Czech Please! Klas Restaurant! "The Accidental Army"; Goulash and Great Conversation with Steve Jordan and Elias Crim: Save Our History! Czech Please!

I had a most memorable Father's Day Dinner with Ms. Terry Sullivan; Susan and Steve Jordan of Oak Park; historian, editor and executive network operator Elias Crim and his three beautiful and talented daughters at the landmark Bohemian restaurant Klas in Cicero, IL.

Klas is a family operated restaurant that is a museum of Czech Culture and a delight of Old World service and atmosphere. Klas* is " the largest Czech Restaurant in the U.S.A. and a reminder of Chicago's debt to Bohemian people who brought skilled craftsmanship to the building trades and examples of personal and family thrift as an ethic - too long ignored.

The first Czech in Chicago is reported to have arrived before 1850:

Jan Habenicht in his Czech publication Dejiny Cechüv americkych (History of American Czechs) published in Si. Louis in 1910, categorically wrote that the first Czech settler in Chicago was a Moravian native Dr. Frantisek Adolf Valenta. This claim was generally accepted even by such eminent scholars as Professor Francis Dvornik.

Dr. Frantisek A. Valenta originally came to America in 1849 and, after a brief stay in New York City, he settled in August of the same year on the north side of Chicago. Later on he established a pharmacy on the corner of State and Van Buren Streets. His knowledge of German enabled him to practice medicine especially among Germans. After fourteen years of medical practice, he was quite rich and returned to Bohemia, reportedly with some $50,000. There he purchased a farm and in 1870 he died. Habenicht harshly
criticized Valenta's German orientation, however, if we look at it from a different perspective, we ought to give him credit for his entrepreneurship and be comforted by the fact that his presumed riches did not come from the back of poor Czech settlers.

http://www.svu2000.org/cs_america/chicago.htm

Chicago's Czech immigrants possessed few locally marketable skills, and in the 1880s, working at unsteady jobs, notably as lumber shovers in the “lumber district” adjoining Pilsen, they earned less than nearly all other major ethnic group in the city. Eschewing traditional craft unions, they readily employed the mass strike to better their economic situation, drawing on their dense associational network. Whole neighborhoods joined to keep out strikebreakers, playing a prominent part in street fighting with police and militia in the Great Railroad Strike of 1877 and other labor conflicts. The event that precipitated the Haymarket tragedy was a violent clash between heavily Bohemian lumber shovers and the police. Led by socialist-leaning freethinkers, Bohemians turned readily to the Socialist Labor Party at the end of the nineteenth century. By the 1910s and 1920s, however, Czechs earned more and worked at a wider range of occupations, including as operatives at Western Electric. Their energies were devoted more to ethnic and neighborhood organizations than to radical or unionist activity.

Early Czech immigrants largely voted for the Republican Party because of their opposition to slavery. However, Chicago Czechs changed their allegiance in local politics after the Democratic Party nominated a Czech for alderman in 1883. Czech support for the Democrats continued well into the twentieth century, peaking with the election of Anton Cermak, a Czech immigrant, as the Democratic mayor of Chicago in 1931.

http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/153.html

Klas is located on the street named for Chicago's best known Bohemian - Anton Cermak.

Terry, the Jordan's and the Crims had attended Mass and a play at St. Odilo's Catholic Church, while I had spent a few hours wishing my Dad a Happy Father's Day - "Hell, yes it's Happy - for Crissake, I'm still on top of the grass!"

I dropped my girls off at home and took Cicero Ave. up to Cermak Road and West eight blocks to the massive Klas and and quaffed samples the fine 'Shirley Temples' in the masterfully carved deep dark wooden bar festooned with carved statuary, memorabilia and Bohemian/Moravian Welcome!

The Jordans arrived and so also the beautiful and elegant Ms. Sullivan and Crims of Valparaiso, Indiana!

Steve Jordan is Boston-born banker who was raised Irish Catholic in San Francisco and his beautiful wife Susan is an native San Franciscan. Steve Jordan spent many years in South East Asia - Singapore primarily - and is man with wealth of historical knowledge and eclectic discernment's on all manner of cultural interests - governmental as well as gastronomical.

Steve pointed out the photos of Czech soldiers in Czarist Russian winter gear and identified them as members of the famous Czech Legion (Česká družina). 'These were giants!, remarked the talented Mr. Jordan. "The Czech Legion fought an epic battle against the Red Armies all along the Trans-Siberian Railroad route from Asia to Europe and yet very few people have ever heard of them. They fought an epic paralleled only by the Anabasis of Xenophon and Chosin Reservoir of Chesty Puller - God I love this place! You get a real sense of history here!"

Chicago film-maker Bruce Bendinger has made a film about the Czech Legion - The Accidental Army, which opened here in Chicago on June 20th at the Gene Siskel Center.

Ed Koziarki of Chicago Reader has written a splendid piece about this film and Chicago's debt to the Czechs of Chicago - here is an excerpt of Ed's review:

“Here was a story that almost nobody knows,” Bendinger says. “You pull a thread and the more you pull, the more interesting it got. Even in the Czech and Slovak republics, it’s become a historical blind spot.”

The Chicago connection goes back to 1902, when local plumbing magnate Charles Crane recruited Tomáš Masaryk, a philosophy professor and Czech nationalist who’d served in the Austro-Hungarian parliament, to lecture at the University of Chicago. (A memorial to Masaryk and the Czechoslovak Legion now stands on campus, at the east end of the Midway Plaisance). The Slavs of Central Europe had no state of their own at the time: most Czechs and Slovaks were subjects of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, while a sizable minority lived in Russia. Nearly 100,000 Czechs had immigrated to Chicago, giving the city the world’s second-highest Czech population after Prague.

After his summer stint at the U. of C., Masaryk returned to Austro-Hungary and resumed his political activities. When the empire invaded Serbia in 1914, initiating World War I, he fled to England, becoming leader of an Allied spy network and the foremost international spokesman for the Czechoslovak independence movement.

On the day the war broke out, thousands of Chicago Slavs gathered in Pilsen Park at 26th and Albany—in Little Village, then called Czech California—to urge the United States to join the Allied effort against Austro-Hungary and the Central Powers. They launched a letter-writing campaign aimed at getting their relatives in Europe to resist conscription into the Austro-Hungarian army, or to desert and fight for the Allies. “The letters [showed] how people were feeling,” Bendinger says. “Thousands of [Slavic] Austro-Hungarian soldiers surrendered as quickly as they could.” Chicago Czechs and other Slavs “were at the forefront of being on the Allied side in World War I. Their relatives were the ones being killed, or being drafted to fight for the Germans and Austro-Hungarians.”

The first Czechoslovak Legion was a force of 10,000 in the Russian army—ostensibly volunteers, though many were pressured to fight under threat of losing their land. Their ranks swelled after Masaryk convinced the Russian government to allow 50,000 Czech and Slovak POWs from the Austro-Hungarian army to defect and fight for Russia. The Czechoslovak Legion is credited with helping to tie up German forces on the Eastern front, giving the Allies a crucial edge on the Western front. Their service, Bendinger says, also gave the Czech independence movement vital “skin in the game.”

In May 1918, Masaryk went on a barnstorming tour of the U.S. to raise political and financial backing for Czech independence. In downtown Chicago, outside the Blackstone Hotel, he addressed a crowd of 150,000 supporters, demonstrating the independence movement’s political muscle and turning American political discourse in favor of a Czechoslovak nation.

(Standing before a statue of Masaryk in Prague on April 5, President Obama said, “Masaryk spoke to a crowd in Chicago that was estimated to be over 100,000. I don’t think I can match Masaryk’s record, but I’m honored to follow his footsteps from Chicago to Prague.”)

Steve Jordan knew the story. Elias Crim knew the story. I had heard about the Czech Legion, but as with most things in my life managed to place that thought in the top drawer of my Brain Dresser - the one that holds treasures; baby teeth, match boxes from memorable places; ear rings lost and stepped upon & etc.

America needs to open that drawer often. We are losing our sense of History. President Obama has a very poor sense of history** and swats at historical facts like so many flies. Jimmy Carter also took a paddle to the rabbit of Historical sense, and allowed an Iranian Revolution that still seems to hold America hostage. That's history, folks! Learn it or live it . . .over and over again.

Too many Americans like to believe the things that they are told to them by ersatz authorities ( Look, Bill Ayers is called an Academic! Have you ever read his nonsense?)- like America is murderous, racist, greedy, opportunistic, Imperialist. Americans like to embrace icons like Margaret Sanger, who was as twisted a Eugenics racist as Hitler on a bad day, yet she is padded with Planned Parenthood coins in the memory slot; that Jane Addams was more than just a self-absorbed and bitter person; that Saul Alinsky really mattered to anyone while he was alive and that he actually improved the lives of the people that he used.

Open your eyes to history. At Klas Restaurant on Cermak Road it is all around you.
However it also helps to have interested and interesting people like Jordans and the Crims when enjoying the Goulash.

