Paladin Trumps American Idol, Pocket Pool for Those Who Can Not Understand Billiards

I watched a nano second of American Idol and my brain hurt. I saw Jersey Shore on a TV news piece and immediately took a shower.

The vast wasteland of television grows nothing but tumble weeds.

There can be very good television entertainment, but it must be too costly to actually amass talented writers and actors.

I enjoy playing eight ball, or nine ball and I have played snooker (our British cousin) and billiards. Billiards is to pocket pool as chess is to checkers. Both are very fun, but billiards and even snooker require greater physical and mental dexterity.

Americans want things simple and fast and nothing is faster than television.

I forced my twenty year old son to watch an episode of Have Gun Will Travel on Chicago's ME TV. The program appeared on American television sets from the late 1950's through the early 1960's.

Richard Boone, a craggy faced baritone with the physical grace of Baryshnikov, played Paladin - an Old West Knight Errant who righted wrongs for a price usually $1,000 in 1877-1880 valuation. The character was a disgraced ( gambler) West Point educated officer and gentleman, who developed his own moral code and sensibility based on personal redemption. The episodes were stuffed with historical, cultural and literary allusions and themes.

Together, 57 year old Dad and twenty year old lad watched and absorbed the less than thirty minutes of Old West Morality Play. In this particular episode, Paladin was hired to protect the visiting literary genius Oscar Wilde from a gang of kidnappers. Oscar Wilde successfully completed his much awaited San Francisco lecture, thanks to Paladin's skills and genius.

My son, a Jersey Shore aficionado, opined, "That was long."

Stick to pocket pool kid.

Scott Lee and History - Get Down with Mark Brown!

Of all the studies by which men acquire citizenship of the intellectual commonwealth, no single one is so indispensable as the study of the past Of Histoy -Lord Bertrand Russell

The problem for Cohen was that he made his announcement to me, and I wasn't taking him very seriously.That's why I told Cohen at the time that nobody even knew who he was, let alone cared enough to want to read about his dirty laundry, and I didn't see the need to go into it. . . . How was I to know way back then that the Democratic voters of Illinois would be so dumb as to elect him, brainwashed by millions of dollars in advertising about his job fairs?

Voters can't say they weren't warned Mark Brown


Ah, the Public's Progressive Watchdog! Let's see. We are in Weimer Republic* of Germany and Herr Mark Brown interviews an earnest, enthusiastic rhetorically gifted young war veteran paper-hanger:

Schiklegruber - I have had some brushes with the law and I want to get out in front of them. You see, Herr Brown, I have plan for getting our people back to work. Jobs, Jobs, Jobs! My commercials will have the public shouting and screaming for more! Commercials, Herr Brown! Now, I must have these scrapes with the civil authorities out in front!

Mark Brown - You are an Underdog.

Schiklegruber - Ja! My Papers, Herr Brown -

Mark Brown - Okay, lets have a look see Hmmmmmm.

1909 Adolf living in Hostel for Homeless in Vienna.
1910 In the Spring, fails to report for examination prior to military service.
1911 Death of Adolf aunt, Johanna Pölzl. Fails to report again for military, he is forced to renounce his orphan's pension
1912 Fails to report for the third time for military training.
1913 24th. May, Adolf leaves for Munich. In August he is posted as a military deserted.
1914 Rejected for military service in Salzburg.
1923 The abortive Hitler-Putsch.
1924 Bavarian authorities contemplate deporting him to Austria.
1925 30th April, Adolf deprived, at his own request, of Austrian citizenship

. . .I wouldn't worry about it.

Ladies and Gentleman, the Chicago News Media! Let's Give It Up for Mark Brown! Everybody!

So, so, wie ich dich liebe,
So, so liebe auch mich.
Die, die zärtlichsten Triebe
Fühl ich allein nur für dich.
Ja, ja, ja, ja,
Fühl ich allein nur für dich.

Once more!

Ja, ja, ja, ja,
Dass uns die Liebe vereint.

*

Before World War I Germany was a prosperous country, with a gold-backed currency, expanding industry, and world leadership in optics, chemicals, and machinery. The German Mark, the British shilling, the French franc, and the Italian lira all had about equal value, and all were exchanged four or five to the dollar. That was in 1914. In 1923, at the most fevered moment of the German hyperinflation, the exchange rate between the dollar and the Mark was one trillion Marks to one dollar, and a wheelbarrow full of money would not even buy a newspaper. Most Germans were taken by surprise by the financial tornado.

"My father was a lawyer," says Walter Levy, an internationally known German-born oil consultant in New York, "and he had taken out an insurance policy in 1903, and every month he had made the payments faithfully. It was a 20-year policy, and when it came due, he cashed it in and bought a single loaf of bread." The Berlin publisher Leopold Ullstein wrote that an American visitor tipped their cook one dollar. The family convened, and it was decided that a trust fund should be set up in a Berlin bank with the cook as beneficiary, the bank to administer and invest the dollar.

In retrospect, you can trace the steps to hyperinflation, but some of the reasons remain cloudy. Germany abandoned the gold backing of its currency in 1914. The war was expected to be short, so it was financed by government borrowing, not by savings and taxation. In Germany prices doubled between 1914 and 1919.

After four disastrous years Germany had lost the war. Under the Treaty of Versailles it was forced to make a reparations payment in gold-backed Marks, and it was due to lose part of the production of the Ruhr and of the province of Upper Silesia. The Weimar Republic was politically fragile.

But the bourgeois habits were very strong. Ordinary citizens worked at their jobs, sent their children to school and worried about their grades, maneuvered for promotions and rejoiced when they got them, and generally expected things to get better. But the prices that had doubled from 1914 to 1919 doubled again during just five months in 1922. Milk went from 7 Marks per liter to 16; beer from 5.6 to 18. There were complaints about the high cost of living. Professors and civil servants complained of getting squeezed. Factory workers pressed for wage increases. An underground economy developed, aided by a desire to beat the tax collector.

