I Always Get Tagged - Anne Leary Tagged Me!

I'm slower than a roomful of morbidly obese Earth Science majors at an Indiana Community College and Anne Leary tagged me - no sweat.

It's January in Chicago--how can we amuse ourselves?


Following the brilliant and impala-like Leary required my jumping over many yard fences here in Morgan Park and negotiating many over-turned blue -barrel re-cycling dumpsterettes. I lost her at Artesian and she seems to have darted north on Western Ave. so I stopped in at Keegan's Pub at 10618 S. Western to re-charge.

The rules:
1. Link to the person who tagged you (done, above)
2. Post the rules on your blog (you're reading them now)
3. Share six non-important things/habits/quirks about yourself (see below)
4. Tag six random people with a link.


1. Non-important thing: I get up and write at 4AM. - novels, screenplays, essays, hack-pieces, indictments of declining civilizations and pornographic epics with a widowed, middle-aged, sunny-dispositioned poetic rascal in the driver's seat.

2. Quirk: I believe that people are a blast - Get to Kean Gas in the AM for coffee as proof of a wealth of diverse, alive, and profound insights and giggles from American Patriots - cops, firemen, ComEd linemen, burial vault cement finishers, teachers, nurses and the odd lay-about.

3. Quirk: I am a sucker for babies - if Carla Gugina flirted with me, I'd opt instead to play with the kid in the stroller and ask the pre-verbal child questions about The False Decretals and the hegemony of Lombard over the Papal States in the early renaissance - kids love it.

4. Non-important thing: I jingle the change in my pockets when nervous about the economy.

5. Habit: I never call a bartender Chief and always over-tip. No Dukie - No Go-Outey!

6. Quirk: I need to have my daughters look me over prior to dates with the supremely talented, diminutive, gorgeous and elegant young woman who deigns to be seen publicly with me.

The links:
http://chicagoray.blogspot.com/
http://secondcitycop.blogspot.com/
http://www.beachwoodreporter.com/
http://www.tomroeser.com/
http://wapellarocks.blogspot.com/
http://www.philly.com/dailynews/columnists/christine_flowers/

Mayor Daley Goes Ward Bond! The Searchers Meets the Press

In John Ford's iconic 1956 film The Searchers, Ward Bond as Rev. Capt. Samuel Johnston Clayton; preacher and Texas Ranger captain, shouts to a young cavalry officer:

'Reverend Clayton: Mount! M-O-N-T-E! Mount!

2nd Lt. Greenhill: Can't I stay? Please?
Reverend Clayton: Oh, all right. But you watch me, boy! I'm the hardcase you're up against out here, not them childish savages! And if you don't hear my first holler, you better read my mind 'cause I don't aim to raise no two hollers on any subject at hand!
2nd Lt. Greenhill: [salutes with his sabre and nearly decapatates the Reverend] Yes sir!
Reverend Clayton: Boy, watch that knife!

A wonderful moment in film!

Yesterday, Mayor Daley treated us all to Ward Bond Goes Government!

The Tribune first reported that Daley's health commissioner cited the loss of $1.2 million in state funding in ordering the Feb. 1 closures. Public health advocates have blasted the move as unnecessary, but Daley said it wasn’t his fault.

"We didn't cut. It was the state of Illinois that didn't fund us," Daley said. "See, you've got the facts wrong. The state of Illinois funds those centers. We did not cut. They have cut state mental health facilities all over the state. That is state money. Underline that. S-A-T-E [sic] money. It’s called state money. Let’s get the facts. These facts are not correct, so you have to correct people."

The mental health centers receive about $13 million in funding annually, with $7 million coming from the state.

Another great moment in Illinois!

'Praise Song' by Alexander - 'Dis Prose' by Me

Studs Terkel could have done this . . .of course it would be somebody else's words that he recorded and transposed, but same thing.

Meandering thoughts . . .I used to get the same thing from panicked and lazy students who missed the deadline - 'It's a prose poem and much better than the five page essay, with MLA citation, that you assigned Mr. Hickey.'

YEAH RIGHT!!!!!! You still have Welch's Grape Jelly from your morning's breakfast muffin,Sweetheart! You got some on your collar too. Hand it in and F ain't a Zero.'

'You suck Hickey!'

'This we all know.'


Now, How 'bout this loose change from Poesy's Dresser?

Praise song for the day.

Each day we go about our business, walking past each other, catching each others' eyes or not, about to speak or speaking. All about us is noise. All about us is noise and bramble, thorn and din, each one of our ancestors on our tongues. Someone is stitching up a hem, darning a hole in a uniform, patching a tire, repairing the things in need of repair.

Someone is trying to make music somewhere with a pair of wooden spoons on an oil drum with cello, boom box, harmonica, voice.

A woman and her son wait for the bus.

A farmer considers the changing sky; A teacher says, "Take out your pencils. Begin."

We encounter each other in words, words spiny or smooth, whispered or declaimed; words to consider, reconsider.

We cross dirt roads and highways that mark the will of someone and then others who said, "I need to see what's on the other side; I know there's something better down the road."

We need to find a place where we are safe; We walk into that which we cannot yet see.

Say it plain, that many have died for this day. Sing the names of the dead who brought us here, who laid the train tracks, raised the bridges, picked the cotton and the lettuce, built brick by brick the glittering edifices they would then keep clean and work inside of.

