Chicago Tribune's Seeker Manya Brachear - Tossing Gasoline on a Catholic Votive Candles - Thanks for your Help Seeker

Manya Brachear is the earnest imported Chicago Religion Talent for the "Not to Be Out-Stupided by the Chicago Sun Times" Chicago Tribune. With all of the remarkable Catholic, Jewish and Protestant local talent the Medill Nativists needed to go out of town to get someone to kick at people's faith. Manya is good'un.

Manya likes her religion ( 'spiritual but not really anything too confining')you know -really Richard Gere-ishly Bono-magnifico! Hip.

Kid, this is Chicago. Look around you. Every Block the big buildings with pointy towers and crosses -those are Churches - mostly Catholic. Lot's of Catholics in Chicago, Manya. There are parishes of every ethnic niche - hence the celebration of diversity is the work of our local nitwits. We enjoy Polish, Italian, Czech, Croatian, Ukranian as visitors usually. I go to Mass - on Sundays and Holy Days at Scared Heart an old French Mission with 1,2, 3rd Genration Catholic Americans. I also go to Latin Mass at St. John Cantius on Chicago & Sangamon for devotional giggles.

Polish Masses are rich and wonderful; Lithuanian the same; Italian you bet. Hit Father Gene Smith's Gaelic Mass at St. Barnabas. Attend a real old timey Tridentine Mass at St. John Cantius - pure dignity and majesty, but alas. No condoms will be distributed in keeping with the Planned Parenthood Celebration of National Condom Week.

Manya Brachear belongs to the American Culture that banishes Nativity Scenes and Celebrates the distribution of rubbers. True to her faith, doctrine and paycheck, Manya takes a story that celebrates the return of fallen faithful to the Catholic Church and saddles it with the woe and a litany of wrongs.

In order to return to the pews, Cindy Colman first must grapple with the Roman Catholic Church's failure to forgive, alienating her and her mother from the institution that generations of their family have called home.

"I think I'm still in the process," said Colman, 35 of Naperville. "I'm at that point where I'm coming back to learn more and understand the whole faith … It's true. At my core, I know that."

After fleeing an abusive husband more than 30 years ago, Colman's mother chose to raise her daughter Lutheran. Though she agreed to annul her previous marriage, the Catholic Church insisted on denying her the sacraments when her new husband declined to annul his marriage.

Colman has since agonized about the way her mother has been treated. Still, she yearns to reconcile with the church where she was baptized. She also longs to give her children the foundation she missed.

Agony goes with living. Life is tough. If it is too tough to go Home. Too bad.

Catholics welcome everyone. Every Sunday. No locks, or guards on the doors. I am sure Mrs. Colman regrets chatting with Manya. I always seem to have those regrets with some journalists. Manya is easy to spot however. Manya Brachear is a well scrubbed, wide-eyed unblinking dead-on agendanista. Her prose is the same and almost as flat and one -dimensional.

The Sun Times already listed the rant of some jerk from Riverside. Not to be outdown, Joe Medill's anti-Catholic Editorial Board pushed Manya on the Campaign Catholics Come Home .

Anyone with any brains at the Archdiocese would put Manya's calls on the long hold. You know the one -"Your Call is very important to us, Please wait on the line; your call will be answered in the order it was received; please hold on. . . ." - (bass ostinato)

In-a-gadda-da-vida, honey
Don't you know that I'm lovin' you
In-a-gadda-da-vida, baby
Don't you know that I'll always be true

Oh, won't you come with me
And take my hand
Oh, won't you come with me
And walk this land
Please take my hand

In-a-gadda-da-vida, honey
Don't you know that I'm lovin' you
In-a-gadda-da-vida, baby
Don't you know that I'll always be true

Oh, won't you come with me
And take my hand
Oh, won't you come with me
And walk this land
Please take my hand

Drum Solo -

{Lunch Break}

In-a-gadda-da-vida, honey
Don't you know that I'm lovin' you
In-a-gadda-da-vida, baby
Don't you know that I'll always be true

Oh, won't you come with me
And take my hand
Oh, won't you come with me
And walk this land
Please take my hand

Please wait your call . . .
Give the Tribune and Manya Brachear nothing. They have done plenty. Manya, try burning down a church. It would be so Progressively Activist!

Catalyst Leftist/Progress SEIU/We Got Jitu/How About You? - Tha Soviet Jugganot on Rev. Sen. Meeks by Coalitions Against School Reform!

Progress Illinois Illinois SEIU's Nepotism Workshop for Children of Radicals jumped on Rev./Sen. Meeks.

Senator James Meeks wants Chicago Public Schools to Reform - that means breaking up the power of soviets - LSCs - developed by 1960's radicals Billy Ayers, Linda Lenz, Marilyn Katz, and Mike Klonsky.

SEIU is lead by radical Marxists Andy Stern and Anna Burger. Here in Illinois, SEIU established Progress Illinois for radical Jaimie Kalven's son Josh. It is a clearing house/comic book for radical leftists and spoon feeds Rich Miller's Capital Fax Blog.

Catalyst was published and edited by Linda Lenz, but she took some heat during Obama Campaign for President due to his long association with Billy Ayers, whose career in education was padded by his Daddy Thomas Ayers who ran ComEd.