On June 24, 1922, right-wing fanatics assassinated Walter Rathenau, the moderate, able foreign minister. Rathenau was a charismatic figure, and the idea that a popular, wealthy, and glamorous government minister could be shot in a law-abiding society shattered the faith of the Germans, who wanted to believe that things were going to be all right. Rathenau's state funeral was a national trauma. The nervous citizens of the Ruhr were already getting their money out of the currency and into real goods -- diamonds, works of art, safe real estate. Now ordinary Germans began to get out of Marks and into real goods.

Pianos, wrote the British historian Adam Fergusson, were bought even by unmusical families. Sellers held back because the Mark was worth less every day. As prices went up, the amounts of currency demanded were greater, and the German Central Bank responded to the demands. Yet the ruling authorities did not see anything wrong. A leading financial newspaper said that the amounts of money in circulation were not excessively high. Dr. Rudolf Havenstein, the president of the Reichsbank (equivalent to the Federal Reserve) told an economics professor that he needed a new suit but wasn't going to buy one until prices came down.

Why did the German government not act to halt the inflation? It was a shaky, fragile government, especially after the assassination. The vengeful French sent their army into the Ruhr to enforce their demands for reparations, and the Germans were powerless to resist. More than inflation, the Germans feared unemployment. In 1919 Communists had tried to take over, and severe unemployment might give the Communists another chance. The great German industrial combines -- Krupp, Thyssen, Farben, Stinnes -- condoned the inflation and survived it well. A cheaper Mark, they reasoned, would make German goods cheap and easy to export, and they needed the export earnings to buy raw materials abroad. Inflation kept everyone working.

So the printing presses ran, and once they began to run, they were hard to stop. The price increases began to be dizzying. Menus in cafes could not be revised quickly enough. A student at Freiburg University ordered a cup of coffee at a cafe. The price on the menu was 5,000 Marks. He had two cups. When the bill came, it was for 14,000 Marks. "If you want to save money," he was told, "and you want two cups of coffee, you should order them both at the same time."

The presses of the Reichsbank could not keep up though they ran through the night. Individual cities and states began to issue their own money. Dr. Havenstein, the president of the Reichsbank, did not get his new suit. A factory worker described payday, which was every day at 11:00 a.m.: "At 11:00 in the morning a siren sounded, and everybody gathered in the factory forecourt, where a five-ton lorry was drawn up loaded brimful with paper money. The chief cashier and his assistants climbed up on top. They read out names and just threw out bundles of notes. As soon as you had caught one you made a dash for the nearest shop and bought just anything that was going." Teachers, paid at 10:00 a.m., brought their money to the playground, where relatives took the bundles and hurried off with them. Banks closed at 11:00 a.m.; the harried clerks went on strike.

The flight from currency that had begun with the buying of diamonds, gold, country houses, and antiques now extended to minor and almost useless items -- bric-a-brac, soap, hairpins. The law-abiding country crumbled into petty thievery. Copper pipes and brass armatures weren't safe. Gasoline was siphoned from cars. People bought things they didn't need and used them to barter -- a pair of shoes for a shirt, some crockery for coffee. Berlin had a "witches' Sabbath" atmosphere. Prostitutes of both sexes roamed the streets. Cocaine was the fashionable drug. In the cabarets the newly rich and their foreign friends could dance and spend money. Other reports noted that not all the young people had a bad time. Their parents had taught them to work and save, and that was clearly wrong, so they could spend money, enjoy themselves, and flout the old.

The publisher Leopold Ullstein wrote: "People just didn't understand what was happening. All the economic theory they had been taught didn't provide for the phenomenon. There was a feeling of utter dependence on anonymous powers -- almost as a primitive people believed in magic -- that somebody must be in the know, and that this small group of 'somebodies' must be a conspiracy."

When the 1,000-billion Mark note came out, few bothered to collect the change when they spent it. By November 1923, with one dollar equal to one trillion Marks, the breakdown was complete. The currency had lost meaning.

What happened immediately afterward is as fascinating as the Great Inflation itself. The tornado of the Mark inflation was succeeded by the "miracle of the Rentenmark." A new president took over the Reichsbank, Horace Greeley Hjalmar Schacht, who came by his first two names because of his father's admiration for an editor of the New York Tribune. The Rentenmark was not Schacht's idea, but he executed it, and as the Reichsbank president, he got the credit for it. For decades afterward he was able to maintain a reputation for financial wizardry. He became the architect of the financial prosperity brought by the Nazi party.

Obviously, though the currency was worthless, Germany was still a rich country -- with mines, farms, factories, forests. The backing for the Rentenmark was mortgages on the land and bonds on the factories, but that backing was a fiction; the factories and land couldn't be turned into cash or used abroad. Nine zeros were struck from the currency; that is, one Rentenmark was equal to one billion old Marks. The Germans wanted desperately to believe in the Rentenmark, and so they did. "I remember," said one Frau Barten of East Prussia, "the feeling of having just one Rentenmark to spend. I bought a small tin bread bin. Just to buy something that had a price tag for one Mark was so exciting."

All money is a matter of belief. Credit derives from Latin, credere, "to believe." Belief was there, the factories functioned, the farmers delivered their produce. The Central Bank kept the belief alive when it would not let even the government borrow further.

But although the country functioned again, the savings were never restored, nor were the values of hard work and decency that had accompanied the savings. There was a different temper in the country, a temper that Hitler would later exploit with diabolical talent. Thomas Mann wrote: "The market woman who without batting an eyelash demanded 100 million for an egg lost the capacity for surprise. And nothing that has happened since has been insane or cruel enough to surprise her."

With the currency went many of the lifetime plans of average citizens. It was the custom for the bride to bring some money to a marriage; many marriages were called off. Widows dependent on insurance found themselves destitute. People who had worked a lifetime found that their pensions would not buy one cup of coffee.

Pearl Buck, the American writer who became famous for her novels of China, was in Germany in 1923. She wrote later: "The cities were still there, the houses not yet bombed and in ruins, but the victims were millions of people. They had lost their fortunes, their savings; they were dazed and inflation-shocked and did not understand how it had happened to them and who the foe was who had defeated them. Yet they had lost their self-assurance, their feeling that they themselves could be the masters of their own lives if only they worked hard enough; and lost, too, were the old values of morals, of ethics, of decency."