Praise song for struggle; praise song for the day. Praise song for every hand-lettered sign; The figuring it out at kitchen tables.

Some live by "Love thy neighbor as thy self."

Others by first do no harm, or take no more than you need.

What if the mightiest word is love, love beyond marital, filial, national. Love that casts a widening pool of light. Love with no need to preempt grievance.

In today's sharp sparkle, this winter air, anything can be made, any sentence begun.

On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp -- praise song for walking forward in that light.

Welch's Grape Jelly?

Get a load of John Rubery's consideration of Poetess Alexander's Offering at Marathon Pundit - too funny.

http://marathonpundit.blogspot.com/2009/01/my-inaugural-poem.html

President Obama's Speech - Irony - Changes Mean Return to Old Truths

What will be changed will be seen in the days to come. What will be enacted by President Obama, today and in the days to come, might determine the course for the Nation for decades.



America is behind you. However, your words did not so much reflect change as they did the words and values of the man you defeated. Change seems to require that America cling to John McCain's message.

President Obama defeated John McCain on September 15, 2008 when he stated that the fundamentals of American capitalism were still sound and that sound byte allowed the Obama Campaign to cascade an avalanche of change rhetoric on his crippled shoulders. That's politics and this now is government leadership.

On September 15, 2008 McCain said this, "You know, there's been tremendous turmoil in our financial markets and Wall Street and it is -- people are frightened by these events. Our economy, I think, still the fundamentals of our economy are strong. But these are very, very difficult time. And I promise you, we will never put America in this position again. We will clean up Wall Street. We will reform government."
I promise you we will never put America in this position again."

John McCain also said, "This is a failure. We've got take every action to build an environment of robust energy supplies, lower inflation, control health care costs, access to international markets, low taxes and reduce burden of government to allow people to move forward toward a future of prosperity."



The irony being - what McCain said and meant on September 15, 2008 is reflected in President Obama's inaugural speech:

Our challenges may be new. The instruments with which we meet them may be new. But those values upon which our success depends — hard work and honesty, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism — these things are old. These things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history. What is demanded then is a return to these truths. What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility — a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation, and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task.

Hope floats. The Ship of State must sail true.

God Bless your efforts, Mr. President

A Catholic Prayer for President Obama

God of power and might, wisdom and justice,
through you authority is rightly administered,
laws are enacted, and judgment is decreed.
Assist with your spirit of counsel and fortitude
the President and other government leaders of these United
States.
May they always seek
the ways of righteousness, justice and mercy.
Grant that they may be enabled by your powerful protection
to lead our country with honesty and integrity.
We ask this through Christ our Lord.

God Bless Our President and God Bless the United States of America!

Senator Caroline Kennedy -Schlossberg on the President

We need a President who is not afraid of complexity, who believes in an open and tolerant society, and who knows that the world can be made new again - and that President is Al Gore.
Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg

'Uh, er, Uh . . .I think , er Uh . . .( Kennedy-esque patois), er, em . . .'

Now, Just Wait a Doggone Minute. Oh, that was BEFORE she got Hip to Hope.

"Hail Chicago Cardinals!" - Thanks New York Times and Vince Banonis!

The hard character on the far-right is Chicago Cardinal Vince Banonis! The Bidwills could pick them!


Hail Chicago Cardinals, crimson and white,

We’ll back you ever, down the field, we’ll fight, fight, fight.

We’ll whip the Green Bay Packers, Rams and the Bears,

We’ll take Detroit and Pittsburgh, and do it fair and square.

Yea, Cardinals!


This John Branch story in today's New York Times is pure Grantland Rice!

The burly old two-way player, a center and linebacker who is now 87, is one of the few people alive to know how it feels to be on the Cardinals and play for a championship.

For Vince Banonis, 60 years and another title tilt with the Eagles were reasons enough to break out the old fight song. He and some teammates recorded it back in another time, another place.

Over the phone from Southfield, Mich., Banonis sang:

Hail Chicago Cardinals, crimson and white,

We’ll back you ever, down the field, we’ll fight, fight, fight.

We’ll whip the Green Bay Packers, Rams and the Bears,

We’ll take Detroit and Pittsburgh, and do it fair and square.

Yea, Cardinals!

Like his surviving Chicago Cardinals teammates, Banonis has long cheered the Arizona Cardinals from afar. Now there is increasing curiosity, even suspense, six decades in the making.

The Cardinals play the Philadelphia Eagles in Sunday’s National Football Conference championship game. Millions will watch on television. A handful of viewers will see it differently than anyone else.

“It’s kind of a reminder of the games we had with the Eagles, oh, 60 years ago,” Banonis said.

Before they moved to Arizona, and before they moved to St. Louis, the Cardinals were Chicago’s team — or its other team. They played mostly at Comiskey Park, mostly in the broad shadow of George Halas’s Bears, who played at Wrigley Field.

But for one season, at least, the Cardinals outshined everyone.

“In 1947, we had a good run,” said Charley Trippi, now 86, then a nimble halfback from Georgia in the first year of a Hall of Fame career.

It never occurred to anyone that the Cardinals’ championship victory — a 28-21 defeat of the Eagles on Comiskey’s frozen and slippery field — would be the last that most of the franchise’s coaches, players and fans would live to see. No current N.F.L. franchise has gone longer without a title. The Cardinals have not even played for a league or conference championship since 1948, when they were 11-1 and lost a rematch with the Eagles.

