Hello, Dahli! Skinny Sheahan, Irish Welfare and the Cat Man Do!

Last week, I joined Skinny and Houli for a live taping (oxymoron like German Jazz and Progressive Charity?) of their wonderful radio program ( AM -WCEV 1450) at Jack Desmond's Irish Pub. Skinny Sheahan related another ripping yarn from his vast catalog of true-life south side apologues.

This tale was about a gent on Irish Welfare, a good paying fringe-of-the-government job, who was tasked with driving Mrs. Maggie Daley and the Dalhi Lama to a charity event some years ago.

Mrs. Daley requested that the A/C be turned up in the limousine. The driver with the guileless charm of most hard-scrabble rooted south side ethnics, informed the First Lady of Chicago that 'The Dial for it was right there up over Dolly's head.'

Mrs. Daley was plussed, 'Excuse me? Excuse me????'

'Dolly, he's sittin' right there across from you. Reach up and grab the dial for Crissakes!'

Thus, a career change.

Who knows what will happen to Irish Welfare in this our Good Government Golden Age?


Katmandu!




. . . And readers wonder who I got this way.

Beachwood Reporter Steve Rhodes - Steel Spine, Razor Wit and Massive Heart

Steve Rhodes is a paragon. I get on Steve's nerves over my skepticism concerning the near universal acceptance that Jon Burge tortured every black man who stepped into Area 2 ( Old and New). Unlike most folks beyond my Zipcode, I believe that the entire Monster Burge Mythology is just that and the truth of what happened is buried under mountains of bullshit. I get Steve as sore as boil on this issue, but that is as nothing to what my presence and performance art has on most people I love. I am a good-natured pain-in-the-ass at times. Many times.

Steve Rhodes writes, edits and publishes, what I believe to be the best news and opinion post in Chicago, if not the whole damned country.

Rhodes has a nose for cant and singular moral code that escapes most of our more iconic Media creatures - Steve Rhodes is a power iconoclast. He lives integrity. Some time ago Steve Rhodes abandoned a lucrative post as an editor of NBC's Chicago website, and remained fastened to the mast of Truth. His monetary ship sank, but the juggernaut of Rhodesian Integrity still cuts through the waves of journalistic bullshit. In 2009, Steve Rhodes resigned as editor for NBC ( from Mike Miner of the Chicago Reader)

Rhodes explains why he left. It came down to a lack of trust and a lack of respect; Rhodes focuses on one post, about Randy Michaels succeeding Sam Zell as CEO of the Tribune Company, that he says NBC took down, and another post, about the suicide of Michael Scott, that it never put up. He writes that he couldn't get a straight answer about what the problem with the Michaels post was, but an NBC exec said the Michaels post "didn't meet the standards of the NBC brand." The post recalled an old lawsuit that alleged Michaels "roamed his old Clear Channel offices with a 'flexible rubber penis' tied around his neck" and accused him of "a host of other crude rituals."

Didn't meet standards? Rhodes doesn't buy that. He writes, "The Michaels post was partly about sexual harassment, not sex. It wasn't arted with yet another montage of cleavage that has become so familiar on the [NBC] site over the past few months."

As for the Scott post, Rhodes writes that he told it was "scotched because [Scott] was a friend of a high-ranking station official here in Chicago who had been 'ruffled' by the coverage of Scott's death."

Rhodes being Rhodes, he writes with a lot of heat and a fair amount of invective. He asserts at one point, "I didn't use names in this piece because I don't really intend this as a 'tell-all;' instead, to me, it's another in an incredibly long line of tales about journalism and its discontents. It's a sick, diseased industry that can't seem to get past the basics of what it is and what it's supposed to do.

"

This week, Steve Rhodes presents genuine analysis of the news concerning our President, his peeps, his foes and his handling of the Debt Crisis. It is his conclusion concerning lobbyists and the Obama Brand that is a masterstroke:

"The cynics, the lobbyists, the special interests who've turned our government into a game only they can afford to play," said then-Sen Obama in his February 2007 announcement speech. "They get the access while you get to write a letter . . . The time for that kind of politics is over."