The fledgling Nazi party, whose attempted coup had failed in 1923, won 32 seats legally in the next election. The right-wing Nationalist party won 106 seats, having promised 100 percent compensation to the victims of inflation and vengeance on the conspirators who had brought it.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/commandingheights/shared/minitext/ess_germanhyperinflation.html

Leo High School Family Mourns the Loss of Jim McKeever -Leo '54

From Leo Alumni President Rich Furlong:

Date: Thursday, February 4, 2010, 3:37 PM


It is with profound sorrow that I need to inform you of the death of Jim McKeever '54. Jim was as loyal of a Leo man as I ever had the pleasure of knowing. He is irreplaceable here on earrth but a big addition to the Leo Alumni Association in heaven. Jim was a great Leo Man, a wonderful friend, a most loyal White Sox fan (for which I have forgiven him) and a wonderful family man. He will be missed.

The wake will be at Blake Lamb Funeral Home at 103rd and Cicero on Monday at 2-9 p.m. For as many of you for which it will be convenient I would like to meet in the lobby at 7 p.m. and do an alumni walk thru. There will be a funeral mass on Tuesday morning at 10 a.m. at Queen of Martyrs 103rd and Central Park ave.

Rich

Way to Go, Brownie! Mark Brown's Screwed Pooch, or the Scott Lee Cohen Saga

I'm Mark Brown - Seen Me?

Mark Brown. What can be said? Mark Brown is a Progressive, Cop Hating true believer Olympian Look-Down The Schnozola At the Helots Scribbler!

It seems that Scott Lee Cohen gave Mark Brown an exclusive peek into his arrest jacket, but Newshound Brown knows better!

The problem for Cohen was that he made his announcement to me, and I wasn't taking him very seriously.That's why I told Cohen at the time that nobody even knew who he was, let alone cared enough to want to read about his dirty laundry, and I didn't see the need to go into it. ( emphasis my own)

I was only writing about him because of Cohen's line of work: pawnbroker. I'd never heard of a pawnbroker trying to break into politics, let alone aspiring to being a heartbeat from the governor's office.

But Cohen insisted he thought it was important to make the incident public right from the start, because he didn't want it to come up later and look like he was hiding something, a la Blair Hull or Jack Ryan.

. . . Gosh, yeah, Mark! After all that EXHAUSTIVE research you did on Bill Ayers /his odious Old Lady and Tony Resko and Crazy Uncle Jeremiah Wright and all those loose ends you tied up! Shockingly busy, have you been Brownie?

How was I to know way back then that the Democratic voters of Illinois would be so dumb as to elect him, brainwashed by millions of dollars in advertising about his job fairs?

Ask?

If a policy paper is not written by some think-tank mope, or he is getting political feed and 'who-to-hate' memos from drips like Rep. Mike Quigley, or Police Abuse tips from slugs like G. Flint Taylor, Jon Loevy and other bottom feeders, Mark Brown does not have much to write . . .or wrong.

The problem is that Cohen has no business being lieutenant governor, not to mention governor, which will only become more obvious in the days ahead.

Don't blame me. I didn't vote for him.

How's that again, Cupcake?

The problem is that Cohen has no business being lieutenant governor, not to mention governor, which will only become more obvious in the days ahead.

Don't blame me. I didn't vote for him.

Way to go Brownie . . .Jerk. ( emphasis my own)

" Scott Lee Cohen! Twister's A Comin'! Get Out That Trylar, Scott Lee!!" Lt. Governor Nominee Scott Lee Cohen - Illinois Jewish Redneck?

Scott Lee Cohen is endorsed by Planned Parenthood!
Dang, Scott Lee! That's some kind of hard copy coming out on your Hooker Dust-up and other venial sins - Mercy Sakes Alive.

You got the handle, there Son! Could you be Illinois's Jewish Redneck Demographic?


Click my post title for the link to Jewish Redneck! Kink Friedman and the Texas Jewboys or Dave Tarras? YEEEEEEEEEEE Haaaaaaawwwwwwwwwww!


Jewish Redneck Jokes
You Might be a Jewish Redneck if:

- You think that "KKK" means really really Kosher
- You have a gun rack in your Sukkah
- The only area on your lawn that is mowed is where you burned your Chametz
- You have ever fired a gun to the sound of Haman's name
- You know what Barach to say when you see a UFO
- You know which brand of grit is Kosher
- You think that a hora is a high priced call girl
- You wear cowboy boots to shul
- Your favorite Passover snack is spam on a sandwhich
- You don't ride on Shabbat because your car is up on blocks
- Your favorite beverage is a combination of Manischewitz and Mountain Dew, also called "Mountain Jew"
- You're disappointed when your son tells you he wants to be a doctor or a lawyer, and not a NASCAR driver
- You think Dolly Parton should have the lead role in Yentl
- You try to catch catfish with Matza Balls
- Gefitle fish is the most solid thing you can eat with your tooth
- Your yard has car parts lying around to Volvo's, BMW's, and Camry's
- Making your first deer is part of your Bar Mitzva's right of passage
- You use a fiddle and a banjo to play Hava Nagila
- You know that Santa Clause and the Elves must be Jewish. Who else would work on Christmas Eve?
- Your Seder plate has a picture of Elvis on it.
- You open the door for Elijah at Passover and have to chase away possums

Reform and Flying Lobsters

"A man that would expect to train lobsters to fly in a year is called a lunatic; but a man that thinks men can be turned into angels by an election is a reformer & remains at large." Mr. Dooley ( Finley Peter Dunne)

Reformation. Lovely word. It calls to mind the Council Trent in reaction to the Protestant wind that swept Europe and spilt Christianity right down its Middle Class.

Catholics got thumped by the Jesuits and the Jansenists and once they honed their skills lit up the Huguenots

The folks who did away with candles and smells and bells in worship produced zealots like Zwingli and Calvin who begat Oliver Cromwell, who begat America's Father of Reform Cotton Mather - the great grand daddy of Progressivism!

Old Cotton didn't cotton to uppity females, wild West Indian negresses, or Papist sluts and pronounced them witches:

Some were executed* and some died in prison. This Enthusiasm that begat Abolitionism, Suffragism, Prohibitionism and Abortionism coupled with good old Yankee Nativism in the Reform Fever that is rooted in American journalism.