*Klas Restaurant
5734 W Cermak Rd
Cicero, IL 60804
(708) 652-0795


**

Days into his presidency, it should be recalled, Mr. Obama had spoken of his desire to restore to America's relation with the Muslim world the respect and mutual interest that had existed 30 or 20 years earlier. It so happened that he was speaking, almost to the day, on the 30th anniversary of the Iranian Revolution -- and that the time span he was referring to, his golden age, covered the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the American standoff with Libya, the fall of Beirut to the forces of terror, and the downing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. Liberal opinion would have howled had this history been offered by George W. Bush, but Barack Obama was granted a waiver.

Little more than three decades ago, Jimmy Carter, another American president convinced that what had come before him could be annulled and wished away, called on the nation to shed its "inordinate fear of communism," and to put aside its concern with "traditional issues of war and peace" in favor of "new global issues of justice, equity and human rights." We had betrayed our principles in the course of the Cold War, he said, "fought fire with fire, never thinking that fire is quenched with water." The Soviet answer to that brave, new world was the invasion of Afghanistan in December of 1979.

Mr. Carter would try an atonement in the last year of his presidency. He would pose as a born-again hawk. It was too late in the hour for such redemption. It would take another standard-bearer, Ronald Reagan, to see that great struggle to victory.

Iran's ordeal and its ways shattered the Carter presidency. President Obama's Persian tutorial has just begun.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124563005022735881.html

Happy Fathers Day - St. Joseph, Si Blitzstein and Dad - Bless Us.

“a righteous man, yet unwilling to expose her to shame” (Matthew 1:19).

"He was chosen by the eternal Father as the trustworthy guardian and protector of his greatest treasures, namely, his divine Son and Mary, Joseph’s wife. He carried out this vocation with complete fidelity until at last God called him, saying: ‘Good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of your Lord’” (St. Bernardine of Siena).

Just as the saying goes that behind every great man there is a great woman, the inspiration behind the celebration of a Father's Day is owed at least partly to its slightly earlier counterpart, Mother's Day. Mother's Day was just beginning to gather widespread attention in the United States in 1909, when Sonora Louise Smart Dodd, of Spokane, Washington, heard a sermon on the merits of setting aside a day to honor one's mother. It gave her the idea to petition for a day to honor fathers, and in particular, her own father, William Jackson Smart, who had raised her and her five siblings by himself, after her mother died in childbirth.

With support from the Spokane Ministerial Association and the YMCA, her efforts paid off, and on June 19, 1910, the first Father's Day was celebrated in Spokane. The rose was selected as the official Father's Day flower, and some suggest that people wear a white rose to honor a father who is deceased, and a red one for a father who is living. In 1972, Richard Nixon signed a presidential proclamation declaring the third Sunday of June as Father's Day.

http://fathers-day.123holiday.net/


I have three wonderful children - Nora, Conor and Clare. Their Mother and my Bride, Mary, is in Heaven. She watches the cartoon playing 24/7 which is my care for those three great kids. Homer Simpson looks like Lord Chesterfield next to my ministrations as Hickey Pater Familias.

Jesus! Rag, rag, rag and the occasional Rage. That's this weak Sister, Bubba.

I do what I can, or attempt to make myself believe that all that I do for them comes not from a misstep, a lazy half-measure, or out of my personal vanity.

They deserve a great Father. They have one in God the Father and a reasonable facsimile here on earth.

Fathers are important, I guess. There are commercials telling us about Father's Rights from lawyers in Cowboy Hats; Celebration Sales for Hardware, Steaks, Golf Shirts and Old Country Buffets.

A wonderful boss that I had back when I worked one of my many jobs to meet tuition at Loyola was Simon Bitzstein.

Si Blitzstein hired legions of Catholic Youth to sell Van Huesen Shirts, Levis, quality suits, sport coats, and accessories at Mr. Lee's in the Evergreen Plaza*. One Fathers Day while fitting a guy home from the Navy for a suit, Si was asked what he was doing for Father's Day. He said, "This. This is what Fathers do."

"Hickey, he said, "You know when's Mothers Day?"

I said, "Last month."

Si rejoined, "Nine Months after Fathers Day. You got children? You work."

That was no joke. Do your job.

Fathers, no matter how strong, weak, smart, flawed, best-intended, or exemplary, are committed to a contact made with the women that they love and the subsequent gift from God that this contact requested.

It's work. We Catholics celebrated Fathers Day long before the thoughtful Methodist Miss Strong, and the subsequent Presidents declared a fitting tribute.

Fulfill the contract.

My Dad, was a three Campaign Marine veteran of the Pacific who worked three jobs. When my Mom was sick, the Old Man cooked,cleaned, washed, dried and folded clothes in between those jobs. Never a word about it.

Si Blitzstein fitted a sailor for a new suit.

St. Joseph raised the Son of God.

That's Fathers.

I pray to be half- the men they are - Fathers.




* Click my post title for the impending demolition of this landmark shopping center.

Protect Guam from North Korean Missiles

( North Guam including Anderson AFB)

President Obama wants to talk. That is what he does and how he became our President.

However, President Obama acted on his words trying to nuance the world. President Obama does not want anti-missile defence systems in Europe or even the United States in order to make his words more compelling to Thugs. The world has some real nasty villains afoot.

These villains are not unlike the drive-by thugs in America's cities who shoot with impunity and murder anyone.

President Obama comes from the Progressive Mind-set that embraces the notion that Guns Kill People. Guns kill people in the very same way that pencils flunk examinations.

Chicago has the strictest Gun Laws in America, but also the highest number of Public School Kids murdered by Thugs with Guns. Those Gun Laws keep academics, suburban dwelling columnists, lawsuit lawyers and community activists off a patch of Mayor Daley's back, but have contributed in making Chicago a Thug Comfort Zone.
Black and Hispanic kids die from Thugs throwing shots at them with impunity bordering on immunity.

The world has thugs. North Korea is a Thug Nation. You can not talk to thugs. Thugs can only be interdicted - defended against by Law Enforcement Officers armed with guns and a government with something amounting to a spine.

President Obama told the world that he would rid it of Nuclear Weapons back in April and the North Koreans called President Obama's soaring Rhetoric:

PRAGUE – Just hours after North Korea launched a long-range rocket, President Barack Obama called for "a world without nuclear weapons" and said the United States has a “moral responsibility ” to lead the way, as the only nation ever to use them.

Obama’s speech was long planned as the centerpiece of his first presidential trip overseas, but it gained new urgency after North Korea sent a multi-part rocket soaring over the Sea of Japan early Sunday morning.

North Korea insisted the launch was meant to put a satellite into space but the U.S. and other nations believe Pyongyang is trying to develop the capability to launch a nuclear warhead.

The president, who was woken up just after 4:30 a.m. local time by news of the launch, spoke to the authoritarian state in remarks hastily added to his text.

“Now is the time for a strong international response, and North Korea must know that the path to security and respect will never come through threats and illegal weapons,” Obama said to thousands thronged into the cobblestone square outside the elegant Prague Castle, in what was the largest crowd of his five-country, eight-day swing.

“All nations must come together to build a stronger, global regime. And that's why we must stand shoulder to shoulder to pressure the North Koreans to change course.”

World Nuke Control? Where only the Thugs have guns - like here in Chicago? Come on!

Guam is America's Asian Strategic Outpost and it is vulnerable to a North Korean missile threat. Guam, as it was before World War II, is always an American afterthought . . .until Thugs attack it. Guam is America, Mr. President. Guam voted for you.

Here are the thoughts of a gent in Virginia who sees the real threat from North Korea is a strike at Guam.

I think that the North Koreans could make a much more dangerous point by launching a long range missile and having it hit a target in the ocean that is exactly 3,404 kilometers away.

3,404 km being the exact distance between Pyongyang and Guam. Guam being the strategic hub of US military operations in the Pacific. Guam is home to roughly a third of our Air Force's aircraft at any given time and a large proportion of our naval assets. Nuking Guam would severely cripple us in the Pacific. Such an attack would be the modern equivalent of the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor. In pure military terms, hitting Guam now would hurt us more than a hit on Hawaii would.

North Korea is still a ways from being able to miniaturize a nuclear warhead and place it on top of a long range missile. And there is no way that one of their aircraft could get close enough to Guam's airspace to bomb it. But just putting a missile down at exactly that distance would make the point that they are approaching the ability to strategically attack the US in something beyond an asymmetrical manner. Posted by Jack Landers at Friday, June 19, 2009

( emphasis my own)

Mr. President this is no time for Nuance.

Thanks Gino Ford and the ComEd Crews Who Tackled the Storms!

Gino Ford is a man a half! Mr. Ford is a Charter member of the Kean Gas* Coffee Salon - a coterie of neighborhood worthies ( Boz O'Brien, Mary Therese Riordan RN, Capt. Eddie Ryan CFD, Eddie Carroll, Terry McEldowney - Lyric Opera, Det. Neal Mosh CPD, Frank Hodorowicz, Marty Tully, Billy Higgins, Mike Quinlan, Rich Doyle, Fred Riley, Eugenius Callahan, Smash McKenna, Joe Murphy, Jerry Schumacher, Pat Sheehan, and me self) who caucus at the gas station for coffee and bon mots between 5AM and 6AM most mornings.