“I didn’t think it would be forever, which it has been,” Jimmy Conzelman Jr said. He was 10, a “locker-room pest,” when his father, a gregarious future Hall of Famer with a shock of silver hair named Jimmy Conzelman, coached the Cardinals to the title.

This is a great story . . .and it is in the New York Times. John Branch is almost as good as Chicago Tribune's Dan McGrath - almost.

Click my post title for the full story.

My Dad, who could not be more happy about the Cardinals and for the Bidwill Family ( 'I knew Old Charley and the two kids, Billy and Stormy, - he was a hell of a nice guy and great to Veterans') called to remind me of the old Bidwill Stadium that served as a great Chicago Women's 12" Softball stadium over east in the South Shore neighborhood which brought me to this great South Shore Neighborhood Site - Shouth Shore Newspsot:

http://bradwell66.org/SouthShoreNewsSpot/NewsSpots/2006/November%202006.html


Nota Bene!!!! I deleted e-mail addresses from the excerpts.



BIDWELL UPDATES

Regarding Bidwill Stadium, it was the home stadium for the Bluebirds who were in the Chicago area women's baseball league. They played with a 12" and hard baseball. They had played with somewhat oversized gloves since the 12" ball is larger than the smaller ball used in the major leagues. Jerry Barich Hyde Park HS 1956



Bidwell stadium and it was named after Charlie Bidwell. It was also the home stadium for the Women's fast pitch (12" not 16") league during and immediately following WWII. There was another stadium around 76th St and Loomis called Shewbridge Stadium, another home stadium for the league. I recall one team was the "Bloomer Girls" and the other was the "Blue Jays". My father was part owner of one of the teams (the one that played @ Loomis Ave) but we used to go to Bidwell to see games in the late 40s & early 50s. John McNeal, Asst. Atty. Gen. (ret), originally from 73rd & Luella, Graduate of Mt. Carmel 1960 J



I remember going to Bidwell Stadium to watch DONKEY BASEBALL! Does anyone remember that? Also, I think they used to hold carnivals there. My brother and I and the neighborhood kids used to walk along the railroad tracks to get there. We all lived on East End Avenue between 73rd and 74th Street. Sara Zaremberg



I wrote back to Sara asking her if the donkeys played baseball and here is her reply.



Hi Caryn, your response really made me laugh! The GUYS ran the bases riding on the donkeys and of course, the asses didn't always want to cooperate! I don't remember if the BATTERS were on the ASSES when batting. It was an advertised event if I remember correctly. It was generally used as a softball field. Sara



All of my life I've pronounced the name of the stadium Bid-well and spelled it that way. In fact it's actually Bid-will. Still, nice to know some of the old time memorabilia is of interest to some people. Don Turner



Don Turner's recollection of Bidwell stadium is correct. The "Bluebirds" played there during the early 1940's. The Bluebirds was a woman's baseball team. I saw a baseball game there that was played on donkeys. That was quite a sight. The Bidwell family still owns the Cardinals. They are now the Arizona Cardinals. I would appreciate any pictures of the stadium that you might have. I made a slide-show of Chicago pictures. Any additional pictures would be a welcome addition. My wife, Gail Miller class of 1954, and I, class of 1953 enjoy your newsletter very much. Joel Wolff



I spent a lot of time at Bidwell Stadium growing up. The Bidwell family still owns the Cardinals, the Arizona Cardinals. I will send you some expansion of details on the area bounded by the B&O tracks, Jeffrey and 75th Street. Also some information on the "Stone Factory" in the triangle bounded by the B&O tracks, 77th Street and Chappell. Ronnie and Kennie Sone lived north of the tracks on Chappell. Their father was a doctor or dentist, I believe. Jim Gibbons /blockquote>

Bidwill's Bonanza - Cardinals Carry Charley's South Side Dreams to the Top Floor!

Mario 'Motts' Tonelli Italian American Hall of Fame Member, Bataan Death March Survivor and Chicago Cardinal


The Cardinals are America's oldest Professional Football franchise -founded in 1898 and they are based in Glendale Arizona outside of Phoenix, but the root of Cardinal Mystique is the south side of Chicago. They began as the Morgan Athletic Club and played on Racine Avenue and were owned by Chicago painting contractor Chris O'Brien. In 1932, the Bidwill family bought the Cardinals. Charley 'Blue-Shirt Charley' Bidwill, a former VP for the Chicago Bears, worked to build a Chicago Powerhouse. He did just that by the end of World War II.

Elmer Angsman,Paul Christman, Pat Harder, Marshall Goldberg, and Charlie Trippi were members of the Million Dollar Backfield. They took down the Philadelphia Eagles in 1947. They were brought together by Charley Bidwill after World War II. In 1947 the Cardinals won the NFL Championship and in 1948 a Division Title for the south side football franchise that began as the O'Brien Cardinals playing at what is now Morgan Park Academy in the 1920's. Charley Bidwill died in April of 1947, before his Dream Team coached by the great Jimmy Conzelman could realize their potential.