Yes. Now we won't even read your letters!

"Nearly 80 percent of those who collected more than $500,000 for Obama took 'key administration posts,' as defined by the White House" iWatchNews reports. "More than half the ambassador nominees who were bundlers raised more than half a million.

"The big bundlers had broad access to the White House for meetings with top administration officials and glitzy social events. In all, campaign bundlers and their family members account for more than 3,000 White House meetings and visits."

Waiting for Superman
It's not the debt ceiling I'm worried about, it's the bullshit ceiling. Why do we keep raising that?

Click my post title for more Rhodes!

If you want the Truth, go to Steve Rhodes. He will tell you when you are a pain-in-the-ass. If you are not reading Beachwood Reporter, you should. If you are a philanthropist with a genuine love of good writing and analysis write a big check to Steve Rhodes.

If you are not any of the above, change.

http://www.chicagoreader.com/Bleader/archives/2009/12/22/steve-rhodes-leaves-nbcchicagocom

John Dewey - The Father of Stupidity in Education

The Lab School at the University of Chicago is prestigious and pricey, but I would send my kids to Moses Montefiore, before I'd send them there. As I sent them through Catholic schools the point is as moot as it is root. Nothing against the good folks at the Lab School who come armed to instruct with degrees and certifications that would make the founder's moustache quiver with delight. More so, I would hazard a guess that most of the staff of Baronet Moses Montefiore,Kt ( British Jewish Financier.Philanthropist and Sheriff of London 1784-1885) High School on Ashland Ave. were trained in the methods and philosophy of John Dewey. That said, all American public schools are fostered in Dewey/Hegelian non-sense.

As I have posted many times, John Dewey bullied his way into American Education by dint of his intellectual gifts and membership in the American Brahmin Class. Dewey clicked with good old American contrarian ways and means. Dewey made inquiry and not the pursuit of truth the core of American public education. The Lab School at University of Chicago mandates inquiry as play and play as power. You can arrive at any pre-conceived outcome so long as that outcome fully agrees with the point that inquiry begins. e.g. All police officers are brutal agents of systemic racism - Alpha and Omega. President Obama is the greatest President Ever! Our Economy is Better Now Than Under George W. Bush. The Debt Debate is a crisis leading to the aversion of the crisis created by the the very crisis itself. A family consists of any human beings. The Act of Sex is a Civil Right. The New York Times said it and that settles it. More Tax Dollars Poured into Public Education Will Save Tax Dollars.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel is sending his kids to Chicago Lab School and they will follow the intellectual and professional paths of Arne Duncan, the Obama kids, and Valerie Jarrett. They will be fine. Their self-esteem, personal growth and life-long associations will blossom.

Founded in 1896 by pre-eminent American educator John Dewey, the Lab Schools are known as one of the most diverse of the nation's elite private institutions; about 35 percent of its students are people of color. It's also known as one of the best: its high school is one of the top feeders in the country to America's elite colleges and universities, and its extracurriculars, from newspaper and yearbook to Model U.N., are regular winners of regional and national awards.

Such prestige doesn't come cheap: the lower school costs $21,060 per year, while the upper school is just shy of $25,000 annually. That means that the Emanuels will be forking over more than $60,000 each year for their three kids' tuitions.

Huffington Post - The Hollywood Squares of Journalism

Hey, Catholic schools are diverse. Leo High School for example in the heart of Gresham has 90.9% persons of color and a growing number of Mexican kids and now several white ethnic Catholics from Canaryville. There is greater diversity, to be sure, at Mount Carmel, De LaSalle, St. Rita and Marist, but Leo is a very happy campus.