It is with this diverse group of tradesmen, nurses, civil servants and venture capitalists that my insights to the economic, cultural, social and religious impact upon Patriots and Neighbors and their families is incubated and hatched - prematurely and full term.

We are blessed with such people as these. They have America's back.

Gino Ford services all of us with ComEd and is the vanguard warrior who returns electrical power to all of us.

ComEd is a bete noir with most of us helots - rate hikes and obscure billing protocols developed by sneaky bean counters and protected by some Legislators in Springfield - most notably the former leader of the Illinois Senate Emil Jones.


However, the crews who venture up on the high wires face injury and death ever day and most especially when our planet goes Gangster on us - Ice Storms and Hurricano Downpours- like yesterday.

Gino missed coffee, because he is out with the crews. Gino is sweating up a storm in heavy jacket asbestos gloves, helmet and harness with tens of pounds of gear pulling him to earth along with the buffeting winds and pelts of rain.

Yesterday evening when I travelled north to pick up the beautiful and talented Ms. Terry Sullivan for evening at Joe Segal's Jazz Showcase to witness the electric performance of Jazz Diva Dee Dee Bridgewater* and her quintet, I counted more than twenty huge ComEd Utility and Cherry -Picker Rigs heading north in the express lanes of the Dan Ryan.

That was Gino and the Lads. They are still at it.

Here is the high power and exotic Ms. Dee Dee Bridgewater singing Sweet Rain for Gino and the Com Ed Helots - the High Wire and Pole Artistes! God Bless you all and watch over your labors!

Thanks!

Chicago's Dept. of Streets and San says the storms that ripped thru the city downed 350 trees and put out more than 60 traffic lights. 450+ basements have flooded and more than 500 streets have been made impassable by the runoff.
Spokesman Matt Smith says the department will work through the night to get things back to normal.
Com Ed crews are out in force in the Southwest suburbs. Tonight's round of storms knocked out powerline and downed trees.
No serious injuries were reported but it will some time before communities recover. About 36-thousand of the 120-thousand power outages are located in the South suburbs.

NZ-Weather

* Dee Bridgewater 'Sweet Rain'

Kean Brothers Inc‎ -
2632 W 111th St, Chicago, IL‎ - (773) 445-3626‎

What's With Progressive Women and Busted Limbs? Rep. Endora Schakowsky on the Gimp,Too!

First it was Wise Latina Judge Sotomayor doing the old Step-And-Half Waltz and then Sec. of State Giggles Clinton hammers her elbow and now we learn that Rep. Jan 'Endora' Schakowsky is on the gimp, as well!

Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., one of the strongest proponents of closing down the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, came home after a visit there in arguably worse physical shape than the detainees.
Schakowsky was seen limping down a basement hallway in the Capitol on Tuesday, using crutches and sporting a cast. She said she fell down in a briefing room Guantanamo and broke her left foot.
Schakowsky has been a vocal opponent of the prison and has visited several times, reporting on "the harsh conditions detainees face there," as well as "horrific stories" told by detainees claiming to have been treated badly there.
Last year she introduced legislation that would have banned the CIA from using interrogation techniques on prisoners that have been deemed to be torture.
Schakowsy isn't blaming anyone but herself for her injury, however.
"This was not one of those enhanced interrogation techniques," she joked. "This was not to get me to confess."

Girls, time to load up on calcium! Are Progressives brittle, or what?

Tom Dart Should be County Board President - Why He Would Want It?

Sheriff Tom Dart is the best qualified person to be President of of Cook County Board. Tom Dart is a brilliant young man and a good guy to the bargain. He is collegial, tough, courteous but no push-over.

Like Speaker Madigan, and any true public servant, Tom Dart plays things close to the vest.

Tom Dart has slowly climbed the Chicago political gradus and has developed the skills to allow him to be effective.

Tom Dart was President Obama's roommate and colleague in Springfield while working to reform the looming pay-day-loan catastrophe that is now Tsunami'd into a National Storm of Debt. Dart's Bi-Partisan efforts were smothered by political self-interests. The Zip-code was declared Racist by Rev. Jess Jackson and the hand -wringers went along on the disaster train. Tom Dart warned of this impending crisis ten years ago.

Tom Dart is Cook County Sheriff - the most thankless and ugly job on the planet.

However, the source of the sewer is the Cook County Board. A Sheriff is needed so the next Sheriff can avoid having the same clowns who killed phony pay-day-loan legislation undermine that job.

Tom Dart's predecessor had these clowns and their lawyers, and think tanks and journalist stooges bed-bugging his efforts to improve Cook County Law Enforcement twenty-four hours a day.

I love Paul Vallas, but he gave the job a duck. God Bless Him! Forrest Claypool passed on it. Forrest will be fine. He's always fine. Toni Preckwinkle could not find a Chinaman on 22nd Street, but so wants to sit in Todd's Chair. Todd Stoger . . .ah, Jaysus, the poor thing.

Cook County could use someone who took the time to learn how to lead. That is Tom Dart. Tom Dart could fix the Cook County Mess. There will still be greedy, back-stabbing oppotunists buzzing around him, like President Obama's Late Mr. Fly, but the skilled, honest and professional Mr. Dart can handle them - and PETA as well.

Dart began his career in public service as an Assistant Cook County State’s Attorney, where he prosecuted hundreds of felony crimes during his five years with the office. As part of his duties he was assigned to prosecute crimes in the South Suburbs, where he helped initiate a massive investigation of corruption in the town of Ford Height’s Police Department, leading to the indictment of the chief and several of the towns police officers. Coincidentally in 2008, Sheriff Dart’s took over police protection in Ford Heights because of ongoing problems with the town’s police department.

By 1991, Dart had moved to the Illinois General Assembly when he was appointed to fill a vacancy in the State Senate. The next year, he ran for elected office for the first time and won a seat in the Illinois House, representing a diverse district on Chicago’s South Side that included communities like Roseland, Pullman, Morgan Park, Mount Greenwood, Calumet Park, and portions of Blue Island.In Springfield, Dart quickly developed a reputation as a reform minded legislator who was willing to take on the state bureaucracy.

He served as chief sponsor of more than a dozen new child welfare laws that helped restructure the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services. And, as an indication of things to come, Dart turned his attention to matters related to law enforcement. As Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, he sponsored Mayor Daley’s Safe Neighborhood Act and authored several state laws designed to crackdown on child sex offenders, including a statute that targeted child predators who use the Internet to lure young victims. He also wrote the Sexually Violent Predators Commitment Act, a groundbreaking law that enable judges to deny freedom to sexual predators and detain them in state mental health facilities if they were deemed likely to commit new sex crimes after being released from prison.

Dart received dozens of honors for his work in the legislature, including the Illinois State Bar Association’s President’s Commendation and “Legislator of the Year Awards” from several groups, including the Illinois Association of Chiefs of Police, the Illinois State Crime Commission, and Mothers Against Drunk Driving. Chicago Sun Times columnist Steve Neal referred to Dart as an “impact player” during his decade of service in the Illinois House.

Dart left the legislature in 2003 after an unsuccessful campaign for Illinois State Treasurer and was appointed to serve as Chief of Staff Cook County Sheriff Michael Sheahan. In 2006 Dart was elected to a four-year term as the new Sheriff of Cook County after Sheahan retired.

As Sheriff, Dart has enacted a variety of new policy initiatives. Among the many changes are an institution of psychological testing for entry level recruits, installing new technology in the Cook County Jail and court facilities throughout Cook County, and the creation of a weapons free committee to target the widespread use of homemade knives and shanks in the jail.
Under Dart’s directive, the Sheriff’s Police have initiated a variety of stings, crackdowns, and investigations of criminal activity. He has been in the forefront in breaking up dog fighting rings and presided over the arrests of prostitution rings that use the internet as their advertising arm.

Dart holds a J.D. from Loyola University and a Bachelor’s Degree in History and General Social Studies from Providence College. He and his wife Patricia reside in Chicago and are the proud parents of four children.

Ralph Martire's Monster Budget - Ralph, Illinois Policy Institute Trims the Budget Blubber . . .And No One Dies

Rock-Solid By Gummy Illinois Son of the Soil -"Mrs. Illinois, not to be rude but Ralphie Rod Blag-Budget has gotten just a tad past chubby; now, I suppose that it's none of my business, but perhaps . . . maybe . . . Ralphie Rod might like a nice Soy Snack - 'stead a that thar Hershey's Dipped Deep Fried Oreo Wheel?"

SEIU Human Activists - "Coward! Ralphie Rod Has Feelings and Will Die Without Those Empty Calories! Call the Coalition! We are marching on this man . . . what's that? Oh, Woman. Sorry. Are you Gay? That would make a huge difference, . . .Oh, you were laughing at us! Youare a Man a Breeder! No Doubt against Womens Reproductive Health and a Theocrat. Nice. but the child needs his snack!"

