If Only . . .Agonistes

Design'd for great exploits; if I must dye
Betray'd, Captiv'd, and both my Eyes put out,
Made of my Enemies the scorn and gaze;
To grind in Brazen Fetters under task [ 35 ]
With this Heav'n-gifted strength? O glorious strength
Put to the labour of a Beast, debas't
Lower then bondslave! Promise was that I
Should Israel from Philistian yoke deliver;
Ask for this great Deliverer now, and find him [ 40 ]
Eyeless in Gaza at the Mill with slaves,
Himself in bonds under Philistian yoke;
Yet stay, let me not rashly call in doubt
Divine Prediction; what if all foretold
Had been fulfill'd but through mine own default, [ 45 ]
Whom have I to complain of but my self?

Milton -Samson Agonistes

Those lines always reminded me of the great people in public life, who struggle to do good for people. Some even end up in a Federal Prison.

One very good guy I know is sitting out the last of his semesters in Terra Haute, in no small part due to a very good man himself - several good men actually.


I just got off the phone with a genuine Chicago voice in print. He writes for one of the the two big Chicago Dailies.

We shot the breeze about a mutual friend who is having a particularly tough time - that friend is also in the cold and impersonal world of modern journalism.

Our conversation turned to things political -

"Hey, what's up with your Republicans?"

My Republicans?

"Yeah. You went all McCain."

Illinois Republicans blow their toes off - not unlike up-state New York Republicans. I like Dan Proft.

"Jesus, he has about twenty seven Cicero contracts and stuff hanging on him. Why can't you get clean once in a while . . .like with that Polish Kid Andy Andrecscxzjhykczxcszch? "

I work at Leo 'cause it's easy to spell.

We went back and forth on reform and the usual Who's-Who litany of rogues, cretins, feebs, dummies, crooks and phonies.

We landed back at good people. People who actually do something for other people -who will do anything without a Press Conference or naming of a Blue Ribbon Commission, or any one really ever knowing about it.

In Poetry things are neat; in prose, things are messy. Politics is Prosaic. It is un-Romantic. The Romantics in Politics - the Goo-goos; the Boiled Beets Progressives; the Dopes Who Believe EVERYTHING is like a Julia Roberts Movie; the Raving Lunatics Left/Center/Right - are the very people who screw things up. Romantic Politics makes more taxes and more corruption. It is a Hegelian thing.

It is the same thing in my Church - Romantic Goofballs like the dippy Nun escorting victims to an abortion - the poetic romantic channel surfers screw things up. Sister! Be a Unitarian Nun! They ARE WAY COOL!

We, Catholics, have had a very, very Gay Friendly Church Hierarchy and Clergy( Well, Who's to Say?) for well over forty years and then we find ourselves shocked when Father Daffodil is taking seven altar boys to Wisconsin with a video camera. Hey, spare me the 'Pedophile's Have Nothing to Do With Homosexuality' dodge - yeah, and pipe dope has nothing to do with plumbing.

If Only more attention could be focused on the people in public life who actually make a difference - no, not The Honorable Dorothy Brown - maybe, then, politics could start to work for people again.

White House Robert Gibbs -"It's a Touch of Cancer."

I went to a wake at Sheehy & Sons on 79th Street once and asked the widower what his wife had succumbed to -"T'was nothing serious, so." the County Kerry gent offered.

Following yesterday's National Tune-up of the Hope & Change White House, Stephen Root playing Robert Gibbs offered this -

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs told reporters that the president viewed the Republican victories in New Jersey and Virginia gubernatorial races as referenda on local issues that reflect little on his policies in Washington.

"People went to the polls and voted on local issues not to either register support for or opposition to the president," Gibbs said. Asked whether moderate lawmakers might view the results differently, and worry about casting tough votes on Obama's priorities, Gibbs said no.

"I don't think they will and I'm not concerned," he said.

As my Irish Cousins might say "It's a Touch of Cancer is all."

A Touching Tale of Texas Transgression

From the files of the great Tom McMahon of Wisconsin & Frank Nofsinger:Beerologist, libationist, beer devotee, wert guru, beer maven and Patriot!

A hooded robber burst into a Texas Bank and forced the tellers to load a sack full of cash.

On his way out the door a brave Texas customer grabbed the hood and pulled it off revealing the robber's face. The robber shot the customer without a moment's hesitation. He then looked around the bank and noticed one of the tellers looking straight at him. The robber instantly shot him also.

Everyone else, by now very scared, looked intently down at the floor in silence. The robber yelled, "Well, did anyone else see my face?" There are a few moments of utter silence, in which everyone was plainly afraid to speak.

Then one old man raised his hand and said," I think my wife may have caught a glimpse of you."

Fox32's Patrick Elwood Honors Veterans at Leo High School

Watch Chicago's Fox -32 on Friday morning, November 6th (One feature with Patrick Elwood at 8:15 and another other at 9:15) as Patrick Elwood honors and interviews Veterans, heroes all, of WWII, Korea and Vietnam.

On Monday, Veterans of America's Wars from Leo High School, the Montford Point Marines and the Burbank Marine League spoke with Fox Anchor/Reporter Patrick Elwood about their individual services over seas.

On Friday, Fox 32 will feature Patrick Elwood's interviews during the Morning Shows.

