with us! We'd love to have all Chicago pals come to Augusta for the
screening. Check out the festival at
http://www.firsttakefilmfestival.com. Also our website,
www.TapiocaTheMovie.com.

See you in Augusta, the A-U-G!
Mike Houlihan