And you thought Old Timey Ward politics had Nepotism? Hold the phone Gertrude no one packs the job like a Commie!

Well, Catalyst, WBEZ and Progress Illinois are heaping the hate on Senator James Meeks and trotted ot Jitu Brown!

The Medill Radicals heaped praise on this fine gentleman-community activist-educational operative last year.

He was told he was a “giant among men.”

Jitu Brown takes that title very seriously.

“My understanding of it is that it’s the type of man I struggle to be,” he explained of his Swahili first name.

The 42-year-old education outreach coordinator for the Kenwood Oakland Community Organization in Chicago received that name over 10 years ago. He was being recognized at an assembly of social activists at Malcolm X College during Kwanzaa. He may have been Aaron before, but he has been Jitu ever since.

“Having a name and trying to be a community change agent, I’m always reflecting on how I carried out my business today,” he said. “I’m much better than I would have been.”

Jitu Brown, ‘giant’ in the community, emissary of change.

Influential Chicago rapper, Jitu tha Jugganot.

“It was hip-hop that was the bridge to bring me here,” he said from a table at the organization on East 43rd Street. “It was this place that helped me develop the perspective to see what music can do.”

What it does, he said, is “connect people that have historically been disconnected.” It gives a sense of place and purpose. It creates awareness.

“Most of all,” he said, “I want to see a wave of young people that really believe in controlling what they produce.”

Brown, an affable, goateed man of substantial stature, learned that at an early age. He and a high school buddy formed the rap group in their South Side neighborhood of Rosemoor that would later become known as Ten Tray. It was the 80s and a teenage Brown had been waffling about what direction he wanted to take his life. There was the Nation of Islam, he said. There was following Fred Hampton, Jr. There was the church.

And then there was rapping.

“We were getting politicized by this music that society expects to be just entertainment,” he said of his early influences, such as KRS-One and Public Enemy. “For me, I just wanted to do something.”

That something started out as rhyme battles in his high school cafeteria, then to competitions drawing larger crowds. In 1991 Ten Tray signed a deal with Smash Polygram Records, which Brown contends was one of the first major label deals coming out of Chicago.

For a short while, Ten Tray lived the dream. They had a video that was on a decent rotation on Yo! MTV Raps and BET, they sold nearly 90,000 units, and they established a solid fan base here in Chicago and on the West Coast.

Yet they barely made any money.

“Our attorney said it was a good deal for a first time artist,” he remembered. “Looking at it in retrospect, we were just a couple of young cats getting taken advantage of.”

Brown had become jaded by the industry but not the message. After Ten Tray’s first album came and went, he took some time off from music and decided to volunteer. A couple of chance encounters led him to the Kenwood Oakland Community Organization. He was with the outreach group for five years before signing on as an employee. Twelve years later, as the education organizer, he visits schools, meetings and events, teaching families to use their voices to have a say in how their children are educated.

His work has galvanized groups to prevent school closings, take control of underperforming curriculums and, as he puts it, beat the system.

“People who are trained to lose are saying, ‘we can do this,’” he said.

Music evolved into a vehicle for Brown to further his work. In the song “Stand Up” from his 2007 self-released album “Necessary Ingredients,” Brown blasts systemic problems in his community through his clever baritone bombast:

“Here’s a remedy /

Don’t run from the ‘hood /

Develop the institutions ‘til they doing some good.”

The difference is that Brown is not only saying, he’s doing.

“He’s really an inspiration to people in the neighborhood,” said Jay Travis, the executive director of the Kenwood Oakland Community Organization. “His message has always been one of empowerment and positivity.”

This is what Brown hopes the kids he encounters at work and through his youth music education program, Independents Day, understand – be different, be creative and own your craft.

“Since I met him, he was a positive brother,” said D.A. Smart, an emcee, friend and co-host of the Independents Day workshops. “He loves his people. He always wants to see them be better and do better.”

“He’s such a force in Chicago,” he added.

Brown, a force, a giant, a leader in the community, says he still struggles to live up to his name.

“I’m doing the right thing,” he said before settling into his office cubicle and gearing up for a day of work. “Plant the seeds, and they’ll sprout

Hokey Smokes! "Plant Seeds . . .Hmmmmmm . . . and they'll Sprout?" Now, that is some radical poetry! Honor Bright? They'll sprout. How about get rid of radical leftist nonsense and Schools will Reform with Vouchers and Real Choice? Jitu? Come on Big Guy! You know!

Well, Kids, Jitu don't like Rev. Meeks or his plan to kill LSCs. Next Jitu and WBEZ and Progress Illinois and Catalyst and WTTW will whip out the Uncle James Card! Click my post title Jaimie Kalven's boy Josh is really tuning up the Red Chorus!
They have JITU/Medill/WBEZ/WTTW/SEIU//Chicago Tribune Editorial Board/Sun Times Editorial Board and Every dim-bulb in Birkenstocks and Socks

And all we have are the facts that Chicago Public Schools stink on ice and suck millions of dollars out of the middle classes and kids do not learn and kids are dying by the score every couple of weeks!

Sun Times Attack Sen. Meeks, School Reform in Defense of Local Councils - local soviets wedging open the the doors of control.

A study by the Consortium on Chicago School Research found that the majority of LSCs appear to function well, noting that most do their work responsibly and draw in new resources for their schools.

