Manya Brachear! Meet Father Robert Sirico - Catholic and Compassionate

I read quite a bit. No brag, just fact. In a family of skilled tradesmen, I remain the bookish goof. While my brother and scores of cousins can unclip a tape measure and artfully root out any problem in seconds with an application of muscle, toggle-bolts, sheet metal cutters, dry wall knives, plumber's dope and table saws, I remain a victim. I need to call a Tradesman.

I read Shakespeare, Virgil, Kant, Dante, Petrarch, Cicero, St. Augustine, Tommy Aquinas, Spinoza, Bellow, Tolstoy and Issac Bashevas Singer. I read while John, Mike, Red Pat, Brian, Barbara, Sheila, Kevin, Glen and Larry schooled themselves in HVAC, plumbing, carpentry, electrical math and fundamental chemistry to become engineers, carpenters, electricians, and pipe-fitters.

Readers often became priests. I went to priest school in high school. I translated Latin into English and developed rudimentary communications skills, but also learned that I was no where near cut-out for celibacy and by senior year exploded onto the co-educational Catholic social scene with some modest success.

Law? Perhaps. Teaching even better. I became a high school English teacher. It was a profession back then. I could read voraciously without being impugned as a loafing dope with his schnozzola glued to a page.

This morning I sweetened my sarcasm tooth with a gooey piece from the always daffy-taffy of Manya Brachear - the Chicago Tribune's Seeker. This kid is a champ and never a disappointment. Manya Branchear takes the road-less-travelled by anyone with a lick of common sense or shred of public understanding. Manya champions the goofball Sinsinawa Dominican - a catalog of goofs those babes be - nun who escorts kids to their appointed abortions at Planned Parenthood. That is like oozing with goodwill for that thoughtful religious seeker, Jihad Jane, who found Islam and decided to murder the Danish cartoonist. "Gee, she thinks outside of box!"

So does Manya - with great regularity.

Today Manya touts a Social Justice panel to be brought on the stage at North Park University. The panel is a Progressive parade of Lakota shamans, prayer-catcher shakers, Gender shrills, Race parsers and the lead- off Korean preacher. A Rainbow of Diversity! Edgy! Check out the line-up and the topics! Meet the Magnificent Social Seven! Hey, God love them all! I am sure that each and every pillar of Progressive Thought getting a paycheck from North Park is worth every dime.

1. Richard Twiss is a member of the Sicangu Lakota/Rosebud Sioux Tribe in South Dakota. He is Co Founder, with his wife Katherine, and President of Wiconi International. Richard is committed to seeing Native people emerge as a dynamic voice for justice, reconciliation and healing around the world in the spirit of Jesus. He and Katherine have been married since 1976 and have raised four respectful sons and live in Vancouver, Washington.

Richard Twiss will be speaking on “Dancing Our Prayers” at a North Park Theological Seminary student chapel and dinner at 5:00 pm in Olsson Lounge. He will also be part of a panel discussion on Saturday’s Justice Training Workshops.
2.Andrea Smith teaches at Media and Cultural Studies at UC Riverside. She is the author of Native Americans and the Christian Right: The Gendered Politics of Unlikely Alliances and is editor of The Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond the Nonprofit Industrial Complex. She is co-founder of the Boarding School Healing Project and is US Coordinator of the Ecumenical Association of Third World Theologians.

Andrea Smith will be presenting on the non-profit industrial complex on Wednesday, April 14th at 7:00PM in Hamming Hall.

3.Peter Goodwin Heltzel is Associate Professor of Theology, New York Theological Seminary, and an ordained minister in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). He is the author of Jesus and Justice: Evangelicals, Race and American Politics (Yale University Press, 2009). Peter Heltzel received his B.A. from Wheaton College, his M.Div. from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, and his Ph.D. from Boston University.

Peter Heltzel will be presenting on Jesus, Justice and Race on Thursday, April 15 at 9:00 am in Isaacson Chapel at North Park Theological Seminary (Nyvall Hall).

4. Dr. Mimi Haddad is president of Christians for Biblical Equality. She is a graduate of the University of Colorado and Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary. She holds a Ph.D. in historical theology from the University of Durham, England. Mimi is a founding member of the Evangelicals and Gender Study Group at the Evangelical Theological Society, and she served as the convener of the Issue Group 24 for the 2004 Lausanne III Committee for World Evangelization. She has written numerous articles and has contributed to eight books, most recently as an editor and a contributing author of Global Voices on Biblical Equality: Women and Men Serving Together in the Church. Mimi is also an adjunct assistant professor at Bethel University and an adjunct professor at North Park Theological Seminary. She and her husband, Dale, live in a mixed-income, inner-city housing development committed to creating greater financial stability in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Dr. Haddad will be presenting on Justice and Gender on Thursday, April 15 at 10:45 am in Isaacson Chapel at North Park Theological Seminary (Nyvall Hall).

5. Terry LeBlanc is Mi’kmaq /Acadian, from Listuguj First Nation and Campbellton, NB, Canada. He and his wife Bev are in their 38th year of marriage. They have three adult children engaged in various areas of indigenous mission in Canada, the USA and the Philippines. He is the founding Chairman and current CEO of NAIITS (North American Institute for Indigenous Theological Studies) and My People International, a capacity-building and training ministry with Indigenous peoples. In his role with these two organizations, Terry speaks often on the development of cultural bridges between Aboriginal people and the majority cultures in North America and elsewhere in the world. Terry also teaches as a sessional lecturer in Intercultural Studies and Theology at several colleges, seminaries and universities and, for a number of years has been a guest lecturer/speaker at educational institutions across Canada and the United States. He is currently serving as adjunct faculty in Theology and Intercultural Studies for two seminaries. He is a PhD Candidate in Intercultural Studies at Asbury Theological Seminary, Kentucky.

6.Lisa Sharon Harper is a Speaker / Activist / Author / Playwright / Poet. She is the author of Evangelical Does Not Equal Republican…Or Democrat (The New Press) and is the Co-founder and Executive Director of NY Faith & Justice. NY Faith & Justice is at the hub of a new ecumenical movement in New York City to address issues of environmental injustice and violence in black and brown communities. Ms. Harper earned her master’s degree in Human Rights, with a concentration in Religion & the Media, from Columbia University in New York City. Ms. Harper is a graduate of the USC School of Theatre’s MFA Playwriting class of 1995. Her thesis play, An’ Push da Wind Down explores Ms. Harper’s own Cherokee/Chickasaw and African-American heritage. She is a featured op-ed writer for the God’s Politics blog and BeliefNet’s Progressive Revival blog.

Lisa will be responding at the Campus Justice Lecture on Thursday, April 15 with Terry LeBlanc on the topic of Environmental Justice at 7:00 pm in Hamming Hall. She will also present on the topic of Mobilizing for Environmental Justice at the Saturday Training Session.

7. Soong-Chan Rah is Milton B. Engebretson Associate Professor of Church Growth and Evangelism and the author of The Next Evangelicalism: Freeing the Church from Western Cultural Captivity (IVPress, 2009). Soong-Chan previously served as founding Senior Pastor of the Cambridge Community Fellowship Church, a multi-ethnic, urban, post-modern generation church in the Central Square neighborhood of Cambridge, MA. Soong-Chan currently serves on the boards of Sojourners, the Christian Community Development Association and the Catalyst Leadership Center. Soong-Chan presents content on the topics of racial reconciliation, social justice, and urban ministry at his blog.

4days4justice at North Park University is an attempt to hear from previously marginalized voices in both American society and the evangelical community.

We will have the chance to hear Native American Christians address the issue of environmental justice. (I still haven’t figured out how we ever had any serious dialogue about the environment without considering the perspective of the Native American community).

We will be involved in round table discussions (in a fishbowl style) on the topic of social justice with evangelicals from various ethnic communities. And we will offer workshops (particularly geared towards local churches) on various social justice topics during a one day training session on Saturday.

Will we answer all the questions about the role of evangelicals in the public realm.? No, but I hope that at least we’re asking the right questions.

Oooo! Ooooo! Me! Manya!
Are you soft? Christ on a Crutch! Let's look at the syllabus for the panelists and the panelists themselves Not a Moody Billy Sunday in that cavalcade of Evangelical Stars! No Babbit's in Manya's Bonnet.
No, Sir!
Gender Issues? Check!
Race Issues? Oh, Hell Yes!
Dancing to Justice? On the money! We got Acadians, Aboriginal concerns! No substance.

Social Justice begins and ends with the operation of human heart - it is charity and not policy.

Social Justice is very good. Societal manipulation is very, very bad and tends to run-in-place as opposed to move people forward.

I work social justice everyday. No brag; just fact. Dr. Jack O'Keefe ( City Colleges ret.) and Denny Conway ( CPS ret.) teach as volunteers in the kill-zone of Gresham every day, Manya. Read the Chicago Murder Boxscores.

I have a backlog of Campaign Leo and 21st Century enveleopes that I need to add to the EXCELL spread sheets - amounting to more than $ 30,000 from $50,100, 200,500, 1,000 gifts by men with White Guy Zipcodes - 60643, 60655, 60638, 60453, 60462 & etc.

That's social justice, Kiddo. No Prayer Catchers, just envelopes with dough. No strings, no plaques, no articles, no Love Offerings expected. Gifts of human heart given freely.

The Panel at North Park will be swell: Lakota incantations and prayers out of the William Least-Heat Moon catalog. When the Beaver returns to Chicago River - Once Debra Shore and the Gay Lesbian Transgender Bi-Sexual Water Reclamation District reverses the flow of the River -Only Then - will my heart soar light Hawk and wing with the Great Spirit!

Manya, if you expect to to get to the nub of social justice, read Father Robert Sirico of the Acton Institute. Thus!