At 11AM Leo High School, Mrs. Rochelle Crump, Pipe David McKee ( Leo '46), Windy City Veterans, Montford Point Marines, The Burbank Marine Corps League, The Leo Alumni Association and Leo Veterans of WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Desert Storm 1 & 2, Afghanistan and Iraq, as well Chicago Police Officers and Firefighters ( all who serve and protect America) will lay wreaths at the Leo High School War Memorial, offer tribute, salute the colors and salute to taps for America's Fallen

Leo High School and Mrs. Rochelle Crump have teamed to pay solemn tribute to all who serve since 2001.

All are invited to join in the Leo Veterans Observances.

Many thanks to Patrick Elwood and Fox 32 Television!

Vote for Mandy and the Bandits - Once Day -Anyway.

As a dedicated Hack, I love to help people I like.

I love Amanda Crumley and her band of splendid musicians and vocalists - Mandy and the Bandits.

Give Amanda and her crew a vote and help the Bandits earn a spot playing with Bela Fleck! Who's that you say? You gotta be kidding!

Hell, half of you wouldn't know the Judge with the hyphenated Irish Name on the last ballot and voted for him/her anyway.

Click my post title - and listen to two songs by Mandy and the Bandits

Hey everyone,

Wanted to thank you for all your support for my band with this contest, and let you know that the voting period has been extended 2 weeks to Nov. 15th!! Not sure why they did this, but regardless, we can still use all the help we can get!!

Click this link everyday, if you're able!

http://www.cbbfestival.com/contests/profile.php?aid=136

Make sure to verify your vote by clicking on the link sent to your email after voting! If it does not get sent to you inbox, check your junk mail, as sometimes it is getting sent there.

As a reminder, this is for a chance for Mandy & the Bandits to be considered for a performance slot at the Chicago Bluegrass and Blues Festival on Dec. 12th, to open for Bela Fleck and the Flecktones!

A tremendous THANK YOU to all of you and this is my solemn promise that this is my final email regarding this subject!!


Much love,
Amanda

myspace.com/mandyandthebandits

* If you would like to be removed from our mailing list, please let me know and thy will be done.

Archbisop Timothy Dolan of New York! God Bless The Man - His Full Statement

FOUL BALL!
By Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan
Archbishop of New York

October is the month we relish the highpoint of our national pastime, especially when one of our own New York teams is in the World Series!

Sadly, America has another national pastime, this one not pleasant at all: anti-catholicism.

It is not hyperbole to call prejudice against the Catholic Church a national pastime. Scholars such as Arthur Schlesinger Sr. referred to it as “the deepest bias in the history of the American people,” while John Higham described it as “the most luxuriant, tenacious tradition of paranoiac agitation in American history.” “The anti-semitism of the left,” is how Paul Viereck reads it, and Professor Philip Jenkins sub-titles his book on the topic “the last acceptable prejudice.”

If you want recent evidence of this unfairness against the Catholic Church, look no further than a few of these following examples of occurrences over the last couple weeks:

---On October 14, in the pages of the New York Times, reporter Paul Vitello exposed the sad extent of child sexual abuse in Brooklyn’s Orthodox Jewish community. According to the article, there were forty cases of such abuse in this tiny community last year alone. Yet the Times did not demand what it has called for incessantly when addressing the same kind of abuse by a tiny minority of priests: release of names of abusers, rollback of statute of limitations, external investigations, release of all records, and total transparency. Instead, an attorney is quoted urging law enforcement officials to recognize “religious sensitivities,” and no criticism was offered of the DA’s office for allowing Orthodox rabbis to settle these cases “internally.” Given the Catholic Church’s own recent horrible experience, I am hardly in any position to criticize our Orthodox Jewish neighbors, and have no wish to do so . . . but I can criticize this kind of “selective outrage.”

Of course, this selective outrage probably should not surprise us at all, as we have seen many other examples of the phenomenon in recent years when it comes to the issue of sexual abuse. To cite but two: In 2004, Professor Carol Shakeshaft documented the wide-spread problem of sexual abuse of minors in our nation’s public schools (the study can be found here). In 2007, the Associated Press issued a series of investigative reports that also showed the numerous examples of sexual abuse by educators against public school students. Both the Shakeshaft study and the AP reports were essentially ignored, as papers such as the New York Times only seem to have priests in their crosshairs.

---On October 16, Laurie Goodstein of the Times offered a front page, above-the-fold story on the sad episode of a Franciscan priest who had fathered a child. Even taking into account that the relationship with the mother was consensual and between two adults, and that the Franciscans have attempted to deal justly with the errant priest’s responsibilities to his son, this action is still sinful, scandalous, and indefensible. However, one still has to wonder why a quarter-century old story of a sin by a priest is now suddenly more pressing and newsworthy than the war in Afghanistan, health care, and starvation–genocide in Sudan. No other cleric from religions other than Catholic ever seems to merit such attention.

---Five days later, October 21, the Times gave its major headline to the decision by the Vatican to welcome Anglicans who had requested union with Rome. Fair enough. Unfair, though, was the article’s observation that the Holy See lured and bid for the Anglicans. Of course, the reality is simply that for years thousands of Anglicans have been asking Rome to be accepted into the Catholic Church with a special sensitivity for their own tradition. As Cardinal Walter Kasper, the Vatican’s chief ecumenist, observed, “We are not fishing in the Anglican pond.” Not enough for the Times; for them, this was another case of the conniving Vatican luring and bidding unsuspecting, good people, greedily capitalizing on the current internal tensions in Anglicanism.