Chicago Sun Times 02/12/10

Oh, by the way -

In 1991, (Mike) Klonsky co-founded the Small Schools Workshop in Chicago with Bill Ayers.

The Workshop was given at least $175,000 by Chicago’s Annenberg Challenge. This organisation was chaired by Barack Obama, who had been recruited for the job by a group which included Bill Ayers.

They wanted to build Public School soviets - you know grassroots*?

Uh Huh, it appears that the Sun Times is dead wrong again and consistently.

Supporters of this (LSCs) major reform argued that
creating Local School Councils (one of
several major changes brought about by
the Chicago School Reform Act) would
help catalyze substantial improvements in
the quality of Chicago public education

http://www.designsforchange.org/pdfs/LSC_rpt_final.pdfThat was in 1988. How'd that work out?

In 1995, the state legislature modified the
Reform Act to give Chicago’s mayor more
control over Chicago’s Central Board and
central administration as well as the power
to intervene in failing schools. National
publications like Newsweek have asserted
that Chicago’s mayor was given “near total
power over the schools” by the 1995
legislative changes.7 This assertion is
untrue. The basic powers of Chicago’s
Local School Councils have remained
intact to the present, and Chicago
remains the most decentralized big city
school system in the nation.

Uh Huh and that was 1995. How'd that work out? Reverend Meeks responded -

“If you want to go back to prior to 1995, then go back. I will never go back. This school system has changed and is getting better. I don’t care what anyone says.

One of the central changes made by the
1988 law was to establish an elected Local
School Council at each Chicago public

Our Local School Councils were the funded experiment by Bill "The Terrorsist" Ayers, Mike Klonsky and their confederates. Our President Barack Obama, then a young community actiovist lawyer seeking the Progressive imprimatur on his political aspirations served on the three 501(c)3 boards that funded the soviet/grassroots Local School Council Control apparatus that destroyed public schools in Chicago, backrupted Illinois taxpayers and pull thestrings on the Chicago Teachers Unions.


school (except for a few special schools).
Each LSC consists of:
1. Six parent representatives, elected by
parents and community residents.
2. Two community representatives, elected
by parents and community residents.
3. Two teachers, elected by the school staff.
4. The school’s principal.
5. A student elected by students (in the
high schools).
Unique among U.S. cities, Chicago’s LSCs
were given strong powers, including
powers in the following areas:

1. Principal Selection and Evaluation.
LSCs appoint the school’s principal
to a four-year contract and rehire or
replace the principal at the end of this
contract period. And they supervise and
evaluate the principal on an ongoing
basis.
2. School Improvement Planning.
LSCs set priorities for their school’s
improvement through helping develop
and approve an annual school improvement
plan. These plans must focus on
achieving student learning standards set
by the state.
3. School-Based Budget. LSCs help
develop and approve a school budget,
with major control over an average of
$500,000 per year in flexible funds from
the state.

Uh Huh, continuing and how'd that work out?

Here is where Local School Councils began:

The Community Renewal Society (CRS) describes itself as a “progressive, faith-based organization that works to eliminate race and class barriers.” Rev. Calvin S. Morris (left) is the executive director. CRS publishes both the Chicago Reporter and The Catalyst, in which the above announcement was run.

At the 48th Annual Eugene V. Debs – Norman Thomas – Michael Harrington Dinner, Morris was a Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) Chicago honoree (h/t Trevor Loudon):

Rev. Dr. Calvin Morris was the Executive Director of the Community Renewal Society, a civil rights organization with roots going back to the 19th Century in Chicago, and was a co-chair of Chicago Jobs with Justice, a Labor-Community organization active in supporting the organization of low-wage workers and in support of peace.

The Catalyst was founded by its current publisher, Linda Lenz.

According to her Alliance for Excellent Education profile:

Linda Lenz is the founder and publisher of Catalyst Chicago, a monthly news magazine that covers the progress, problems and politics of school reform in Chicago. She is also the publisher of the sister publication, Catalyst Cleveland. Catalyst is a publication of the Community Renewal Society, a nonprofit founded in 1882 that fights for racial and economic justice. …

Before launching Catalyst in 1990, Ms. Lenz was the education writer for the Chicago Sun-Times and before that an editorial writer for the Chicago Daily News. Following graduation from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, she was a political writer and columnist for the Pioneer Press, North Shore.

On August 30, 2008, former Chicago Sun-Times reporter Lenz dutifully penned an apologetic published in the Sun-Times on the Bill Ayers-Obama relationship. Lenz dismissed any connection between Ayers’ years with the Weather Underground and his more recent school reform enterprise, the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, and the shared relationship with Barack Obama, who was CAC’s first executive director. Lenz writes


In other words, Obama does, indeed, know Bill Ayers as more than just a guy from the neighborhood. So do a host of civic leaders in Chicago.

On his Small Talk blog, Mike Klonsky praised Lenz’s effort, commenting “Chicago Catalyst’s Linda Lenz … gives us the real story on Obama and Bill Ayers and the Chicago Annenberg Challenge.” It should also be noted Klonsky’s Small Schools Workshop is “named as a major Chicago Annenberg Challenge beneficiary,” as he and Bill Ayers “[picked] up a bundle — $175,000 –– for ’small school workshops.’”

By the way, Lenz is also a low dollar donor for Obama’s presidential campaign, contributing only $1000 in 2008.

