No Time My Dear. Houli's 'Her Majesty Da Queen' Opens Tonight! We Must Get to the Irish American Heritage Center. Now, Do Be a Good Girl . . .

The IAHC will host the world premiere of Mike Houlihan’s new documentary Her Majesty, ‘da Queen on Saturday night, November 13th at 7:30pm. Tickets are $10.
The film is a sneak peek backstage at the annual St. Patrick’s Day Parade Queen Contest and captures the humor, heartbreak and excitement shared by more than 100 young women each year as they vie for the crown. Many of Chicago’s most endearing Irish-American personalities are featured in the film in intimate interviews during the pageant.
The film was edited from video shot at both the 2009 and 2010 queen contests.
The screening of Her Majesty, ‘da Queen will begin at 7:30pm with introductory remarks by filmmaker Mike Houlihan and wrap up with a Q&A with the audience and a post-screening party in the Fifth Province Pub. Tickets are $10.

"Hickey's Back!" VP Biden Says,"BFD!"

Oft him anhaga/Often the solitary one
are gebideð,/finds grace for himself
metudes miltse,/the mercy of the Lord,
þeah þe he modcearig/ Although he, sorry-hearted,
geond lagulade/ must for a long time
longe sceolde/ move by hand [in context = row]
4a hreran mid hondum/along the waterways,
hrimcealde sæ/ (along) the ice-cold sea,
wadan wræclastas./ tread the paths of exile.
Wyrd bið ful aræd!/ Events always go as they must!

"Where you been,Hickey? You been scarce."

True, my friend; very true. To wax mysterious . . . There's a road that leads away from most things.

Gnaw on that nugget for a few moments, Boys and Girls! To most, in Truth, I have been missed as much as cold sores on a pretty girl's lips and as necessary as a beer summit.

Really, Kids, this past month has been devoted to a special writing project.

My road is fraught with ice cream sandwiches and long walks in tall soft grass. Occasionally, I cut the soles of these old dogs on cast away pop tops from the 1970's and the odd shard of glass, but a good squirt of Unguentine does the trick and I gets them feet to walkin' again!

Hic Jacet ! Going Dark!

This site is going dark as of tomorrow. I'll be writing and posting but not for public viewing. It is good practice.

Ave atque Vale! Been the grins.

Chicago's Poet J.J. Tindall - This is Poetry

Chicagoetry: Saturday Afternoon
By J.J. Tindall
Saturday Afternoon

Music, if music, is divine,
the sub-atomic matter of divinity.
Not as a god but as a god might be.
He savored the complacencies
of a beer run, illumined by siren song,
the luminous trill of a woman's voice
in Spanish--not the tyrannous bleat
of emergency engines--sluicing through
ash-grey alleys like invisible water
through caverns of Indian-corn brick,
fluttering, flirting and luring,
lute en fleur.

A brook of invisible gems, supple
and turbulent, a careening of lush atoms.
Spanish is music-upon-music to the non-Spaniard
in the works. He encountered a church
festival in the parking lot of Iglesia del
Nazareno, a carnivale of faith and family,
pulsating with popular rhythm and blues.
Children darting and dancing, setting pigeon
flocks--flecked in ash--undulating, supple
and turbulent. Young couples embracing,
husbands and wives in intense conversations
of labor, pain and enduring love.

Visible, culpable: keyboards, trap-set
and bass guitar, with a chorus of three (a trinity).
Music invisible, but real as rain.
The Spanish did not batter his heart
with mythy rhetoric. Divinity pressed upon him
in lush, sub-atomic reality, whorling and whooshing,
like a jettisoned flock of scavenger birds.
Like swirling birds, not a seething, humanesque god.
The more human, the less humane. The less humane,
the less godly. Music, if music, is miracle,
luring lush hearts from deifying life's inherent pain,
not as a god but as a god might be.

October 19th, Black Robes: The Feast of the Jesuit Martyrs of North America

Let your loins be girded and your lamps burning,
and be like men who are waiting for their master to come home from the marriage feast, so that they may open to him at once when he comes and knocks.
Blessed are those servants whom the master finds awake when he comes; truly, I say to you, he will gird himself and have them sit at table, and he will come and serve them. If he comes in the second watch, or in the third, and finds them so, blessed are those servants!

Today's Gospel: Luke 12:35-38


In the 17th Century, the Catholic Church was recovering from decades of Protestant revolt. The Church took a hard look at itself and began to Reform. As part of that Reformation, the Order of Jesuits ( Society of Jesus) was formed by a Spanish soldier named Ignatius Loyola and organized according to military science with a clear and single mission - Progagate the Faith.

In 1646, French Jesuits appeared in North America and quickly converted the Huron Nation to Christianity covering an area from what is now New York to well north and west of Quebec.

Words strive in vain to convey to a comfortable world the virtue of the first missionaries, and to describe the difficulties confronted by these heros desiring to implant Christianity amid the savage nations of the north. Building materials, chapel accessories, everything in effect had to be imported from France; the Indian languages were varied and difficult; customs were at best non-Christian; insects infested the woods where they dwelt; the tribes were migrant and had to be followed from place to place. There were less belligerent ones who responded rapidly to the pacifying and sanctifying influences of the Faith, but the Iroquois of the northeast were dreaded, and it was to them that the eight martyrs all fell victims, over a period of seven years.

The Indians called the Black Robes. They were talented men of science, medicine and military professionals. They were the result of the Church's long hard look. The Catholic Church is taking that long hard look again and so are Catholics themselves.

These men were giants.

St. Jean de Brébeuf (1649), St. Noël Chabanel (1649), St. Antoine Daniel (1648), St. Charles Garnier (1649), St. René Goupil (1642), St. Isaac Jogues (1646), St. Jean de Lalande ,[6] and St. Gabriel Lalemant (1649).


These were some tough and dedicated men.

I feel particularly small and petty in their shadows.

Imagine!

Lookee Here!

Dan Green -Chicago Water Department Hero!