John Tillman's Illinois Policy Intitute's Report and Recommendations shows legislators how to trim the lard from the State Budget without raising taxes.

In fact it gives very specific recommendations of just where to slice and dice wasteful spending - Chicago State University* for example, where its former President went on a taxpayer funded personal spending junket for years, is given only a modest cut in appropriated spending dollars.

No blood. No Fire. No Nothing. Just a reasonable taxpayer cash diet.

The report concludes:

If Illinois had enacted an expenditure limit in 2004 that limited spending growth to population plus inflation, the state could have cumulatively
saved $13.7 billion over the past six years. That’s money that could have
been put in a rainy day fund, applied toward the unfunded public employee
pension liabilities, or even refunded to taxpayers. Budget Savings from
Establishing a Spending Limit in 2004 An expenditure limit could have helped to
prevent the $11.606 billion budget deficit . . . state faces today. If Illinois had adopted an expenditure limit in 2004, the budget for fiscal year 2010 would be $29.1 billion. Given that the state is expected to bring in $26.9 billion
in revenue in 2010, the “diet” budget of $29.1 billion is much more in tune with reality than the actual 2010 base budget of $34.2 billion. Illinois has a good opportunity to prevent future runaway spending growth by immediately passing an expenditure limit based on inflation and population growth.

Purple T -Shirt give-aways are a nice way to get folks passionate about shouting at lawmakers and marching under the Capital Dome, but real solution to Budget Bloat is Fiscal and Fiduciary Fearlessness.

Legislators who voted down the tax-increase showed just that - Courage.

Ralph Martire sold Tax Bloat to Blago and others before him. Sensible Law makers said no. People like Patti Bellock, John Fritchey, Jim Watson, Debbie Mell - Yep Deb Mell, Kevin Joyce, Kevin McCarthy, and Jim Brosnahan are the only people telling Illinois Budget Blubber Boy, Ralphie-Rod, 'Drop that Elephant Ear, Son! My God it's the size of a Harvester!'

Ralph is still hawking the lard. It's getting pretty tough to squeeze into those purple T-shirts - metaphorically speaking.


Cut the Bloat! Say No to Taxes!

Feel like Marching!



* Click ,y post title for the full report! Nice work John Tillman!
Check out Table # 3 on page 2 of the Illinois policy Institute Report
TABLE 3: Eliminating Governor Quinn’s
FY 2010 Spending Increases (general funds)

Voting Against Illinois Tax Monster is Not Cowardly, Ralph Martire - It is Your Monster, Ralph, You and Your Pal Blago. Get a Leash

"Avoiding a tax increase vote because you are concerned about your political career. That is cowardly," said the Center on Tax and Budget Accountability's Ralph Martire. SEIU Graphic Novel -Progress Illinois

Graphic Novels are what the Hep Cats call Comic Books these days. Ralph Martire is a career Academic Appointee who helped Gov. Rod Blagojevich buy fleets of PACE SUVs to help 'seniors' get around. That was nice. Grandma Donahue lived at 63rd & Kilpatrick near Midway and got around just fine on CTA. Seniors now ride free.

Old Lawyers from DuPage ride free. Blago sent his wife to Costa Rica and awaits more paper from Fitzy. Ralph Martire is still getting a handsome salary from one or more of the many Coalitions, that he handsomely manages to get appointed to, and shouts out scripted screams that tax-payers need to pay more.

Ralph, we're Tap City, Son.

My legislators voted against the Swelled-Like-A-Tick Budget that Ralph Martire helped Blago bloat. Ralph was Blago's Budget Big-shot ( Ralph has been Illinois' Mr. Programs since Dawn Clark Netsch first appointed Ralph to do some Coalition building).

Ralph is going around with Progressive, Fair and Efficient Charts and Numbers to make sure folks that who do not understand how a balance a check book can get all worked up over money that other people have earned.

http://www.kankakee.lib.il.us/podcasts/images/tax.pdf

Ralph is good for SEIU, Good for People who benefit from other people's tax burdens.

Ralph is not really good for people with mortgage payments, tuition burdens, and jobs ( for the moment) in Illinois. Ralph is good to people who appoint him to swell paying jobs and positions on boards. Ralph has not held elected office.

SEIU is going after Representatives voting the way the people (tax-payers) demand that they vote -

Up first was a trio of south suburban Democratic Reps. -- Kevin McCarthy, Jim Brosnahan, and Mike Zalewski -- who all voted against a temporary tax increase last month. They were paid a visit by dozens of state workers, including home health care aide Gwendolyn Vaughe, who asked the Representatives how they could justify the life-or-death cuts. "What does this mean for our seniors?" Vaughe asked. "Are they going to be left to die?"

When we caught up with Rep. McCarthy in his Orland Park office, he told us that he's yet to see exactly what programs are at stake (department heads are still pulling together the specifics), but acknowledged "dire circumstances" are ahead. "None of my colleagues have blinders on," he tells us. "They see how important these cuts are." But do they?

They do, Sweetheart. People who stand for election have a Coalition - the voters. Let the Legislature and its Leadership cut through the Fat on Ralph & Blago's Monster. Save the SOB stories.

Ralph, you made the Monster Budget. You feed him.

Chicago Daily Observer Connects the Allison Davis Dots Found By Sun Times' Tim Novak

Tim Novak of Chicago Sun Times has done more to put ’some’ light on the Progressive Machine; however, Mr. Novak’s great work scatters heaps of Dots that remain Unconnected on the political table.

His labors are Augean, but also like those of Sisyphus - much uphill groaning and heaving only to have the stone roll back.

Dan Kelley's timely piece might just prod the Lap Dogs to connect the piles of Dots:

If nothing else exposing Davis would serve a higher purpose: publicizing the blatant hypocrisy of the phony activists who are really reliable cogs in the Democratic Machine. A one time civil rights protester, who marched outside of City Hall, Davis proved to be someone who could be bought off by the system. His one time protégé, Obama means to overhaul the American economy and engage in a massive expansion of the size and scope of government activities. Like Davis, Obama, exempts himself from the rules and intends to live a life of ease and plenty. The president can jet off for a dinner date on Broadway without worrying about the hypocrisy of simultaneously asking all of us commoners to pay higher taxes and make sacrifices while reducing our wasteful use of energy and limiting our pollution causing habits.
Posing as a community activist is a tried and true way to advance your political and financial career in Democratic Chicago: the Shaw brothers, Bob and his late brother, Bill, were supposedly fair housing activists; Dorothy Tillman attended Chicago Board of Education meetings where she shouted down Angeline Caruso, a former acting school superintendent, and ridiculed Caruso’s frumpy appearance in the name of education activism; Luis Guiterez marched with Communists and Puerto Rican Nationalists, some of whom were later accused of committing acts of domestic terrorism; Marilyn Katz ran with the campus radicals, Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn, and protested the Viet Nam war while hurling missiles at the police before she became a public relations expert for the political machine; Jan Schakowsky and her unapologetic, convicted criminal spouse, Robert Cremer, are two other fakers. Interestingly enough, despite their varied backgrounds, these folks have something in common: all of these individuals seemed to fall into line as soon as their personal needs and wants were gratified and they were given a place at the head table. They have all been feeding from the public trough ever since. The former Soviets called such privileged leaders “the vanguard of the proletariat.”
Obama has accepted bushel baskets of money from Davis in the form of campaign contributions. He lobbied to place housing redevelopment funds in the hands of Davis and Rezko. Perhaps, a few dollars from the pension fund profiteering ended up in Obama’s campaign war chest too. Only time will tell as the investigation proceeds.
Someday soon, the president needs to explain his relationship with both men. Calling it another “boneheaded” move or claiming “This is not the Allison Davis that I once knew” may not cut it indefinitely. Laundering clean a stained reputation is not an easy task. Club soda does not remove all types of spots.

Click my Post Title for Dan Kelley's Expose of Chicago's Progressive Machine within its Very Nuanced Context and Chicago's Media's Feckless Disregard for Both.

Oh, Carol, You're The Bottom of the Barrel; The Dirty Rotten Apple of My Eye!

Today, Carol Marin does the buzzard on Fran Spielman's labors.

Fran Spielman is going after Mayor Daley's nephew - the Vanecko kid. Fair enough. The kid went into business with Progressive Clout Meister Allison Davis - Judson Miner's partner and Obama's Law Boss. It seems that the Sun Times wants no light on Allison Davis, whose own little boy had a real estate venture that got a three year old child killed when Cullen Davis' Venture* included a rusty gate that crushed the toddler.

Yep, The Progressive Independent Voice of Chicago shed no light on Progressive Impunity Immunity Workhorses. You see, if and when Allison Davis starts chirping to Fitzy - bad stuff about the Progressive Machine gets out.