Charley's sons Charley and Bill took command. The Cardinals moved to St. Louis and eventually to Phoenix. The Bidwill Family retain their ties to Chicago and are powerful but quiet participants in all Chicago Philanthropic initiatives. Stormy Bidwill runs Sportmans Park racing track and helps poor kids at Leo High School get an education.

The Bidwill Family always seemed to take the high road. When Notre Dame running great Mario 'Motts' Tonelli* returned to Chicago from the Japanese Death Camps from Bataan to Japan after being captured in the siege of Bataan, Charley Bidwill, though putting together a Million Dollar backfield, signed the skeletal Tonelli and had him carry the ball against the Green Bay Packers:

Slightly more than one in every three men captured on Bataan returned home. But few did so to recognition of their peculiar ordeal. In the flush of V-J Day, Americans yearned for their antebellum status quo. In just such a spirit Cardinals owner Charley Bidwill** asked Tonelli, home not even a month, to rejoin the team. It was a publicity stunt, but one in which all parties eagerly conspired. War hero Tonelli, The Chicago Sun declared, had been "nursed back to full strength and health." Tonelli played along. "My weight is back up to 183 pounds," he told the papers, though he weighed more like 140. He still had malaria. Since that day his wife, Mary, and his parents had met him at Chicago's Union Station, doctors had twice cut him open to treat his intestines.

Bidwill's gesture was well-intentioned, but football doesn't run on sentiment. Three days after signing in front of the cameras, Tonelli carried twice against the Packers in Green Bay, each time for no gain, and so ended his NFL career. The next morning's Chicago Tribune carried both news of the Cardinals' 33-14 loss and the headline WAR VETERANS RETURN AND GO HOUSE HUNTING.

Click my post title for Toneli's heroic saga.

The Football Chicago Cardinals remain the south side team, along with Charlie Comiskey's White Sox and our Holy Mother's Notre Dame, due to the Bidwill Family. Their franchise might be in Arizona, Missouri, or Lower Slobovia, but so long as they are running the show, the Cardinals are the south side's team.


*Star fullback for Notre Dame who survived the Bataan Death March during WWII. He was best known for a 77-yard run that helped Notre Dame beat the University of Southern California. At the beginning of the death march, a Japanese guard ordered him to remove his Notre Dame graduation ring only to have the ring returned moments later by a Japanese officer who said in perfect English that he had attended the USC game and watched the famous run. He spent 42 months as a POW and saw his weight drop from 212 pounds to only 92 pounds. He is a member of the National Italian American Sports Hall of Fame.


**

One man Tonelli holds dear to him is Charles Bidwill, the owner of the Chicago Cardinals. Bidwill came to Motts in the hospital after the war and said, "Motts, before you left the Cardinals, you still had a three-year contract. We expect you to honor it." By renewing the contract, he provided Motts with a wonderful opportunity because, under the rules of the NFL, you had to play both before and after the war to get credit for your pension. They both knew it was nearly impossible for Motts to play again but he was determined to do his best. On one Sunday in October of 1945, after a few practices with his coach, Motts earned his pension. Mario "Motts" Tonelli has become a hero on both the battle field and football field.

http://und.cstv.com/sports/monogramclub/spec-rel/122604aaz.html

Brian Dennehy and Robert Falls - Serious Play

Goodman Theatre Artistic Director and American Actor Brian Dennehy Play well together.

Play is serious stuff - it is what we call Art. Only Man takes earth and makes a world of it - that is eventually what gets to be called Art after much play and hard work. These two men have taken play to the very serious levels that become Great Art.

Since 1986, when Robert Falls directed Brian Dennehy in the Goodman Theatre production of Bertold Brecht's The Life of Galileo the two men have collaborated to create the greatest examples of Theatre Art in modern Time.

This week the Goodman Theatre opened production of Eugene O'Neill's Desire Under the Elms

Desire Under the Elms
Directed by Robert Falls
Featuring Brian Dennehy, Carla Gugino, Boris McGiver, Daniel Stewart Sherman and Pablo Schreiber

Tony Award-winning Artistic Director Robert Falls' Desire Under the Elms starring the acclaimed, Tony Award-winner Brian Dennehy will be the centerpiece of an exploration of Eugene O'Neill in the 21st century.

Master American playwright Eugene O’Neill conceived Desire Under the Elms as he slept one night, imbuing it with the emotional pitch of a fever dream. Ephraim Cabot returns to his remote New England farmhouse with his third wife—the alluring, headstrong young Abbie—launching his three grown sons into a bitter fight for their inheritance. When Ephraim’s youngest son sets his sights on Abbie, the resulting tempest brings tragic consequences.

In 1986, I saw the Dennehy/Falls Magic on the stage of the old Goodman Theatre with Galileo. It was overpowering.

Dennehy was exuberantly graceful, witty and brilliant. I recall this wonderful passage ( Galileo has built a telescope and shows the moon to his disciple and confounds human thought and assumptions with this discovery):

GALILEO: How do you explain those luminous spots?
SAGREDO : It cannot be.
GALILEO: But it is. They are mountains.
SAGREDO : On a star?
GALILEO: Giant mountains. Whose summits are gilded by the rising sun,
whilst all around night still covers their slopes. You see the light descending
from the topmost peaks into the valleys.
SAGREDO: But that contradicts all astronomy for the last two thousand
years.
GALILEO : Yet that’s how it is. What you see has never been seen by any
man besides myself. You are the second.