City workers bust tail for all of us. Last winter, I watched my neighbor Steve Riordan plow miles of City roads working around the clock; Water Department teams repaired burst water lines in Morgan Park in sub-zero weather. Today, the Tribune reports about Dan Green who pulled a man from a blazing wreck.

A city water management worker on his way to an overnight shift late Sunday rescued a man whose pickup truck slammed into a metal bridge support beam and burst into flames in the Brighton Park neighborhood, police said.

Just before 11 p.m., Daniel Green, 36, an emergency crew dispatcher for the Department of Water Management, was stopped at the eastbound traffic light on Pershing Road at Western Avenue when a northbound Ford F150 crashed into a support beam. Within a minute, the truck was engulfed in flames, said Green.

"I didn't really pay attention until he hit the pole," said Green in the parking lot of his job just after midnight Monday.

Green and a bystander rushed to help the man, who appeared to be in his 60s or 70s. The two forced the driver's side door open. About eight men then carried the unconscious man to a nearby sidewalk and waited for paramedics to arrive. "This guy was dead if we didn't get him out," said Green, adding that the man was slumped over the steering wheel.

Police at the crash scene said the man was semi- conscious when paramedics took him to a hospital.

Preliminary reports said witnesses saw the truck slam into a bridge support beam from an overhead railroad, said Police News Affairs Officer Amina Greer. The man was taken in stable condition to Mount Sinai Hospital, Greer said.

Police called Green, "a good Samaritan," who pulled the man from the truck before it became fully engulfed in flames, she said.

Mike Houlihan's Latest Film -Her Majesty 'Da Queen World Premiere November 13th at IAHC

If there are any flies on Mike Houlihan, they must be pretty active wee lads! Mike Houlihan hustles like a 70's Disco King. The man is a prodigy. His lastest film "Her Majesty 'da Queen" World Premiere is coming to Chicago's Irish American Heritage Center.

Mike Houlihan's Newest Film to Première at IAHC

The Irish American Heritage Center will host the world premiere of Mike Houlihan's new documentary "Her Majesty, 'da Queen" on Saturday night, November 13th at 7:30PM.

The film is a sneak peek backstage at the annual St. Patrick's Day Parade Queen Contest and captures all the humor, heartbreak, and excitement shared by over 100 young women each year as they vie for the crown. Many of Chicago's most endearing Irish-American personalities are also featured in the film in intimate interviews during the pageant.

"Her Majesty, 'da Queen" was edited from video shot at both the 2009 and 2010 queen contests. This one-hour program is a prologue to Mike Houlihan's epic documentary "Our Irish Cousins", which is currently in post-production. "Cousins" was shot all over the US and in Ireland and reveals the Irish American experience in all it's glory, humor, and sprit.

The screening of "Her Majesty, 'da Queen" will begin at 7:30PM with introductory remarks by filmmaker Mike Houlihan and finish up with a Q&A with the audience and a post-screening party in the Fifth Province. Pub.

The Irish American Heritage Center is located in Chicago at 4626 North Knox with free parking available. For more information call 773-282-7035.

Houlie moves like a Kenyan at a Marathon.

Fear and Frustration Driving People, Mr. President? Nah. It's Prayer and Wide Awake Living

WEST NEWTON, Mass. - President Barack Obama said Americans' "fear and frustration" is to blame for an intense midterm election cycle that threatens to derail the Democratic agenda.

"Part of the reason that our politics seems so tough right now and facts and science and argument does not seem to be winning the day all the time is because we're hardwired not to always think clearly when we're scared,” Obama said Saturday evening in remarks at a small Democratic fundraiser Saturday evening. “And the country's scared.”

It is tough being President. It is easy wanting to be President. President Obama is sounding more and more like Michael Scott on the TV show The Office with each passing day. Michael Scott is the Manager of a paper company branch office and how the poor guy ever became so is part of the program's charm.

President Obama does not and did not have the experience, nor the basic instincts to be President of United States - nice guy, I guess, but insubstantial. He is the product of collective wishful thinking on the part of the DNC, their cash cows and the American media. If I had not actually experienced the man Barack Obama ( executive director of Woods Fund 1995, Congressinonal Candidate 1st District, Illinois State Senator) I could have become an Obama enthusiast. Instead, I hitched my vote to John McCain who quit running for President on September 9th 2008 at the Bush White House "Holy Poop The Sky Is Falling!" Economic Summit.

Two years and change into President Obama's hapless Administration and the National Warranty expired very early, like the 2010 Impala* which is already being recalled - the seat belts get unhitched. Given President Obama's penchant for automobile tropes, I thought that fitting.

Nope, people are not fearful or frustrated they are Royally pissed.

Mass was packed this morning and the folks of Sacred Heart Catholic Church in the Washington Heights neighborhood prayed for the President after the Gospel - here it is

1 And he told them a parable, to the effect that they ought always to pray and not lose heart.
2 He said, "In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor regarded man;
3 and there was a widow in that city who kept coming to him and saying, `Vindicate me against my adversary.'
4 For a while he refused; but afterward he said to himself, `Though I neither fear God nor regard man,
5 yet because this widow bothers me, I will vindicate her, or she will wear me out by her continual coming.'"
6 And the Lord said, "Hear what the unrighteous judge says.
7 And will not God vindicate his elect, who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them?
8 I tell you, he will vindicate them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of man comes, will he find faith on earth?"

The devout Patriots, mostly Democrats, prayed for Our Presdent and our Congress to defend our country,

We are praying like Hell and are as mad as Hell. I voted last week.


* GM Too Big to Fail? Failed just dandy.

General Motors and its Chevrolet Impala model.

Vehicles affected are 2009 and 2010 model year Chevrolet Impala sedans and the recall is down to concerns over a seat belt issue which means that the front seat belts could separate in a crash, according to Cheryl Phillips over on The Examiner. Over 300,000 vehicles are affected by this recall.