The problem here is the slick move from personal ethics to public policy. What is required of us as individuals may or may not translate into a civic policy priority. In the case of the welfare state, it is possible to argue that it does great good (though I would dispute that). Whether it does or does not, however, a government program effects nothing toward fulfilling the Gospel requirement that we give of our own time and income toward assisting the poor.

The reason has to do with matters of the human heart. If we are required to do anything by law, and thereby forced by public authority to undertake some action, we comply because we must. That we go along with the demand is no great credit to our sense of humanitarianism or charity. The impulse here is essentially one of fear: we know that if we fail to give, we will find ourselves on the wrong side of the state.

Remember that the government has no money, no resources, of its own. Everything it has it must take from the private sector, which is the engine of wealth creation. If we can imagine a world in which there is no private sector at all, we can know with certainty that it would be a world of bare subsistence at best: universal impoverishment.

Wealthy societies today can afford to create large welfare states while avoiding that fate. But let us never forget the funds that make it possible do not appear as if by magic. They are taken from others without their active consent except in the most abstract sense that people might vote for them.

I cannot see how this method of redistributing wealth has anything to do with the Gospel. Jesus never called on public authority to enact welfare programs. He never demanded that his followers form a political movement to tax and spend. Nor did he say that the property of the rich must always be forcibly expropriated. He called for a change in the human heart, not a change in legislation. There is a massive difference.

You see, Manya. When a job needs to get done, I am the sic-and-fetch guy - "Paddy, go out to the truck and bring in the black box with the green handle. Don't worry about what's in it we trained with the tools and you might have read about them in Dickens - they are called adaptable bits. Black box -green handle. Don't get lost"

Father Sirico is the tradesman as far as Social Justice goes. We live social justice because we go to the right tradesman. Look for the Union Label, Manya.

http://www.northpark.edu/4days4justice

Santiago Proffer's Andy Stern Exits and Valerie Jarrett Waits

Around page seventy - well past the sordid stuff the Blago case gets meaty and stars SEIU's Andy Stern who exited the national scene -for a while -only hours before Judge Zagel granted the release of the Federal Case against former Governor Blagojevich.

He will not get cuffed or jailed for cussing his kids.

He will no doubt dodge sitting in the iron hotel altogether.

He will cause the Obama Administration, Dave Axelrod and Valerie ( Cody) Jarrett no end of trips to the Jumbo Sized Jar of CVS antiacid tablets for couple of spin cycles.

Andy Stern existed stage Left, but he'll be back folks! Big Ed, Rachel Maddow and Milkey Matthews as wellas the Chicago Media will parse and nuance the purple Red back to show-stopping and VAT concocting health.

Take a peak at a few pages 79-85.