That's how it is. Get to the Goodman!

Sully - Hero of the Hudson

With a handle like Chesley B. Sullenberger, there was no way the Hero of the Hudson River could have been anything but just that.

America salutes Sully! This gentleman was the last person off the sinking jet that the cool,calm and collect Chesley sailed onto the Hudson River.

Capt Sullenberger, 57, who ditched US Airlines Flight 1549 safely into the Hudson River in New York, has over 40 years of flying experience and heads his own safety consulting business.

The former US Air Force fighter pilot from California has served as an instructor and as an Airline Pilots Association (Alpa) safety chairman and accident investigator.

He has taken part in several USAF and National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) accident investigations.

According to the New York Times newspaper, Capt Sullenberger is also a certified glider pilot.

Search for passengers

Capt Sullenberger has been widely praised for his "masterful landing", which was a "miracle on the Hudson", according to New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Less than a minute after his Airbus A320 to Charlotte, North Carolina, took off, Capt Sullenberger reported a "double bird strike" and asked to return to the ground, an air controllers union spokesman said.

HERO PILOT
Chesley B 'Sully' Sullenberger III
Age 57, from Danville, California
Former Air Force fighter pilot
29 years with US Airways
Has own consulting business, Safety Reliability Methods Inc
Based on agency reports


Tale of miraculous escape
In pictures: New York plane crash
'We knew we were going down'

Both engines had apparently been disabled by a flock of birds.

According to air traffic controllers, an "eerie calm" defined their communications with the cockpit as their options dwindled and the pilot decided to ditch into the Hudson, a union official told Reuters news agency.

Incredibly, Capt Sullenberger managed to land the aircraft safely on the water.

Mayor Bloomberg said that the pilot told him that the captain then "walked the plane twice after everybody else was off and tried to verify that there was nobody else onboard".

Capt Sullenberger's wife, Lorrie Sullenberger, a fitness expert in Danville, California, said she learned of the crash when her husband called her on Thursday afternoon.

"He said, 'There's been an accident'," she told CNN.

"At first I thought it was something minor, but then he told me the circumstances and my body started shaking and I rushed to get our daughters out of school," she said.

One of their neighbours, Candace Andersen, said the right pilot had been in charge at the time of the accident.

"You look at his training, you look at his experience - it was the right pilot at the right time in charge of that plane that saved so many lives," she said.

When America needs heroes there never seems to be any shortage of quiet professionals.

Thanks Sully for reminding all of us that heroes are not found imposing themselves into the public imagination - they emerge from the fog of terror and confusion to calm the waters.

Henry Waxman - Be My Wingman!

This guy's strictly MGM; ain't he Margie?!!!! 'En he plays the bagpipes too, I think - an ardent female fan was heard to say.

Congressional Climate Change Torquemada - California Rep. Henry Waxman (D.30th) has vowed to end this cycle of 12" of snow and -30 Degree temperatures afflicting my planet at 108th & Rockwell in Chicago Illinois!

"Our committee will be acting quickly and decisively to reduce global warming and end our dependence on foreign oil," Waxman said.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has indicated that reining in climate change is among her top priorities. And Waxman deposed Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.) as chairman of the committee in part because of his aggressive approach on the environment, which he billed as more in line with President-elect Obama's view.

Waxman made the announcement at his first hearing as chairman, which featured the heads of manufacturing companies that support new climate change rules.

Henry, get this polar-like ice cap off my street!

Also, when in town, Brother Waxman, join me and the lads for Cokes and Jokes up at Keegan's Pub. Our widowers and divorced Dads can use a Wingman!

PineLeaf Boys: Screw The Salt -Thaw Cajun!

Ca viens? Mais, jamais d'la vie! Pas a pomee!' Fait pas une esquandal! Clique mah post title! Je t'aime toujours, Patrack Hique

Snowbound in Morgan Park: Chicago Idle - Well, I am anyway.

Within our beds awhile we heard
The wind that round the gables roared,
With now and then a ruder shock,
Which made our very bedsteads rock.
We heard the loosened clapboards tost,
The board-nails snapping in the frost;
And on us, through the unplastered wall,
Felt the light sifted snow-flakes fall.
But sleep stole on, as sleep will do
When hearts are light and life is new;
Faint and more faint the murmurs grew,
Till in the summer-land of dreams
They softened to the sound of streams,
Low stir of leaves, and dip of oars,
And lapsing waves on quiet shores.

John Greenleaf Whittier

Wittier Than Whittier? -Naw It's Too Cold.


The snap and crackle on sidewalks white
Signal colder fingers all through this cold night,
And Dawn's Toes that froze all the way from the car,
Do now warn the brain-pan -'Tis Cold out Th'yar!'
Stiffer than Wanstead when given the Slip,
By Mrs McCaskey through Angelo's Lip;
Bears that care do not maul the foe,
And all of Chicago nods,'Wanny Must Go!'-
Lovie-Like snows once froze the Hydrant's pipe
And Water Department guys mended it Right,
On Rockwell 108th just the other day,
And Obam's Transition had nothing to say.