The breathlessly moralizing earnestness that inks onto the pulp of our papers throughout every election cycle is cute: Cop bashing, political witch hunts that help ambitious prosecutors and hypocritical judges who do not feel that another judge gave a heavy enough sentence to a prominent politician, abortion parsing, listing the legitimate incomes of political people or tradesmen as if they were ill-gotten-gains are the media methods of Reform.


As Old Dooley said about Reforming Ink-Slingers -

"Th newspaper does ivrything f'r us. It runs th' polis foorce an' th' banks, commands th' milishy, controls th' ligislachure, baptizes th' young, marries th' foolish, comforts th' afflicted, afflicts th' comfortable, buries th' dead an' roasts thim aftherward".

Wow, and he never used the word snark.

Reform is refuge of the hypocrite, the hack, the really dumb person, the fired lightweight, and usually the Marxist.

God save us from Reform. Oh, and . . . keep reading the newspapers while you can.
















*The Dead
Nineteen accused witches were hanged on Gallows Hill in 1692:

June 10
Bridget Bishop
July 19
Rebecca Nurse
Sarah Good
Susannah Martin
Elizabeth Howe
Sarah Wildes
August 19
George Burroughs
Martha Carrier
John Willard
George Jacobs, Sr.
John Proctor
September 22
Martha Corey
Mary Eastey
Ann Pudeator
Alice Parker
Mary Parker
Wilmott Redd
Margaret Scott
Samuel Wardwell

One accused witch (or wizard, as male witches were often called) was pressed to death on September 19 when he failed to plead guilty or not guilty:

Giles Corey

Other accused witches died in prison

News Media Love Kiddie Diddler Roman Polanski and Hate Mel Gibson?

"I acted like a person completely out of control when I was arrested and said things that I do not believe to be true and which are despicable. I am deeply ashamed of everything I said"
Mel Gibson to Dean Richards of WGN

"A$$hole." -(sotto voce) to Dean Richards of WGN

Mel Gibson is a Catholic. The Press hate him. The camera and the fans love him, Sweethearts.

He seems like a good guy.


Dean Richards of WGN Radio and TV and Medill check casher tried to gotcha Mel about a drunk-driving, booze fueled Jew -baiting rant years ago. Is he an anti-Semite? Hell I don't know.

Shucks, Jeremiah Wright, Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson and Louis Farrakhan are all getting quality press after some solid Hymie Yarmulke Yanking and threats of Genocide.

Jews and Catholics seem to get along here in Chicago. I get my Mick up whenever Jews are targeted.

One of my happiest memories was watching my cousin jump out of the car I was driving and cold-cock a Frank Collin American Nazi at 63rd and Kedzie in 1974.

Mel Gibson is a talented guy, a deeply flawed guy, a pretty sincere guy and he is a Catholic. Jim Caveziel a very talented guy and guy who seems to be pretty squared away is also a Catholic and he gets pretty dim treatment from the American Media that soft-soaps race baiters, lesbian psychotics, Abortion Happy harpies, dope snorting comics, and child molesters who mouth Progressive platitudes.

Mel Gibson seems like a good guy. No less a Jewish talent than Jackie Mason thinks so as well.

Dean Richards? Well, old disc jockeys need a shtick, too I suppose.

Leo Man, Sox Fan, Grand Catholic Gentleman Jim McKeever ( Leo '54) Mend Quickly

Photo by John Konstantaras/Chicago News Cooperative

Few people on earth have more wit, heart and happiness than Mr. James McKeever. He should be happy - he's married to Peggy.

Jim McKeever has been the leading voice of the Leo High School Fight Song for as long as I can rememeber - with a nod to the estimable pipes of Mr. Gene Earner of course.

Jim McKeever helped Leo Men the late E. Michael Kelly and Illinois Supreme Court Justice Thomas Fitzgerald put White Sox great Nelson Fox in the Baseball Hall of Fame and spoearhead the efforts to the same for Billy Pierce.

Jim McKeever, Leo 1954, is Veteran and civic leader. He has helped White Sox Owner Jerry Reinsdorf indentify needy families and causes for charitable support, like the Kevin Dowling Scholarship Program.

Jim McKeever has attended nearly every White Sox Opening Day and is present at every hospital sick bed, wake, family benefit and Leo Meeting within his abilities to make an appearance.

Leo Alumni President Rich Furlong just informed me that Jim McKeever had a bad fall and that he is in Holy Cross Hospital in recovery. The thoughts and prayers and of the Hickey Family merge with the massive Leo High School Family for Jim McKeever's speedy return to his active and important life.


Jim McKeever, Séamas Mac Íomhair Abu!, Facta Non Verba!, Eamus O Tibliala!Alba*!

* Jim McKeever, Up and At 'Em! - Deeds Not Words! Let's Go White Sox!

Preckwinkle Campaign Calling!

“We take the support we can from every corner,” says Preckwinkle’s campaign manager Scott Cisek.

Toni Robo Calling - Hi, 19th Ward Resident, as you know . . .Toni Preckwinkle is brainy and really fun. A University of Chicago Policy Wonk who loves a great Abortion! . . .

Toni Robo is my name. I am not. I am as male as you are, Sir. Probably more so. I was a Naval Reserve Ensign. I write children's books. . . .Listen. . . .

Yes, I am calling from a phonebooth in Hyde Park . . .we are allowed to have them. and no this is not a Robo call - Toni hates them! . . .What else? . . .

Toni Hates Mayor Daley . . .No, wait aminute . . .Toni Preckwinkle Loves Mayor Daley. Yes. . . .Yes. . . .

Yes, It is a shoulder bag and not a purse. How can you know that? These? Where are you? Yes, I know that I am calling you , Sir! These are my own personal care products - Please, let me continue. . . .

. . . Cook County Needs Toni Preckwinkle . . .to take Todd Stoger's Seat and beat back the white Irish Power structure Terry O'Brien. No, I said Toni Loves Mayor Daley! . . .Well, she Hates that He is Irish of course, but he can't help that, but O'Brien can. . . .No, I am not trying to pick a fight with your daughters . . .Sir, let me finish. . . .