On approximately November 3, 2008 (Blagojevich Call #117), Harris told Blagojevich that
Harris had been informed that Barack Obama very much cared about Senate Candidate B and
thought Senate Candidate B would make a good senator. Almost immediately after hearing that
Barack Obama thought Senate Candidate B would make a good senator, Blagojevich indicated he
was interested in getting a position as the Secretary of HHS in exchange for naming Senate
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Candidate B as senator. Blagojevich told Harris to research who else had been Secretary of HHS.
Blagojevich also indicated he wanted to leak to the press that he was considering Individual L as a
senate option. Although Blagojevich was not seriously considering Individual L as a senate option,
Blagojevich believed that if those interested in having Senate Candidate B named senator believed
that Blagojevich was, in fact, seriously considering Individual L, then Blagojevich would have
greater leverage to obtain personal benefit in exchange for naming Senate Candidate B as the
senator.
Later on November 3, 2008 (Blagojevich Call #149), Blagojevich talked to Harris again.
During the call, Blagojevich stated his belief that individuals associated with Service Employees
International Union (“SEIU”) were coming to meet with Blagojevich that day to push for Senate
Candidate B’s appointment. During this same conversation, Blagojevich asked when Harris was
going to talk to Individual M. Blagojoevich repeatedly referred to Harris’s conversation with
Individual M as the “off campus discussion.” These conversations were follow-ups to conversations
Blagojevich had with Harris earlier in the summer in which Blagojevich directed Harris to ask
Individual M for Individual M’s campaign fund money in exchange for naming Individual M to the
U.S. Senate Seat. Blagojevich believed that Individual M would provide campaign fund money to
Blagojevich because Individual M could not use the money in a federal election since the rules are
different for Illinois state elections and federal elections.
During this same time period, Blagojevich had several conversations with his wife in which
they discussed job options in addition to Secretary of HHS, such as ambassadorships, that
Blagojevich might be able to get if he named Senate Candidate B to the Senate seat. Blagojevich
expressed significant interest in what these positions paid. Blagojevich specifically tasked Deputy
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Governor A with looking into ambassadorships that Blagojevich might be able to obtain in exchange
for naming Senate Candidate B to the senate seat.
On the afternoon of November 3, 2008, Blagojevich met with Labor Union Official and
another representative of SEIU. During the meeting, there was a discussion about a number of
different candidates for the Senate seat. Both SEIU representatives expressed their view that Senate
Candidate B would be a good choice for the Senate seat. Blagojevich stated that he assumed that
if Obama was interested in Senate Candidate B being named to replace Obama, then Obama would
be in touch with Blagojevich.
On November 4, 2008 (Blagojevich Call #218), Blagojevich talked to Deputy Governor A.
Blagojevich complained that Advisor B, a former staffer who continued to advise Blagojevich, had
informed Blagojevich that Blagojevich should not take the Senate seat himself. Blagojevich
complained to Deputy Governor A that Blagojevich’s “upward trajectory” was stalled because of
Obama’s election. Blagojevich told Deputy Governor A that Blagojevich had made “decisions at
the expense of [his] family’s best interests for . . . [his] job as governor.” Blagojevich informed
Deputy Governor A “now is the time for me to put my fucking children and my wife first, for a
change.”
On November 5, 2008 (Blagojevich Call #255), Blagojevich informed Deputy Governor A
that Labor Union Official, who was one of the officials who had met with Blagojevich on November
3, 2008 to discuss the Senate seat, was coming back to meet with Blagojevich to discuss the Senate
seat. Labor Union Official was set to meet with Blagojevich the following day. Blagojevich talked
through jobs he could request in exchange for naming a candidate to the Senate seat and noted that
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none of them would be attainable if it were not for the fact Blagojevich had the right to fill the
Senate seat.
Later on November 5, 2008 (Blagojevich Call #261), Blagojevich talked to Harris. They
discussed what Blagojevich should say to Labor Union Official regarding what Blagojevich wanted
in exchange for naming Senate Candidate B to the Senate seat. Blagojevich practiced with Harris
his statements to Labor Union Official, including suggesting to Labor Union Official that
Blagojevich was interested in naming Individual L to the Senate seat. Blagojevich and Harris
discussed how Blagojevich could “make a play” for a job in Washington. Harris suggested that
Blagojevich tell Labor Union Official that Blagojevich wanted to accommodate the president-elect,
but also wanted to take care of the people of Illinois. Blagojevich responded by stating “Yeah. And,
and, and my, and me, do I say me.” Harris stated “Right, by, by keeping me strong.” Blagojevich
responded to Harris “But I don’t want that. I’m not looking for that. I’d like to get out, the fuck
outta here.” Shortly thereafter, Blagojevich stated that “the objective is to, to get a good gig over
there.” Harris stated that if Blagojevich’s goal was to trade the Senate seat for a job elsewhere, then
Blagojevich needed to “put it on the table” with Labor Union Official. Thereafter, Blagojevich
continued to practice with Harris his statements for his meeting with Labor Union Official.
Shortly thereafter on November 5, 2008 (Blagojevich Call #262), Blagojevich again talked
to Harris. Harris told Blagojevich that Harris did not think that the president-elect would provide
Blagojevich with a cabinet-level job in exchange for naming Senate Candidate B to the Senate.
Thereafter, Blagojevich and Harris discussed whether Blagojevich could get an ambassadorship in
exchange for naming Senate Candidate B to the Senate seat. Blagojevich told Harris to do research
with trading partners of the United States. Blagojevich questioned whether the president-elect could
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do “something big” in the “private sector” for Blagojevich in exchange for the Senate seat.
Blagojevich and Harris then discussed various private sector jobs Blagojevich might want in
exchange for the Senate seat. Blagojevich directed Harris to start researching private foundations
in which Blagojevich could get a job “right away.” In particular, Blagojevich told Harris to “see
what they pay.” Blagojevich told Harris that either Harris or Deputy Governor A should do the
research, but that word should not get around about the project.
Shortly thereafter on November 5, 2008 (Blagojevich Call #263), Blagojevich had a
conversation with Harris and Deputy Governor A. Based on Harris’s prior conversations with
Blagojevich, Harris informed Blagojevich that Harris had told Deputy Governor A that they were
looking for a “reasonable ask” in exchange for the Senate seat that “takes care” of Blagojevich’s
family and keeps Blagojevich’s future political ambitions open. Harris stated they were now looking
at private foundations in which the president-elect might have influence and would not appear to
look like a “deal” for the Senate seat. Harris suggested they look at private foundations that were
“heavily dependent on federal aid.” Deputy Governor A agreed to help with the research and asked
whether Blagojevich was looking for this job now or after Blagojevich left office in 2010.
Blagojevich stated “now.” Deputy Governor A and Harris discussed with Blagojevich various
private foundations about which they were familiar. Blagojevich stated, “something like that would
be great. What does that pay?” Blagojevich suggested to Harris and Deputy Governor A that it was
difficult to see this kind of deal coming together, but told Deputy Governor A and Harris to find the
foundations that SEIU funded. Deputy Governor A agreed that they should find the foundations
SEIU funded because then SEIU could help broker the deal with Blagojevich. Again, Blagojevich
told Deputy Governor A and Harris to “look into those ones that are funded by labor.”
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Later on November 5, 2008 (Blagojevich Call #281), Blagojevich spoke to Advisor B about
Blagojevich’s interest in getting a private foundation job. Blagojevich told Advisor B that SEIU and
the president-elect could remove the head of a particular foundation and give the position to
Blagojevich. Blagojevich told Advisor B that it was unlikely that he would be able to get a cabinet
position in exchange for the Senate seat, but “Health and Human Service would be my . . . I’d take
that in a second.”
Later on November 5, 2008 (Blagojevich Call #284), Blagojevich again spoke with Deputy
Governor A. Deputy Governor A reported back on research he had done for Blagojevich on private
foundations. In particular, Blagojevich asked Deputy Governor A about a particular charitable
organization that they had discussed previously. Deputy Governor A responded “So, it was founded
by two guys one was an entrepreneur.” Blagojevich responded “No, but how much money does the
guy make?” Deputy Governor A told Blagojevich it was hard to find salaries on-line, but Deputy
Governor A was still looking into the issue of pay. Deputy Governor A also informed Blagojevich
that Blagojevich could sit on other boards to make additional money if Blagojevich took a job with
a private foundation. Deputy Governor A stated that the director of one foundation was “on two
corporate boards and makes around $250,000 a year on the, in addition to her salary.” Blagojevich
responded “Yeah, see that’s what we’d want. That’s it.” Deputy Governor A told Blagojevich that
Blagojevich should make clear during the negotiations for the Senate seat that being on other boards
“would be another part of the game.” Blagojevich responded “That’s right.” Blagojevich told
Deputy Governor A to continue to research foundations. Blagojevich then practiced with Deputy
Governor A what Blagojevich would say publicly about certain criteria he was using to fill the
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Senate seat, including the future senator’s position on health care. In fact, Blagojevich was not
using his publicly-stated criteria to fill the Senate seat.
On the morning of November 6, 2008 (Blagojevich Calls #317, 319, and 321), Blagojevich
talked to Harris. Blagojevich had arranged a meeting with Labor Union Official for later that
afternoon. Harris and Blagojevich discussed the meeting with Labor Union Official and how
Blagojevich could ask for what Blagojevich wanted from Labor Union Official. Blagojevich stated
he had heard that Senate Candidate B might be interested in a cabinet-level position. Blagojevich
suggested he tell Labor Union Official that “they’re willing to give [Senate Candidate B] a cabinet
spot so if that’s the case, then give me the cabinet spot and give her, we’ll give her the Senate.”
Later Blagojevich asked whether they should have someone go to Senate Candidate B and tell
Senate Candidate B that if Blagojevich received the Secretary of HHS position, Blagojevich “could
appoint you in a second.” Later in the call, Harris suggested that Blagojevich request a position as
the paid national coordinator for Change To Win, an organization partially funded by SEIU, in
exchange for naming Senate Candidate B to the Senate seat. Harris suggested to Blagojevich that
the Change to Win idea might be better than a private foundation because the Change to Win job
is controlled by SEIU and Blagojevich would not necessarily have to step down as governor to take
it immediately, like he might have to do with a private foundation job. Blagojevich responded that
the Change to Win idea was a “fucking great idea.” Later, Blagojevich stated he would like to be
on some “corporate boards” in addition to taking the Change to Win job. Harris responded that
Harris thought Change to Win would be a full-time job. Blagojevich asked “would I be able to get
a little extra income though.” Harris responded that he did not think Blagojevich would want to sell
himself to SEIU as a part-time employee. Blagojevich responded “No, but if I could sit on a couple
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a boards, that’s not much time, or teach a class.” Later Blagojevich asked how much the Change
to Win job would pay. Harris suggested it probably paid at least what Labor Union Official made
working for SEIU. Blagojevich responded “I betcha he makes, well he lives on the north shore, you
gotta think he makes more than the governor, right?”
Later on November 6, 2008 (Blagojevich Calls #345 and 347), Blagojevich talked to his
wife. Blagojevich informed his wife that Individual N, a wealthy supporter of Blagojevich’s, had
asked for the vacant Senate seat. Blagojevich stated that he “planted” with Individual N the issue
of Blagojevich needing to figure what he was going to do after being governor in relation to the
Senate seat. Blagojevich informed his wife that Blagojevich was meeting with Labor Union Official
that afternoon. Blagojevich talked to his wife about becoming the national director of Change to
Win and that “hopefully you get paid decent.” Blagojevich also informed his wife that Change to
Win would allow him to form a national network of low wage workers to help in his future political
career. During the conversation, Blagojevich’s wife looked up information about Change to Win
on the internet, in part to determine “what they paid their people in 2006.” Blagojevich’s wife had
trouble finding the salary information on-line. Blagojevich responded “Don’t worry about it. Yeah,
that’s, you negotiate that. I’d like a 4-year contract for a million a year or somethin’. . . . Or 750 or
whatever. It’d have to be good. Obama’s got excess money, he just gives them more money.”
Blagojevich told his wife he was not sure the Change to Win idea would happen, but it was one of
several options.
On November 6, 2008, Blagojevich met with Labor Union Official alone. During the
meeting, Labor Union Official advocated that Senate Candidate B be named to the Senate seat. In
response, Blagojevich lied and informed Labor Union Official that Blagojevich was in “active”
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discussions with Individual L and her father about making Individual L the senator. Thereafter,
Blagojevich made clear to Labor Union Official that he would name Senate Candidate B to the
Senate seat in exchange for being named Secretary of HHS. Labor Union Official told Blagojevich
he did not think being named to Secretary of HHS was going to happen.
On November 7, 2008, Blagojevich discussed his request for the Secretary of HHS position
with several individuals, including Advisor B (Blagojevich Call #375). Although Blagojevich still
thought getting the Secretary of HHS was a longshot, he thought that after the meeting with Labor
Union Official the prospect was “a little likelier.” Blagojevich informed Advisor B, “So [Senate
Candidate B’s] holding Health and Human Services and I’m holding a U.S. Senate seat. Okay?
She’s holding hers with two hands, just kind’a clinging to, you know, little pieces of it. Me, I’ve
got the whole thing wrapped around my arms, mine, okay? . . . I’m willing to trade the thing I got
tightly held to her for something she doesn’t hold quite as tightly. How bad do you want what I have
and can you get the other person [Obama] who’s really got the, this, you know, who’s, who had that,
to do it. If you’re her, you’re [Senate Candidate B], I could be a U.S. Senator and a seat I, I can
hold.”
Later on November 7, 2008 (Blagojevich Calls #403, 405, 406, and 408), Blagojevich spoke
to Harris and Advisor A, a political advisor, about, among other things, Blagojevich’s request for
the Secretary of HHS position and the possibility of obtaining a job with Change to Win. Advisor
A suggested that it would be difficult for Blagojevich to obtain a federal government job that would
require Senate confirmation, but that Blagojevich might be able to get a high-ranking federal job that
did not require Senate approval. Blagojevich rejected Advisor A’s suggestion because the other
high-ranking federal jobs did not pay enough money. Advisor A told Blagojevich that Advisor A
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liked the Change to Win idea. Blagojevich asked whether the Change to Win idea was better than
trying to work out a deal to provide the Senate seat to Individual L. Advisor A indicated the Change
to Win idea was better to help Blagojevich financially and his future politically. Blagojevich agreed.
On November 10, 200823/ (Blagojevich Call #451), Blagojevich discussed the Senate seat
on a conference call with a variety of individuals. During the call, Blagojevich stated “Individual
I thinks we can get [Blagojevich’s wife], uh, on some corporate boards, paid corporate boards. What
do you think of that?” Individual I responded “Could Obama help on the private sector [Individual
F], where it wouldn’t be tied to him? . . . So it wouldn’t necessarily look like one for the other but.”
The majority of the call centered around how Blagojevich could use his ability to fill the Senate seat
to help Blagojevich in his post-political career. Blagojevich noted he was not in a position to state
he would not run for re-election again because he still had “to raise money for lawyers. . . .”
Blagojevich was repeatedly told by individuals on the phone call that he needed to make the Senate
pick and good things would happen later, but that he should not expect to receive a particular thing
right now. In response to one of these statements, Blagojevich’s wife stated “I don’t think you live
your life hoping that somebody is gonna help you down the line.” Blagojevich stated “Yeah,” and
Blagojevich’s wife then stated “That’s a bunch of baloney.”
Ultimately, Blagojevich stopped pursuing the Change to Win idea for several reasons. First,
Blagojevich learned that Labor Union Official’s salary was not what Blagojevich had hoped and
therefore a salary at Change to Win would not be at a level that Blagojevich wanted. Second,
Blagojevich became uncertain that a Change to Win job would still be present in 2010 when
Blagojevich left the governorship because the job was dependent on others being willing to give
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him the position several years later. As a result of these concerns, Blagojevich began to conspire
to trade the Senate seat to Senate Candidate B in exchange for millions of dollars in funding for a
501(c)(4) organization that Blagojevich would start from scratch, could control, and would provide
certainty for a well-paying job after Blagojevich was no longer governor.
On November 11, 2008 (Blagojevich Calls #487, 489), Blagojevich mentioned the idea of
a 501(c)(4) to Harris and that it was a place for Blagojevich “to ultimately be” but it would advocate
for health care while Blagojevich was still governor. Later on November 11, 2008 (Blagojevich Call
#493), Blagojevich told Advisor B that the 501(c)(4) would have “a Board that, you know, I’m
comfortable with and then when I’m no longer governor I go over there.” Blagojevich also
suggested to Advisor B that they should see if Individual N would fund the 501(c)(4) in exchange
for the Senate seat.
On November 12, 2008 (Blagojevich Call #521), Blagojevich informed Harris that CNN was
reporting that Senate Candidate B was going to take a position in the White House. Blagojevich and
Harris discussed the prospect that this was just a rumor meant to make it harder for Blagojevich to
negotiate something of value in exchange for naming Senate Candidate B to the Senate seat.
Blagojevich returned to the prospect of asking for millions of dollars in funding for a 501(c)(4) in
exchange for naming Senate Candidate B to the Senate seat. Blagojevich told Harris that
Blagojevich would name the Board of Directors of the organization so it would be controllable while
Blagojevich was still governor, but that the organization would be without a “major player until I
were to go there.” Later, in reference to associates of Senate Candidate A offering Blagojevich
significant amounts of campaign money in exchange for naming Senate Candidate A to the Senate
seat, Blagojevich stated “what [Senate Candidate A] got third parties saying to me is a heck of a lot
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more substantial than what we’re getting from the Obama people, okay?” Blagojevich stated that
his concern with Senate Candidate A is that Blagojevich does not trust Senate Candidate A to come
through with the promise of campaign money. Shortly thereafter, Blagojevich again instructed
Harris to have the “off campus discussion” with Individual M regarding getting campaign funds in
exchange for naming Individual M to the Senate seat.
Later on November 12, 2008 (Blagojevich Calls #533, 535, and 537), Blagojevich spoke to
Advisor A. Blagojevich explained his 501(c)(4) idea to Advisor A and stated it would be a place
for Blagojevich to get a job after he was governor, like Change to Win. Advisor A told Blagojevich
that Advisor A liked Change to Win better because it had “fewer fingerprints.” Blagojevich stated
his concern with Change to Win was that it might not be there in two years while the 501(c)(4) was
something Blagojevich could “control.”
Shortly thereafter on November 12, 2008 (Blagojevich Call #539), Blagojevich talked to
Harris. Harris told Blagojevich that Harris had talked to United States Congressman A and that
Senate Candidate B was, in fact, going to take a position at the White House.
Immediately after learning that Senate Candidate B may have taken herself out of
consideration for the Senate seat, Blagojevich made a direct effort to obtain money for his 501(c)(4)
in exchange for naming Senate Candidate B to the Senate seat. Blagojevich called Labor Union
Official (Blagojevich Call #541). During the call, Blagojevich informed Labor Union Official that
“one thing” Blagojevich would be interested in was the creation of a “501(c)(4)” issue advocacy
organization. Blagojevich stated the organization would be there if he were not governor anymore.
Blagojevich stated that right now it would be run by people he trusts and it would be a health care
organization. Blagojevich told Labor Union Official that certain wealthy individuals could put $10,
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$15, or $20 million into the organization over night. Blagojevich then stated that he and the
organization could “help our new Senator, [Senate Candidate B], go out” and push an agenda. Labor
Union Official understood that Blagojevich was connecting the funding of the 501(c)(4)
organization to Blagojevich naming Senate Candidate B to the Senate. Although Labor Union
Official told Blagojevich that Labor Union Official would get back to Blagojevich regarding
Blagojevich’s request for money, Labor Union Official never did.
Thereafter, in a series of a calls on November 12, 2008, Blagojevich indicated that his choice
to fill the Senate seat was based on three criteria. In order, Blagojevich indicated his first criterion
was his “legal” situation, which he further indicated was the picking of a candidate whose
appointment might help Blagojevich with his current legal situation in relation to the ongoing federal
criminal investigation into Blagojevich’s actions. At times, Blagojevich indicated that naming
himself the senator would help fit his “legal” criterion because Blagojevich believed he was less
likely to be indicted if he was in Washington D.C. and because, as a Senator, he would have a
“voice” in who the U.S. Attorney was for the Northern District of Illinois, although he would have
to “officially” recuse himself from the decision. Blagojevich’s second criterion was his “personal”
situation, which Blagojevich repeatedly indicated was premised on his and his family’s financial
well being. Blagojevich’s third criterion was his “political” situation.
Later on November 12, 2008 (Blagojevich Call #594), Blagojevich talked to Robert
Blagojevich about filling the Senate seat. Regarding filling the Senate seat, Robert Blagojevich
stated his advice was that Blagojevich “make sure it’s tit for tat, man you get something. I wouldn’t
give anything away.”
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After Blagojevich learned that Senate Candidate B was going to the White House,
Blagojevich still believed that there were several candidates favored by Obama to fill the Senate
vacancy and that Blagojevich might still be able to personally profit from a deal for the Senate seat.
On November 13, 2008, Blagojevich participated in several calls with Advisor B in which
he continued to push his idea of obtaining funding for a 501(c)(4) in exchange for naming a
candidate favored by Obama to the Senate vacancy. In one call on November 13, 2008 (Blagojevich
Call #624), Blagojevich stated that if Senate Candidate B could still get the Senate seat, Blagojevich
thought she would take it. Blagojevich informed Advisor B that Blagojevich had mentioned his
501(c)(4) idea to Labor Union Official. Blagojevich suggested he still might have leverage to get
what he wanted for the Senate seat because Obama would not want Blagojevich to take the Senate
seat himself.
Later on November 13, 2008 (Blagojevich Call #627), Blagojevich again spoke with Advisor
B. Blagojevich asked Advisor B to reach out to Lobbyist A, who Blagojevich knew to have a
friendship with United States Congressman A, to have Lobbyist A pass a message to United States
Congressman A that Blagojevich wanted help with the funding of a 501(c)(4). During the call,
Blagojevich stated, “the mission for Lobbyist A is to, essentially put it in [United States
Congressman A’s] head that we would like them to help us, you know, fund it.” In response,
Advisor B stated that while it was not said, this was “a play to put in play others.” Blagojevich
responded that what Advisor B was saying was “correct.” It was clear to Advisor B that Blagojevich
was saying that Blagojevich wanted to communicate to United States Congressman A that the
funding of the 501(c)(4) would get Obama the person he wanted in the Senate.