Sub-zero Factors ride Big Shoulder's gelid wind
And close Ord's Runways -Extended Stay Inn.
The Short Man on Five wants new kinds of salt
For Streets and San Men to cast from the Vault
Of Horded Plenty white crystals that melt
Nature's cold spittle with Taxpayer's gelt.
North Wind and Sun did Battle in Aesop's Fable
To tell all and sundry who better was able
To get Man to strip his garments gay and bright
The Sun, it was, proved who could get the thing Right.
Sol/Boreas, Madigan/Blago, contend in like manner for Public Approval
The Sun heats all Truth -watch Blago's Removal.

Boreas blew like the Bears' Recent season
And forced ice and wind on Jim chilled by all Reason.
But Man yanked his duds tighter 'round his shivering bones
And warded off North Wind until Jim he got home,
Where the Missus and kids thawed Dad's Polar Limbs
And Souped, Peoples Gassed, hugged, thawed tired Jim.
Sol did much better with gradual heat
Last Summer than Boreas the North Wind Sol Beat.
Jim stripped his Drapes in easy gay layers
To his Banana Hammock as a willing and gradual player
Witched to the whispers of persuading fellow
Warm Sol's Barrelhouse invite 'Get Naked and Mellow!'

Persuasion gets Man to do as might,
While Blowy Dictums pull Drapes around tight
The Freezing Man. Who endures Boreas and Daley
And Blago, and Taxes frozen pipes daily.
Warm Sol and persuasion and brotherly chat
Get more peels of raiment's and Taxpayer Fat
For the Fires that energize Government Bunnies
Who gobble your clothes, your cabbage and monies.

This Thursday is Cold, Frost-Hoary and Mean!
North Wind and Sun do battle on Man. Lean
Government like Orange rhymes with no word
The Thaw is coming. Peel dollars clothes-ward.
That Rhyme was forced, like a bartender's treat.
Screw it. Must scrape the clogged ice on my street.

Stand With Our Jewish Neighbors -'How Come Cole Porter Never Wrote A Song About Rosh Hoshanna?'

Steve Miller Reporting
WBBM Newsradio 780


(WBBM/AP) - Both the American Jewish Committee and the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee issued statements renounced the recent vandalism of several Chicago-area synagogues.

Police say vandals who set fire a fire at a prominent Chicago synagogue last month may also have sprayed "Death to Israel'' on the north suburban Lincolnwood Jewish Congregation over the weekend.

The head of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee of Chicago says he needs to speak out now.

"I don't think we can speak out against any desecration of any mosques or churches in our community and then stand idly by and not speak out against desecration of religious institutions in other communities."

Well said, Pal! Let's take it a little further along the sidewalk.

The other day I remarked on the brilliant book/essay by America's greatest essayist, Joseph Epstein, on Fred Astair as part of the American Icon Series published by Yale Press. The book is prose writing at its best.

Joseph Epstein wrote a profound passage asking why American gentile song writers like Cole Porter never wrote a song about Rosh Shoshana or Purim. Given that the best Christmas Songs, White Christmas by Irving Berlin and Christmas Song by Mel Torme were written by Jewish Americans and Berlin also wrote Easter Parade.

It appears that American Jews celebrated their American neighbors and their traditions while remaining on the outside.

In our Celebrate Diversity, Happy Horse-shit Culture it would be nice to see a little return on this investment of the heart.

Loyola Man, Rabbi Elisha Prero*, confronted the vandalism done to his congregation over the weekend. His East Rogers Park Congregation was vandalized by idiots or anti-Semites - the roles are reversible. I wanted to see how many other ethnic groups stood in solidarity with our Jewish Neighbors.

One of my best friends growing up in Little Flower Parish on the south side - the Irish Catholic Riviera - was the late Danny Levi. Danny was one tough guy who poured out mounds of help to his Mick neighbors whenever anyone got sick or kids found themselves without parents. Danny Levi owned and operated the Irish Temple Pub which had a logo of a Shamrock in the Star of David.

I'll never forget Danny Levi's goodness to his pals and their families.

I hope that I never forget. Danny's relatives were tossed into ovens by people who went to Mass every Sunday and attended Protestant services with sober regularity.

Let's let Rabbi Elisha Prero know that his neighbors here in Chicago - Catholic, Protestant, Muslim, Buddhist and Atheist understand what 'Never Again' means.

We don't need to write songs. We need to stand up once in while; let's let them know we do just that.


Young Israel of West Rogers Park
2706 W. Touhy Ave.
Chicago, Illinois 60645
(773) 743-9400


* Rabbi Elisha Prero

Rabbi Elisha Prero graduated with a B.A. in philosophy, Magna Cum Laude, from Loyola University of Chicago and received a J.D. from the University of Michigan Law School. He studied at Kerem B'Yavneh and Yeshivat Har Etzion in Israel and received his Rabbinic Ordination from Rabbi Ahron Soloveichik at Brisk Rabbinical College. Rabbi Prero joined the law firm of Schuyler, Roche, Zwirner, and has been a partner since 2001. He is a member of the CRC, the Youth Commission of the Midwest Region of the NCSY, the musical group Evën Sh’siyah and has been rabbi of Young Israel of West Rogers Park for the past 10 years.

Chicago Tribune and Chicagoist Cover Vandalism of Chicago Jewish Congregations

HUGE HAT TIP to the Crews Chicago Tribune and at Chicagoist!

http://chicagoist.com/2009/01/11/pro-israel_rally_photos_local_synag.php?gallery0Pic=6#gallery"Free, free Palestine," thousands of marchers chanted. "Hey [Israeli Prime Minister Ehud] Olmert you can't hide, we charge you with genocide."

http://www.chicagobreakingnews.com/2009/01/pro-palestinian-march-to-close-loop-streets.html

That was Friday night.