More Obama/Ayers/Klonsky connections

Following Lenz’s August 2008 article, RBO wrote in a since-deleted article that the Obama/Ayers/Klonsky connections continue:

Chicago Catalyst’s largest funder is The Joyce Foundation, upon whose board Obama served for eight years, beginning in 1994, during which time, in 1995, Anne Hallett of the Cross City Campaign for Urban School Reform, William Ayers of the University of Illinois at Chicago, and Warren Chapman of the Joyce Foundation proposed the Chicago Annenberg Challenge.


Mike Klonsky is a former member of Lenz’s Catalyst Chicago editorial board, as is John Ayers, Bill Ayers’ brother.

Thomas G. Ayers (more here), Bill Ayers’ father, was a contributor to the Community Renewal Society, as are: Bettylu Saltzman, whom we learned recently, has been an Obama supporter since at least his run for the Illinois legislature; Obama bundler John Rogers (and an Exelon director), through his Ariel Mutual Fund (more here); Sidley Austin, the law firm which employed both Barack and Michelle Obama and Bill Ayers’ wife, Bernadine Dohrn; Mike and Susan Klonsky; and Trinity United Church of Christ, Obama’s church until recently tossed under the Obama bus. In fact, funders for the 2005-2006 cycle reads like a who’s who list of Obama campaign funders dating from his earliest fund-raising days.
In that same article, RBO included the following video from May 2006 in which Lenz acts as moderator at the National Louis University forum on No Child Left Behind, in which Bill Ayers participated.

The geniuses at the Sun Times site the 1997 finding of the University of Chicago data padding study, yet argue that LSCs must remain. They go further demanding that the Illinois Legislature SPEND MORE to support LSCs of a Trainwreck of a Public School System. Catalyst is the mouthpiece of the radical leftists who dreamed up the school soviets- like Progress Illinois is the SEIU organ. They collectively and cordially hated Paul Vallas who attempted to bring real reform. He knew a soviet operation when he saw one. Kay Lenz and her surrogates hounded Paul Vallas, or rather Mayor Daley, who is not a huge reader it seems to me. These Radicals hate Charter Schools. They hate Vouchers and now they are building up the hate for Sen./Rev. James Meeks. They hate cordially and enthusiastically - nothing personal.

The Legislature should dismiss this bill and focus on efforts that might actually improve the Chicago Public Schools.

The Legislature should and will support this bill and focus on Vouchers and will help Chicago Public Schools.

As long as the Media and the Chicago Sun Times in particular gets its sole nurishment from radical leftists and lawsuit addicted lawyers, it will continue its path to irrelvance.

Supporting Local School Councils and fighting Vouchers? Not so hot, but the Chicago Sun Times is Okay with it. Radical. Radically stupid.


*

Originally, the soviets were a grassroots effort to practice direct democracy. Russian Marxists made them a medium for organizing against the state, and between the February and October Revolutions, the Petrograd Soviet was a powerful force. The slogan "All power to the soviets!" (Vsya vlast sovyetam!; Вся власть советам!) was used by the Bolsheviks to oppose the Provisional Government led by Kerensky.

Based on the Bolshevik's view of the state, the word soviet extended its meaning to any supreme body that obtained the authority of a group of soviets. In this sense, soviets turned into a hierarchical structure - Communist government bodies at local level and republic level[note 1] were called "soviets", and at the top of the hierarchy, the Congress of Soviets was the nominal core of the Union government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), officially formed in December 1922. However, the Communist Party officially played the "leading role" in society by that time; the soviets were in practice subordinate to it.

Later, in the USSR, local governmental bodies were named "soviet" (sovet: "council") with the adjective indicating of the administrative level, customarily abbreviated : gorsovet (gorodskoy sovet: city council), raysovet/raisovet (rayonny sovet: raion council), selsovet: rural council, possovet (poselkovy sovet: settlement council).

The term also came to be used outside the Soviet Union by some Marxist-Leninist movements, for example, the Communist Party of China's efforts in the "Chinese Soviet Republic" immediately prior to the Long March.

The New York Times?MSNBC Global Extreme Weather Snow-Cone Machine!

And I thought that Global Warming was just a hoax - perpetuated by investors and companies poised to make a gazillion Euros on Green Technologies - Like GE which owns MSNBC-The Tool Shed.

The Tool Shed has a new "bore-a-hole- through-me" Clown under its Big Top -Dylan Ratigan. Nice Gen X Handle there - Dylan. Thomas, or Bob it is way cool. Globally Cool - like the Extreme Weather!

America's former VP and chameleon/Lon Chaney Al Gore ( he's a lard-ass; he's taken off the weight; he's a lard-ass with beard; the beard goes & etc) who preceded President Obama in icy Oslo, is getting a trimming from little kids and village nit-wits and defended by MSNBC Tools and village nit wits over the specious Global Warming ( now Global Extreme Weather) due to the tons of snow fallind on America.

Jeff Masters, a meteorologist who writes on the Weather Underground blog, said that the recent snows do not, by themselves, demonstrate anything about the long-term trajectory of the planet. Climate is, by definition, a measure of decades and centuries, not months or years.

But Dr. Masters also said that government and academic studies had consistently predicted an increasing frequency of just these kinds of record-setting storms, because warmer air carries more moisture.