Nota Bene! Sun Times Investigative Reporter - Tim Novak covered Allison Davis and Cullen Davis like quality wallpaper. In fact, this helot lamented the long absence of Tim Novak's powerful work over the last summer and fall. Here is a link to my references to Mr. Novak's great work ( amended 8:53 AM 6/17/2009). I apologize for this inadvertent slight of Chicago's most tenacious news pitbull.

http://hickeysite.blogspot.com/search?q=Tim+Novak
So, the pile on continues on Regular Democrats and GOP politicians only - oh, and any and all members of their families - It's A Progressive Thing.

Well, Old Carol Marin, for whom I have little, or no regard as a journalist, but fully understand and appreciate her status as a manufactured icon, does the buzzard on the body of work performed by a real reporter - Fran Spielman.

Carol can't eat all the carrion on her own self and powers, so she pours on the Royko Remoulade - Mike Royoko is the be all and end all of Progressive Coverage. The Sauce is Boss!

Voila,

Decades before the White House columns, he was writing about another generation of Vaneckos and Daleys and a disease he called "payrolliaitis."

"It isn't anything that would show up through scientific testing," wrote Royko in 1965, "but Mayor Richard J. Daley is a carrier of a fast-spreading germ . . . called payrolliaitis. The symptoms are easy to spot. A person gets close to the mayor. Crunch -- the payrolliaitis bug nips him. He wanders off in the direction of a city, state or county agency, sits down at a desk, and his name breaks out on a payroll."

Royko was talking about the hiring of Robert Vanecko's grandfather, Dr. Michael Vanecko, whose son married the late mayor's daughter. Shortly before the wedding, that Vanecko went to work for the Chicago Board of Health. And later, his son, Dr. Robert Vanecko, was hired as the physician for the city's municipal pension fund. And now today we have the third generation, as his son, another Robert Vanecko, lands a $68 million deal with -- what else -- city pension funds. He severed all business ties with the deal only after the feds began subpoenaing records.

I dialed Fran on Tuesday at City Hall to ask if she had ever been to dinner with the mayor.

"No," was all she said.

That's good. There's work to do.

Yeah, but Carol Marin will do bugger all of it!

Yep, Carol decided, or her Editorial Chinaman decided, that going after the Family Davis is au contraire! However, "Everyone Hates the Daley Family! The Knit Hat-Soul-Patch & Shave-No-Legs Crowd will find it Fabulous to rip Daley's Family Even Though There is No Tangible Connection Whatsoever to the Story! Just Splash on the Royko!"

So, Carol Marin impugns one of the City's best, most skilled and respected Thoracic Surgeons Dr. Robert Vanecko of Northwestern Medical Center and his surgeon Father as political hacks! Bottom of the Barrel Carol!

Carol, there was a great old song by the Fabulous Farquahr** a folkish musician ( No Pete Seeger, He!) of note with a cult following who penned a lyric about an odious woman named Carol. It is almost eerie.

Carol, you're the bottom of the barrel/You're the Dirty Rotten Apple of my eye/
And when I see you/ I hold my nose and go PU/ And When I See You, Carol

You're Face, You're, Hair, and Your Complexion/ Sure Could Use a Resurrection! - Carol . . .& etc.

* The Family Davis Saga has everything that No Progressive Wants Talked about - Billy Ayers, Comb-Over Dave Axelrod, Rahmbo, Bernardine Dohrn, Judson Miner, all the 1960's Radicals insulated from Inquiry!

**http://johnnykmusic.blogspot.com/search/label/Fabulous%20Farquahr

Mayor Daley's Take on Nephew is Very Believeable - Fran, Have You Ever Tried to Tell Anyone Under 40 About Anything?

"Family? Family? Look, get a dog."

He wants us to believe that, the minute he did find out, he ordered his nephew Robert Vanecko to drop out of the deal with developer Allison Davis, only to be ignored.If voters are having trouble swallowing the mayor's story, it's for good reason:

Yeah, it's in the papers.


Fran, voters don't swallow stories - they vote along Party lines and sometimes get tired of hyphenated Irish names trying to sneak on the Judicial benches in Cook County.

However voters have nephews and nieces. They get phone calls from their Moms and Aunts about the triumphs -'Muriel! Guess What! My Colleen ( McNamara-Haley's Comet- Eisenroth) is going to be a Judge! Remember that fat slob she married? well, it turns out that he has juice Downtown.' or ' Brian, got buried in a sewer trench. He laid down . . .only for a minute, because he was at Midnight Mass, and the SOBs pushed the dirt on him. They are all Daley's Punks from the 11th Ward on that crew especially that louse Sobcjec who lives out by the Airport . . .O'Hara not Midway . . . he's divorced . . .and moved outta the 'Ville, back when his wife was with the County and took up with that four eyes Reporter on Channel Seven . . .remember? Brian, got him a good lawyer who hates Daley's guts . . . the Cowboy Hat One. Brian's gonna be on a Cable Show Too with the black guy and the big fly swatter to tune-up Daley! My ankles is killing me.'

Nephews and Nieces tell Moms and the Aunts enough about their Triumphs and Tragedies to make a softer landing for their lard, when events take their Natural courses.

Nephews and Nieces, generally speaking, can not be told anything. They do not need to pay COBRAS for health insurance, because The President has their backs. HE remembers each and every one of them . . . the nieces and nephews, because THEY worked on his Campaign and They Had their pictures taken With HIM down in Uncle Vasco's basement at his Cinco De Mayo Party last April and they are on Facebook too ; and THEY have Facebook, Twitter, and a loan from Uncle Tommy the crippled Viet Namn Vet and VISA! They are young. They are bullet-proof.

Given the ever changing Obama Mythology - I'll bet He ain't got no Nephews! Hell, Ask his brother! No clout for the Obama clan. The last relative, I recall was living in a Box out in Boston.

I believe the Mayor. I am a recovering Nephew.

Jurassic Genes Awakened! Rip Van Winkle Micro-Bugs Are Back!

Now, that's a nap! From the wonderful science site Neatorama (click me post title) it is reported that bacteria Hermeniimonas glacei asleep at the bottom of a Greenland glacier have been told 'Get Your Ass, Up and Do Something! It's Nice Out!'

The new bacteria species was found nearly 2 miles (3 km) beneath a Greenland glacier, where temperatures can dip well below freezing, pressure soars, and food and oxygen are scarce.

"We don’t know what state they were in," said study team member Jean Brenchley of Pennsylvania State University. "They could’ve been dormant, or they could’ve been slowly metabolizing, but we don’t know for sure."

Dormant would mean the bacteria were in a spore-like state in which there’s not a lot of metabolism going on, so the bacteria wouldn’t be reproducing much. It’s possible the bacteria could have been slowly metabolizing and replicating. [...]

To coax the bacteria back to life, Brenchley, Jennifer Loveland-Curtze and their Penn State colleagues incubated the samples at 36 degrees Fahrenheit (2 degrees Celsius) for seven months, followed by more than four months at 41 degrees F (5 degrees C).

The resulting colonies of the originally purple-brown bacteria, now named Herminiimonas glaciei, are alive and well. "We were able to recover it and get it to grow in our laboratory," Brenchley said. "It was viable."

Jeanna Bryner of LiveScience has the fascinating story: Link

Stanley Crouch Beats on the Haters and Bigots - Anti-Semites Never See People.

Stanley Crouch, jazz critic, musician, historian, essayist and gentleman sacks the bigots.

Hate is real, because haters live in a fantasy world where people are merely the background to 'their' narrative.

I once asked my late wife Mary ( Mary was an an artist and art teacher) about Hitler's art work and she told me that it was merely sterile buildings and streets -'Hitler could not present people. He's a hater.'

Stanley Crouch exposes Haters in a fine essay on the Hate-soaked creep who murdered a fine and heroic family man while trying to 'Kill Jews' at the Holocaust Museum last week -

Von Brunn was probably thrilled because the bombing took place on April 19, 1995, a day before Hitler's birthday. Der Führer was a hero to von Brunn, who thought that the Nazis had gotten a raw deal because of the Jewish-controlled media, which had to take its place on the bench containing all of the other Jewish conspiracies working to destroy Western Christian civilization by any means necessary.

You know how they do it or how it has been said that they do it. First, they do it through the root of evil - money. Then they move on to public education, entertainment, psychiatry, pornography, lecherous Jewish men and whorish Jewish women, misleading young people, Israel and whatever else they can make use of to beat down Western Christian civilization until it is ready for the slag heap that contains all good things permanently befouled by the Jews.

That's how a hard-shelled wing of people see Jews. Bigotry toward Jews transcends religion, class and race. Those who feel that Jews as a whole have to be held responsible for whatever is done by the most corrupt, opportunistic and malicious among them always agree on one thing that is essential to bigotry.

Click my post title for more from this wonderful man.


Stanley Crouch is a Man! 'Two men,' as my grandfather would say.

Speaker Madigan Explains the Nature of Trimming and Nemesis to Sen. Meeks and Others.