GM will begin notifying owners of these vehicles around October 25 and customers will be requested to take their cars into a local GM dealership where reinstalllments will be carried out on any seatbelts found not to be properly anchored. Both front seat belts will be inspected but it should be pointed out that there have not been any reports of injuries or deaths resulting from this problem.

http://www.onlykent.com/20101017/gm-chevrolet-impala-recall-2010-over-300000-details/

Style -Sinatra, Martin and Crosby

Bing Crosby) [Dean Martin]

Some people dress 'cause they dress when they dress,
But he gets dressed to get dressed.
(It's only a hunch but I bet you a bunch)
(He wears suspenders, a belt and a vest,)
[From the tip of his toes to his head,]
[He looks like an unmade bed.]

You've either got or you haven't got style.
(If you got it, you stand out a mile.)
A flower's not a flower if it's wilted,
(A hat's not a hat till it's tilted.)
[You either got or you haven't got class.]
[How it draws the applause of the masses.]


(You either got, or you haven't got,)
[Got or you haven't got,] ,

You've either got or you haven't got style, (got or you haven't got style).
[If you got it, it stands out a mile,] (if you got it, it stands out a mile.).
With mother of pearl kind of buttons,
(You look like the Astors and Huttons.)
[You either got or you haven't got class,] (got or you haven't got class.)
How it draws the applause of the masses.


(You've either got, or you haven't style) [got or you haven't got style}
(Style and charm seem to go arm in arm,) [seem togo arm in arm.].
[A flower's not a flower] (if it's wilted,)
[A hat's not a hat till it's tilted.]
(You've either got or you haven't got style,) [got or you haven't got style,]
[If you got it, you stands out a mile,] if you got it, you stand out a mile
(Got it you stand out,) got it you stand out a mile.


You've either got or you haven't got, (got or you haven't got,)
[Got or you haven't got,]

Come on , get some clothes on, we're gonna be late for breakfast.

STYLE:
Written by: Sammy Cahn
Written by: Jimmy Van Heusen
With Dean Martin and Bing Crosby
Arranged by: Nelson Riddle ? Nelson Riddle
From the Album: The Complete Reprise Studio Recordings
From the Film: Robin and the Seven Hoods
Label: Warner Bros. ? Reprise
Recorded: 12/3/63 ?

http://www.jumbojimbo.com/lyrics.php?songid=4125

Obamaretta - Gilbert and Sullivan Bedamned!

This here is a howl! Huge Hat tip to Anne Leary's Backyard Conservative!



Next week - Jerry " Governor Moonbeam" Brown's California Revival of John Ford's Senecan Tragedy'Tis Pity She's a Whore!

How to Restore Dignity to the Democratic Party - Show the Dopes the Door!

Departed Desiree Rogers always seemed the perfect metaphor of everything that has destroyed the once great Democratic Party - she brought absolutely nothing to the Party but arrogance and self absorption, but was a huge voice. Desiree, like Jan Schakowsky, Mike Quigley, Debbie Wasserman-Scultz,antony Weiner, Austan Goolsbee,Janet Napolitano, Valerie Jarrett, Arne Duncan, Andy Stern, Anna Burger,Eric Holder, Van Jones, and America's endless parade of protected nitwits, are shills for abortion, leftists agendas and corporate opportunists. It is time to consign these empty suits to the children's' table . . .again.


“These are naive idiots who’ve come out of academia and have never done anything real in their lives, and they are actually in power,” he said. “These are the people we never let in the room when we had serious business to do. Now they’re running the country.” Democratic Strategist Pat Caddell

I remain a Democrat. The Progressives of the National Democratic Committee hijacked the Party, took power, won the White House, ruined the American Economy for generations and all without the help of GW Bush, polarized the Nation, set-back race relations, fast tracked corruption with the Green Futures Market, and trampled on Foreign Policy. I remain a Democrat, for same reason that say the Memorare, the Nicean Creed, attend Mass, and do a couple of laps around the rosary despite Drum-banging Lesbian Wannabe Nuns and Ordained Idiots who undermine the Faith.

There are more great priests and nuns than the dopes, but the dopes have been allowed the microphones and bullhorns for too long.

Likewise, the very people that no self-respecting elected official would have had anything to do with thirty years ago are now the DNC operatives and national Party leaders.

Democratic Strategist and fellow helot Pat Caddell rails at President Obama, the DNC door-keeper for now and against the lunatic fringe that has usurped authority -

“My problem with Obama started the day he blew up public financing of presidential campaigns,” Caddell said in an interview with The Daily Caller. “He’s the man whose done the most to destroy whatever integrity there was in campaign financing.”

Obama declined public funding of his presidential campaign in 2008.

The administration’s attacks, Caddell said, on groups like the Chamber of Commerce and donors like the conservative Koch brothers reek of McCarthyism.“I was the youngest person on Richard Nixon’s enemies list. I take this stuff seriously. What they’re doing is Nixonian – it’s McCarthyite,” he said.

Caddell, who has worked for a number of presidential campaigns, including Joe Biden’s in 1988, said making outside money an election issue is a risky strategy for the Democrats. “You’re 21 days out from an election and this is what you’ve got? That’s it? Nothing about jobs or the economy?”

It won’t be pretty for his party, Caddell says. “Come the morning of November 2, they’re going to have a cold shower. It’s going to be an Arctic temperature.”

It is time for some genuine soul-searching in the Democratic Part -Federal, State and Local.

Nothing is on the Square -Especially For Us Squares -God Speed the Bad Days for Mr. Vrdolyak

“Hey, not even fishing is on the square.” Edward Vrdolyak

Only on Powder Horn Lake, Alderman. There is where us Squares are. There and in Albany Park, Gresham, Morgan Park, Mount Greenwood, Canaryville, Chinatown, Pilsen, Chatham, . . . Edward R. Vrodolyak respected and honored the Square.