One thing is certain, the kids at south side, west side and north side Catholic schools come from very homogeneous financial backgrounds - Mom, Dad, Auntie, Gramma and Alumni are President Obama's working stiffs: cops, firemen, nurses, public school teachers, skilled tradesmen, industrial workers, Unlike the Lab young 'uns, these kids will not have the path of inquiry festooned with placement, nor will they have the grease and juice backing their play necessary to waltz into Harvard, Columbia, Yale and Oberlin. Catholic kids will scratch their way into those same schools by dint of achievement. Lab School kids get cache with a diploma.

Cache is okay, but core values are much better. Here is a recent commentary by an American Academic and covert to Islam. The guy knows that Dewey is as dangerous to his Faith as it is to Jews, Catholics, Lutherans, Unitarians and Wiccans. In writing about the idiotic neologism THE ARAB SPRING coined by New York Times Dewey-boy Thomas Friedman

Truth, however, cannot exist in a culture with an educational system that denies the possibility of its very existence. Without truth and justice, there is no such thing as a moral disaster. The root cause of most of the injustices in the world, however, is the moral disaster of secular utilitarianism. The wielders of financial and political influence in America have imposed this utilitarian philosophy as a paradigmatic monopoly in the American educational system and with it infected the entire world.


In a compartmentalized system of education, where there is no coherence in anything, the products of this system necessarily are too narrow to value knowledge exogenous to their field of expertise or even to sense that a system of morality can even exist.

The spread of this moral disaster has been going on within the American educational establishment for more than a century, especially since John Dewey. Dewey was born before the American Civil War and set the standard for modern education in America and throughout the world a hundred years ago in his many books, perhaps especially in his Depression-Era book, How We Think: A Restatement of the Relation of Reflective Thinking to the Educative Process. Dewey invented the school of “philosophical pragmatism” which is associated originally with John Stuart Mill, but was further developed at Harvard by others who defined all meaning in life and all morality as the maximization of net utility based on pain versus pleasure. Avoid whatever gives one pain, and embrace whatever gives pleasure, which, in turn, is associated with the philosophy of hedonism. One can argue with this approach pro and con, but the major distinction is that in modern secular education there is no truth and no justice, because even the concepts of truth and justice are thought to restrict rather than maximize human freedom.

Dr. Robert D. Crane*

Back at you, Doc!

*DR ROBERT D. CRANE Chairman, Center for Understanding Islam, and President, The Center for Policy Research. Earned a doctorate (J.D.) at Harvard Law School (1959) in international investment and comparative legal systems. Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Arab Emirates (1981). Principal da’ii (religious instructor) at the Islamic Center, Massachusetts Avenue, Washington, D.C. (l983-86). Director of Publications, International Institute of Islamic Thought (1986-88). Founding member of The American Muslim Council and Director of its Legal Division, 1992-1994. He has published 10 books and 50 professional articles on comparative legal systems, global strategy, and information management. Languages include English, German, Russian, Spanish, French and Arabic.

Rahm, Chicago Needs Catholic Schools - Vouchers Would Be a Great Help

As much as the Gentry Class* ( affluent, professional, college-diploma Progressives) hate to recognize it, Chicago is a Catholic city. Catholics tend to vote Democratic even though Catholics are about as welcome in the Progressively controlled Democratic Party as a Lesbian Methodist Minister at a Taliban goat-roast after Ramadan.

Catholics belong to a Faith that remains committed to the sacrament of marriage and defends life from conception to the Hospice. Ethnic Catholics tend to go into the military, take careers in Law Enforcement, become home-owners and tax-payers. Catholics are saddled with a Church hierarchy that until only recently took its eye off the ball where children are concerned and almost universally kissed the botox-ed fannies of Planned Parenthood and its Democratic Party minions;too many in the Catholic clergy tried to become Unitarian ministers with better perks, tax-loop holes, residences and cover from accountability.

Nevertheless, the pews remain full in Catholic neighborhoods and the children go to Catholic schools that out-perform public schools across the board.