Speaker Mike Madigan understands how to trim waste from a budget. Click my post title for the 'orrible Trooth.' Phil Kadner once again carries the weepy water for Sen./Rev. Meeks.

An excited state Sen. James Meeks (D-Chicago) telephoned Sunday morning to tell me that after seven years, he had finally gotten a public school funding reform bill out of committee and onto the Illinois Senate floor.

"Can I quit now?" Meeks said, noting that the measure had passed the Senate.

I asked about the chances of the bill even getting called for a vote in the House.

"That's up to Speaker (Michael) Madigan," Meeks said. "I'm a member of the Senate. I can't do anything about the House."

What about Gov. Pat Quinn?

"He's on board," Meeks said, although the governor was also backing a separate bill to increase the state income tax. "I've been talking to him nearly every day for two weeks, and he's supporting my bill."

Meeks reminded me that during his initial run for public office in 2002, he had stopped by the editorial offices of this newspaper to announce he had only one goal if elected to the Illinois Senate: School funding reform.

At the time, I noted that promise had been made by many other candidates for the state Legislature during the previous decade. All had been elected. None had even managed to get a bill called for a vote on the Senate or House floors.

Meeks reminded me Sunday that he had promised to be different. He vowed never to quit until he got the bill before the full Senate for a vote.

He tried several times in recent years. But each time his proposal was blocked in committee by legislative leaders and Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

"The difference this time is that the state is facing an $11 billion budget deficit," Meeks said. "Blagojevich is gone. Legislators had to do something. My argument to (Senate President John Cullerton) was that instead of passing a tax increase that would just fill the budget gap but fail to provide enough money to actually make improvements in Illinois, we needed to pass something that we could be proud of. We needed to be able to tell our constituents that we really did something to make their lives better."

S.B. 750 would increase the state income tax from 3 percent to 5 percent. It would impose sales taxes on a wide range of services that had previously escaped the tax, such as movie theater tickets, dry cleaning and Internet sales. And it would also provide property tax relief to homeowners who are being gouged by skyrocketing tax bills.

Although I had argued for such a tax bill for nearly 20 years, I had not written much about it in recent months. Since the crash of the national economy and the impeachment of Blagojevich, I had begun questioning whether the time had passed for such a remedy. Still, I congratulated Meeks on fulfilling his campaign pledge.

Less than 10 hours after Meeks called me, his tax plan was killed in a House committee.

And on Monday, the senator was not a happy man.

"You have been campaigning for a tax hike for 20 years, and nothing has happened," Meeks said. "Why? What's the one thing that has remained constant in those 20 years? Michael Madigan as a leader in the House. Everybody else in leadership is gone. If Madigan wanted this bill passed, it would have been passed."

Meeks was also disappointed in Quinn's leadership.

"At 7:30 Sunday night, Quinn held a press conference to announce that the tax bill was dead," Meeks said. "The Legislature was in session past midnight. So with more than four hours to go, he quit. That's like quitting in a basketball game in the fourth quarter. The Orlando Magic were down 22 points in the first half, and they came back to beat the Cleveland Cavaliers. They didn't give up. But Gov. Quinn walked off the court in the fourth quarter.

"He should have called each legislator whose vote he needed into his office individually and asked them what they needed in exchange for their vote," Meeks said. "If they wanted him to appear in their districts, he should have said he would march in parades or show up at a town meeting. If they wanted his support for some other piece of legislation, he should have promised to do what he could to make sure the bill passed. If they had a special project, he should have promised to fund it.

"Instead, he did nothing. What he did do was cave in to Michael Madigan every step of the way. Quinn said he wanted a budget bill passed before a capital spending bill was passed. Madigan said he wanted a capital spending bill done first, and Quinn gave in.

"Quinn said he wanted to permanently raise the income tax from 3 percent to 4.5 percent. Madigan said he wanted it to be a temporary income tax hike. Quinn gave in.

"Quinn wanted to increase the personal exemption on the income tax from $2,000 to $6,000 and Madigan said he couldn't pass that bill. So Quinn came down to $3,000.

"The governor acquiesced to the demands of Speaker Madigan every step of the way, and in the end what did he get? Nothing," Meeks said. "And Mayor Daley didn't do anything, either. The mayor continually says the Chicago schools need more money and the state should do something.

"But he didn't hold a single news conference during this legislative session calling on Chicago officials to support a tax increase. I didn't hear about a single state legislator from Chicago getting a call from the mayor. He did nothing."

What Meeks still fails to understand is that this is not about the schoolchildren or the taxpayers or the quality of life in the state of Illinois.

The outcome of this game was fixed before the players took the court.

Madigan won. Everybody else lost.

Phil Kadner can be reached at pkadner@southtownstar.com or (708) 633-6787.

The Feast of Corpus Christi - June 11th, 2009 Father Kevin from County Kerry Reflects on Each of us - The Body of Christ

The Catholic Feast of Corpus Christi - The Body of Christ- was begun in the 13th Century when a French Augustinian nun began pestering her bishop about dreams that she had had concerning a 'spot on the moon.'

The Spot on the moon reflected an absence of a celebration for Christ that brought the entire Church together.

St. Paul wrote that the Church is the Body of Christ - a composite of us all.

In 1977, witnessed a celebration of Corpus Christi in Castleisland, County Kerry - the town from which my grandfather emigrated to Liverpool and later to America in 1912.

I had just completed my second year of teaching at Bishop McNamara High School in Kankakee, IL and used my savings and tax return to go Ireland with Moose Gilmartin and Mike Lally. Ireland was then very Third World - 'Mexico with Micks,' was how Mike Lally termed it. The Irish and the Mexicans are very much alike.

Mike Lally had peeled off North to visit with his family in County Mayo, leaving Leo Man Moose Gilmartin and me in the Kingdom of Kerry! Our cultural and philosophical inclinations herded the two of us toward Licensed Premises! In Ireland, you could grab a beer while 'waiting for a head of cabbage to be cut out back' - with in the appropriate hours of course.

Castleisland, County Kerry boasts the widest street in Ireland outside of O'Connell Street in Dublin and is a market town - thus, being a Market Town - Market Hours made Castleisland a Pintsman's Oasis. You could get a beer before during and after the next minute. Moose and I availed ourselves of this economic liberalism.

Moose and I had punished the Smithwicks and the Scoops of Black ( Guinness) at my cousin Pat Hickey's Silver Dollar Saloon and then crossed to Terry Teahan's Old Chicago Pub on the Main Drag of Castleisland, and then to the Par Three Three ( Pitch 'n Putt Golf Course) when the Garda came around after hours. Dawn came up like thunder!

Mass Lads!

'It's Thursday!'

Corpus Christi, so. Brogans on.

'Jesus. . .'

He's waiting, so.

The entire town and country merged on the Church of Saints Stephan and John* and the procession was wonderful. We would have missed this and slept off a hangover, had not Margaret Hickey shouted 'Mass, Lads!'


The Feast of Corpus Christi was June 11, 2009. No one was near me to shout 'Mass, Lad!' I forgot once again.

I'll be at Sacred Heart Catholic Mission Church with my friends from all over my life at 10:30 AM for The Feast of the Body and and Blood of Christ


I looked up some Kerry notes last night and found a reflection by a Father Kevin which is simplicity and beauty itself.

Two little reflections on this weekend Feast of Corpus Christi; Fr. Kevin writes:

Notice one another.

People today are crying out for recognition. They want to be persons among persons. They want to be noticed, not in a showy way, or because they have money or status, but just because they are human beings. Each of us is on a pilgrimage. We are seeking to encounter others who have the same needs as ourselves. The greatest need of all is the need to be loved. But we pass one another by without noticing, without the slightest sign of recognition.
As Christians we are united by a bond so close that St. Paul called the Christian community “The Body of Christ.” It is time we began to notice one another. Each person is a brother or a sister in Christ. Each person must be recognised. Each person must be given some sign of friendship, be it only a smile or a nod of the head.

Living in the Present sense

A visitor to Atlanta, Georgia noticed a restaurant listed as the ‘Church of God Grill.’ Curiosity aroused he dialled the number and learned that it had begun as a mission church. To help pay the bills they began selling chicken dinners after Church on Sundays. Business grew so much that they had to cut back and eventually close the church, keeping only the name it started with – The Church of God Grill. A true story which reminds us of the importance of keeping our priorities focused. Today’s feast (The Body and Blood of Christ) helps. It focuses on bread. Just as in Jesus’ time it is a staple food, a basic part of most meals. However, in the time of Jesus, there were no forks or spoons. People would never defile themselves by putting a piece of metal in their mouths, instead they used bread. In understanding that, we may comprehend a little better what Jesus was saying. Just as one couldn’t have a meal without bread, we cannot really live without Christ. In a world full of choice and distractions with the ‘bread’ of money and fame, we celebrate a feast named ‘Corpus Christi’ the ‘Body of Christ’ Will He be there only in name?

These Kerry Notes from Father Kevin are great as well.