Edward V. Vrodlyak was sentenced by Judge Milton Shadur, but Federal Judge Richard Posner bullied the press and the 7th Appellate Court to reverse a Judge's decision -the judge who actually heard the case, weighed the evidence and determined the sentence of probation.

That is Justice? No, that is public opinion. Public opinion has nothing to do with what people actually think - that is why abortion is tagged Choice and SEIU is called Big Labor, or unions. Public opinion is the rigged deck of cards shuffled by a closed club of social engineers, agenda soaked columnists and editorial boards, and opportunists who are protected.

Edward Vrdolyak was an effective public official, a tough in-fighter, and a guy with full and respectful understanding of the public - the working people*, the tax-payers, the home owners and the Squares who work 8-14 hours a day to meet the cost of living and still manage to care for their neighbors, the Law and defend their country.

The Editorial Boards and iconic columnists are doing the bidding of Closed Club America and have tossed history down the Orwellian memory hole - it was Edward R. Vrdolyak working for Mayor Jane Byrne who registered the hundreds of thousands black men and women who stood on the political sidelines back in the late 1970's -it was boss Vrdolyak Head of the Democratic Party of Cook County who did that. Vrdolyak invented the Harold Washington Movement. That is a fact. Long before Slim Coleman and Lou Palmer ever looked at the books of registered African Americans, Edward Vrodlyak was doing the work. History is not cute, but what is done to history by the Closed Club is cute as hell - in Ireland they are called Cute 'Hoors.

Edward Vrdolyak had his day in court some time ago and faced the judicial music.

Federal Judge Richard Posner, a leading member of the closed club of social engineers et al., changed the score.

If you wonder why there is a Tea Party boiling over in this country consider what has happened to Edward Vrdolyak.


*

Hegewisch is a real place, and it's not in Harry Potter-land. But mention it to Chicagoans and 75 percent of them will give you that tilted-head, pursed-lipped look of Huh? Where?

It is, in fact, a neighborhood of Chicago, as south and east as the city goes. It's possible to play Twister with left hand on Chicago, left foot on Burnham, Ill., and right foot on Hammond, Ind.

It's a lovely and leafy place — bungalows in a row with tidy, manicured lawns. Lots of Polish surnames. Among them: the Dombrowskis, proprietors of Club 81 Too on Avenue M. It's a bar with a separate restaurant that's only open on Wednesdays and Fridays. If you ran this ambitious of a seafood operation with a short staff, you'd be open only twice a week too.

My first visit here on a Friday evening was greeted by Leo Dombrowski, a white-haired man in a Hawaiian shirt. There's his sister, Joan, apron omnipresent, full of institutional memory and sass. Brother George stands guard behind the bar. And the memory of brother Frank "Big Cheese" Dombrowski, its longtime manager until his death last year, looms as large here as his stout frame.

All Chicago Veterans Invited to Leo High School Veterans Observance on Friday November 5th

Photo courtesy of Beverly Review

On Dec. 8, 1941, the day after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, Lou Knox tried to enlist in the Marines, but he was turned down for having an overbite.

Knox graduated from Leo High School in 1942, enrolled at DePaul University and was eventually drafted in February 1943.

“At that point, they would take you if you were warm,” Knox said.

A native of the parish of St. Columbanus Roman Catholic Church on the South Side, Knox served 34 months in the U.S. Army during World War II. He was a member of Darby’s Rangers, an elite special operations unit whose members were the first American soldiers to see combat in the war. He scaled a cliff in the south of France and was the first American soldier to enter Rome. He also met the king and crown prince of Norway. During his tour, he was wounded twice and received both the Purple Heart and the Bronze Star.

Now 87 and a resident of Tinley Park, Knox will recall some of his World War II experiences when he participates in the annual Leo High School Veterans Memorial Observance on Nov. 5. The event—co-sponsored by Leo High School, the Leo Alumni Association, Windy City Veterans, the Veterans Leadership Program, American Legion Giles Post #87 and the Chicago Commission on Human Relations—will take place in the school’s courtyard on 79th Street near Sangamon Avenue at 11 a.m. The event is open to the public.

Caroline Connors -Beverly Review

All Veterans, Veterans Organizations, Serving Members of the United States Military, All Federal, State and Local Law Enforcement Officers, and Firefighters are honored by Leo High School.

Friday November 5th, 2010 Program:

Invocation and Prayers by Father William McFarland

Wreath Laying

Singing of Our National Anthem and God Bless America by Ms. Catherine O'Connell

Pledge of Allegiance

Recognition of Veterans by

1. Leo School Leadership

2. Leo Alumni Association3. Taps and Dismissal

Leo High School
7901 S. Sangamon Street
Chicago, Illinois 60620 ( 773) 224-9600 extension 208 -Mr. Pat Hickey for more information

Tom Roeser - Chicago's Plutarch

Greece, by the turn of the first millennium, was a sad ruin of its former glory. Mighty Rome had looted its statues and reduced Greece to conquered territory. 1 Despite these circumstances, Mestrius Plutarchus (known to history as Plutarch) lived a long and fruitful life with his wife and family in the little Greek town of Chaeronea.

For many years Plutarch served as one of the two priests at the temple of Apollo at Delphi (the site of the famous Delphic Oracle) twenty miles from his home. By his writings and lectures Plutarch became a celebrity in the Roman empire, yet he continued to reside where he was born, and actively participated in local affairs, even serving as mayor. At his country estate, guests from all over the empire congregated for serious conversation, presided over by Plutarch in his marble chair. Many of these dialogues were recorded and published, and the78 essays and other works which have survived are now known collectively as the Moralia. . . .
Plutarch's plan in the Lives was to pair a philosophical biography of a famous Roman with one of a Greek who was comparable in some way. A short essay of comparison follows most of the pairs of lives. His announced intention was not to write a chronicle of great historical events, but rather to examine the character of great men, as a lesson for the living. Throughout the Lives, Plutarch pauses to deliver penetrating observations on human nature as illustrated by his subjects, so it is difficult to classify the Lives as history, biography, or philosophy. These timeless studies of humanity are truly in a class by themselves.