---Finally, the most combustible example of all came Sunday with an intemperate and scurrilous piece by Maureen Dowd on the opinion pages of the Times. In a diatribe that rightly never would have passed muster with the editors had it so criticized an Islamic, Jewish, or African-American religious issue, she digs deep into the nativist handbook to use every anti-Catholic caricature possible, from the Inquisition to the Holocaust, condoms, obsession with sex, pedophile priests, and oppression of women, all the while slashing Pope Benedict XVI for his shoes, his forced conscription -- along with every other German teenage boy -- into the German army, his outreach to former Catholics, and his recent welcome to Anglicans.

True enough, the matter that triggered her spasm -- the current visitation of women religious by Vatican representatives -- is well-worth discussing, and hardly exempt from legitimate questioning. But her prejudice, while maybe appropriate for the Know-Nothing newspaper of the 1850’s, the Menace, has no place in a major publication today.I do not mean to suggest that anti-catholicism is confined to the pages New York Times. Unfortunately, abundant examples can be found in many different venues. I will not even begin to try and list the many cases of anti-catholicism in the so-called entertainment media, as they are so prevalent they sometimes seem almost routine and obligatory. Elsewhere, last week, Representative Patrick Kennedy made some incredibly inaccurate and uncalled-for remarks concerning the Catholic bishops, as mentioned in this blog on Monday. Also, the New York State Legislature has levied a special payroll tax to help the Metropolitan Transportation Authority fund its deficit. This legislation calls for the public schools to be reimbursed the cost of the tax; Catholic schools, and other private schools, will not receive the reimbursement, costing each of the schools thousands – in some cases tens of thousands – of dollars, money that the parents and schools can hardly afford. (Nor can the archdiocese, which already underwrites the schools by $30 million annually.) Is it not an issue of basic fairness for ALL school-children and their parents to be treated equally?

The Catholic Church is not above criticism. We Catholics do a fair amount of it ourselves. We welcome and expect it. All we ask is that such critique be fair, rational, and accurate, what we would expect for anybody. The suspicion and bias against the Church is a national pastime that should be “rained out” for good.

I guess my own background in American history should caution me not to hold my breath.

Then again, yesterday was the Feast of Saint Jude, the patron saint of impossible causes.

NY Archbishop Dolan Blasts New York Times, Mo Dowd, and Boiled Beets Progressive Nativists - Give Maher a Slap Bishop!

The New York Times has always hated Catholics. From long before the New York Draft Riots, and heaped coal on Pope Pius IX by creating a Jewish antipathy for Catholics by inflating the Mortara Incident* ( A Jewish boy taken from his parents by the Papal States in the 1860's, raised as a Catholic to become an Augustinian Priest for Life). The radical New York Times competed with the Catholic Freeman's Journal of Orestes Brownson and Bishop Dagger John Hughes.

Now, Catholics are hitting back. It has been a hell of long time!

Archbishop Dolan of New York is filling the shoes of Dagger John Hughes and taking some swings at the radical Times and its salaried professional renegade Catholic who really needs a date - Mo Dowd. Crazy Aunt Mo!

"Mom! Crazy Aunt Mo just got off the bus and she's walking funny!"

Crazy Aunt Mo Dowd is a professional Catholic whiner - so oppressed and so embarrassed to have been baptized. Every family has one. Crazy Aunt Mo is all for Abortion and tells eveyone and usually gets Fully Kruezened** at family dinners and tells everyone how much she ( Yes, there's Crazy Uncles Too) resents us all, we have all made her life a misery, throws up at the Kids Table, borrows cab Fare and heads back to her apartment for a Mr. Boston swill with HBO. Unhappiness sells papers!

Nice job Bishop! Crazy Aunt Mo will cocktail it up and tell us all about it.
You put it very well, Bishop Dolan -

"She ( Crazy Aunt Mo - my editorial) digs deep into the nativist handbook to use every anti-Catholic caricature possible, from the Inquisition to the Holocaust, condoms, obsession with sex, pedophile priests, and oppression of women, all the while slashing Pope Benedict XVI for his shoes, his forced conscription -- along with every other German teenage boy -- into the German army, his outreach to former Catholics, and his recent welcome to Anglicans."

Dowd's column, which zinged the Vatican for "two inquisitions" into nuns who eschew "old-fashioned habits and convents," was only the latest Times piece to spin Dolan's skullcap.

"It is not hyperbole to call prejudice against the Catholic Church a national pastime," Dolan wrote. " 'The anti-Semitism of the left' is how [poet Peter] Viereck reads it."

Dolan noted that an Oct. 14 Times piece about child sex abuse in Brooklyn's Orthodox Jewish community failed to demand what the paper had previously demanded of the Catholic Church: to release the abusers' names, roll back the state statute of limitations

Here is some stuff on the Motara Incident played out by the New York Times. The New York Times has had a great career of attempting to manufacture tension between Catholics and Jews and yet always seems to cozy up to Crown Heights Al Sharpton when he gets up an Old Timey Pogrom.