This was Sunday Morning:

Late Sunday morning, Talmud classes were under way at Lubavitch Mesivta of Chicago, a rabbinical school and synagogue at 2756 W. Morse Ave. in Chicago. Spray-painted on the brick wall facing California Avenue was the same phrase, "Death to Israel."

"We continue on," Rabbi Shalom Halberstam said. "We do our thing. Studying. Learning. We didn't shut school down. We keep the faith."

Over at the Young Israel Congregation of West Rogers Park, 2706 W. Touhy Ave., head of security Stuart Singal was putting tarp over two smashed windows Sunday morning.

Rabbi Elisha Prero said synagogue officials believe the "Jewish response" to the defacement of their building was to make something positive of it. They would use the bricks thrown into the window in the cornerstone of the synagogue's library.

"We want to turn this disgusting act into a redemptive one," Prero said.

alwang@tribune.com

jjlong@tribune.com

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-synagogue-rally-12-jan12,0,3703577.story

Gaza is in the Mideast - Palestine/Israel but it sure as hell is not here in Chicago, Skokie, or Lincolnwood.

Catch the vandals. Charge them. Save all the 'Profiling' nonsense on the part of the Peoples Law Office and Lefty Lawyer League. This is an American Criminal Act. Show it the American Justice System.

God Bless the Congregations and the great Jewish People who had to endure this affront! Got a beef with that?

President Elect Obama -Everybody’s Going to have to Give. Ludacris?

"Well, right now, I’m focused on a pretty heavy lift, which is making sure we get that reinvestment and recovery package in place. But what you described is exactly what we’re going to have to do. What we have to do is to take a look at our structural deficit, how are we paying for government? What are we getting for it? And how do we make the system more efficient?"
"And eventually sacrifice from everyone?" I asked.

"Everybody’s going to have to give. Everybody’s going to have to have some skin in the game," Obama said.

Obama Spokesman and early supporter of the President Elect,Christopher Bridges AKA Ludacris had this to say -

'You can’t stop what’s bout to happen, we bout to make history
The first black president is destined and it’s meant to be
The threats ain’t fazing us, the nooses or the jokes
So get off your ass, black people, it’s time to get out and vote!

Paint the White House black and I’m sure that’s got ‘em terrified
McCain don’t belong in any chair unless he’s paralyzed
Yeah I said it cause Bush is mentally handicapped
Ball up all of his speeches and just throw ‘em like candy wrap
’cause what you talking I hear nothing even relevant
and you the worst of all 43 presidents

Get out and vote or the end’ll be near
The world is ready for change because Obama is here
’cause Obama is here
The world is ready for change because Obama is here, yeah
cuz Obama is here'

Well, Christopher Old Son, My wrinkled Skin's well in the Game and My Pale Skin is already Sizzlin'! As a rapper of the last century put it, Chris, 'Commitments the voters don't know about can't hurt you.' Tru Dat, Playah!

Joseph Epstein's 'Fred Astair' - 'A bit of color at the throat'

"I have always thought,that if one wants to be a writer, he must first make himself incompetent in everything else." Joseph Epstein

"In his essays, Epstein possesses a wealth of apt, obscure and effortless knowledge. In person, he is a man of anecdotes: conversation with him invariably anchored here and there by winsome, real life accounts. Indeed it seems nearly every story in this new collection has behind it an anecdote of equal charm." Doug Wagner from his interview with Joseph Epstein

Joseph Epstein is arguably America's best essayist. The litany of Professor Epstein's essays is a trail of delight:

Divorced in America: Marriage in an age of possibility (1974)
Familiar Territory: Observations on American Life (1979)
Ambition: The Secret Passion (1980)
Middle of My Tether: Familiar Essays (1983)
Plausible Prejudices: Essays on American Writing (1985)
Once More Around the Block: Familiar Essays (1987)
Partial Payments: Essays on Writers and Their Lives (1988)
A Line Out for a Walk: Familiar Essays (1991)
Pertinent Players: Essays on the Literary Life (1993)
With My Trousers Rolled: Familiar Essays (1995)
Life Sentences: Literary Essays (1997)
Narcissus Leaves the Pool: Familiar Essays (1999, paperback 2007)
Snobbery: The American Version (2002)
Envy (2003)
Friendship: An Exposé (2006)
Alexis de Tocqueville: Democracy's Guide (2006)
In a Cardboard Belt!: Essays Personal, Literary, and Savage (2007)
Fred Astaire (2008)

Fred Astair was a Christmas gift to me. It is an Apollonian dance, a hard-crafted drift of breeze made warm and wonderful by the magic of practiced attention to detail. In pointing to Fred Astair's imaginative dress habits, Joseph Epstein's prose hovers above the dusty floor's saw-dust words of lesser craftsmen attempting a similar literary two-step on the subject:

' Astair was also good at throwing together what might appear normally discordant colors but which on him worked well. Brown suede loafers, say, with a taupe blue double breasted suit. Or, a buff colored, slightly beaten up fedora with a tuxedo. A French semiologist could doubtless do a lengthy and jargon-laden study of the colors of his socks. The point is that he made the normally discordant seem not in the least discordant but instead interesting, striking. Elegant is as elegant does.