“Of course,” he wrote on his blog Wednesday as new snows produced white-out conditions in much of the Eastern half of the country, “both climate-change contrarians and climate-change scientists agree that no single weather event can be blamed on climate change.

“However,” he continued, “one can ‘load the dice’ in favor of events that used to be rare — or unheard of — if the climate is changing to a new state.”

A federal government report issued last year, intended to be the authoritative statement of known climate trends in the United States, pointed to the likelihood of more frequent snowstorms in the Northeast and less frequent snow in the South and Southeast as a result of long-term temperature and precipitation patterns. The Climate Impacts report, from the multiagency United States Global Change Research Program, also projected more intense drought in the Southwest and more powerful Gulf Coast hurricanes because of warming.

In other words, if the government scientists are correct, look for more snow

.


Avec! Dylan Ratigan! Me and the kids are loading our Snow Cone Machine up with Kingsford Charcoal, Dylan!

With all this flawed logic floating around, MSNBC's Dylan Ratigan took it upon himself to knock down these unsubstantiated claims, specifically referring to a Virginia GOP political ad.

"Here's the problem," Ratigan said. "These 'Snowpocalypses' that have been going through D.C. and other weather events are precisely what climate scientists have been predicting, fearing, and anticipating because of global warming ... In fact you could argue these storms are not evidence of a lack of global warming, but evidence of global warming."

Dylan you genius! You mean to say that I was shoveling coal all week?????

Kevin Myers on Haiti, Free Speech and Our PC Addiction to BS

In Chapter Ten of Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises Jake and Bill joke on Irony and Pity - 'they are all the rage back home.'

Jake and Bill, two WWI Veteran Expatriate members of the generacion perdite wax comical on the hypocricies they left behind: "Oh, Give them Irony and Give them Pity. Oh, give them Irony. ... Just a little irony. Just a little pity . . ."

Kevin Myers of the Irish Independant, a true disciple of Flann O'Brien's cant free journalism, indicts the fashionably fatuous with regard to Haiti, PC, Free Speech and BS.

You can say we have free speech -- but we haven't. Example: I can say Americans are loud, boorish, lazy and insensitive morons, and that's fine. If I say the same about Nigerians, I am in jail.

Look, you cry, he's at it again! He starts off quite innocently on Haiti, and look where's finished up!

Quite. I agree. You are looking nervously at the door. I am making you uncomfortable. You wish to leave. I quite understand.

This guy, Kevin Myers, should be required high school/college prep reading in every language and taught cross-curricularly.

Illinois Lieutenant Governor - The Appendix in Illinois Body Politic - Feed it to the Pigs

Don Wade and Roma were straining to equate the only adult in Springfield, Speaker Mike Madigan, to Don Corleone.

Don Corleone was way too chatty to be even remotely considered as a parallel caricature.

Rather, Bricktop, the quietly intimidating London crime boss, and a redhead to boot, would be my choice cinema avatar.

Bricktop asks only rhetorical questions:

'Arold: I think you've let him get away with enough already, Guv'nor.

Brick Top: It'll get you in a lot of trouble thinking, 'Arold. If I were you, I wouldn't do too much of it.

Likewise: He never threatened - he prophesied:

Brick Top: You're on thin f#$king ice my pedigree chums, and I shall be under it when it breaks. Now, f#$k off.

Bricktop:Do you know what "nemesis" means? A righteous infliction of retribution manifested by an appropriate agent. Personified in this case by an 'orrible #$%^... me.

The character Bricktop rid himself and this vale of tears of cumbersome baggage, louts, cheats, transgressors and superfluous appendages -not unlike Scott Lee Cohen or the Office of Illinois Lieutenant Governor -by feeding them to pigs.

Speaker Madigan launched Scott Lee Cohen and intends to do the same to the Office of Lieutenant Governor as well.

Shortly after his primary victory, stories emerged about a 2005 arrest for holding a knife to his girlfriend's throat. Those charges were later dropped. But next came allegations of steroid abuse and other claims of physical violence from divorce records.

Although he initially balked at giving up the nomination, he acquiesced after talking to Madigan, the influential chairman of the Illinois Democratic Party, who said he warned Cohen the personal scrutiny he was undergoing would get worse.

Cohen was an unknown until he spent $2 million of his own money to secure the nomination. His candidacy has again prompted questions of whether the lieutenant governor's office is needed.

Daily Herald, or 'erald.

Just like the character Bricktop in the fine film Snatch -

"You're always gonna have problems lifting a body in one piece. Apparently the best thing to do is cut up a corpse into six pieces and pile it all together."

and then -"And when you got your six pieces, you gotta get rid of them, because it's no good leaving it in the deep freeze for your mum to discover, now is it? Then I hear the best thing to do is feed them to pigs. You got to starve the pigs for a few days, then the sight of a chopped-up body will look like curry to a pisshead. You gotta shave the heads of your victims, and pull the teeth out for the sake of the piggies' digestion. You could do this afterwards, of course, but you don't want to go sievin' through pig shit, now do you? They will go through bone like butter. You need at least sixteen pigs to finish the job in one sitting, so be wary of any man who keeps a pig farm. They will go through a body that weighs 200 pounds in about eight minutes. That means that a single pig can consume two pounds of uncooked flesh every minute. Hence the expression, "as greedy as a pig."