*

Protests were lodged by both Jewish organizations and prominent political and intellectual figures in Britain, the United States, Germany, Austria, and France. Soon the governments of these countries added to calls for Edgardo to be returned to his parents. The French Emperor Napoleon III, whose troops garrisoned Rome to protect the Pope against the Italian anti-clerical unificationists, also protested.

When a delegation of prominent Jews saw the Pope in 1859, he told them, "I couldn't care less what the world thinks."[citation needed] At another meeting, he brought Edgardo with him to show that the boy was happy in his care. In 1865 he said: "I had the right and the duty to do what I did for this boy, and if I had to, I would do it again."[citation needed] In a speech in 1871 defending his decision against his detractors, Pius said: "Of these dogs, there are too many of them at present in Rome, and we hear them howling in the streets, and they are disturbing us in all places." [4] [5]

The Mortara case served to harden the already prevalent opinion among liberals and nationalists in both Italy and abroad that the rule of the Pope over a large area of central Italy was an anachronism and an affront to human rights in an "enlightened" age of liberalism and rationalism.[citation needed] It helped persuade opinion in both Britain and France to allow Piedmont to go to war with the Papal States in 1859 and annex most of the Pope's territories, effectively leaving him with only the city of Rome in the end.[citation needed] When the French garrison was withdrawn in 1870, and the Italian army assaulted the city, Rome too was annexed by the new, unified, liberal Kingdom of Italy.

Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/dolan_gives_the_times_holy_hell_C79kb04ndK2nKWVWLO8O0K#ixzz0VoHrAkSF

**http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bottle_conditioning#Krausening

Planned Parenthood's President Presses Its President

Huge Ten Gallon Doff to American Papist -click my post title

"Don't let Catholic bishops and other anti-choice groups push Congress into passing anti-choice amendments to health care reform. Take action now to protect women's health."

http://www.ppaction.org/campaign/hcr09ccbr_afw

Brassy Texas Gal Cecile Richards, whose man friend Kirk Adams is an SEIU Honcho, but Cecile can't cotton to takin' the Dude's Name, and Cecile is goin' "All-IN" with the chips she gave to President Obama. Let's see what you got in there Barry!

Yep, Texas Cecile Richards is goin' hard inside with elbows a flyin' on President One-on-One. The President must be playing round-ball with cupcakes who deflate the balls during rests so tough guys or a bunch of girls don't steal the Spauldings on them. Cecile Richards and Planned Parenthood carpeted the Obama Team with dollars during the Campaign and is now pushing the President to go Big Johnson on the American Catholic Bishops. Planned Parenthood is Big Oil to the Left. Gushers! Them girls and their man toys like to play hard.

We shall see. Will President Obama deflate the balls?

Frank Rich's Dies Irae and No One Dies!

I had an opportunity to read Frank Rich's New York Times Op-Ed piece "The G.O.P. Stalinists Invade Upstate New York" and wasted a few minutes there.

The salient paragraph at the very end of the piece explains the entire train wreck that is the Obama Enterprise of Media.

Only in the alternative universe of the far right is Obama a pariah and Palin the great white hope. It’s become a Beltway truism that the White House’s (mild) spat with Fox News is counterproductive because it drives up the network’s numbers. But if curious moderate and independent voters are now tempted to surf there and encounter Beck’s histrionics for the first time, the president’s numbers will benefit as well. To the uninitiated, the tea party crowd comes across like the barflies in “Star Wars.”

Why, Francis, you should have offered a more more nuanced lagniappe - Say something like Werner Herzog's homoerotic Everyman Klaus Kinski would be rendered quizzical in their shabby genteel presence. “The trees are in misery. The birds are in misery; they just screech in pain. We are cursed in what we are doing here.”

Oh, Francis, yielding to Pop Kulture Kampf with a jejune Star Wars trope?

Keep telling Captain Obama about them icebergs Francis - he's a great listener.

Do. Oh,Do click my post title and give a listen to an homage to Frank Rich by the poet Dallas Moore.

Bigotry Kills School Reform - Anti Voucher Bigots

Old Joe Medill could not have posted a more anti-Catholic rant than Eric Zorn. Changing the subject on School Reform is a breeze for rock ribbed bigots. A bigot refuses to accept a person or an idea.

Bigot : a person obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices; especially : one who regards or treats the members of a group (as a racial or ethnic group) with hatred and intolerance.

It's interesting to me how all you hard-bitten conservatives (including Berkowitz, who has joined this conversation on his blog http://jeffberkowitz.blogspot.com/2009/10/sen-meeks-columnist-eric-zorn-and-tv.html ) turn into starry-eyed idealists when it comes to this pet notion of yours that education vouchers would provide better public education.

And you try to paint everyone who objects to these schemes as tools of the teacher's union or suffocating educational bureaucracy.

First objection I have -- I don't want tax dollars going to pay for tuition at schools that discriminate on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation or religious beliefs. I'm a separationist. Yet I know that the animating passion for many believers in vouchers -- not Berkowitz, it's my sense, but many others -- is a desire to have the state fund the religious educations of their children. I think that's wrong. I think it's un-American and I think it's unconstitutional.