Michael Moriarty's Miracle Message

For me the human being is a miracle.

For Progressive Americans, however, because of the particularly Progressive Supreme Court’s Roe v Wade Decision of 1973, the human being has become less than ordinary.

The human being is now an easily disposable or aborted threat to the ideals of a Progressive New World Order.

Michael Moriarty

A great actor and a great writer, Michael Moriarty writes about the collision taking place in America and around the globe: Progressive Hegalianism against people of faith. Mr. Moriarty's Granfather, George Moriarty, was a stockyards guy and played for both the White Sox and the Cubs.

Devout Jews, Muslims, Christians and especially Catholics are being assaulted in the the broader secularist culture.
An eloquent man, Michael Moriarty writes clearly and wittily.

Send Progressivism back to France, where the whole, Communist nightmare began!

Here is my lesson for the day.

There has been a human genius so old that the “enlightened despots” of Harvard think it so antiquated that it no longer has contemporary relevance, except as a foil for their Progressive Comparative History Lessons, their “teachable moments”, their vision of Mankind’s inevitably scientific progress to the clearly envisioned destination: The Completion of The Progressive, One-Thousand-Year Plan For All of Humanity.

In other words, The New World Order.

The last Progressive of that ilk was Adolf Hitler.

We have seen and spoken of … repeatedly … the image of our President looking down his flared nostrils at us, and we’ve heard the words that accompany such arrogant certainty.

“The fundamental transformation of the United States of America!”

Within one year of office, President Obama has been captured in photos that make some of Mussolini’s grandstanding grimaces look reticent.

Good to have you in the brawl, Michael!

Stan Ikenberry - Billy Ayers' Chinaman - Hazth Hizth Tongth Sthuck in Histh Shteek, Yesth, Yesthm and Yesth

The News Gazzett

Ikenberry, president of the UI from 1979 to 1995 – in much better budget days – grinned when asked about the reception he got Wednesday.

"I think this stacks up with the very best I can remember," he said. "The tongue's a little bit in the cheek, yes

Sthan. Yearsth ago, many, many Yearsth ago, Billy Ayersth Dad wasth head of COmun Wealsth Edisthon and tosthed Sthousandsth of Bucksth to You off Eye ( Uof I).

Sthat wasth Tstweet. Awuhl You needeth tah Do wasth Hire Billy and histh Olds Slady.

Sthougher now, I'll Besth.

My Tongth's sthuk un my Shteek too.

I'll Go Biden on Oprah - BFD

Ho Hum! Something to do let's see. . . .yeah there was ham an' there was turkey, there was caviaran' long tall glasses, with wine yp to H'y'are!

Oh, Oprah! That'll kill a nano-second.

* Winfrey concocted stories about sexual abuse she suffered as a child -- and grossly exaggerated the poverty she was brought up in.

* She went to great lengths to conceal her "lesbian affairs" -- including hefty payoffs -- and publicly attached herself to Graham to appear more normal to her audience of housewives.


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Oprah Winfrey Settles Defamation Suit Involving Her South African Girls' School
* She lavished romantic gifts -- including a diamond toe ring -- on ABC talking head Diane Sawyer.

* Winfrey sold her body to earn extra money and has even described herself as a teen "prostitute."

* She doesn't know the true identity of her biological father.

* Her relationship with her own mother is so cold that Winfrey won't even let the older woman have her phone number.

Winfrey was born in Kosciusko, Miss., in 1954, and, the way she likes to tell it, she was so impoverished that she never had any new dresses or dolls and had to adopt two cockroaches as pets, naming them Melinda and Sandy.

But her family says that's nonsense.

She may not have been well off, but Oprah was relatively "spoiled" as a little girl, her cousin said.