I looked at a replay of the Kirk-Giannoulias debate on NBC’s “Meet the Press” last night and was struck by the fact that the match-up shows the weaknesses and imperfectability of the human condition when squeezed by the vise of politics as nothing else has.
Nixon. A Success but Still Filled With Grievance.
Comparing it with the 1960 Kennedy-Nixon imbroglio which I have seen (in addition to its initial performance live) four times is fascinating. I am a great believer that experiences, good and bad, show up on people’s characters and faces beginning when they hit active middle age. In 1960 Nixon was 47, 5 feet 11 inches tall. 170 pounds, with wavy hair, brown eyes shaded by black, heavy eyebrows, a prominent ski nose, somewhat sagging jowls and a slightly protruding jaw—a face that narrowly missed being good looking. His health was generally adjudged as excellent but with a tendency to hypertension.

Tom Roeser

Plutrach paralleled the lives of the noble Greeks and Romans of history and myth- Theseus with Romulus, Themistocles with Camillus Cicero with Demosthenes, Phyrrus with Gaius Marius, Lysander with Sulla, Alexander with Caesar, Demtrius with Antony, andDion with Brutus - in all there were twenty three parallel lives.

Tom Roeser has been a public voice and an active civic leader in America from the time that he scooped an interview with First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt after WWII, through his work with the Nixon Administration on Civil Rights right up to today's feature in Chicago Daily Observer.

Mr. Roeser wears his heart on his sleeve and speaks with a clarity and simplicity that seems lost on the dodgy and self absorbed columnist icons who bore a hole through Chicago Readers with cant, smarm and agendas.

Tom Roeser offers context and historical fact.

Like the Greek historian of the 1st Millennium Plutarch, Tom Roeser has offered in his Sun Times and Catholic Wanderer columns, as well as his editorials for Chicago Daily Observer, parallel lives of American public figures -FDR/Coolidge; Lincoln/GW Bush; John Brown?Pro Life Activists & etc.

Today, in considering the tepid candidacies of Alexi Giannoulias and Mark Kirk Tom Roeser contrasts those figure with the stark contrast of accomplished men -JFK and Nixon.

Click my post title and give Chicago's Plutarch a read.

http://www.freewebs.com/delicianleague/

NFL Hall of Fame Legend Gale Sayers Visits Leo High School

Leo President for Institutional Advancement Dan McGrath, Illinois State Rep. John O'Sullivan and NFL Hall Fame Legend Gale Sayers


On Wednesday October 13, 2010, Worth Township Committeeman and Illinois State Representative John O'Sullivan brought his friend Hall of Fame NFL legend Gale Sayers ( Bears # 40) for a visit to the students of Leo High School.

Gale Sayers met with President for Institutional Advancement and Morgan Park native Dan McGrath and talked to Leo Students about sacrifice and achievement.

The Kansas Comet* spent the morning meeting with Dan McGrath, Principal Phil Mesina and the staff of Leo High School.

In Leo Legend and former Principal Pete Doyle's science class a good number of Leo Lions football players were treated to serious lesson about the realities of playing sports beyond high school. Gale Sayers played 68 games in the NFL and cautioned student athletes that when you prepare for football one must also prepare for life well beyond the game. That means developing skills and interests well beyond the fields or the hardwood floors.

The soft spoken sports legend encouraged the Leo Lions to prepare themselves as men of character, family obligations and civic responsibilities.

The Leo Family thanks Illinois State Representative John O'Sullivan for inviting Gale Sayers out for one of what could be many more visits to Leo High School.


*

Like a twisting tornado on the Kansas plains from whence he came, the Chicago Bears' Gale Sayers swirled onto the National Football League scene in 1965, wreaking fearful havoc and destruction on every opposition defense that stood his way. The fluid, will-of-the wisp ball-carrying thrusts of the mercurial Sayers dazzled the pro football world in a manner that it had not experienced for a full 40 years, not since another whirling dervish runner, the fabled Red Grange, flashed into action, also as a Chicago Bear. There is no telling what the "Kansas Comet" might have attained not fate stepped in to neutralize the flashing feet that no defense could adequately contain. A right knee injury in the ninth game of the 1968 season was a foreshadow of things to come. Yet, more determined than ever, Gale underwent a tortuous rehabilitation program, and in 1969, rushed for his second 1,000 yard season and won universal NFL Comeback of the Year honors.

But a left knee injury sustained in the 1970 season effectively put a stop to the glittering career after just four-and-one-half seasons of full-time activity.

Even though he was named the top halfback in the NFL's first 50 years in 1969, there was concern for a time that Sayers' comparatively short playing span might prevent his eventual election to the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

But the Hall's Selection Committee never wavered in its resolve at the 1977 meeting, the first one in which Gale was eligible for consideration. The Committee's vote was unanimous and its summation simple: "There never was another to compare with him. What else is there to say!"

On July 30, 1977, Sayers joined his fellow 1977 enshrinees, Bart Starr, Bill Willis, Frank Gifford and Forest Gregg, in receiving the impressive induction rites on the front steps of the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

From the time he first handled a football as a youngster, Sayers was a sensation. Born May 30, 1943, in Wichita, Kansas, he moved to Omaha, Nebraska, with his family in his early years. There he became an all-state football and track star at Omaha Central high school.

Heavily recruited by numerous colleges, Sayers picked the University of Kansas, where he enjoyed a sensational three-year career under Coach Jack Mitchell. While setting Big Eight records, Gale rushed for 2,675 yards, caught passes for 408 yards and added 835 yards on kick returns.

Sayers loomed as one of the top prizes in the raging AFL-NFL war in the mid 1960's. One of three first round draft picks of the Bears, Gale was also the No.1 choice of the Kansas City Chiefs. While Kansas City was closer to home, Gale opted for the NFL because he felt the older league could offer a better showcase for his exceptional talents.