Second objection I have -- Assuming we have a voucher program that pays only for schools that don't discriminate and don't use voucher funds to teach religion (I can envision a system in which a Catholic School could hold special classes before and after school for Catholic students and paid for by private dollars), how do we keep any sort of quality control or set any kinds of standards without heavy government involvement? What if supporters of Fred Phelps, say, want to set up a Home School for Homosexual Haters in which the children of their hatemongering membership give their $15,000 a year to support some flimsy, phony 'academy" to inculcate the next generation of gay bashers? In this millions of flowers blooming utopia of private schools opening up in blighted neighborhoods, how do we account for parents who prefer indoctrination to education, not to mention the scam artists and hustlers and others who would eventually open "schools" to try to take their advantage.

Third objection I have, assuming we can set a system in which vouchers are only good at fully accredited, non-discriminating schools.... what makes us think that enough of them would spring up to offer something better than what's now there? Who takes the students who don't "qualify" once the private schools have skimmed the cream? Who takes the students who drop out? Who misbehave and get kicked out (for bringing Advil to class, say)? IN other words, if these schools are allowed to have admission standards, then who takes those who don't, for some reason, meet those standards? In other conversations I've raised the issue of special needs kids who can cost a lot more to educate than non-special needs kids. "They get bigger vouchers!" say the voucher proponents. This assumes a couple of things, the main one being that we're only talking about profoundly disabled children who need extraordinary care. But, in fact, the range of learning disabilities is vast and there are kids who look quite "normal" but who need speech therapy and, occupational therapy and all kinds of help that most private schools now outsource to public school if they take such children at all. Even mild learning and behavioral disorders are enough to keep applicants out of some private schools I could name.

Final objection I have, for now, is that the entire voucher solution assumes some sort of "magic" in private education that really is, in most cases, an illusion caused when a flexible administration, supportive, involved parents and empowered teachers combine to educate a SELECT group of students, any one of whom can be removed pronto if he or she proves to be a handful. You see this "magic" at certain public schools. And we're always going to have our NON-SELECT students and our disengaged parents....voucher programs would do little to aid such people as it destroyed and dismantled the public schools they now attend

posted by: Eric Zorn | Friday, October 30, 2009 at 04:42 PM

Now, if you told any the of the above to a deaf mule, he'd kick your teeth in!

Non Sequiturs Abounding! Bigotry Astounding! The reach-around for the Rev. Fred Phelps loonies was heart warmingly too, too daffy for ducks.

Smug bigots come in all sizes and shapes. Rev./Senator James Meeks has had the sacles fall from his eyes and anti-Voucher Bigots are snarling to gnaw on his bones.

Senator, their teeth are as weak as ther arguments.


“Although Chicago was spared the anti-Irish violence of other large American cities, there was no lack of rabid anti-Irish sentiment. The Chicago Tribune, edited by Joseph Medill (a descendant of Scotch-Irish Presbyterians), regularly dismissed the Irish as lazy and shiftless.

"Who does not know that the most depraved, debased, worthless and irredeemable drunkards and sots which curse the community are Irish Catholics?” the Tribune sneered.

http://irishabroad.com/irishworld/irishamericamag/augsept08/features/irish-chicago-augsept08.asp
Pretty nice homage to Joe Medill there Eric Zorn!

Steve Reid - Leo Hall of Fame, College Football Hall of Fame,

Position: Guard
School: Northwestern
High School: Chicago, IL (Leo HS)
Years: 1934-1936
Inducted: 1985
Place of Birth: Chicago, IL
Date of Birth: 12/16/1914
Jersey Number: 44
Height: 5-9
Weight: 192

Steve Reid played football at Leo High School in his hometown of Chicago before enrolling at Northwestern where he became a three-year letterman for the Wildcats. He was captain and Most Valuable Player for the 1936 Big Ten Champions and was also Northwestern's most widely-picked All-American since Pug Rentner. Reid stood proud in defeat as well as in victory throughout one of the most exciting schedules of the 1936 season. A 5-9, 192-pound guard whose forte was blocking, he was often called upon by Coach Pappy Waldorf to pull out of the line to lead the interference. Reid played in the East-West Shrine Game and, in 1961, was named to SPORTS ILLUSTRATED'S "Silver Anniversary" All-America football team. During World War II he served as a Major in the U.S. Army Medical Corps and was awarded the Presidential Citation with three battle stars. Reid became Vice-Chairman of the Department of Surgery at Evanston Hospital, and Professor of Surgery at Northwestern University. He has been a Wildcat team physician since 1950, and earned national recognition by conducting a football helmet study which measures intensities of impacts in order to reduce head and neck injuries.

God Bless All Leo Men!


H/T to Dan Kelley!

Leo High School welcomes everyone to honor our Veterans at Leo High School on Friday November 6th at 11A.M.

Leo High School
7901 S. Sanagamon Street
Chicago, IL 60655
(773) 224-9600

WHY MEN SHOULD NOT TAKE MESSAGES

Nancy, Your Pants Are Afire and Your Boys are Lying As Well

You can not make this stuff up!

“It’s almost a complete certainty that we have already discussed and debated almost every element that’s in this bill,” said Rep. Steve Rothman (D-N.J.)


McHenry took issue with the notion that the 2,000-page bill hasn’t changed much from the earlier, 1,000-page versions. To prove the point, he pulled out a Democratic-written summary of the changes.

All eight pages of them.