Speaker Madigan is no Vito Corleone.

Bricktop, sadly, meets his demise at the close of the film. Sadly, because he is truly the only character in the film with any smattering of genuine character, intelligence and forethought - he is a vicious 'orrible #$%^, but one must be in crime. Politics is no crime; there's no crime in politics!

There are criminals - Larry Bloom, Bob Creamer, Stuart Levine, Tony Rezko, Cliff Kelley, to name but a few - in political life. However, 'as greedy as a pig' should not stamp all in elected office. Speaker Mike Madigan is the only elected political leader in Illinois politics with any character, intelligence, and forethought.

Feed the Office of Lieutenant Governor to pigs Mr. Speaker!

Illinois Justice Anne Burke -Tonight's Guest on the Skinny and Houli Show!

The Chatter is Classic Chicago and the focus continues to be on Chicagoans Who Do for Others. Tonight, Skinny Sheahan and Mike Houlihan welcome the founder of the Chicago Special Olymnpics, Ald. Eddie Burke's Better Half - Illinois Supreme Court Justice Anne Burke. Mrs. Justice, I hope Houli leaves a smidgen of the Corned Beef from Lissie McNeill's Pub* - the damn sammiches where the size of Houli's noggin, but their January 27th Guest - a sweet-natured and sensitive guy - got bugger all. Watch you fingers, Mrs. Burke, if you get any grease or mustard on them Mein Host might think their Chicken Fingers.

Our Guest tonight is Special Olympics Founder and Supreme Court Justice Anne Burke!
She's done plenty of "good in 'da hood!"
Tune in this Wed. Night, 6-8PM. 950 AM
Call-in during the show, light up our phone lines-312-329-0950.

Skinny & Houli Show "a smash" on Avenue 950 WNTD AM

Avenue 950 Timeless Cool, a product of Sovereign City Radio Services, rolled out their much anticipated program, The Skinny & Houli Show, on Wednesday January 20th and "Voila", it's the hottest show on Chicago Radio.

James "Skinny" Sheahan, former Director of the Mayor's Office of Special Events and Mike "Houli" Houlihan, columnist for the Irish American News and former features columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times, introduce listeners to the quirky characters and stories that give our city its unique charm.

This two hour, freewheeling talk radio dialogue features two of Chicago's most irrepressible personalities, discussing what's happening in the city each week. The hosts dissect the news, politics, sports, and entertainment scene with their trademark wit and introduce a variety of community activists and neighborhood heroes.

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

* Lizzie McNeill's Irish Pub


Irish, Bar Food, Sandwiches - if you can get one.
400 N McClurge Ct, Chicago 60611
(At E North Water St)

Phone: (312) 467-1992

Mrs. Obama, MSNBC and Mr. Creosote Battle Obesity

President Obama is tanking. More Americans are hip to just how really pompous news pundits happen to be - ask Scott Lee Cohen. Sarah Palin is still popular. Iran is near Civil War. Progressive Agenda is everything it is cracked up to be - a Ponzi Scam. Global Warming has given us the greatest National snowstorm ever! Mrs. Obama needs help getting fat kids to lay off the pop, salty snacks, and Mickey D's that their folks sate them with and has MSNBC going Flat out for Her!

MSNBC went Flat-Out for Cap 'N Trade and Single Provider Health Care for President Obama. Mrs. Obama might have done better asking the League of Elk Hunters or Emu Ranchers to lend a hand. As it is . . .MSNBC with Tamron 'Too Smart' Hall and Dave 'Fountain-mouth' Schuester and the MSNBC Tool Shed regulars.


After shoveling metric tons of the new fallen snow, I cable surfed and caught an unlimited litany of guest Fat Pros on MSNBC taking the Tac Du Jour ( Tea Party Secessionism/Sarah Palin/Chris Matthews' Racial View-Finder) on obesity is akin to Terrorism and a dose of the crabs. MSNBC is dedicated to . . .? I'm not sure.

Just replay this scene of Monty Python's Meaning of Life and even the most dedicated lard-asses might opt for the waffer thin truffle.

Bon apetite!

Podcast -January 27th Skinny and Houli Show

Click my post title for my guest appearance on the Avenue 950 AM -Skinny and Houli Show - I got a face for Radio and a mind like Mortal Sin on Viagra.

Guests include Pat Hickey, Crusader for Leo High School and Israel Idonije of the Chicago Bears talking about his latest fundraising project.

Alexi! Beware of Geeks Bearing Gifts! Zorba Durbin is going to School You on Coming Clean?

Within this arena, which grows more stable night after day, generations work and love and hope and vanish. New generations tread on the corpses of their fathers, continue the work above the abyss and struggle to tame the dread mystery. How? By cultivating a single field, by kissing a woman, by studying a stone, an animal, an idea.

Nikos Kazantzakis from Zorba the Greek




"I believe he(Alexi) will be more forthcoming. There are some things we do know and should acknowledge. He (Alexi) has not been involved with his family bank for four years.The current portfolio of that bank, only 9 % of those loans reflect loans that were on the books when he(Alexi) left the bank 4 years ago, so the loan package out there now at that bank is substantially different. I think he should come forward. He's talked to me about it what happened there, he's very proud his father started this bank and built it up from nothing. The controversy there whether it reflects on Alexi himself personally or the banking practices remains to be seen, but I've encouraged him to answer all the questions." Senator Dithering Dick Durbin


Alexi, my south sider's response to the Senior Senator from Illinois, were I you, would be -

"Thanks So Mucking Fuch!"