Lots of people think Astair's sometimes wearing a necktie in place of a belt a fine flamboyant touch, but I am not among them. I thought it went over the line of flair and into the land of fey. He didn't do badly, though, with colorful silk bandanna's tied loosely around his throat. In later life, he understood that a bit of color at the the throat, along with covering over the sagging skin at the neck, enlivens an older face. His pocket squares were never too showy. He looked good in bathrobes, too though on him they were elevated to dressing gowns' Epstein (40-41).

Joseph Epstein is the Fred Astair of the essay. Though Fred tapped, waltzed, fox-trotted, and, sadly, assented to boogaloo at the end of his long career, Joe Epstein river-dances an endless but controlled shower of sound and sense from the wealth of his experiences and insights.

Though a book for the Star-struck guzzler of Hollywood fabulae and fauna, it is more of a treat to the audience of discerning readers and deep drinkers of the Pyrian Spring. Aunt Myrt will love the stuff about the back-stage life and servings of 'dish,' but lovers of prose will delight to witness Joe Epstein's graceful glides through the pages.

http://januarymagazine.com/profiles/jepstein.html

Governor Alfred Lord Blagojevich Repsonds to Impeachment

YouTube - Animal House: Germans Bombed Pearl Harbor: ""

Click this link!

Andrew Breitbart's 'Big Hollywood' - A Voice for the Traditional

I got me WOW Cable service here in Chicago, which was Wide Open West, which was Ameritech, which was Illinois Bell in the Book of Genesis.

WOW Cable costs a lung each month for basic and HBO. That means my kids get to watch One Tree Hill, Disney Stuff, and Laguna Beach. I get Turner Movie Classics (TCM). I can not watch American Movie Classics (AMC)as there is more censorship and many more commercials than when Channel 9 ( WGN) had Lynn Burton selling cars during Old Movies.

The History Channel explains UFOs, Gangs that I meet 'n greet on an almost daily basis over near Leo, the DaVinci Code and the smelly basements of the World in History.

There are hundreds of channels and generally nothing to watch. Most Movies getting made and played for our Mall Theatres ( Kerasotes & etc.) stink on ice, but that does not prevent Hollywood from churning out soy-heavy political/social/moral opinion on HBO or Arianna Huffington's Pravda.

Films with real substance are almost non-existent and Film industry professionals who hold opinions and values that are not stridently counter-culture are blacklisted.

Andrew Breitbart, a young guy born during my senior year at Little Flower High School (1969) has opened Big Hollywood and alternative to the America bashing, 'Seth Has Two Daddies and Loving It,' Isreal is Facist, Catholics are Evil and Drugs Are Health Food points of view.

Breitbart is a writer who helped Arianna Huffington develop Huffington Post - named for Arianna with the handle of her husband who was decidely man-directed in his sexual inclinations, but loaded with gelt. Huffington Post is the Hollywood Squares of third tier talent and 40 Watt Political thinking.

Andy Breitbart wrote,"[Left-leaning Hollywood personalities] are uninteresting, they’re vicious, they’re vitriolic, they’re really, really not good people. I’m willing to say that on the record. You could probe them scientifically and anthropologically and prove that they’re not good people....[The Hollywood left] is a stale group of people who are recycling the same old bad ideas that don’t work. Why else would those people go to the stinky side?"
—Meet Andrew Breitbart, self-proclaimed rebel-king of L.A.'s underground conservative movement (interview), 2008.

Why are all those Hollywood Lefties named Seth?

For a look at Underground Hollywood, friends and neighbors, get thee to Big Hollywood.

Newman (from Seinfeld) for U.S. Post Master General!

I heard a guy call in to WLS -Don Wade & Roma this morning with a comment on the designation of Dr. Sanjay Gupta for U.S, Surgeon General: 'Why not Newman from Seinfeld for Postmaster General?'

Brilliant, Sober, Consistent and Change I Believe In! Hell, He can't can't screw up a trainwreck that is in progress. Why Not?

Newman is a U.S Postalworker, which never work in the rain for obvious reasons, this came in conflict when george castanza made a deal with him for him to by a calzone for him from a place which he was thrown out of. he has been involved in many plots with the four main characters, while also being adversarial to jerry; they are famous for saying eachothers names in an despicable voice upon meeting. 1 scheme where newman is involved is where he, elaine, and kramer kidnap a dog that was really annoying to elaine. newman's love is elaine, and this is shown when he recites poetry about her. Newman recieved a birthday wish when he suddenly got a convertable, and a hot new girlfriend who is interested in the mailing system. kramer and newman,who are close friends, tried to travel to michigan on mothers day with a mailtruck full of empties of which he wanted to cash in for the 15 cent payback. when kramer was in debt, betting on arrivals and departures at the airport, newman came in with Son of Sam's mailbag to give as collateral, newman said that he once double dated with son of sam. Newman hates keith hernandez, of which he called "pretty boy" for making a crucial error that made the mets lose, and in retaliation, he was spit on along with kramer by what jerry calls a magic luggie.

Retrieved from "http://seinfeld.wikia.com/wiki/Newman_%28Seinfeld%29"http://seinfeld.wikia.com/wiki/Newman_(Seinfeld)