Charter Schools fit nicely in the Progressive pattern of John Dewey education, but aped the veneer of the hall-marks of Catholic schools: selective enrollment, uniforms, uniform discipline codes, Mission Statements, teacher accountability, and do more in the classroom with few dollars. Charter Schools, even the very best ones like the Noble Street models, are not Catholic Schools.

Charter Schools get tax-dollars and Catholic Schools do not.

Because Charter Schools get State tax-dollars, Public Service unions directed by SEIU pushed teacher unions to agitate for unionization in Charter Schools. The door to that was kicked wide open in 2009. Charter Schools are public schools and over the years to come will be dominated by the teachers unions who helped create the mess that is public education.

Catholic Schools and the fewer Lutheran, Dutch Christian, Jewish, Muslim and Independent Schools operate on tuition and money from fund raising. Catholic cops, firemen, streets and sanitation workers, skilled trades union members, nurses and public school teachers in tax-targeted middle class neighborhoods send their children to Catholic Schools - because their kids will receive faith-rooted moral instruction, discipline, accountability, feed-back, and self-esteem.

Empirically speaking, I see thousand of teens wearing Mount Carmel, St. Rita, Marist, Notre Dame, St. Gregory, Gordon Tech, Leo, Maria, and Our Lady of Tepeyac sports wear.

N.B. I must give a shout out to the Green and Gold of St. Patrick High School on the north side in celebration of its Centenial and a Half of service to Chicago!

I have yet to experience the sight of young people sporting Simeon, Dunbar, Hubbard, or Whitney Young caps, hoodies, or t-shirts.

Kids represent. When they are proud of the association with their school's history, record of achievement and street cred they brand themselves, Mom and Dad, Grannie and Gramps and the extended family and neighbors with Maroon and Orange of Brother Rice, Brown and Vanilla Mount Carmel, the Blue and White of Maria, Red, White and Gold of Mother McAuley, Blue and Crimson of St. Rita, the Orange and Grey of Gordon Tech and of course the Orange and Black of Leo.

Today in a very cogent and practically articulated article John Kass of Chicago Tribune offers a sound bit of advice to Mayor Rahm Emanuel - get behind School Choice Vouchers and now. Here is the impact point - Chicago's tax-base send their kids to Catholic schools -middle class families black, white and Hispanic - with great personal sacrifice: they pay tuition twice, because they are required to live within the City limits:

. . . And under the restrictive — and selectively interpreted — residency laws, Chicago schools have a captive middle class. Cops and firefighters and city workers and teachers must live in the city to keep their jobs.

They can't leave town and raise their kids in the suburbs, even if they keep a house address in Chicago. The Illinois Supreme Court has ruled that a presidential chief of staff, living in Washington, with kids in Washington, can be considered a resident of Chicago. But don't be naive enough to think this standard would apply to others.

So if students can't be squeezed into top magnet high schools, the parents are compelled to fork over more than they can afford for parochial education. Or leave the city.

This sets up an unequal, two-tiered system, with limited resources. And in a city so historically corrupt, the dispensing of limited resources has predictable and cynical outcomes.

In March 2010, for example, the Tribune reported on the VIP list maintained by Chicago Public Schools. A nephew of former Mayor Richard Daley's lobbied to get a political supporter's two daughters into an elite high school. And there were other reports that Chicago politicians — including a so-called reform alderman — tried to clout their own children into select schools.

Those who win a spot in the excellent magnet schools sing the system's praises and lavish the politicians with praise and votes. And those who don't are abandoned to fate.

Certainly Rahm knows this. And, I'd like to think, it's what truly angers him.

jskass@tribune.com

John Kass is a public school guy, but John Kass is not a member of the Gentry Class. He is a blue-collar ink-slinger.

The Gentry Class control the Media. The Gentry Class controls Democratic Party and very sizeable number of GOP elected officials. The Progressive agendas present a steady diet of empty rhetorical memes - a Buffet of Bullshit.

Most people take a pass on the offerings under these sneeze guards, but their elected officials for whom they continue to vote wolf the offerings down.