Now! Click my Post Title and Dance! "Come on, my boy!"

Gents, Give Her a Box of Snaps This Valentine's Day

St. Valentine was a Christian Martyr *- don't be one yourself this St. Valentine's Days; Hell, the economy is killer and firing Fannie Mae's into Beautifica's Yap will only make dentists and Lady Plus Three Size Fashions happy. Snaps are economical as well as tastey.

As the eminent philosopher and Leo Motor Pool Chief Al Townsend tells me daily, when I ask, "What's Word, Al?"

"Save Your Money, Hickey!"


Gents, give your Sweetie a box or bag ( depending upon her capacities and general intake) of delicious and fat free SNAPS!

One wonderful Five Star Restaurant located in LaPorte, Indiana - The Heston Bar - offers a gigantic bowl of licorice SNAPS to one and sundry, while awaiting Prime Rib Dinner. These candy coated licorice rotini are the Cat's Nuts! The Offering of SNAPS. I find that most civilized and tastful tribute to their clientele.

http://www.judysbook.com/cities/laporte-in/Food-and-Dining/26658310/p1/t2/Heston_Bar_and_Grill.htm
Flowers wilt and Frango Mints be damned! Buy her a box a Snaps and take her out for a few scoops of ice cold draft beer! Now, you're talkin', Sport!


Snaps: The Original Classic Chewy Candy.

Snaps is the candy with the licorice center, pastel-colored candy coatings, and unique taste. Introduced in the 1930's, Snaps brand candy is the nostalgic confection with a legion of rabid fans. Many consumers remember Snaps bites in their 2-cent classic red boxes, especially eating them on the playgrounds of their youth.

Though attempts have been made to duplicate its proprietary formula, nothing matches the original. With its licorice center, unique flavor and colorful pastel candy coatings, the look and taste of Snaps candy has remained unchanged since the 1930's, making Snaps a true classic.


*

The first representation of Saint Valentine appeared in the Nuremberg Chronicle, (1493); alongside the woodcut portrait of Valentine the text states that he was a Roman priest martyred during the reign of Claudius II, known as Claudius Gothicus. He was arrested and imprisoned upon being caught marrying Christian couples and otherwise aiding Christians who were at the time being persecuted by Claudius in Rome. Helping Christians at this time was considered a crime. Claudius took a liking to this prisoner -- until Valentinus tried to convert the Emperor -- whereupon this priest was condemned to death. He was beaten with clubs and stoned; when that didn't finish him, he was beheaded outside the Flaminian Gate. Various dates are given for the martyrdom or martyrdoms: 269, 270, or 273.[8]

The official Roman Martyrology for February 14 mentions only one Saint Valentine.

The Three Amigos Got a Huge Kick Out of Scott Lee!

President Obama -"Boy am I glad we did not step in that One! Gotta go - PlannedParenthood Meeting and Three-on three game with Andy Stern and Anna Burger. Let me know if you hear anything."

RMD - " I gotta send Mark Brown a Box of Lobsters!"

Milorod - " I'm on WLS . . .then I'm taking my books ( The Governor) down to a broker on 48th & Ashland - State Jewelry and Loans I think it is. Mike Madigan said I'd get a fair shake from the guy. God I hate crooks and bosses. I need a nap."

Denzel Washington - American!

Two Leo Men Bob Hylard and Paul Somers passed along this great story about a great American - Denzel Washington:


Denzel Washington, and Brooks Army Medical Center

Don't know whether you heard about this but Denzel Washington and his family visited the troops at Brook Army Medical Center, in San Antonio, Texas (BAMC) the other day. This is where soldiers who have been evacuated from Germany come to be hospitalized in the United States , especially burn victims. There are some buildings there called Fisher Houses.

The Fisher House is a Hotel where soldiers' families can stay, for little or no charge, while their soldier is staying in the Hospital. BAMC has quite a few of these houses on base, but as you can imagine, they are almost filled most of the time.

While Denzel Washington was visiting BAMC, they gave him a tour of one of the Fisher Houses. He asked how much one of them would cost to build. He took his checkbook out and wrote a check for the full amount right there on the spot. The soldiers overseas were amazed to hear this story and want to get the word out to the American public, because it warmed their hearts to hear it.

My question is: why do celebritty goofballs Brad Pitt, Madonna, Tom Cruise and other Hollywood fluff-a -Nutters make front page news with their ridiculous antics and Denzel Washington's Patriotism doesn't even make page 3 in the Metro section of any newspaper except the Local newspaper in San Antonio ?

Calumet Fisheries: James Beard Award Winner and Pride of the South Side!

"The Joint Near the Bridge - over by 95th!" are the directions to a wonderful family owned fried fish operation that has delighted and nourished Helots from all over the south side and northwest Indiana. Calumet Fisheries is a Chicago icon - forget Carol Marin, get boat of smelts!

This terrific fast fish carry-out joint was the back-drop to one of my fictionalized tales of the south side " " Bubs Murtaugh's Shrimp Snack" - enjoyed by tens of people.