Incredibly, it now seems, more than a few pro scouts questioned whether Gale could make it in the pros. Everyone recognized the Jayhawk all-America's natural abilities but some doubted that the 6-0, 200 pound speedster could stand the pounding that he was sure to face. Otto Graham, the 1965 College all-star coach, suspecting that Gale had exaggerated a practice injury, even declined to play him in the summer classic in Chicago.

Bears coach George Halas, more understanding of Gale's injury problems, opted to bring him along slowly to build his confidence as well as to heal his aches and pains. Sayers saw his first action in the third pre-season contest and started for the first time in regular season Game No. 3. Almost immediately, he flashed the comet-like form that soon was to shake up the entire NFL.

Against the Los Angeles Rams in pre-season, he scampered 77 yards on a punt return, 93 yards on a kickoff return and then surprised everyone with a 25-yard left handed pass for a touchdown as the Bears won, 28-14.

In his starting debut, Gale scored both Chicago touchdowns in a 23-14 loss to Green Bay. A week later against the Rams, he ran 80 yards with a screen pass and threw another touchdown pass as the Bears won, 31-6.

Rosey Grier, the Rams' great tackle, answered the skeptics who doubted the Kansas Comet could make it in the NFL. Speaking of hid 80-yard run, Grier pondered: "I hit him so hard. I thought my shoulder must have busted him in two. I heard a roar from the crowd and figured he fumbled. Then there he was, 15 yards away and going for the score."

Seven days later, Sayers scored four touchdowns as the Bears beat the Minnesota Vikings, 45-37. The game breaker was Gale's 96-yard kickoff return.

Still the best was to come!

On December 12, the next-to-last week of the season, playing on a muddy field that might have stalled most runners, Sayers scored a record-tying six touchdowns as the Bears annihilated the San Francisco 49ers, 61-20. His TDs came on an 80-yard pass reception, rushes of 21, 7, 50, and 1 yards, and an 85-yard punt return. For the day, the Bears ace amassed 336 combined yards.

"It was the greatest performance I have ever seen on the football field," an exuberant Halas, who had been watching NFL play for 46 seasons, proclaimed.

Sayers' rookie-season totals were staggering. He amassed 2,272 combined net yards and scored a record 22 touchdowns. A year later, he increased his combined net yards figure to a record 2,440 yards and led the NFL in rushing with 1,231 yards.

He continued to sizzle in 1967 and well into the 1968 campaign until, in the ninth game against, ironically, the same 49ers team that he had decimated as a rookie, Sayers suffered the first crippling injury of a series that would eventually end his career. On one of his familiar burst around end, Gale's right knee buckled as Kermit Alexander applied a clean, but crushing tackle. Massive ligament damage required immediate operation.

Gale, with almost complete intensity, undertook a strenuous leg-building program, determined that he would once again run as the Sayers of old. His pace in 1969 was slow at first but he finished with a rush and wound up with his second NFL rushing title with a 1,032-yard total. On a Chicago team that only won one game in 14, Sayers went over 100 yards four times, scored eight touchdowns and won a carload of "most courageous" type awards.

Much like the baseball pitcher who must perfect new deliveries after his first ball has waned, the Sayers of 1969 was still one of the NFL's most effective running backs but he no longer was the game-breaker that had startled the league such a short time ago.

As the Chicago Daily News observed, "Gone are that instant acceleration from medium to top speed and the incomparable ability to change directions on a dime without hesitation or loss of speed."

Backing up the News' Contention was the 1969 NFL record book which showed that Gale's longest rush was for only 28 yards. He did return one kickoff 52 yards, but he didn't score.

Still, the familiar No. 40 had enjoyed a remarkable season and it was not unreasonable to expect that he might improve even more in another season.

But fate struck again with cruel suddenness in a summer-season game against St. Louis Cardinals in 1970. Hit viciously hard by an eager Cardinal rookie on the kickoff team, Sayers suffered severe ligament damage once again, this time in his left knee.

Sayers delayed an operation and tried to play but could manage only 52 yards on 23 carries in two games. In mid-October and again in February, 1971, he underwent surgery to repair the damage.

Still determined, he tried once again in 1971 but could play only two games. Finally, after a desperate comeback attempt in the 1972 pre-season, Sayers reluctantly called it quits. By this time he had foot and ankle aliments to go along with the injured knees and the old magic had simply vanished.

But the marks he left behind will never vanish! In four-and-one-half heavy-duty campaigns, Gale totaled 9,435 combined net yards, 4,956 yards rushing and he scored 336 points. He still ranks as the NFL career leader in kickoff returns. He was named all-NFL five straight years from 1965 to 1969 and he played in four Pro Bowls. In three of them, he won Offensive Player of the Game honors!

Sayers at 34 is the youngest person ever elected in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. His term of effective playing time is also the shortest of any Hall of Famers. Those facts stand out as two very strong testimonials to the gridiron greatness that came so quickly to Gale Sayers

Leo Students Witness Politics Old School - Vice President Biden, Governor Quinn, Chicago Labor and Mary Ann Ahern Give a Tutorial

"I talked before about the mess President Obama and I inherited," said Biden. "Pat, I think you inherited almost as big a mess. Pat didn’t complain. He got to work. He passed a law giving small businesses a $2,500 tax credit for every person they’d hire.”

According to the Secret Service, there were about 1,700 people at Tuesday's event. Another 300 people were left outside, unable to get into the event.

Mary Ann Ahern NBC 5.

In that packed hall were six Leo High School students. Hakeem Chatman, who has been leading the Chicago Catholc League in tackles, is a middle linebacker and a superb track athlete ( shot & disc), marvelled at the packed crowd in Chicago Plumbers Hall on West Washington Street, where he and Jeremy Clark, Tevin Craft, Boxer Denzel Howard, Golfer and Scholar Brendan Mahan and Kaylon Rimpson rubbed elbows, hips and rumps with Congressman Danny Davis, Congressman Bobby Rush, and the Chicago news media.