Toni and Zeus need your vote on February Second - Vote for Toni Preckwinkle for Cook County Assessor!
(Voice Over strirring Election Muzak)
I'm Toni Preckwinkle and I approve of my Candidacy.

En Iglese Press Dos. En Espanole . . .got czy nie macie

But is Alderman Toni Preckwinkle getting his endorsement by proxy?

A Preckwinkle fundraiser next week will be co-hosted by Marilyn Katz, a heavyweight Daley backer whose public relations firms handles city business.
. . .


The mayor has appeared at at least one of Preckwinkle’s fundraisers, too.

The Jan. 11 fundraiser, held at the home of Democratic high-rollers Lew and Susan Manilow, is co-hosted by a list of donors who figured prominently in Barack Obama's 2008 campaign.

One of them is Micheal Bauer, whose involvement in the Obama campaign stirred controversy in 2007. Bauer was accused of plundering a family trust fund of $300,000, and barred from practicing law for nine months, according to published reports.

Bauer said the money went to prop up a failing business, though records show at the same time he donated $300,000 to local and national political candidates.

“It’s a family dispute, and I don’t think it’s anybody’s business,” Bauer told the Sun-Times in 2007. “My brother consented to me taking the money out ... I had a business at the time that was losing a lot of money. It was to try to keep the business afloat until I could sell it.”

Angry Illinois Voters? Name One. Really.

Absolutely the Best Side of Carol Marin! Fabulous!

I only know of one really angry voter and this guy lived in Griffith, Indiana. This guy lived along Broad Street, just east of Cline Ave. and a 9 Iron shot south of Ridge Avenue, regularly painted his adobe white garage with aquamarine green paint - "Crooked Bastards! Snake Politicians! Die You Elected Scum!" or "Scum Sucking Leeches! Politicians! Die!"


No doubt this gent did wonders for his neighbors' property values.

He was genuinely non-partisan, but the Town of Griffith generally ignored this rock-ribbed sweetheart's fulminations. Occasionally, a new slap of aquamarine would specifically indict some scallywag, but primarily this Angry Citizen painted with a very broad brush.

Politico.com and other dedicated pundits are trying kick up some sand and interest in the Illinois Primary as some kind of bell weather for the general elections,"Widespread voter anger and unrest are confronting the Illinois political establishment as the state hurtles toward its first-in-the-nation primaries Tuesday."

Mercy Sakes! Speaking of which, Marque Kirque gets the lion's share of attention as he is running against three Democratic candidates without a Chinaman's Chance of winning - Alexi Giannoulias, Cheryl Jackson, and Dave Hoffmann.

I like Alexi Giannoulias, but he is colaterally damaged by the frags from Blago and the Rezko-shrapnel still wizzing around President Obama. Hoffman has a voice that sounds like steam escaping from a spilt pipe and Cheryl Jackson is not related to the Rev. Jesse Jackson.

Carol Marin is a self-promoting Multi- Pay envelope News Icon and she shows her best side in the photo above from Politico.

Voter Anger? I work in the black community and live in a Close-Knit Ethnic ( Catholic) neighborhood. No anger. No spittle. No marches. No nothing.

People will vote their hearts and minds tomorrow and that makes political weasels wet their britches.

GOP Regulars - Dan Proft on the Issues

That about tells it.

Vote for Dan Proft - I voted for Pat Quinn in the Democratic Primary

I am a Democrat. I vote for my interests - Real Labor ( not SEIU Marxist PACs or ACORN friendly boondogglers), Anti-Abortion, School Choice for Reform, Lower Taxes - I would go for flat tax, Law and Order, Strong National Defense, genuine immigration reform.

The Democratic National Party is held captive by Progressives, Hollywood Arm-Chair Loudmouths, Academic Policy Frauds, and Abortionists. They have the money, Honey, and they have the Time.

Democratic voters are ensnared by the obligation that National Democratic operatives have made for local and State officials - if local folks want the Dough Ray Me, they must sing loudly for it.

I vote for my neighbors - Maureen Kelly for Metropolitan Water Reclamation District and therefore I draw a Democratic Ballot. My neighborhood is festooned with Hynes for Illinois Governor. Fair enough.

Dan Hynes is great guy, really terrific, couldn't be better.

I voted for Pat Quinn. Pat Quinn is a wonderful man. He is loyal and honest. He believes in the Easter Bunny, Progressives, Danny Davis, Planned Parenthood, Ralphie Martire, and that Thomson, Illinois is a great place for Gitmo Terrorists. I voted for Pat Quinn in the Illinois Democratic Primary. Parse that, Muriel.

I wanted to vote for Dan Proft, because I believe that he would be the best Governor Illinois could have had since Dick Ogilvie - who gave Illinois its first Income Tax and created the Illinois boost in social services - ironic ain't it? Different Times, Sally. Dan Walker, a Progressive Goo-goo phony to beat the band defeated Ogilvie and embarked on building the long serpentine Illinois Government give-away machine - indebted to tax salaried Labor ( Teachers/AFSME/SEIU), Abortionist Planned Parenthood, Eco-Fascists, Tax the Middle Class Policy Gurus like Ralphie Martire.

The Progressive Doctrinaires own Illinois, not just in-the-bag crooks in elected office representing both Parties.

Dan Proft is a tough, smart, moral and honest guy. Dan is almost as smart as Mike Madigan.


Dillard and McKenna? As if. Jim Ryan is a champion human being, but got in the race too late and has the media against him.

Dan Proft is the real deal. I had an obligation to vote for a very close friend and the primary rules trumped my desire to see Dan Proft become Illinois Governor.

I voted early. To those who might glance at my blog. Vote for Dan Proft. I hope to see Dan Proft become Illinois Governor - it worked in Massachusetts.