Asked why the House will vote on the roughly 400,000-word bill in a week when it takes a congregation a year to read the 80,000-word Torah at a synagogue, Rothman, who is Jewish, exhibited the wisdom of a Talmudic scholar.


“It only takes a year because you read one section a week,” he said.


But Republican Rep. Joe Barton, who is Texan, said the bill is “about four reams of paper” that add up to the American public “getting reamed.”

. . . And I used to get nervous when the Mailman went to his trunk.

Sen. Meeks No Longer an Isolationist on School Vouchers! Welcome to the War

Senator James Meeks has been the Joseph P. Kennedy* Ambassador to School Reform Isolationism and a powerful voice for tossing more tax dollars to the Chicago Teachers Union and hapless Public Schools.

Blocks from Calumet High School, now morphed into a hybrid Charter Academy/Warehouse, and few more from the 60 million dollar Simeon High School, Leo High School - a Catholic High School ( 100% African American Males)-commands the respect and direction of families seeking a path to success for their sons.

Leo High School is tuition driven and depends upon the giving of its largely white, Catholic and aging Alumni. White Alumni giving to Leo High School stands at 99.9%, though more Black Alums are giving in recent months.
Ninety Three percent of Leo's graduates go on to colleges and universities and the balance to the skilled trades unions and the military.

For decades Catholics and other private school families ( Jewish, Dutch Reformed, Lutheran, Muslim, and Independent) have called for School Reform through a universal voucher system. The Public School lobby has defeated any and all efforts. One of the Public School Lobby's most passionate and articulate voices - Rev./Senator James Meeks has pushed down efforts to bring about genuine Reform through Vouchers.

Like Ambassador Joe Kennedy in 1939-40, while Ambassador to Great Britain, Senator Meeks has called for Isolationism on Vouchers. Now, the Senator has witnessed the toll upon our society that this Isolationism has wrought. Like Joe Kennedy, Senator Meeks has had a Great Awakening!

the Chicago Teachers Union has figured out a way for teachers to not be evaluated on obvious criteria, such as how well they perform in the classroom.

Nobody wants to be held accountable, but the blood of every child is on our hands.

We must also decide whether Mayor Daley should continue to preside over the Chicago schools. Since he assumed control of the district in 1995, the Blackhawks have had nine coaches, the Bulls have had eight coaches, the Cubs have had five managers and the White Sox have had three managers.

For the first time in my personal and political career, I am exploring the idea of vouchers and charter schools to help facilitate choice and enhance academic performance. Why should we continue to make investments in a system that is bankrupt and weighed down with bureaucracy?

We must begin making decisions that are in the best interest of children, such as mandatory teacher evaluations. Since the will to change the system is nonexistent, we should allow students the flexibility to attend schools outside their district. What once worked before, such as the local school councils, may have run its course in today's competitive environment.

They say the definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over again and expect different results. We can no longer afford to have the blood of every child on our hands.

Welcome to the War Senator! Already the Isolationists like Eric Zorn ( using free Market tropes) are attacking Senator Meeks and 'Blaming the Parents!'

My problem with voucher-based education is that it relies on a level of parental involvement that's manifestly missing and on a free-market system that is failing the inner-city already. Not that there is any easy answer, but these communities need jobs and affordable housing, far lower single-parent birth rates and, yes, calm, safe focused classrooms in which students can learn and teachers can teach.

Since the will to change the system is nonexistent, we should allow students the flexibility to attend schools outside their district.
Interesting idea, the logistics of which boggle the mind. Even if we could pull it off, though, and allow certain, motivated students to flee, the basic problem they are fleeing -- joblessness and its attendant poverty -- will remain.

If PNG Zorn is against you, Senator, you are on the right path!We can use your voice, spirit and energy. Let's make Genuine Reform Happen in Illinois! Let's Kick Open the Doors for Vouchers!


* Old Joe Kennedy thought Adolph Hitler would 'not be such a bad guy' and just another guy doing business and after all Old Joe said during the Battle of Britain, "Democracy is finished in England. It may be here, [in the US]."

"There Lives Not Three Good Men Unhanged in N J, and One of Them is Fat"

The Genius that is Kliban!

“I’m pretty fat Don,” Christie declared.


“You weigh?” Imus asked.


“550 pounds,” Christie jokingly responded

from the Don Imus Show via Politico - click my post title.


Let me have men about me that are fat, sleek-headed men and such as sleep a-nights. Yon Corzine has a lean and hungry look. He thinks too much. Such men are dangerous. . . . And Corzine has that really creepy half-assed beard going that faux intellectuals and frauds tend to sport. Jon with no H is a dead-ass give-away that the guy is a skunk. Or is that Scunque? e.g. Like a Hyphenated Mick -T.Claude Biggs-MonahanEsq.

Give me Fat Brother Chris Christie! Corzine like most Progressives hate people with more than a few pounds on them. Corzine has a fat bank account and has been flooding the airwaves and TV beams with Fat, Fat Chris Christie ads.

In a better and more honorable day, such taunting of people of amplitude would be rounded out with a lusty pile on! Would not the Commonwealth . . .nay the Republic itself. . . not be well served by the Close-knit ( Italian Catholic) Ethnic and Corpulent Christie launching skyward to allow gravity its whim upon the oafish tweed wrapped Corzine! That is not an interrogative.