THANKS: A special thank you to Patsie and friends who organised our first Cemetery Mass of ’09 in St. Joseph’s Cemetery on the June Bank Holiday. Very many thanks too to all who attended the Mass. May all who are buried there rest in peace, and may they enjoy the delights of God’s Kingdom.
FLEADH CHEOIL CHIARRAí commences on June 16th and concludes on June 21st. The 10.30 a.m. Mass in the Cathedral on Sunday next will be mostly in Irish and is organised by Comhaltas with choir and special music in honour of the Fleadh Cheoil We wish all involved with the Fleadh Cheoil every success and enjoyment. A Cead Míle Fáilte to all visitors attending the Fleadh. Cheoil.
SECOND COLLECTION: A Second Collection will be taken up at all Masses this weekend to help off set the expenses of Ireland hosting the Eucharistic Congress in 2012. Your generous support is very much appreciated.
EXAMS: Our prayerful good wishes and encouragement to all students still doing exams. The following prayer for you this week:
O God help me during my exams to remember the things which I have learned and studied. Help me to remember well and to think clearly. Help me not be so nervous or excited that I will do myself an injustice. Keep me calm and clear headed. Help me to try hardest and to do my best.
REMINDER: Fr. Kevin has been given his own column in the Killarney Outlook. It comes out each Friday. The column has been going since Holy Week.
CARERS ASSOCIATION: If you would like to nominate a Carer for their extraordinary levels of care they provide for a loved one; Application forms can be got from The Carers Association
PARISH BINGO: Every Thursday night in St. Mary’s Parish Hall. Visitors most welcome.
MUCKROSS COMMUNITY CENTRE ANNUAL OPEN DAY: 2 to 5 p.m. Sunday 21st. Everybody in Muckross encourage to bring a picnic.
Killarney Le Cheilé Intercultural Festival: A fun filled family friendly gathering in St. Brendan’s Field on Sunday 21st June from 1p.m. to 4 p.m. Admission is free, and everyone is welcome.
PIGEONS GONE: Thankfully the Pigeons have left the Cathedral. After the drawn match in the Park they took flight. Maybe they were from Cork!

*Church of SS Stephen and John
Castleisland
Co. Kerry, Ireland
(066-7141241)

Chicago's Relevant Radio - A Catholic Voice in a Secular Desert

Ready for your next test of Faith? Naw, I had plenty this week. The tests are coming anyway.

1,500 City Workers are set to get laid off. Urban violence can set your watches - but who wears one anymore? North Korea and Iran are pushing nuclear confrontation with the World. Mother McAuley tuition is due on July 1st. You snap to attention every time the sump pump kicks on - well, I do anyway. Our UN Analog Television has 800 channels pumping out Celebrity News, re-runs of House/Law and Order: The Apocalypse Squad/Fat Programming/Cable Shout Downs.

Radio is not much better.

Yet, Relevant Radio offers a sea-change. Here in Chicago, Cardinal George has sparked an initiative to offer Catholics a road back to their roots and part of the initiative is Relevant Radio.

Chicago is blessed with some priests who really manage to really get it right - Father Eddie Pelrine, Bishop Joe Gorman, Bishop Joseph Perry, Father Frank Philipps, Father Marty O'Donovan, Father Canary, Father Tony Brankin and especially Cardinal George.

Catholic lay people, especially those who push to the forefront as spokespersons, can be real pains-in-the-ass as well, as the lazier Cupcake brand of Stiff Collar.

Yet, there are lay voices with genuine understanding of the Gospel who try to live Christian lives and are not starchy Pharisees, or PC Nit-wits.

Cardinal George seems to be giving these folks, genuine Catholic working people, a forum. Relevant Radio AM -950.


Relevant comes from the Latin relevare - to raise up. It now means offering evidence of proof to an argument or means of understanding a situation. Stiff Collars and Sky Pilots can too often toss out platitudes or snatches from Holy Writ that have absolutely nothing to do with the loss of a job, confusion, disappointment or fear in lay persons. Some of the gents can not get it right.

Take last night,

Your goofy correspondent here, went to the Institute of Christ the King in order to pick up his lady love, the beautiful and elegant Ms. Terry Sullivan, who attended a concert of Sacred Music, in the still being restored former St. Gelasius Catholic Church at 6414 S. Woodlawn.

I missed the Sacred Music concert, because I had to drop off Clare at yet another in the summer-long string of graduation parties for St. Cajetan's Parish and I had been topped off on Sacred Music at St. John Cantius these last two weeks from the Pentecost through last Sunday.

I am a dutiful; son of the Church, but more like the son with a messy, smelly room and sleeps until 2PM and asks,"What's for Breakfast?" Familiar, Brother Catholics?

Allow me to digress further . . . I get to the Institute at about 7PM, park and wander into the beautiful Church - empty. There is a woman standing out on the steps with a brochure in her hands. " Are you a Chicagoan?," she asks. Yes'm.

I learn that this lady had travelled from Kansas City for this concert and had been informed by some Father I-AM-Vere-Bisee, that she and her friend would not need a car as Chicago is an Olympic Class Urban Village of Delightful Souls AND that she could stay at the Ramada Inn in convenient HAMMOND, Indiana!

Father Cupcake evidently does not ever, need to try and find a Taxi! The woman and her friend got soaked by some cottage-industry moss-back with a car and a chauffer's license, discovered in the Hammond, Indiana phone-book. Try and find a Taxi in Hammond, much less in the neighborhood around 6414 S, Woodlawn - just around the corner from the site of Jeff Fort's Former Fortress of Stone Peace!

Now, I have about 7,836 years in Purgatory to cancel out and those are only ones I managed to build up between 1967 and 1982. The subsequent Years of Triumph I will not even get into; it definitely seemed like Corporal Work of Mercy Time!

After informing the two women that I would offer to drive them back to their rooms at The Ramada Inn on Calumet Ave., along with the gracious and sexy Ms. Sullivan, certainment, and having secured the requisite bona fides, from Chicago Daily Observer Editor and Chicago philanthropist John 'Shorty' Powers, that I do not (nor have I ever had) have a family of four in my basement freezer, I drove the women back to Hammond.

Pointing out the various sights and sites south on Stony Island - the former Greek Orthodox Church and now Nation of Islam Mosque; Moo and Oinks ( must stop shopping for high quality meats - I usually go the one at 85th & Racine); Chicago's Toll Booth and 1st City Asset Sold Off; CVS - Home of Dick Butkus; The Big Bridge; Chicago's Harbor; Pat Carroll's Cro Bar on 106th off Indianapolis & etc.!

All of this Clerical error could have been avoided had an actual 'in-the-game' Catholic person been allowed to give these travellers from Kansas the straight dope.

My favorite priest, Francis Cardinal George, is a Chicagoan. He knows that Taxi Cabs are limited to the nicer neighborhoods and that Hammond is not in Chicago. Cardinal George has promoted an outlet for Catholics, weary travellers in this burgeoning Vale of Tears, to get the Real Dope, the Skinny, and the Real Deal.

That is Radio 950 - Relevant Radio. Listen to the Catholic Voice of Chicago.

Mission Statement
Relevant Radio exists to assist the Church in the New Evangelization by providing relevant programming through a media platform to help people bridge the gap between faith and everyday life.

Assisting the Church
In fidelity to God, Relevant Radio creates, promotes and endorses programming that follows the post-Vatican II teachings of the Roman Catholic Magisterium. Relevant Radio is the first and only radio network to be approved by the USCCB as a national media outlet and through a strategic collaboration with bishops and their dioceses, Relevant Radio is able to serve the Church by providing programming that is adapted to the needs of the listening audience.

The New Evangelization
The late Holy Father, Pope John Paul II, encouraged American Catholics to seize the means and methods of modern communication to inspire the faithful with a deeper understanding and commitment to Christ and His Church. This he called the New Evangelization. Pope Benedict XVI agrees that “the possibilities opened up for us by modern means of social communications are indeed marvelous and extraordinary.”

Relevant Programming
Relevant Radio programming plays a crucial role in helping people integrate a Catholic perspective into their daily lives and guides them in asking the fundamental questions about the meaning of life. Through listener-interactive programs that focus on current issues and events, Relevant Radio seeks to incorporate Catholic beliefs into these discussions to contribute to the maturation of faith through evangelization, affirmation, and catechesis.

We believe it is possible to present fundamental elements of the Catholic faith in a manner that can satisfy committed Catholics, nominal Catholics, non-Catholic Christians, and all who sincerely seek the truth that makes life meaningful.

It Takes a Philly Lady Lawyer to School the Left -On Abortion! Christine Flowers, Esq.

Milky Matthew and Olberbloat have somersaulted and minced the murder of Abortionist Dr. Tiller for the gals at Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood wants women to kill their kids, but Old Maggie Sanger said that it was a great way to clear the path of ugly, wrong-race, dumb, and bothersome human beings. It's a Progressive thing.

Planned Parenhood has even tweaked the English language - abortion is now 'women's health.'

Planned Parenthood and its satellite loud-mouths demand that abortion continue.