MEDIA ADVISORY:

Proft Campaign Schedule

Sunday, January 31, 2010

10:00 am — America’s Outdoor Show

Stephens Convention Center, Rosemont, IL


11:30 — Kane County GOP Chairman Brunch

Riverside Receptions, 35 N. River Lane, Geneva, IL


1:30 pm — Boone County GOP Lincoln Day Luncheon

Community Center, 111 W. 1st Street, Belvidere, IL

4:00 pm — Meet and Greet at Supporter’s House

Long Grove, IL


9:00 pm — 560 WIND-AM: Tony Peraica Show (In Studio)

25 NW Point Blvd., Elk Grove Village, IL 60007

Monday, February 1, 2010

7:30 am — 890 WLS-AM: Don Wade and Roma Show (In Studio)

190 N. State Street, Chicago, IL

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

7:30 am — Candidate Voting

Lake Point Tower, 505 N. Lake Shore Drive, Chicago, IL



6:00 pm — Election Night Celebration

Ditka’s, 100 E. Chestnut, Chicago, IL

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Gen. Tom Gerrity - Leo High School 1930: American Hero

Tom Gerrity after his escape from Bataan

Left to right:"THE LAST SLUG"
The 3rd Bomb Group had a club called "The Last Slug" located at 26 Aland Street, Charters Towers, Darwin Australia 1942.
Verandah: Rube Rubenstein, "Jim" Davies, James Smith and Tom Gerrity
Top step: Alex Salvatore, Scanlon, Zeke Summers
3rd step: Ron Hubbard, Oliver Doan
4th step: Harry Managan, Howie West, Frank Tally
5th step: Harry Galusha
6th step: Harry Rose, Bob Ruegg, "Pappy" Gunn, Bob Strickland
Bottom step: Leland Walker, Frank Timlin, Jim McAfee

In the winter of 1941 through the spring of 1942, Guam, Wake, and Midway Islands, the Singapore, Malaysia,Hong Kong, and the Philippines, and all shipping in between were targeted by Japan.

At Nichols Field in the PI, a 1930 graduate of Leo High School in Chicago, prepared to take off in an obsolete B-18 medium bomber. Lt. Tom Gerrity and most of the Far East Asian Air Force was caught on the ground. He and his crew chief were wounded and his plane destroyed.

Gerrity would then serve as Gen Wainwright's air liaison officer, fight as an infantryman, transfer to the six P-40's of the 24th Pursuit Group, contract malaria and dengue fevers, lose forty pounds, rebuild a shot up amphibious plane and escape to Australia when ordered out on April 8th, 1942.

Lt. Tom Gerrity would go on to fly almost fifty combat missions in a B-25, sinking 28 Japanese ships in the Bismark and Coral Seas. He would go on to become a four-star general in the Air Force.

He is a fit subject for students of history, as are the millions of average men who stood up to evil.

Thomas P. Gerrity helped develop the United States Air Force and was a key figure in America's Race for Space.

Please read Tom Gerrity's Phillipine War Diary - this is a treasure. The account preserved by the Linda Dow Family ( click my post title) is clear and compelling account of the heroism of Americans in a hopeless fight pages 119- 122). This is very compelling reading.

Thomas Patrick Gerrity American Manager. Born 8 December 1913. Died 24 February 1968. Head of Air Force ballistic missile programs 1960-1961.
Personal: Male. Born in Harlowton, Montana, USA.

Gerrity, son of a railroad boilermaker, grew up in Chicago, where his family moved before he was two. He attended the Armour Institute (later the Illinois Institute of Technology). He joined the Army as an aviation cadet in 1939. He was serving in the Philippines at the time of the Japanese invasion in December 1941, becoming commander of a bomber squadron in New Guinea after the American evacuation. In November 1942 he was assigned to the Army Air Forces Materiel Command at Wright Field, Dayton, Ohio, and worked as project officer on the B-25, B-26, B-29, B-32, B-35 and B-36 bombers. In January 1946 he was made Chief of the Bomber Branch in the Aircraft and Missile Section, and then later Chief of the entire Aircraft and Missile Section.

In March 1950 Gerrity commanded the 1lth Bombardment Group of the Strategic Air Command at Carswell Air Force Base, Texas. In March 1953 he went to the Pentagon, serving in senior staff posisions in procurement and production engineering. From August 1957 he commanded the Oklahoma City Air Materiel Area of the Air Materiel Command in August 1957 t Tinker Air Force Base, Oklahoma.

In July 1960 he was made commander of the Ballistic Missile Center of the Air Materiel Command at Los Angeles, California, reorganized as the Ballistic Systems Division in April 1961. During this period he oversaw the most intense phase of development and deployment of the Atlas, Titan, and Minuteman ICBM's.

In July 1962 General Gerrity was assigned to duties at the Pentagon, followed by a stint as the senior Air Force member, Military Staff Committee, United Nations. In August 1967 he became commander of the Air Force Logistics Command at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio.

New York Times Features Leo High School, The Great Bob Foster and the Leo Alumni!

Sports Prose Master Dan McGrath reports on the continued support of all black Leo Catholic School by white Catholic Alumni, because Bob Foster articulated the mission of the Lions.

Bob Foster, 69, made it his life’s mission to keep the school open. A former Leo football star whose bent-nose bluntness reflects a lifetime of line play, Foster was Leo’s football coach, principal and president for more than 40 years before stepping down for health reasons earlier this month. Leo was built in 1926 to serve boys from Chicago’s working-class South Side, Foster said, and that mission shouldn’t change just because the makeup of the neighborhood changed from Irish, Italian and Polish immigrants to blacks.

Foster had a small group of deep-pocketed alumni he could call on for help with big-ticket expenses like a new furnace, but the smaller donations he coaxed from the middle-class graduates were the school’s real economic engine. The policemen, firefighters, teachers and tradesmen supported Leo even after they stopped sending their sons. Leo endures as an inner-city symbol of educational opportunity, a haven in a troubled area plagued by gang violence.

Leo Roars!

Tonight in Post Dental America - I almost forgot for an hour or so , that Larry needed to Floss

http://superdadspeaks.blogspot.com/

He has periodontal twelves* where other people have fours and and at worst nines, Larry is my pal.

We talk for hours and I almost never notice that his gums** have receded badly in the last few years.

Larry's black and I am white - well sort of - Irish Catholic. We went to Loyola University in the 1970's and while I drank beer and smoked Luckies and later Marlboros - Larry ate taffy and caramels constantly.

We kept in touch, which is more than I can say about Larry and his dentist.