"Where Oprah got that nonsense about growing up in filth and roaches I have no idea," said the relative, Katherine Carr Esters. "I've confronted her and asked, 'Why do you tell such lies?' Oprah told me, 'That's what people want to hear. The truth is boring.' "

A friend of Esters added that the manipulation of her past is a key to her success.

"Every move is calculated to further her brand and lift her image, which is why she does good works," Jewette Battles said.

As a teen, Winfrey was a wild child, promiscuous to the point of prostitution, her relatives said.

The future star would steal from her mother's purse, pawn her jewelry and even turn tricks. She was eventually sent to live in Nashville with Vernon Winfrey, who was her mother's former lover and who is listed on her birth certificate as her father. He has been described as the domineering disciplinarian who set her straight.

Later, determined to become rich and famous, Winfrey was ready to change her story to her advantage, making sure she cultivated her image as an everywoman, the book alleges.

That meant she had to quell rumors about her sexuality.

At one point, the rumors included seamy talk at ABC about a relationship between Winfrey and Sawyer when Oprah worked there.

Employees there described "giggly late-night phone calls" and a series of lavish gifts from Winfrey -- including gigantic sprays of orchids and a 1-carat diamond toe ring -- to Sawyer.

Despite such rumors, Kelley concludes Winfrey is "asexual."

Still, she quotes sources describing how, in 1989, Winfrey was insistent on paying Tim Watts, an ex-boyfriend, $50,000 to keep quiet about her lesbian affairs and the fact that her brother, who died of AIDS, was gay.

"He said she did not want him to talk about her brother being gay," said Judy Lee Colteryahn, who also dated Watts.

"It's no big deal to have a brother who is homosexual, but apparently it was to Oprah. Tim also said he knew about some lesbian affairs."

As for Winfrey's very public relationship with Graham, the pair do not even share a bedroom, according to the book.

Landscape architect James van Sweden of Oehme, who spent years working for the couple, said he planned to design a space for a wedding in front of their new estate but knew immediately after watching them together that there would never be a wedding.

"Oprah keeps Stedman around because she wants her audience to accept her as a normal woman with a man in her life, but from what I saw during those four years, I can tell you there's nothing there with Stedman. Nothing at all," he said.

"He's simply a fixture in her life," van Sweden added. "Window-dressing."

According to her father, Vernon, Oprah admitted that she was not in love with Stedman.

"I'm in like . . . not in love," she told him, according to the book.

She did reportedly have one affair with a man -- "Entertainment Tonight's" John Tesh, while the two were working in Nashville.

According to Tesh's ex, he broke things off because he couldn't deal with the stigma of being an interracial couple.

"He said one night he looked down and saw his white body next to her black body and couldn't take it any more," the ex said. "He walked out in the middle of the night."

Winfrey has played coy on Tesh.

Vernon Winfrey says he's been dismayed by how Oprah plays fast and loose with the truth.

"She may be admired by the world, but I know the truth," he says. "So does God and so does Oprah. Two of us remain ashamed."

Vernon reserves his harshest words for Winfrey's best friend, Gayle King, who put the kibosh on a biography he was working on.

Calling her a "dirt hog" and "street heifer," he blames King for a rift in his relationship with Oprah.

"She's become too close to that woman Gayle," he says.

King and others in Oprah's entourage worked hard to keep a tight grip on employees in order to keep her out of the tabloids.

"I thought I would be working for the warm and fuzzy person I saw on television," a former employee at Winfrey's Harpo production company said. "But, God, I was conned. It's a cult at Harpo. So oppressive it's frightening."

Perhaps the biggest secret of the book is left a secret.

Oprah allegedly does not know the true identity of her father.

Esters told Kelley who he is, on the condition she not publish the information until Winfrey's mother comes clean to her daughter.

"And you'll know when that happens because Oprah will probably have a show on finding your real father," Esters said. "As I said, the girl wastes nothing."

Let's see, now. . . Oprah refused to help the black kids at Leo High School, but hundreds of old middle class Catholic white guys pump dough here; she is omnipresent; hangs out with goofs . . .she is how important to me? What does Oprah mean to me? Oh yeah!

Oooooooo Lunch!

Dang! Missed lunch again; not good.

Kevin Myers Scourges Wanker Archbishops and Emotive Ecclesiastical Hermaphrodites

Ireland's Kevin Myers is Jonathan Swift with a better grip on the language.

Wednesday April 07 2010

Instead of sacraments, sin and sacrifice, clergymen now talk of

'hurt, deep offence and wounded feelings'


THE Great Religious War Between the dioceses of Dublin and Canterbury was not so much a storm in a tea cup as a bee fart in a thimble. I have still not found the actual words that could have reduced Archbishop Diarmuid Martin to such a paralysis of grief and weeping. As far as I can see, Rowan Williams of Canterbury had merely remarked that the Irish Church had lost credibility. What? You mean it hasn't?

Then, all the Irish Prod bishops gathered around the Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, like lesser girls round the alpha girl in a playground spat. "Poor Diarmuid," they simpered, "poor Diarmuid and what a bitch that Rowan Williams is, what a complete and utter Canterbury!"

"I tell you what, Diarmuid," stoutly declared the Church of Ireland Bishop of Meath, Achonry, Tuam, Killala, Ardfert, Cloyne and Just About Everywhere Else Outside Dublin, "I'll go and pull her pigtails!" So then she went and pulled Canterbury's pigtails and Rowan Williams began to cry and said she didn't mean to hurt anyone and she was sorry to have caused offence and yes, she deeply, deeply regretted the deep, deep hurt she had caused.

Jesus Christ Almighty! Is it to this that the Christian churches are now reduced?

Well, they do say that bad currency drives out good -- so can this be true for religions also? The Church of England long ago announced that a belief in God was purely optional -- a devotion to WG Grace or Gandhi or even George Galloway would henceforth suffice. So C of E clergy also became more and more absorbed with feelings, rather than with religion.

And now, it seems that their vacuous, unprincipled emoting has -- through the Ryanair of the ecumenical movement -- been colonising the Irish churches.

Thus, the mumbo-jumbo of personal pain has become the liturgy of the modern religion. Instead of sacraments and grace and sin and sacrifice, clergymen are now talking of "hurt" and "deep offence" and "wounded feelings".

Of course, since so many Irish people love nothing more than winning the national-victimhood competition, this solipsistic malignancy has spread like scabies through a convent of lesbian nuns.

Moreover, the Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury, the Welsh Waffler Rowan Williams, is truly a man of many cultures: part-Methodist, part-vegetarian, part-pacifist, part-feminist, but full-time emoter.

He is like a mad street-preacher, the tufts of hair sprouting out of his every orifice quivering with contrition as he endlessly lists how he has caused, deep, deep hurt here, and deep deep hurt there.

But hold on. An Archbishop of Canterbury -- with a psalm on his lips -- could once upon a time be relied on to put a blessing on a Gatling gun being sent to slay the naked Wootsy-Tootsies, who were armed with a few sticks, as a chastising prelude to their induction into the glories of empire.

Then, having stripped and flogged some choirboys, he would retire to his palace, to Mrs Archbishop and to a groaning board, around which 50 liveried servants hovered.

In essence, though not quite in so many words, whenever the primate of England heard something he didn't like from Ireland, he would declare: "Hey! You, you bog-trotting peasant. I am the Archbishop of Canterbury. Now, just F*CK OFF!" (This was also known as the Fecumenical Movement).

Meanwhile, Mrs Archbishop ran the ladies' branch of the Primrose League, dedicated to the proposition that there was nothing wrong with this world that another 50 British dreadnoughts couldn't put right.

The current Mrs Archbishop probably runs a teetotal, vegan ashram-mission hall, with tambourines and self-awareness sessions.

Meanwhile, the disbelieving bones of poor John Charles McQuaid must be rattling in their tomb. He was heir to a millennium-and-a-half of Irish Catholic endurance. Dublin Archbishops true to Rome used to spend their entire episcopacies hiding up chimneys in the Liberties, occasionally saying Mass under the grate, but only when the fire was lit.

If caught by the town major, they would be made to eat their own feet in public, raw and still attached. The bishops were then fed alive to Protestant bull-mastiffs, loyal dogs that knew the 39 Articles and could howl all of Deuteronomy (the King James Version only).

The Irish Catholic primates of yesteryear were fluent in Irish, Greek, Hebrew, Latin, Norman-French and Early English and were martyred in them all.

Their recent successor, John Charles, didn't consider a day worth living unless he had begun it by hunting down and excommunicating a liberal or banning Catholics from attending the Fingal philately exhibition because of the shamelessly Protestant postage stamps that were freely on display there, visible to all visitors, regardless of age or sex.

Yet now, John Charles's successor tearfully whimpers that he has been hurt by a few words from a prating Welsh pastor with more nasal hair than sense.

Meanwhile, the heirs to the Church of Ireland Archbishop Gregg of Dublin, who openly loathed Catholicism as an heretical and foreign intrusion from Rome, are behaving like Morris dancers.

Yes, Patrick, this is what has become of the Great and Holy and Apostolic and Patrician and Manly Churches that you once founded. The Prods are all girls, Paddy, and the Papes are whimpering, self-pitying softies.

Don't you just long for the good old Penal Days?

kmyers@independent.ie

- Kevin Myers

Irish Independent

Cicero's Dictum on Government, Hanlon's Razor and Hickey's Corollary

Ralph Martire spoke in Kankakee on Taxes!

The national budget must be balanced. The public debt must be reduced; the arrogance of the authorities must be moderated and controlled. Payments to foreign governments must be reduced, if the nation doesn't want to go bankrupt. People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance.