Calumet Fisheries own the prestigious James Beard Award for local restaurants.

Here is Chicago Sun times Mary Houlihan's stirring report!

Fans know that the carry-out only Calumet, owned since 1948 by the Kotlick and Toll families, serves some of the best seafood in Chicago. Among its best-sellers are salmon and shrimp, smoked in its natural wood smokehouse behind the store.

"We serve good, solid food that the working guy likes to eat," Kotlick said. "People always come back."

Located at 3259 E. 95th on the west bank of the Calumet River, Calumet has gotten notice before. Anthony Bourdain stopped by in 2008 when he was filming the Chicago segment of his Travel Channel show "No Reservations." That notoriety brought in new business from the North Side, Kotlick said.

"We're hoping this award will bring in more customers who haven't tried us before," Kotlick said.

Kotlick says he plans to attend the May 2 awards event. He hopes there's a red carpet to walk.

"We'll be playing with the big boys that night," Kotlick said, laughing. "If I could sit with a Rick Bayless or a Rachael Ray, well that would be a fun, interesting evening."

Chicago Sun Times


http://www.suntimes.com/lifestyles/food/2035016,CST-NWS-beard08.article

Governor Pat Quinn Will Win With the Likes of Him! Keep Scott Lee.

Governor Pat Quinn should keep the millstone Scott Lee Cohen. Do not allow this goof to shift your priorities or message.

1. Keep Scott Lee Cohen in the shadows all through the Campaign for Governor.

2. Hammer away at Kirk Dillard who seems to to be creeping up on Bill Brady and might somehow manage to be the GOP nominee - Bill Cellini's guy is great way to deflect notice of the wife abusing, knife wielding mope. If Brady squeaks in - go Helot Working Stiff Trades Union Regular Guy on Him! Do not get near the Purple SEIU goofs - look how that worked out for Blago. Come to Jesus, Moses, Mohammad and Christian Non-Sectarian with the Operating Engineers, the Electricians, the Pipe Fitters, Plumbers, Hoisters, and independent contractors. Tea Party the Hell out of the GOP!

3. Do not get gulled into a Third Party run - it will be a disaster. Senator Stevenson had a different historical context for doing so.

4. Promise to work to eliminate the office of Lt. Governor. Vow to lower taxes and that will create jobs

5. Work with Speaker Mike Madigan on the Campaign and when you win. Speaker Madigan can only help you turn things around. Only Media Loudmouths hate him.

6. Treat the Media Pundits as they would treat you - and have. Give them short shrift and a wide path on the sidewalk. Treat them as you would a panhandler wearing only jock-strap and snow-shoes. Give the person his/her dignity and a very hale and hearty "Thanks for Stopping!"

7. Come back out to the neighborhoods, small towns, and villages. Ditch the Policy Gurus and University phonies.

8. Give Senator Durbin photo opportunities with you but for God's sake never allow him to speak - for you or about anything. Sen. Dick Durbin is about as voter attractive as Scott Lee.

Voters like you Governor Quinn. I like and admire you - I think that many of your associations with the Progressives are down-right goofy, but you are honest, loyal and smart.

Go Grassroots with the Helots.

Brown Journalism - Run, Duck, Dodge! Mark Brown and Carol Marin and More!

Thank you Anne Leary - Backyard Conservative

The Lemmings are following Mark Brown right off the lowest heights of Chicago journalism - Ring Lardner, Ben Hecht, Theodore Dreiser, Charles MacArthur, Nick Von Hoffman, Ray Coffey they ain't.

Anne Leary posted the MSNBC Flannelmouth Meathead Chris Matthews piece linked above (click my post title for shameless mess) where Lynn Sweet, a good reporter gets staked out in the sand needing to provide instant cover for Mark Brown's "Dude" ineptitude. That, by the way, was local neighborhood Yamhead CBS Mike Flannery's Noel Coward imitation when he finally got around to interviewing Scott Lee Cohen. Bon Mot!Oh, rather, Old Boy! I mean, Dude!

Mark Brown was handed Scot Lee's head on a silver platter by Scott Lee himself in the Cohenpawn shop located near where Self Promoting Icon Carol Marin spent her youth - -roughly 47th & Ashland.

Carol Marin, a practiced shameless scribe who can mock Lura Lynn Ryan's appearance during the trials of George Ryan ( Mark Brown kicked Governor Ryan only when he was down and out by the way)and avoid original thought and finger an elderly couple as an IRA hit team on the say so of an ambitious FBI feeder, is parsing Brown in the Sunday Chicago Sun Times and shifting blame on Mike Madigan, Pat Quinn and the Democratic Party.

There is no exoneration for us in the media -- with the exception of my Sun-Times colleague Mark Brown -- for absolutely blowing this story. But also no pass for the leadership of the Democratic Party. Was Quinn warned about Cohen before the primary? Did the all-knowing party chairman, Mike Madigan, really not know?

Clued in or clueless, they look awful.

No Carol, like you Mark Brown is a pompous jerk. Pompous jerks tend to sneer at people and make the very most of their difficulties - that is the reason why people detest the Media - not the reporters, Carol, the smarmy, over paid smiling hypocrites who create the news and refuse to report it.

Brown Journalism needs to take a quick and lively walk off what is left of Illinois high ground - moral or metaphorical.

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)