In an age when most dentally challenged persons get bridges and implants, Larry goes Natural.

Larry is my friend and I wish that he could have been President. He and I agree on Congress and on most other things.

People should not hide behind the color and number of teeth in person's head.

*

Dental charting is part of both initial and periodic dental examinations, and is included in the cost of care. Exams are normally covered by dental insurance.

Charting begins with tooth naming and numbering. The maxillary, or upper arch, and the mandibular, or lower arch, each contain 16 teeth in a full adult dentition. Teeth are paired right and left by size, shape, and function. Beginning at the midline, each arch includes two central incisors side by side. Continuing outward to right and left are pairs of lateral incisors, canines (cuspids), first premolars (first bicuspids), second premolars (second cuspids), first molars, second molars, and third molars (wisdom teeth).

In a primary, or deciduous, dentition there are no premolars or third molars. From the midline, pairs are central incisors, lateral incisors, canines, first molars, and second molars. As the adult dentition erupts, first and second primary molars are replaced by adult premolars. Adult molars erupt behind the primary molars in space created by the lengthening maxilla and mandible.

The widely used universal system, adopted in 1974, assigns the permanent teeth numbers from 1 to 32. Primary teeth are assigned letters from a to t, regardless of their position in the mouth. In the permanent dentition, 1 is the third molar of the maxillary (upper jaw) right quadrant. Numbering continues sequentially around the upper arch to 16, the third molar of the maxillary left quadrant. Number 17 is the third molar of the mandibular (lower jaw) left quadrant, and numbering again continues sequentially around the lower arch to 32, the third molar of the mandibular right quadrant. Teeth may drift due to factors including other missing teeth, malocclusion, malpositioning, or congenital abnormalities.. . .
•Case Type I: Gingivitis is present when inflammation is apparent and the gingiva is characterized by changes in color, form, position and appearance. Bleeding and/or exudate may be present.
•Case Type II: Slight periodontitis is present when inflammation has progressed from the gingiva to deeper periodontal structures and bone, with slight bone loss. Probing depths are 3–4 mm, and there is some loss of connective tissue attachment.
•Case Type III: Moderate periodontitis is a more advanced stage of Slight Periodontitis, with increased destruction and tooth mobility. There may be furcation involvement in multirooted teeth.
•Case Type IV: Advanced periodontitis involves major loss of bone support and increased tooth mobility and furcation involvement.
•Case Type V: Refractory progressive periodontitis is diagnosed when there is rapid bone and attachment loss or slow, but continuous, loss. Normal therapy is resisted, and there is gingival inflammation and continued pocket formation.

**"For his idiotic racist comment last night, will Chris Matthews be flogged and pilloried like Imus was?" tweeted "Shoehead."

"When I 1st heard what Chris Matthews said I thought maybe Pres Obama just looked extremely light-skinned 4 some reason," tweeted "QueenMelmendi."

Brent Bozell, founder and president of the Media Research Center, a conservative media watchdog organization, said the remarks reveal a prejudice on Matthews' part.

"What Chris Matthews is saying is that he doesn't believe African-Americans are capable of giving speeches like that."

President Jimmy Obama Insults the Constitution " With all due deference."

Our adjunct Constitutional Law Lecturer from University of Chicago elected President in 2008 has become Jimmy Carter. Who is scripting our President?

Last week the Supreme Court of United States jolted America out of an anesthetized coma, induced by frauds and political rhetoric for more than one hundred years, and validated Free Speech.

Last night, President Jimmy Obama must have had MSNBC or Mother Jones apparatchiks write his State of the Union speech.

Obama had taken the unusual step of scolding the high court in his State of the Union address Wednesday. "With all due deference to the separation of powers," he began, the court last week "reversed a century of law that I believe will open the floodgates for special interests - including foreign corporations - to spend without limit in our elections."

Alito made a dismissive face, shook his head repeatedly and appeared to mouth the words "not true" or possibly "simply not true."

Last night with his numbers and approval spinning down, President Obama gratuitously insulted not only the Supreme Court but the Constitution itself. Does he not read what is put in front of him? President Obama has tanked. He has failed.

Scripted characters like Rep. Weiner of New York can make asses of themselves; the President of the United States can not.

He did.

Illinois Needs to get Wise to Gentry Liberalism - Avoid the California Rush to Ruin

Back in 2007 Joel Kotkin and Fred Siegel coined the phrase Gentry Liberalism. The Main Stream Media has avoided this term; this condition that afflicts America.

Gentry Liberalism -Today's ascendant liberalism has a much different agenda. Call it "gentry liberalism." It's not driven by the lunch-pail concerns of those workers struggling to make it in an increasingly high-tech, information-based, outsourcing U.S. economy -- though it does pay lip service to them.

Rather, gentry liberalism reflects the interests and values of the affluent winners in the era of globalization and the beneficiaries of the "financialization" of the economy. Its strongholds are the tony neighborhoods and luxurious suburbs in and around New York, Washington, Boston, San Francisco and West Los Angeles.

These are folks who have nothing to lose - jobs, income, health. Needless to say they feel great - about themselves, but the rest of us? Not so hot. We tend to be fatter, have many more children, remain married, cling to religion
, work and pay taxes. We are Helots and they are Progressive Olympians - not the athletes the folks on that big hill in Greece.

Gentry Liberalism loves Advocacy Politics ( Gay, Black, Hispanic ( whatever the Hell that is), Abortion Happy/Women & etc.) and Marxist PACS SEIU/ACORN & etc. You know - like every time Ralph Martire opens his yap? More taxes.

Gentry Liberalism means Taxes for Helots.

Illinois needs to get wise to Gentry Liberalism - Progressive Political Olympians.

We can start by getting wise to Kotkin and Seigel. Click my post title.

Obama's problems stem primarily from gentry liberalism's class contradictions. Focused on ultra-affluent greens, the media, Wall Street and the public sector, gentry liberalism generally gives short shrift to upward mobility, the basic aspiration of the middle class.