Marcus Tullius Cicero, 55 BC

Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity. Hanlon's Razor
However, Illinois Government listens to Ralph Martire*, believes that SEIU is a labor union and appoints Julie Hamos and Sheila Simon to Illinois Pensions; thus, stupid malice, or malicious stupidity! Hickey's Corrolary
*

There are many common culprits that politicians, interest groups and the public blame for Illinois' current budget crisis. But according to Ralph Martire, executive director of the Chicago-based Center for Tax and Budget Accountability, few are the real reasons for the $13 billion deficit.

Martire was the featured speaker Saturday at a town hall meeting on the state budget crisis in Bradley sponsored by state Rep. Lisa Dugan and state Sen. Toi Hutchinson, both Democrats.

While wasteful spending, fraud and high taxation are often perceived as the problem -- the real issue is Illinois' tax structure. In front of about 200 people, the trio attempted to address some of the key misperceptions of the problem . . .
Martire had some interesting things to say -- things he has said before in this area when he spoke at the Kankakee Public Library. But things that probably bear repeating.

He said the crisis is not being caused by high spending, the burden of high taxation, the cost of pensions or health care programs for low-income residents, or by fraud, waste and abuse.

Ralph, keeps cashing them checks, though! Hell, at least I'd wear a mask and pretend I had a gun.

SEIU's Andy Stern to Resign - Redistributed Wealth of His Workers On His Hip

Enough is not a feast - Andy Stern's Marxist snout will remain in the tax-payer trough =no worries on that.

"Last night I received confirmation that Andy Stern is resigning as President of SEIU. He has not yet made a public announcement; we will share the details as we become aware of them," Sosne wrote in an email obtained by POLITICO.

Sosne offered no explanation for the move, but another SEIU official speculated that Stern had finally tired of the draining job.

"Health care getting done is a good culmination," the official said.

Sosne isn't seen as a Stern loyalist or a central union player, but she's a respected former nurse who sits on the international's board as president of SEIU Local 1199NW, which represents nurses. She and her assistant didn't respond to questions about the email. Stern's spokeswoman also didn't immediately respond to a question about the email.

The SEIU has emerged as a central political player and has grown rapidly under Stern's tenure, and some close to him had expected him to resign during the first term of the president he helped elect, and after the achievement he'd spent years focusing on, widening access to health care. But he's also waged a series of bitter battles inside the labor movement, one of the nastiest of which turned in SEIU's favor with a California court ruling last week. Stern also won a victory when Obama named his union's lawyer, Craig Becker, to the National Labor Relations board over Republican objections in a recess appointment last month.

Stern, even without the union presidency, would remain on, among other things, the board of President Obama's deficit commission, to which he was appointed in February.

Anna Burger is to Andy Stern as Stalin is to Lenin. These University of Pennsylvania Alums - school of social work - have hoodwinked our supine corporate media into believing that SEIU is not a PAC, but an actual labor union. Nope. They are ACORN writ large and the folks who helped Blago fire-sale President Obama's hardly ever used U.S. Senate Seat.

Maureen Dowd - Feminist Nun With No Where to Go

Maureen Dowd- A Modernist-Feminist Nun With No Where to Go.

Before and after, 8:30 Mass on Feast of Divine Mercy, me the gents lined up with the traditional bound rods, (facere in Latin mean to do, or to make ) and took a few whacks at the women - octogenarians to toddlers. "Quit your squawking, or I'll give something to cry about! Hey, you Old Bat, this bumps for you!"

You see, Catholicism in the hands of our martini marinaded maid of Progressive America is an animist tribe of phalli-equipped Patriarchs. What's a couple of cuts with some supple wood I ask you? It ain't childbirth, for Crissakes! Did them no end of good too, I might add.

"Mrs. Mungoven slide out of them comfy kneelers and hit the hard wood floors, sister. Them pews is for us Manimals!"

Maureen Dowd really needs a date. Not gonna happen it seems. To paraphrase, Henry II to his sweating Dukes - "Will no one take this troublesome Twist out for a date and shut her up, for Crissakes?"

I picked up on Maureen Dowd's latest nuanced squeal against the Catholic Church via the Religion of Peace.

When I was in Saudi Arabia, I had tea and sweets with a group of educated and sophisticated young professional women.

I asked why they were not more upset about living in a country where women’s rights were strangled, an inbred and autocratic state more like an archaic men’s club than a modern nation. They told me, somewhat defensively, that the kingdom was moving at its own pace, glacial as that seemed to outsiders.

How could such spirited women, smart and successful on every other level, acquiesce in their own subordination? I was puzzling over that one when it hit me: As a Catholic woman, I was doing the same thing.

I, too, belonged to an inbred and wealthy men’s club cloistered behind walls and disdaining modernity.

I, too, remained part of an autocratic society that repressed women and ignored their progress in the secular world.

I, too, rationalized as men in dresses allowed our religious kingdom to decay and to cling to outdated misogynistic rituals, blind to the benefits of welcoming women’s brains, talents and hearts into their ancient fraternity.

Oh, heck no! Let's see now:

1. Stoning women went out before the 1st Pope

2. Female castration? Nope.

3. Mandatory garb for the womens? Not since Monsignor McMahon ( circa 1965)

4. Silence for women? As if.

5. "Women's brains, talents and hearts into their ancient fraternity?" Mo have another Cozmo! Sheesh, girls have sororities! Brains.

I wish a real genteel hunkish Man Candy serial dater would step up and treat Maureen Dowd to a night on the town - sappy Jennifer Aniston movie, late supper of cold quail's eggs, caviar and tiny toast points and gallons of French bubbly, carriage ride, walk in the soft rain followed by a cab ride through an urban landscape and faux forest, slowing down to an Oh,so gentle glide and depositing Ms. Dowd in front of a Knights of Columbus Hall where she could have more than a few solitary nightcaps and shrewishly demand the Grand Knight for a ride home. ' You doan Know ME! You men! Les Havanover,Kay?'
Magic!

Chicago needs Jewish Heritage Day

I bought my first real three-piece suit from Al Koralchik at his tailor shop on O'Brien Court & Halsted with the dough I made from working at Gee Lumber ( Greek Family) on 79th Street. Al Koralchik was the brother-in-law of Izzy Kagan, a great Austin High School football star who served in the Marines with my Dad's buddy the legendary Leo Coach Jimmy Arnenberg on Guam. They all kept in contact after the War and Mr. Kagan eulogized Coach Arnenberg at his funeral Mass.

I worked for Si Blitztein at the Evergreen Plaza. Si subsidized more Catholic educations than Catholic Charities.

Jews like Morris B. Sachs* and the Blackman Family Jewelers - now in Orland and Tinley Parks - once served the Catholic population along 79th Street, supported the south side Irish Parade, sponsored Leo High School Letterman Club, Yearbook and offered scholarships to poor kids.

Jews were our neighbors and co-laborers in the Trades Unions.

My grade school and high school buddy Danny Levi ran the Irish Temple on 111th Street.

Catholics and Jews seem to carry the philanthropic load in Chicago - read the names on every civic and cultural board of directors.

Today, Ms. Naomi Stewart argues:

Chicago needs a Jewish day. We need a Jewish parade. Chicago has all kinds of ethnic parades and days, and Jews are a huge part of Chicago. We contribute to the economy, culture and education. We like to wave flags and be seen marching down the streets having fun, too.
We could have a ''Jewlicious Fest,'' as they have in New York and San Francisco. Many cities have fests for Jews, except Chicago. Chicago is a big city. The day should be May 14, in celebration of the creation of Israel. Let's call it ''Jewish Heritage Day.''

Unless they give us a parade and our own day, I will never feel welcome in this town. I never did, and now I realize why. I hope I'm not the first or only Jew to suggest this idea.

Chicago's first synagogue, Kehilath Anshe Mayriv (KAM), was founded at the corner of Lake and Wells in 1847 by a group of Jewish immigrants from the same general region of Germany. By 1852, about 20 Polish Jews had become discontented enough to break off from KAM, and founded Chicago's second congregation, Kehilath B'nai Sholom, a more Orthodox congregation than the older KAM. In 1861, the second major secession from KAM occurred, and, led by Rabbi Bernhard Felsenthal, this splinter group formed the Sinai Reform Congregation, meeting in a church near the corner of Monroe and LaSalle Streets.

In 1859 the United Hebrew Relief Association (UHRA) was established by some 15 Jewish organizations, which included a number of B'nai B'rith lodges as well as several Jewish women's organizations. After the fire of 1871, Jews moved out of the downtown area, mainly southward, settling eventually in the fashionable lakefront communities of Kenwood, Hyde Park, and South Shore. Wherever they settled they established needed institutions, including Michael Reese Hospital, the Drexel Home (for aged Jews), and the social and civic Standard Club.

That would be some celebration!

*

One of the shows frequently asked about (when it wasn't a question on Bozo's Circus) was The Morris B. Sachs Amateur Hour. Sad to say, many ended the phone call dismayed that one of their favorite shows is just a memory today. Since the show was aired live, chances of any kinescope films popping up sometime are rare.

From an era where local talent shows were the norm, the Sachs program was considered the "daddy" of all amateur hours. The program had already been heard on WENR Radio for fifteen years when it came to WENR-TV in 1950. Master of Ceremonies was jovial and easy-going Bob Murphy, who joined the show in 1949 doing the radio version for one year and then taking on double-duty when the program debuted on channel 7. Murphy's job was to make sure the contestants, many who probably had never seen a television studio before, were comfortable. The show's announcer was Bob Cunningham. Music was provided by two Amateur Hour alums- Adele Scott and Al Diern.

Musicians, jugglers, acrobats, singers, comedians and more took the stage. Some hoping to "hit the big time," others for the thrill of being on television, and some came for the prizes.