I have yet to meet a self-labeled Progressive who was not at core a to-the-bone self-absorbed jerk. Especially with regards to abortion. Most people find killing a child at any stage in human development to be abhorrent. One of the best people I know, Christine Flowers, a lawyer in Philadelphia who has championed the unborn for years, writes a column for Philadelphia Daily News that smacks back at the Progressive group think in her neck of the woods. Planned Prenhood can not get to this smart, tough and centered woman!


In all the goofiness surrounding Dr. Tiller's murder by a a guy with more than a few bricks shy of load, we occasionally get a sound and thoughtful voice. MSNBC is working OT on this one. Goofball, Chris 'Milky' Matthews went so far as to link Sarah Palin to Tiller's murder and then stretched it out to the 88 year old anti-Semite Von Braun.

Tip O'Neill tolerated Matthews? Can't see that.

Yet, Ms. Flowers cuts deeply into the body of 'the facts' tossed by Matthews and other Agenda shills. This is an especially poignant cut from Christine Flowers' very sharp analysis of the Tiller milling:

The manipulation began the minute the news came out of Kansas. First was the nomenclature - the conspicuous absence of the word "abortionist." Tiller was described as an "abortion provider" (when he wasn't being canonized as a martyr). When is the last time a dentist was described as a "root-canal provider?" Or a cosmetic surgeon described as a "breast-enhancement provider"? Or a shrink as a "peace of mind provider"?

Apparently, "abortionist" still conjures up unsavory images of back alleys and bloody hangers, so the powers that be decided to sanitize the whole issue and present Tiller as the Albert Schweitzer of the (another great euphemism) "reproductive-health" movement.

Which brings me to the next bit of manipulation. Ignoring the fact that Tiller made a more than healthy living plying his trade, women's-rights activists waxed poetic about his "heroic" work on behalf of the most vulnerable.

Margaret Sanger and Planned Parenthood want them 'most vulnerable' dead.

Here is Philadelphia lawyer an columnist Christine Flowers:


Click my post title for more from this honest and tough woman.

Sarah Palin is a Happy Person and that makes Goofs Crazy - Governor, Stay Happy -Only Suckers Beef.

Sarah Palin must be the biggest threat to the corporate Progressive Machine, as the news cycle and the later-Goebbels on MSNBC, CNN and on the Big ( ABC, CBS, NBC) networks have worked this woman and her family over like they were characters out of Aeschylus*.

You are only as big as the enemies you have and Sarah Palin must be enormous.

Palin's Old Man, the kids, and even the grand kids are targeted by sad people like Letterman, Olbermann, Maddow, Schultz, Matthews, Schuster, Brown, and Maher -insignificant and self-absorbed people one and all.

These sad human beings, who make a great deal of money and have the attention of many not very bright people, detest Sarah Palin, not because she is Pro Life/Pro Gun/Pro Family/ Pro Free Enterprise, Republican, or pretty, or wildly popular. They detest Sarah Palin, because the woman is happy.

Not DL Hughley/Joy Behar/Kanye West/Alec Baldwin/Bill Maher or Katie Couric happy, but fulfilled, meaningful, centered and significant - happy.

When the Jesuit priest and poet Gerard Manley Hopkins was on his death-bed he told his mother that he was never happier.

The Irish are generally a pretty happy people - I remember going to the wake of Man from County Clare; I asked 'what did he die of?' His young widow replied, 'Nothing serious.'

Happy people make other people happy, by giving us direction. Only suckers beef.

That dictum came from a wise bartender who refused to hear the drunken bile coming from louts who 'vented' about what bitches their wives were, or how disappointing their kids turned out.

Governor Palin, stay happy.

Mortimer Adler's lesson on Happiness Eudaimonia,a contented state of being happy and healthy and prosperous, as opposed to giddy, silly, aimless and vacuous, tells us that:

These matters, of relevance to the theory of happiness, are discussed in the chapters on ETERNITY and IMMORTALITY; and in the chapter on SIN we find another religious dogma, that of original sin, which has an obvious bearing on earthly happiness as well as on eternal salvation. Fallen human nature, according to Christian teaching, is incompetent to achieve even the natural end of imperfect temporal happiness without God's help. Milton expounds this doctrine of indispensable grace in Paradise Lost, in words which God the Father addresses to His Son:
Man shall not quite be lost, but sav'd who will,
Yet not of will in him, but grace in me
Freely voutsaft; once more I will renew
His lapsed powers, though forfeit and enthralled
By sin to foul exorbitant desires;
Upheld by me, yet once more he shall stand
On even ground against his mortal foe,
By me upheld, that he may know how frail
His fall'n condition is, and to me owe
All his deliv'rance, and to none but me.

God's grace is needed for men to lead a good life on earth as well as for eternal blessedness. On earth, man's efforts to be virtuous require the reinforcement of supernatural gifts - faith, hope, and charity, and the infused moral virtues. The beatific vision in Heaven totally exceeds the natural powers of the soul and comes with the gift of added supernatural light. It seems, in short, that there is no purely natural happiness according to the strict tenets of Christian doctrine.

Aquinas employs the conception of eternal beatitude not only to measure the imperfection of earthly life, but also to insist that temporal happiness is happiness at all only to the extent that it is a remote participation of true and perfect happiness. It cannot be said of temporal happiness that it "excludes every evil and fulfills every desire. In this life every evil cannot be excluded - For this present life is subject to many unavoidable evils: to ignorance on the part of the intellect; to inordinate affection on the part of the appetite-; and to many penalties on the part of the body ... . Likewise," Aquinas continues, "neither can the desire for good be satiated in this life. For man naturally desires the good which he has to be abiding . Now the goods of the present life pass away since life itself passes away ... . Wherefore it is impossible to have true happiness in this life."

If perfect happiness consists in "the vision of the Divine Essence, which men cannot obtain in this life," then, according to Aquinas, only the earthly life which somehow partakes of God has a measure of happiness in it. Earthly happiness, imperfect because of its temporal and bodily conditions, consists in a life devoted to God - a kind of inchoate participation here and now of the beatific vision hereafter. On earth there can be only a beginning "in respect of that operation whereby man is united to God. ... In the present life, in as far as we fall short of the unity and continuity of that operation, so do we fall short of perfect happiness. Nevertheless it is a participation of happiness; and so much the greater, as the operation can be more continuous and more one. Consequently the active life which is busy with many things, has less of happiness than the contemplative life, which is busied with one thing, i.e., the contemplation of truth."

When the theologians consider the modes of life on earth in terms of the fundamental distinction between the secular and the religious, or the active and the contemplative, they seem to admit the possibility of imperfect happiness in either mode. In either, a devout Christian dedicates every act to the glory of God, and through such dedication embraces the divine in the passing moments of his earthly pilgrimage.

Sarah Palin, like most happy people, suffers outrageous set-backs, endures insults, personal tragedies, stumbles and falls, but remains happy because she is centered and other directed.

That drives sad, but very successful people, crazy.

The crazy is on 24/7 on cable television.

Click my post title for one of my favorite sites belonging to a very smart Obama supporter.

Quigley and Claypool - Southern Illinois University - Early Eighties - with a Sears Catalog

An imaginative fictive turn* of the lives of the Self-absorbed:

Roosevelt University student Mike Quigley visited Forrest Claypool of Southern Illinois University in Carbondale for the summer where both worked as fry cooks for Dave's 'Every Picture Tells a Story -Donut!'

Both chaps were engaged in the study of Government and how government can best separate the wallets from citizens. They learned well. Nevertheless, the ardent Progressive scholars busied their days at Dave's dropping dough - the flour, egg and soda variety.

Their evenings were spent in mutual salvos of political tactics and strategies, and in the wistful exercises of jejune male fantasies.

The Sears Catlog arrived at the trailer Claypool.

FC- "Mike did you see how beautiful these models are in the Sears Catalog?"

MQ - " I did, Forrest, and they are not all that expensive!"

FC- "It says, 'Immediate Delivery' - Let's Order, today!"

The winsome youths pooled their coppers and silver and Rushed a Money Order to Sears Roebuck & Company Headquartered in Mike's hometown of Chicago - at the newly opened Sears Tower.

Days passed and quality Donuts were scooped from the bubbling cauldron in Dave's 'Every Picture Tells A Story -Donut' and nights melted in dreamy expectation.

Mike Quigley worked the late shift and received a Call from his buddy landlord -"Packages Here!"

After work Mike stumped his way to the Rolling Cloud Trailer Park outside of Carbondale on the road to Cobden.

Moist with anticipation, the future Cook County Board Pit Bull and U.S. Congressman shouted to his equally ambitious and horny pal, " Are the Girls Here, Yet?"

The tall and stylishly attired Progressive Cub Scout replied, " No Mike, but they should be here soon! Their clothes arrived!"

. . .and Illinois was the better for these earnest youths!

* Many thanks to Max Weissmann of the Center for the Study of Great Ideas! Also, click my post title for other ripping yarns.