Scott Brown's shocking victory in Massachusetts--like earlier GOP triumphs in Virginia and New Jersey--can be explained best by class. Analysis by demographer Wendell Cox, among others, shows that Brown won his margin in largely middle- and working-class suburbs, where many backed Obama in 2008. He lost by almost 2-to-1 among poor voters and also among those earning over $85,000 a year. He also won a slight margin among union members--remarkable given the lockstep support of their organizations for Brown's Democratic opponent, Martha Coakley.

Geography played a role, of course, but class proved the divider. Coakley did well in the wealthiest suburbs largely north and northwest of Boston. But Brown's edge in the more middle- and working-class suburbs proved insurmountable.

Terry O'Brien: Cook County's Only Tax-cutter and Toni Preckwinkle: Stroger Without the Laughs

Jim Bowman, legendary Chicago Religion writer and newsman cuts through the Chicago Tribune's idiotic slight of Terry O'Brien for Cook County Board President.

Jim Bowman and most voters know that Terry O'Brien has been and continues to be the only Cook County Tax-Saver.

Toni Preckwinkle is the genius who slammed the late Saul Bellow ( Nobel Prize for Literature) as a racist. It's funny, I met two young women who were students of the humorless and not-all-that-bright Preckwinkle at Visitation High School who transfered to another school as the direct result of Ms. Preckwinkle's race-baiting classes. Could be. Hearsay, I suppose. I tend to agree with the two women, having met and listened to Alderman Preckwinkle on many occasions. Not a huge deal in the great scheme of things.

What is a huge deal is that Alderman Preckwinkle is a tax gouger and that is public record. Jim Bowman goes right at the issue:

"Has Trib been fooling us all this time?
O’Brien, polling behind Madame P. the alderwoman, who has run nothing bigger than a ward office in her whole life, has run an ad exposing her tax-raising history. In her book it’s a “desperate attack” of the sort “some candidates make when they’re behind a lot.”
Not that O’B has it wrong. She denies it not, namely her votes “to raise her salary in 1995, 1998, 2002 and 2006 (from $55,000 to $98,000, cumulatively) . . . to create a real estate transfer tax (1992), boost the sales tax on beer and wine (1993), raise the overall sales tax (2004) and raise the real-estate transfer tax (2008).”
Unable to deny it, she mounts a desperate counter-attack of the sort some candidates make when they are caught doing what voters most resent in the record of the despised and last-in-the-polls incumbent (Stroger).
Why wouldn’t Chi Trib have endorsed O’Brien, who has said from the start of his campaign that he would get rid of the penny increase right away, while Preckwinkle said not right away, she would have to think about it." (Click my post title and read more for Jim Bowman).

Why yes, yes they have, Brother Bowman.

Talk Leo! Talk Chicago! Talk Catholic League Sports - Call in to "Skinny and Houli" Avenue 950 AM Radio Tonight!

Pop Schumacher - " I think Hickey went to Little Flower High School. What's that mope know about Leo High School?For Crissakes."

Ma Schumacher - " You. You got thrown out of Leo your first day there; so what's it to you anyway? Hickey seems a nice boy- a bit slow, but nice. Lord save us! I married a mean Dutchman from Roseland, much good it did me."

Buck Schumacher - " Dad, Houli was a football great at Mount Carmel in the 1960's wasn't he?"

Pop Schumacher - "Come on, Son, Houli couldn't carry Leo's Brian Tansey's jock-strap."

Ma Schumacher -" Listen to him. You we're a Hall snitch at Fenger for four years and robbed freight cars in Hegewisch for mad money- I dated Leo Men and they were at least gentlemen."

Pop Schumacher - "Yeah, but you married me."

Maeve Schumacher- "Stop fighting! We can't hear - I think Skinny Sheahan is dreamy."

Mert Schumacher -" I do too, Let's call in and ask Skinny to sing "Nice 'N Easy!"

Buck Schumacher - "He's got pipes."

Chatty Bill Schumacher - "Uh huh."

Pop Schumacher - "Pipe down, the lot of you. I can't hear my thoughts make change. Now, Quiet!"




Avenue 950 AM Radio.
"Skinny and Houli Show" brings radio back to life with their distinctly Chicago Voices talking about the great people who make a postive difference in this great City and its suburbs.
Call in and join the fun. The "Skinny and Houli Show phone lines can be reached at 312-329-0950.

Waiting for Hickey on the "Skinny and Houli Show "- Wednesday January 27 from 6-8PM. Be There, Hickey Should be, If He Gets Started Out Now.

Wow , Live Radio to talk about Leo and the Leo Alumni! Now let's see - 514 Fairbanks Court , nope - a-dope! That's 541 N. Fairbanks Court 12th Floor .. .. Okay, I'm near North Pier Terminal . . .Dick's Last Resort! No, you may not! No stopping, got to get to Skinny and Houli's Show at Avenue 950. Tater Skins at Dick's Last Resort . . .no Press on! Skinny and Houli are counting on me . . .or at least expecting me. Don't get distracted, like you did during the Byrne Administration. That was something! If I can only remember, the name of that Fireman.

Meanwhile: At Avenue 950 AM -

Houli, - "Skinny, don't get up. Hickey must be on his way unless he got himself distracted again. He's talking about Leo so maybe he will be a liitle more focused. "

Skinny - "We should have sent a Limo - or a fat kid's Schwinn to make sure the goof get's here on time."

Houli - "What are you reading?"

Skinny - "Kant!"

Houli - "Hey, I was just asking!"

Skinny " Immanuel Kant - Jesus, Kritik der Urteilskraft They taught it at Quigley - I am sure it was required reading at Mount Carmel, as well."

Houli -"What was it, again?"

Skinny -"Kritik der Urteilskraft"

Houli - "I only took two years of Latin."

Skinny - " Indeed."

(Wildly pregnant pause - a score or two of seconds)



Houli - " Cocktails?"

Skinny - "Too close to Lent, I think not."


The Skinny & Houli Show, in partnership with Special Olympics Chicago, will feature guests who are making a positive impact on the lives of Chicagoans plus a "Special Olympics Spotlight" on an athlete, coach or volunteer for outstanding achievement.

Tune in to Avenue 950 and hear a show that will make you proud to live in Chicago.

Tune In!
This Wed. Night, 6-8PM. 950 AM
Call-in during the show, light up our phone lines: 312-329-0950.