Rahm Emanuel needs to serve up Vouchers, Chicago needs Catholic schools and their non-Catholic cousins: Lutheran, Dutch Christian, Hebrew, Muslim and Independent schools.

Chicago is still a Catholic city and Chicago Catholics have had enough from the Gentry Class Progressive Buffet.

* from Joel Kotkin:

Gentry liberalism combines four basic elements: faith in postindustrial "creative" financial capitalism, cultural liberalism, Gore-ite environmentalism and the backing of the nation's arguably best-organized political force, public employee unions. Obama rose to power on the back of all these forces and, until now, has governed as their tribune.

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

http://articles.latimes.com/2007/dec/02/opinion/op-kotkin2

Chicago in Michael Moriarty's Meditations & The Genius of Steve Allen

The guy can act, write, compose and tickle the 88s. Michael Moriarty is in the process of writing a series of prose reflections and this is the eighth rendering.

I have been blessed to know some really talented and good people in my 58 years of stomping on the terra. Michael Moriarty is as complex a moral man as the other Chicago rooted genius, actor, musician, comic, writer, composer and television pioneer Steve Allen, who was kicked out of Mount Carmel High School in his freshman year thanks to singer/actor and classmate Richard Kiley. Steve Allen was related to the Donahues, Murphys, Regans and Quinlans of the south side of Chicago and often returned to the old neighborhood even when he was at the height of fame as founder of the Tonight Show and played Hammond Organ concerts at the Franklin House on south Western Avenue*.

Michael Moriarty's grandfather George Moriarty was a baseball professional and contemporary of Tyrus Cobb, Buck Weaver, Eddie Collins and Jiggs Donahue who played for both the Cubs and The White Sox, before becoming an icon for the Detroit Tigers.
George Moriarty was also a musician and composer, but nowhere near as deeply talented as his grandson Michael. I like to think that Chicago and especially the south side of Chicago - the Stockyards and beyond - had much to do with the evolution of genius in families Billy Allen and Bella Montrose to Steve Allen and George Moriarty to Michael.

In the Eighth edition of Moriarty's Haunted Heaven prose scatting, we consider eternity.


The Haunted Heaven: Chapter Eight: The Theater of the Mysterious Same By Michael Moriarty
web posted July 18, 2011

As one hovers above the first and one of the most defining moments of a life, patience is the order of not only the day but the essence of eternity.

Eternity is one factor, however, that people can measure their lives by.

The infinity of the Universe and the eternity of Time?

These are the precepts upon which I now measure my life, both its relative insignificance but its spiritual importance as well.

Oh, I know, Stephen Hawking, whom I have never had the privilege to meet, might dispute the infinity of the Universe, and then again, since he has admitted to making mistakes himself, he eventually – because he is now an eternal factor of the universe – he eventually might change his mind again.

He might not dispute the infinity of the Universe.

If he is even slightly a pantheist, he might be willing to accept the Universe in its entirety as God Itself.

If, however, the Universe is infinite, then God is ultimately and infinitely incomprehensible.

"Not if it is just more of the same, Michael!"

I'm sure that metaphysically "It" is just "more of the same". However, the "same" is so infinite within "Itself" that It, Itself, demands to be capitalized.

The God of Same.

If we know that God looks in wonder upon Himself, then the "Same" is as bottomless a mystery as Life itself has proven to be for millenniums.

Then again, Stephen Hawking, as well as some of his certainties, might be exposed as hoaxes.

Global Warming, chapter two: Science as Inevitably Political Propaganda.

Therein lies the mystery!

Perhaps the Devil, at times, can put even God Himself in doubt, into anxiety.

Does God then call upon another God for reassurance?

No.

This is God The Father and whatever doubts He might have?

The Doubts must come from one question: what is He to do with His own creation, which in this case is the Devil?

Evil in all its secret and manifest forms, a fact that God Himself created.

The Devil Himself as a blessing in disguise, as it is the very necessitation of Human Free Will.

That makes sense to me.