And we are not talking cheap door prize junk. Winners on The Morris B. Sachs Amateur Hour went home with watches, jewelry, cash, and every thirteen weeks- a car if he or she won the semi-finals.

The Morris B. Sachs Amateur Hour was produced by Norm Heyne and aired on WENR and WENR-TV Sunday afternoons from 12:30 to 1:30.

My Dad's Pacific Part 2 and His Final Fight

Presidential Unit Citation w/2 Bronze Stars
Navy Unit Commendation w/ 4 Bronze Stars
Asiatic–Pacific Campaign Streamer w/1 Silver Star
World War II Victory Streamer

On Thursday, my brother called and told me that my sister had taken my Dad to Palos Hospital ER.

That morning, my Dad told my brother that he had 'kind of a stomach ache.' My Mom was in a rehabilitation facility in Palos Park, following a knee replacement. Mom swims and walks and her muscle tone is great. Dad has been without his girl for about a week and we thought maybe his stomach issues were concern.

Like most of the Irish and especially men of his generation, Dad believes that if one avoids doctors, one is well.

Not the case. Dad had a blocked colon and it had ruptured - probably days before. Dr. Kanashira, a beautiful Japanese American woman and his doctor, questioned Dad, 'How could you stand the agony?' With his usual understatement he replied, " I'm a Marine."

He is that. I learned from Dick Prendergast ( Leo '43) about ten years ago, just how much of a Marine this man is - They went into the Corps together at 17 years of age. My daughter Clare has a picture of my Dad, Dick Prendergast and the late Dick Burke, a Chicago Fire Captain as young tough Marines on Guadalcanal before Guam. They are skinny and hard looking eighteen year olds. Dad had just come back from Bougainville.

Dad was court-martial ed for being AWOL after Boot Camp. He went home on liberty, but his train back to San Diego was side-barred. He was late getting back; court-martial ed and offered the choice of Navy prison or the Solomon Islands. He chose the later.

Without basic infantry training, Dad was sent to Guadalcanal in September of 1943 and trained as a machine gunner with veterans of that battle. He was assigned to A Company, 1st Battalion, 3rd Marines of the 3rd Marine Division. He went to Bougainville in November, 1943 and fought there.

Dick Prendergast trained to be a Signal Corps officer with Joint Assault Signal Companies and arrived on Guadalcanal in 1944. He and my Dad met up again and Dick learned why Hickey went overseas and was veteran.

They went to Guam next. Guam was a slaughter for the 3rd Marines.

At 0829, the attack was directed at the 2000 yards of beach between Asan and Adelup points. The 3rd Marines landed on Red Beach 1, on the left flank. Being closest to Adelup Point, they soon realized that the Japanese were secured in effective defensive positions within the Adelup Point and upon Chonito Cliff, the high ground overlooking the beach. . . . One tunnel system, 400 yards long, connected Chorito Cliff with Adelup Point. Japanese troops could retire to positions on the back-slope of the ridge during intense shelling, and return out to the peninsula behind the U.S. Marines landing on the beach. The Americans realized that their worst obstacle would be the 'almost impossible' terrain facing them (Lodge 1998:40). Troops advancing toward Chorito Cliff and Bundschu Ridge took heavy losses. Four times they attempted to advance up rugged cliffs covered with sword grass. Four times they were pushed back. Climbing up the 60 degree slope required two handed climbing that made it impossible to return fire. Marines lay piled at the bottom of the ridges and the others were forced back to the beaches over and over until reaching success (Gailey 1988:95-97). Heat of over 90 degrees, intense humidity, lack of drinking water, and motion sickness from the long confinement aboard the ships brought the efficiency rate of troops down to 75%. By mid-afternoon, many men were dropping from exhaustion. By day's end, the regiment invading Asan beach counted 231 killed or wounded. Of the 100 amphibious trucks (DUKW's) available, thirty-six were lost during the landing and immediate assault phase on Asan Beach. . . . Three days after W-Day, (24 July) the Southern Landing Force had its beachhead firmly established. The steep cliffs and ridges surrounding both Asan and Agat beaches again took their toll on the troops. Weighed down with the intense heat and humidity, and lacking adequate drinking water, the troops advanced on the ridges that sometimes required two handed climbing through razor sharp sword grass. The cliffs were so steep that supplies were sent up on ropes. Advancement over the ridges often required repeated efforts and caused significant losses (Gailey 1998:97).

The largest Banzai Charge of the Pacific war hit the men on Guam. One account says it all.

"On the left flank, the 3rd Marines is just having a terrible time," Eddy said. Eddy's platoon was being sent into a situation becoming more and more desperate - the battle line along Chorito Cliff and the ridge that would be named after Capt. Geary Bundschu. "You know, the Marines are always doing things like that, moving units. So ... we are detached from F Company of the 2nd Battalion of the 9th Marines - we take the place of A Company of the 1st Battalion, 3d Marines, - we take the place of the unit of Capt. Bundschu," Eddy said.

While the entire 3d Marines met stifling opposition on and near Red Beach 1, Bundschu and the rest of Company A were particularly mauled by the enemy. Caught in the ridge by machine gun fire from above, the unit could not move forward or backward.

Bundschu would lose his life on the ridge, becoming one of the 3d's 615 men killed, missing, or wounded in the first two days of fighting. As a unit, A Company was barely hanging on. . . . Harassed by well-placed and hidden machine guns atop the cliff and above on the ridge, the 3d managed to scale the cliff about noon of July 21, reach beyond the ridge later, and onto Fonte Plateau by July 25. But its frontline by July 25 still did not solidly contact with that of the 21st; a gap also existed between the 21st and 9th. . . . Takashina's counterattack was unlike the banzai charges experienced before by the Marines in the Pacific. This one was well-planned and coordinated; the objective defined - to thunder through the gaps, down the ravines (between ComNavMar and Top O' the Mar restaurant) and onto the beachheads. There, troops of the Rising Sun would be able to put the Americans into disarray by disrupting their communications as well as halt resupply of Marines above, thus isolating them.

Through the night, Takashina sent thousands of his soldiers into the gaps, hoping that his counterattack force would reach the beachheads. The force was comprised of seven battalions funneling into four columns through the 3rd Marine Division's frontline.. . . . ( a veteran) , who had fought in Bougainville and Iwo Jima and in other battles, said the night of July 25-26 in Guam was a living nightmare. He and his men repulsed not one, not two but seven banzai charges that night.

"It was the most traumatic experience I ever had, it will live in my memory forever," he said. Fighting was at close quarters. "I had expected to be in battle, but never anything like this. When you think about fighting, you think that you're 100 yards away, but this was pretty gruesome, fighting them from 20 feet away and they're running all around you and screaming. "They were of a different culture. They did things that Marines wouldn't do - yelling, screaming. They didn't give a shit if they got killed; they just wanted to make sure that you got killed. That was what got to you - they wanted to die. They were willing to sacrifice themselves, "They were screaming at us. There was 'Marine, you die,' - they were screaming all that kind of BS, and we'd return it. I remember George Tuthill - he was one of my machine gun section leaders - and he had a loud voice, extremely loud. He'd be shooting, yelling, just things that you couldn't print.

"It's all silly, like little kids yelling at each other, but it's all desperation too." . . . The men along the front line were told that the enemy was 2,000 yards ahead. "We were beat - we were all trying to get some rest. Then a flare went up again, and like all of a sudden, I saw them. They were there, in front of us."

"Thousands ... they were like ants. Oh man, they kicked the shit out of us. They just kept coming, coming."

Dad was one of about thirteen men in Company A to survive Guam. He went to Iwo Jima as a part of the reserve force , but the 3rd Marines were ordered back to Guam where they continued to fight in the jungle until long after the War Ended. Dad came home to Chicago in November 1945 and never left. He never went on a cruise. He put the War far behind him and dedicated every fiber in his being to his wife, three kids and his Union - Local 399.

Like most WWII veterans he refered to his time in the War as 'In the Service.' Everyone else had it much worse than he did. Dr. Grasias who did the surgery on Dad remarked on the Japanese grenade fragments that he still carries.

The grenade fragments are of no consequence to the man who possess them still. A blood clot found its way up and the veteran of Bougainville, Guam and Iwo Jima is being hammered by an 'evolving stroke.'

I pray that the morphine drip and the other medicines allow Dad to bypass what he has stored.

Please God, give him baseball at Billy Smith Field on 79th Street, smooch and hug time with his girl Ginny, play with his grandchildren and big icy pitchers of Keeley's Half and Half ( hi favorite beer of all time - that and 'whatever you got') in the company of Donny, Bud, Jack, Bart, Sy and Mike his brothers; candy with Joan, Nonnie, Margarite, Mary, and Kathleen his sisters - his favorite and Irish twin Helen is still with us thank God; pay-back breakfasts with my wife Mary, hugs from his mother Nora and eternal peace with father Lawrence - with whom he never seemed to get along. He's earned this.

He has been up many hills and trails in the jungle, let him have smooth path to Christ.

Michael Moriarty Fights PC Jazz Goofs & Erroll Garner - I'll Remember April

Progressive Jazz: How the Left’s ‘Teachable Moments’ Killed Bradley’s Michael Moriarty's poignant and on-target essay on the Progressive PC poisoning of jazz focused my attention on the Great Erroll Garner Click my post title for pure genius.

Errol Garner is ignored. It seems to me that Mr. Garner is ignored because he was not angry enough - to the contrary.

Garner remains unique. Playing consistently to a very high standard, he developed certain characteristics that bear few resemblances to other pianists. Notably, these include a plangent left-hand, block-chorded pulse, a dancing pattern of seemingly random ideas played with the right hand in chords or single notes, and playful introductions, which appear as independent miniature compositions, only to sweep suddenly, with apparent spontaneity and complete logic, into an entirely different song.