Welcome to the Pew, Brother Meeks!

Real School Reform = Vouchers! Short of that, Charter Schools do the most to bring some accountabilty. All the rest is hot air -for want of stronger tea.

Public Schools need competition. Catholic Schools ( and other private schools as well) provide Competition and Genuine Accountability! Vouchers are the only real tool to reform.Click my Post Title!

We Catholics and our friends have been praying for School Choice through Vouchers and many non-Catholics/non-Christian/non-Believers have helped fill the pews.

Brother Meeks, welcome to Church. We have been passing the plate and now intend to make sure that Vouchers and Charters see that the plates go to the right hands -Illinois Families and not scam artists and hacks.

For the first time in my personal and political career, I am exploring the idea of vouchers and charter schools to help facilitate choice and enhance academic performance. Why should we continue to make investments in a system that is bankrupt and weighed down with bureaucracy?

We must begin making decisions that are in the best interest of children, such as mandatory teacher evaluations. Since the will to change the system is nonexistent, we should allow students the flexibility to attend schools outside their district. What once worked before, such as the local school councils, may have run its course in today's competitive environment.

They say the definition of insanity is to do the same thing over and over again and expect different results. We can no longer afford to have the blood of every child on our hands.

Democratic state Sen. James T. Meeks of Chicago is pastor of Salem Baptist Church.

Chicago Tribune - Op-Ed Page

President Obama is Commander in Chief - Well Done, Mr. President!

President Obama displayed True Greatness! This speaks well of Our President!

President Barack Obama made a midnight trip to Dover Air Force Base earlier today to meet the returning bodies of 18 U.S. service members killed in Afghanistan on Monday.


Arriving at the base at 12:34 a.m., the president visited with the fallen troops' families in a chapel on the base grounds. Just before 4 a.m., the president and several other officials - including Attorney General Eric Holder, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton Schwartz and acting DEA Administrator Michele Leonhart - joined members of one service member's family to salute a flag-draped coffin being transferred from a C-17.


The president's group stood in single file to salute the casket holding Army Sgt. Dale R. Griffin, whose family consented to media coverage of the Indiana soldier's return. The whole ceremony took approximately 15 minutes, according to the pool.


Monday's three helicopter crashes in Afghanistan - which killed 14 Americans, including three DEA agents - made October the deadliest month in the Afghan war to date.


Obama returned to the White House at 4:45 a.m., touching down on the South Lawn in Marine One.

St. Colman of Kilmacduagh - Helped Preserve Thought in the West - Feast Day October 29th

"St. Colman was retired into the wilderness for the benefit of his devotion. He had no living creature about him except a rooster, a mouse, and a fly. The use of the rooster was to give him notice of the time of night by his crowing, that he might know when to apply himself to his prayers. The mouse had a proper office, which was to prevent the Saint from sleeping above five hours within the space of twenty-four; for, when the business of his devotion, which he exercised with great reverence and regularity upon his knees, had so fatigued his spirits that they required a longer refreshment, the mouse would come to his ears and scratch him with his feet till he was perfectly awake. The fly always attended on him when he was reading. It had the sense to walk along the lines of the book; and when the Saint had tired his eyes, and was willing to desist, the fly would stay upon the first letter of the next sentence, and by that means direct him where he was to begin."

St. Colman was a Clare Man - like Christy Ring* and Muhammad Ali. Colman lived in the 6th Century, a time known as the Dark Ages, when Ireland was the depository of Western Civilization and Greek Thought as one barbarian horde after another extinguished civilized life in the West.

Colman built a monastery with a 110 foot Round Tower - Round Towers were used to hide and preserve treasure, books, and ideas from savages.

St. Colman Mac Duagh thus began a great and holy work that was destined to endure for all time. It was a work which would inscribe his name on the hearts of a grateful Irish people, who would transmit it, with the memory of his virtues, from generation to generation. King Guaire, with his characteristic generosity, not only granted the site for the cathedral and monastery, but also granted large endowments for its future maintenance. His benignity did not stop there. The King through his influence was able to secure the assistance of St. Gobban Saer the eminent architect who flourished early in the seventh century. St. Gobban Saer was an illiterate monk in the monastery of St. Madoc of Ferns. An excerpt from the life of this saint (St. Gobban) provided by an ancient Irish chronicler says,
"A church was to be erected, but no builder could be found to guide the religious brethren in the work. Wherefore, full of confidence in God, St. Aidan (Madoc) blessed the hands of the untutored man named Gobban. From that moment he became most skilled in the intricacies of the art, and was able in a most perfect manner to complete the church of the monastery."

Would that a Colman might appear today and preserve some thought from our contemporary savages . . . and ourselves.


* A Man or Lad of Spirit was identified by the Salt Water Irish on the south side of Chicago as being 'as Game as Christy Ring!'

'As long as young men will match their hurling skills against each other on Ireland's green fields, as long as young boys swing their camáns(hurling bat) for the sheer thrill of the feel and the tingle in their fingers of the impact of ash on leather, as long as hurling is played the story of Christy Ring will be told. And that will be forever.'

Pirates Grab Brits? Let Caesar Deal With Them - That's Caesar Obama, Mind You.

"The pattern has been that they don't harm the captives, these pirates, because they want money.