Brendan Mahan did a video with Tiger Woods at Beverly Country Club last year - the video was eclipsed by the scandal and has yet to make an appearance. Brendan is a very tuned in young man who reads both Chicago papers back-to-back each day and therefore was able to identify Chicago's political elite.

Congressman Danny K. Davis, who appeared on stage with the Vice President Biden, Governor Quinn, Senator Durbin and Mayor Daley spoke with the six Leo Lions for the better part of hour outside of the packed Union Hall, as Secret Service Agents made safe passage for the Vice President. Brendan engaged the Congressman who was the soul of grace with the young gentlemen bedecked in bright orange Leo Boxing gear.

It was the school colors that attracted the attention of my old pal NBC 5 political reporter Mary Ann Ahern, whose father-in-law is Leo Man Dr. Jimmy Ahern ( Leo '44). Mary Ann put down her microphone and walked down from the TV Press Platform and spoke with the Leo Boxers. Freshman Jeremy Clark spoke with Mary Ann like a seasoned political professional. Mary Ann Ahern gave the guys her journalist's full press asking about their studies and interests and praised Hakeem Chatman's record on the football field. The guys witnessed a genuine news reporter at work - Mary Ann kept her focus on the rally and nevertheless gave the young fellows her attention.

It had been a full day of studies and activities for our guys, but they had all volunteered to witness the arrival of Vice President Biden. The Catholic high school heroes of Gresham dined on cheeseburgers with Boxing Coach Mike Joyce (Leo '86) at the legendary Palace Grill, while Secret Service agents swept the Plumbers Hall prior to the 5PM start of the rally. The Leo Van was given a great parking spot by a Federal Agent who had served under Agent Larry Lynch, recently retired from the Secret Service, who himself had been mentored by the heroic Tim McCarthy the Secret Service Man who save President Reagan.

Leo High School continues to produce great men. These six kids from Chicago's toughest and most dangerous neighborhoods are following in the paths of great Lions. In fact at the table next to the Leo Boxers sat Operating Engineers Local 399's Tom Keatty ( Leo '73) who runs operations for US Equity and was part of that union's huge contingent of supporters for Governor Pat Quinn.

Labor came out in droves - Engineers Locals 150 and 399, Plumbers 130, Pipefitters 597, Electricians 134, Painters, Hoisters and a sea of orange bedecked Laborers.

Vice President Joe Biden tossed the working class warriors slabs of red meat and they ate it up! Joe Biden is in his element among blue collar Americans and told poignant story after story of his father's heroic efforts to feed his family.

When it was time to head back to Leo, I could not have been more proud of the half dozen young gents in my charge. They called to have their parents pick them up at Leo.

I hung out with Hakeem Chatman and the next Golden Gloves Boxing Champ Denzel Howard on 79th Street in front of the statue of Our Lady and the Leo War Memorial. Both young men talked about how comfortable they felt meeting celebrities and national figures. It is no mystery, these kids work at it every day. Doing more than what is expected of one is the common place of great people - it takes practice - and these young gentlemen work at it.

Crains's Chicago Business and Greg Hinz Smear Sheriff Dart and Former Sheriff Sheahan and the 19th Ward in Two Smarmy Paragraphs.

Sheriff Mike Sheahan is the only elected official to my knowledge who did not profit from public service. This I know for a fact. I try to avoid getting behind Mike Sheahan in the check-out lines at County Fair Foods, because it is a sure bet that it will take a good twenty minutes of coupon counting, before my groceries get tallied.

Nevertheless, Media Types like Mark Brown, Carol Marin, and hugely unfunny Neil Steinberg take lame-ass shots at Sheriff Sheahan and the 19th Ward.

Here is Greg Hinz attempting out-Neil Steinberg on the Mayoral Race -

But the real question is how much Mr. Dart has cleaned up the sheriff's office, which for a couple of decades has been pretty much a 19th Ward fiefdom. Mr. Dart seems to have done a pretty good job, but then, he was chief aide to former Sheriff Mike Sheahan, who caught lots of flak.

You can bet the sheriff's operation will get a full airing before the mayoral vote. Mr. Dart doesn't need any other stumbles.

Greg another one those EVERYONE KNOWS it is true Craptabulous Columinist Pimp Slaps! Really. Shakman! Greg, Shakman!


Gee, Greg EVERYONE know s that Crain's Chicago Business is in bed with Rahm Emanuel - all of the Smart Money. EVERYONE KNOWS THAT!

Oh, that's right. I am not a columnist. Can't get away with that. I'd like to see Sheriff Michael Sheahan ( ret.) hire Joe Powers and sue Crain's and your sorry ass for defamation of character.
What is the exact statistical breakdown of 19th Ward residents in the employ of the Cook County Sheriff?

Mike Quigley used to wow cocktail waitresses with what passes for his wit with a snotty crack about 19th Ward residents with County Plates. No numbers, just Profiling.

19th Ward profiling is acceptable, because Irish Catholics rarely take people like Greg Hinz, or Neil Steinberg by their rolled lapels, pull them up close for a 'chin wag' let alone for a trip outside and a thorough and salubrious beating. Rarely.

Anapests and Ale; Beer and Ballads at Beachwood -Thursday at Beachwood Inn

Patron, Publisher and Publican Steve Rhodes pops the caps on litres of lager and loads Bob's Beachwood Inn for an evening of Ale and Alliteration by Chicago's best practicing and published poet -J.J. Tindall on Thursday October 14th - Unbuckle your chin straps! Grab a knee! Coach Steve's got soemthing to say. . .spit out that gum!

I'll be behind the bar tonight at the glorious Beachwood Inn slinging drinks and singing songs 5 p.m. to 2 a.m. Ten free picks on the jukebox for whoever gets to them first! Other specials:

* Old Style: $2.50. Yes, that's a special!
* $1 off bottom shelf. That's the lowest shelf!
* Free football pizza from John's! Made to order!
* Free pool for $1!
* Dr. Dude pinball!
* Monday Night Football in HDTV!
* 18 jukebox picks for $5!
* And bar jokes!