Sumptuously romantic on ballads, and fleet and daring on up-tempo swingers, Garner’s range was wide. Nicknamed ‘The Elf’, more, perhaps, for his diminutive stature than for the impish good humour of those introductions, Garner was the first jazz pianist since Fats Waller to appeal to the non-jazz audience, and the first jazzman ever to achieve popular acclaim from this audience without recourse to singing or clowning. Dudley Moore acknowledges much of his style to Garner, and ‘swinging 60s piano jazz’ owes a massive debt to him. Stylistically, Garner is in a category of which he is, so far, the only true member. Since his death in January 1977, there has been no sign that any other pianist other than Keith Jarrett is following his independent path in jazz.

Michael Moriarty, a jazz pianist as well as a great American actor, wrote this

My God, the politicizing of jazz had grown to a militant exclusivity that infuriated me!
Had I not been with my director and had downed a few more drinks, I might have tipped over a few tables.
Now the atmosphere of this Nicole Henry album was inspired in one of the most jazz-addicted nations in the world, Japan.
They obviously retain a freedom within their increasingly sensitized souls more American than that most American giant of world cities, New York!!
Perhaps it was the moment the sportscaster, Dick Schapp asked me, “Michael, is there anyone in New York you haven’t offended?!”
“Yes,” I should have said, “You, Dick!”
Tighten the phones to your ears, if you’re using them to listen to the intimacy Ms. Henry maintains with herself – and that, mind you, is the first necessity of any recording … or film artist for that matter – and then let the “still, small voice” in.
Let the deep and quietly, blissfully disturbing surrender happen.
Bradley’s is no more and hasn’t lived for many years because once Bradley himself had died, his poor wife could not keep the Progressive Militants out.
That crowd of elitists, enlightened despots and intellectual supremacists had driven the regular customers like myself … had forced them out.
Eventually even they didn’t come.
Why?
They had no one to give a “teachable moment” to.
What happened to Bradley’s has now happened to all of America.
How long we will be in for this horrifyingly arrogant, “teachable endlessness” … and how long this soul-less and tragically American fascism can continue … will perhaps depend upon the depth of agony we all must feel repeatedly when the quintessentially American forms of music are fed to us as a privilege only afforded us by the Progressive dictators who claim to own it.

Big Hollywood 4/10/210

Jazz belongs to all of us. Thanks Mr. Moriarty and thank you Mr. Garner

http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/mmoriarty/2010/04/09/progressive-jazz-how-the-lefts-teachable-moments

http://www.oldies.com/artist-biography/Erroll-Garner.html

John Kass? Dithering Dick Durbin - Alexi's Zorba the Creep!

Just when WTTW had a golden opportunity to fight the power ( Illinois Speaker Mike Madigan- the only adult in Illinois Government) and allow Carol Marin to smugly snark-out Bosses, Bossism and Boss malapropisms weaving a purple toga ( that's a Roman thing) for Forrest Claypool - the panjandrum ( always appointed rarely elected) Zelig of Reform, John Kass of the Chicago Tribune hosed on the Greek Fire!

Oprah!

Just when will Claypool allow his buddies in the Obama White House to persuade the toxic Alexi Giannoulias to drop out and draft Claypool for a run against Republican Mark Kirk for the U.S. Senate seat in Illinois?

"Excuse me?" Claypool asked, as if he hadn't thought of it. "I have no interest in running for the Senate. I'm running to be the next Cook County assessor."

Claypool, the liberal Democrat, is indeed campaigning as an independent for assessor against Democratic Party warhorse Joe Berrios, D-Madigan.

"I'm not considering the Senate," he told me.

But he must have considered it, at least fleetingly, even as he's trying to gather 25,000 petition signatures to get himself on the November ballot.

And so have Democrats and Republicans who want to look past the latest sound bite and the next Claypool suck-up session. I'm sure President Barack Obama and his City Hall guys have thought of it.

Roasted Lamb, by the beard of Zeus! Kass, where's Illinois Senior Senator Dithering Dick Durbin? Boutsokefalos Durbin has been the Greek Mentor to Alexi Giannoulias and took the boy to fabled Hellas for a walk among the ruins and imparted his sage counsel on all things melon, lemon and felon!

Remember? Last Spring - 2009. The Odyssey of Durbin? What wisdoms did he impart to the young Treasurer? What pearls? What skata was Dithering Dick Talkin'?


"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

IOANNES (Ιωαννης) Kass! While our anger is often aimed at the obvious man in power, or the most skilled or the most successful, it is not always the Great Man who is the puppetmaster, but often the Iago, or the Catesby, or the Bacon. Just because Senator Durbin presents himself as a hapless dope, does not mean that he is without his ability to seed folly and influence a young man. Remember what Aristotle said in Rhetoric -

Anger may be defined as an impulse, accompanied by pain, to a conspicuous revenge for a conspicuous slight directed without justification towards what concerns oneself or towards what concerns one's friends. If this is a proper definition of anger, it must always be felt towards some particular individual, e.g. Cleon, and not "man" in general. It must be felt because the other has done or intended to do something to him or one of his friends. It must always be attended by a certain pleasure -- that which arises from the expectation of revenge. For since nobody aims at what he thinks he cannot attain, the angry man is aiming at what he can attain, and the belief that you will attain your aim is pleasant. Hence it has been well said about wrath,

Sweeter it is by far than the honeycomb dripping with sweetness,
And spreads through the hearts of men.

Stay angry, John Kass - IOANNES ( Ιωαννης)!!!!!! NOW!!!! I MUST Dance!!!!!!!!!!!!

MSNBC Hates Real Nuns and Why I Can't Tea Party - for Real - It's A South Side Thing -My Problem, Really.

I mean, by the MSNBC definition they would be racist: After all, 79 percent of those polled were white. That's a lot of white people and Chris Matthews must reckon, a lot of hoods*.Why the Left Hates the Tea Party
I count three Hoods - Old School South Side-ism for Nuns.
My buddy John Rubery - the Marathon Pundit - sent me this great photo of three nuns attending a Tea Party event in Rockford, Illinois.

I witnessed the first big Tea Party event last year in Chicago, when I was in the Loop on Leo High School business. It was a very tame, respectful and nice crowd of people.

N. B. -Given the fact that I aged ( we say 'dragged up') on the south side of Chicago, where mothers and fathers; extended family; neighbors; friends; teachers and coaches protect the young from ridicule ( ' Murtagh!, you are not wearing that cape out to play again; you are a senior at Marist, for Crissakes! Only Mike Joyce can get away with that and you are no boxer, Honey.') very early in life, Tea Party sports wear does not suit me. Therefore, I feel uncomfortable intruding in mufti. For example, were I to don a tri-corner hat, black vest and swell knee-britches and hose worn only by serial bicyclists on Milwaukee Avenue, Gino Ford, Eddie Carroll ( 'Put a net over Hickey') , Mike Regan ( "Get Him That Canvas Sweater with Tuck-Away Arms," Joe Capagna, Tommy Kordas, and Boz O'Brien ('Don't let His Kids Know') would call the CFD paramedics and have me shot up with animal tranquilizers until I got better. Thus, due to cultural cowardice, I am not a Tea Partier.

You see, the lovely lady with whom I am utterly flattered by her tolerance and acceptance of my Gordian psychic package and I stroll the tony streets of Chicago's Gold Coast and the delightful and impish Old Town. She is charmed by the sight of thirteen and fourteen year old boys decked out like Harry Potter and remarks on that sight. She shudders when I offer the insight, "Victims."

My heart goes out to these uninhibited young fellows festooned as they are in whimsical garb on a blustery April Sunday. I can well imagine the drubbing these romantically inclined boulevardiers would take at the hands of the less whimsically inclined denizens of 108th & Rockwell ' "Hey, Harry,is Hogwarts' Off for Easter? Get over here and empty your pockets for me and Frankie, Buzz and Knuckles or Hermione’s Time Turner will zap your nuts!"( 5th graders at St. Cajetan's). It is my hang-up.

However, I admire and respect and envy the many, many, many Americans who stand up!

These three wonderful women are an example to us all. It nice seeing Nuns without needing to shudder, flinch and recoil from their folly of escorting kids to an abortion factory, or encouraging goofballs to toss blood at Easter Mass - which some nuns did, as a matter of fact, - and avoided getting bracelets put on their flabby wrists when the cops showed up.

Get the Context from Dan Kelley in the Joe Berrios Brawl

Chicago Daily Observer columnist and attorney Dan Kelley presents the best analysis of the Cook County Assessor Race coming soon to voters near you!

Dan Kelley presents the context for this race being papered over by the dimwitted corporate media - especially the ever fatuous icon Carol Marin. I like Joe Berrios and Carol Marin does not. That is usually Okay by me.

For the real deal dig here and find the gold.

Thus:

Berrios might have been vulnerable to a primary challenge in 2008, but the only opponent to emerge was Jay Paul Deratany, a lawyer with ties to US Representative Jan Schakowsky (D-9th) and her husband, the former felon, Robert Cremer. Deratany enjoyed financial support from the gay community, but his campaign money could not buy him love from the primary electors. A stronger opponent might have caused Berrios some sleepless nights, but the leftist Shakowsky endorsed a Board of Review candidate who could not play to the voters in the bungalow belt. Had a more conventional opponent filed against Berrios in 2008, he may have been retired already.

If Claypool qualifies for the November ballot, this may be the most interesting local contest in more than a decade. Claypool has a political resume that is enviable when contrasted with that of Berrios. For the time being, voters will have to wait and see what develops.

Click my post title for Dan Kelley's Chicago Daily Observer piece