"But I want to assure the family that we will not rest until until we see the freedom of this couple."

Mr and Mrs Chandler were heading on a 150 nautical-mile passage south-west to the Amirante Islands en route to Tanzania in their yacht the Lynn Rival when they used the distress beacon.

Some months back when we were faced with our own Somali pirate problem, I waxed classical ( Plutarch) on the issue.

Now our NEA Lickspittle in Chief Rocco Landesman has declared this Our Obama - Caesar Imperator! "Barack Obama is the most powerful writer since Julius Caesar."

Oh, yeah. Jefferson, Grant, TR, JFK, Reagan could pen Okay I guess but none were community activist like Barry and Gaius.


First, when the pirates demanded a ransom of twenty talents, Caesar burst out laughing. They did not know, he said, who it was that they had captured, and he volunteered to pay fifty. Then, when he had sent his followers to the various cities in order to raise the money and was left with one friend and two servants among these Cilicians, about the most bloodthirsty people in the world, he treated them so highhandedly that, whenever he wanted to sleep, he would send to them and tell them to stop talking.
For thirty-eight days, with the greatest unconcern, he joined in all their games and exercises, just as if he was their leader instead of their prisoner. He also wrote poems and speeches which he read aloud to them, and if they failed to admire his work, he would call them to their faces illiterate savages, and would often laughingly threaten to have them all hanged. They were much taken with this and attributed his freedom of speech to a kind of simplicity in his character or boyish playfulness.

However, the ransom arrived from Miletus and, as soon as he had paid it and been set free, he immediately manned some ships and set sail from the harbor of Miletus against the pirates. He found them still there, lying at anchor off the island, and he captured nearly all of them. He took their property as spoils of war and put the men themselves into the prison at Pergamon. He then went in person to [Marcus] Junius, the governorof Asia, thinking it proper that he, as praetor in charge of the province, should see to the punishment of the prisoners. Junius, however, cast longing eyes at the money, which came to a considerable sum, and kept saying that he needed time to look into the case.

Caesar paid no further attention to him. He went to Pergamon, took the pirates out of prison and crucified the lot of them, just as he had often told them he would do when he was on the island and they imagined that he was joking.
Plutarch - Lives of the Noble Romans and Greeks

"Did [the bankers] build anything? Create anything? . . ." No, Anna; Janitors Mop, Health Care Workers Empty Bed Pans and You Are Wearing their Dues !

Yesterday the shameless led the wageless by the hundreds against BANKS and got universal press coverage touting protesters in the thousands.

That's nice. SEIU corrals thousands of no skill and low skill workers into their pens with their dues and keep them there for life.

Time was a janitor's job was a pathway to the trades and the middle class. No more. SEIU does prepare people for the future - that is none of their business. Andy Stern and Anna Burger will tell them who and what to believe.

SEIU is ACORN with a better PR firm.

Yesteday, Anna Burger*howled out great hollow hypocrisy at the BANKS - you know - like Tom Joad's faceless; nameless; bloodless enemy in Grapes of Wrath - Metonymy in rhetoric that plays well with synecdoche.

Banks are the villain du jour.: Insurance Companies, Wall-Street Fat Cats; Wal-Mart, Big Oil & etc.


"Did [the bankers] build anything? Create anything? Do anything?" Burger asked the crowd, which repeatedly responded "No!" - Progress Illinois ( SEIU Funded Comic Blog)


Actually banks create wealth - unnaturally. Why the very vaults from whence Anna and Andy scoop dues to jet off to Red China/The Big Ed Schultz Show/Tapas With Chavez/Shakedowns with Jesse Jackson Universal come from Banks.

I would venture to say that very few of the workers in SEIU make enough of a wage to have more than a checking account - if they are lucky enough to have that.

The Cadillac Commies leading SEIU belong under the same microscope slide as ACORN.


*Anna Burger, born in Levittown, Pennsylvania, and daughter of a disabled truck driver and a nurse, began her activist career in 1972 as a Welfare worker. It was there she became involved in her local union. Burger organized a walkout in efforts to create a safer working environment for the office. Burger became more active in her union, and quickly moved through the ranks of the local union. Burger became SEIU local 668's first full-time woman president before moving onto the SEIU International office in Washington, DC, to work as National Director of Field Operations, under former SEIU president John Sweeney. Burger successfully ran Sweeney's campaign for president of the AFL-CIO. She was elected Executive Vice President of SEIU, and Secretary-Treasurer in 2001.

In her tenure at SEIU, Burger has worked with President Andy Stern to create the largest and fastest growing union in North America.[citation needed] While union membership across the country has been continually dropping[citation needed], SEIU is the only union that has continuously grown.[vague] As well, Burger and SEIU are working to create ties with unions in other parts of the world, especially Europe and Asia.

Burger and Stern called for a change in the AFL-CIO's strategies in June 2004. By the summer of 2005, 6 unions (including SEIU) withdrew their membership to the AFL-CIO, and created a new labor coalition, the Change to Win Federation. On September 27, 2005, Burger was elected Chair of the breakaway coalition. As the Chair of Change to Win, Burger became the first woman to lead an American labor coalition.

Burger is married to Earl F. Gohl and they have one daughter. Anna Burger currently lives in Washington, DC with her family.