Please join us on Thursday, October 14 for a very special presentation of J.J. Tindall's Ballots From The Dead at Open Books -

Open Books
213 W Institute Place, Chicago, IL 60610

(312) 475-1355 () ‎

Then amble over to Beachwood Inn

Choose your own poem to read from our Chicagoetry collection and bring books to donate to our gracious host, Open Books.


Also, don't forget our Thursday books event at Open Books.

Open Books
213 W Institute Place, Chicago, IL 60610

(312) 475-1355 () ‎


See you there!


Steve Rhodes
Editor & Publisher | Beachwood Media
-
www.beachwoodreporter.com
www.agonyandivy.com

J.J. Tindall has a practiced ear for lyrical poetry and gives voice to a poetic talent too often drown out by lesser lights. Here is a posting that I made last Fall on J.J. Tindall's works.

I love Poetry and there is a heap of very bad poetry - thanks to Slams and HBO.

Poetry is exacting work - The Sound must seem an echo to the Sense*. It is not something one tosses off when fully Kreuzened and touched by the Red Bull Muse.

One of Chicago's best practicing poets can be found in the pages of Steve Rhodes' wonderful Beachwood Reporter. J.J. Tindall has a great ear and a wonderful heart that shouts out wonderfully humorous lines.

Here's a bit:




Son of St. Francis of My Ass

I'm just trying to have a good time.
Hurt is Hell. Let's have a bell!
TONG! TONG!

And a crow.
My Hell is a deep Christian
well in a raw field

just beyond
the edge of the last
suburb.

A raggedy-ass crow,
nothing noble, no Narcissus
of wire. A red crow




Chicagoetry: Confession To The Future
By J.J. Tindall
Confession to the Future

I strove for wealth and sorely failed,
I did not save a single whale.
I did not raise my children well,
I told my friends to go to hell.

I did not know my neighbor's name,
I juried love a callow game.
I scorched the earth to fight for fame,
I stole a march on any shame.

I greeted fools with charming grace
then wiped that smile right off their face.
I cheated on schoolwork, taxes, wives,
then pleaded innocence all my life.

I sold the farm for booze and coke,
I relished vicious ethnic jokes.
I bought the biggest car I could,
I dumped my garbage in the woods.

I sold insurance on people's health
then prayed they'd die to spare my wealth.
I proffered bonds on people's homes
then jacked the price and rigged the loans.

I razed the forests to drill for oil,
I fouled the air and drugged the soil.
I said anything to get elected
then assured my interests were protected:

wildlife crushed to bone and ash,
mountains scarred with gouge and gash,
rivers poisoned drop by drop,
farmland rendered fetid slop.

Thus your Martian tundra reigns,
deserts, bog-holes, acid rain.
Thus you needn't send to know
which rake made your world of woe.

Always me. It was me. It was me.


* I always bow to Pope in matters poetic and the Pope in matters spiritual, moral and liturgical.


True ease in writing comes from art, not chance,
As those move easiest who have learned to dance.
'Tis not enough no harshness gives offense,
The sound must seem an echo to the sense:
Soft is the strain when Zephyr gently blows,
And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows;
But when loud surges lash the sounding shore,
The hoarse, rough verse should like the torrent roar;
When Ajax strives some rock's vast weight to throw,
The line too labors, and the words move slow;
Not so, when swift Camilla scours the plain,
Flies o'er the unbending corn, and skims along the main.
Hear how Timotheus' varied lays surprise,
And bid alternate passions fall and rise!

Skinny Sheahan- Icon or Chick Magnet - Either Way He's Ahead of the Pack!

Yesterday, I was driving to O'Hare Airport on the Kennedy and was riveted by the above Chicago Marathon Icon - the woman who graces my company and passenger in Phaeton Hickey remarked, "Why, that is Skinny Sheahan* on that wall. That spot is generally given to images of scantily clad children, pouting suggestively."

With my customary focus to the Illinois Rules of Road- Sec. Jesse White editor and publisher- hands at 2 and 10, proper application of my leg, ankle and foot muscles to the accelerator with regard to posted speed limits, all electronic communications devices off, a grin of self-assured confidence strained with pity due to my witness of sinfully self-absorbed bad drivers, my peripheral vision took in the sight of the image of James "Skinny" Sheahan leading the pack of runners.

"Indeed, Madam, Skinny is on the Wall and wherever good and patriotic men and virtuous women and innocent bright-eyed children need a Champion! ( heroic orchestral music rising) There's a new spirit abroad in the land. The old days of grab and greed are on their way out. We're beginning to think of what we *owe* the other fellow, not just what we're compelled to give him. The time is coming, Ms. Sullivan, , when we cannot fill our bellies in comfort while the other fellow goes hungry, or sleep in warm beds while others shiver in the cold. And we shan't be able to kneel and thank God for blessings before our shining altars while men anywhere are kneeling in either physical or spiritual subjection.

But in the days to come, the American people for their own safety and the good of all will walk together in majesty and in justice and in peace. Skinny is on that Wall . . .We want him on that Wall . . .we Need Him on that Wall!."

The elegant woman marveled, "Your words are so noble . . ."

I cut her off, as is my wont, post gerund but mid-thought, 'Not mine, Ms. Sullivan -James "Skinny' Sheahan . . .or from an old Sherlock Holmes movie, or something. I'm getting a big ass popcorn at O'Hare."

"Please, use that language with the boys at Keegan's, I don't care for that."

" Sorry . . .well I'm getting the large one anyway.'

"That's nice. Watch the truck in front of you, please."

In Hoc Signo Vinces!

*Jim "Skinny" Sheahan, 64, is president of Special Children's Charities/Special Olympics Chicago. He's also running the Chicago Marathon on Sunday (his 39th marathon overall). His course:
Huge Cap tip to John Ruberry Our Marathon Pundit!

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0036348/quotes