I'm now listening to a playback of my Seeds, the title for my own, little, musical inspirations, melodic and harmonic thoughts that … well … might very well fit themselves together into a masterpiece?!

The Seeds themselves, at this point in musical history, are nothing new. It is the order in which they are placed and developed that will determine whether or not they are the seeds for a work of art or the distracted pastimes of a wannabe.

Ah, ego mania! The bane of all exceptional creativity!!

One must be patient, particularly with one's own shortcomings.

I look at myself metaphorically, feel and see the considerable amount of damage that Life and I have done to myself, but, then again, I look at it as God's own work of art.

The Devil had a hand, that is for certain. Must we think of God and the Devil as Rogers and Hammerstein?!

The division between my responsibilities and Life's gets blurred very quickly when Progressive Psychology becomes involved. So involved that Good and Evil, even High and Low become a relative matter.

That is when Madness sets in and Evil becomes the Master to destroy all Masterpieces.

What is Progressivism?

"Anything but the Same!"

"Damn the Same!!" cry the Progressives.

Just now, I came to a possible format – and I only say possible format – for my symphonic series: the first movement always being an Overture of sorts, there to introduce the audience to the themes of the coming movements. Oh I would love to wait and wait, as Brahms did before he unleashed his highest symphonic achievement, his First Symphony, but I'm 70 years old!

"On, don't go back!" as the great English director, Sir Tyrone Guthrie would order us to do.

We poor but proud players of the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis.

This poor but proud composer soldiers on.

What theater am I working for now?

The Theater of the Mysterious Same!

Old songs but eternally new settings.

Those who know the old songs best?

They lead!

We follow.

The goal?

Our destination?

Heaven!

If you are really serious about your life, why settle for anything less?

Michael Moriarty is a Golden Globe and Emmy Award-winning actor who starred in the landmark television series Law and 4Order from 1990 to 1994. His recent film and TV credits include The Yellow Wallpaper, 12 Hours to Live, Santa Baby and Deadly Skies. Contact Michael at rainbowfamily2008@yahoo.com.

I remember a top rated loud mouth FM radio personality, as they were termed, horse-laughing the mention of Steve Allen, in the early 1990's. His side-kick buzzed and hooted slight regard for the man who won Emmys for Network and Public TV and Grammys for some of his 5,000 songs, comic genius, artistry at the piano and prodigious literary output. Hell, he had the drive-time slot!



* Both Moriarty and Steve Allen are criticized for their defense of eternal truths:

Michael Moriarty--like Jon Voight before him--turns Right.

It's a sort of ritual for certain aging male celebrities to publicly retreat into social and/or poltical conservatism. Steve Allen, in his last years, became a cranky crusader against what he considered "filth" in entertainment. The late Ron Silver (once involved with the left-to-moderate Creative Coalition) became vocal about his rightist beliefs after 9/11. Jon Voight, who won an Oscar for playing an anti-Vietnam War paraplegic (inspired by Ron Kovic) in COMING HOME, now can be found opnionating on Fox News. And don't get me started on former comedian Dennis Miller.

Michael Moriarty has now come to the proverbial fork in the road--and has turned Right. Here are links to an interview and a Moriarty-penned article for Andrew Breitbart's showbiz-liberalism-bashing site BIG HOLLYWOOD.

http://poetry-arts-confidential.blogspot.com/2009/12/michael-moriarty-like-jon-voight-before.html

In This Summer Swelter, Consider the Cognomen Carmen at Keegan's Pub

Chicagoland and most of the continental United States is under a dome of heat and humidity, not experienced since 1999.

"It's a two-footer," my Old Pappy used to say, because on nights like these urban Chicagoans of yore would often post their feet on the window-sills and catch a cooling gangway breeze. The more fortunate south siders along Garfield Boulvard might pack up all the kids and sleep in the grass for miles along the tree shaded parkway - folks from Visitation and St. Basil's parishes between Wentworth to Western Avenues.

Did I mention that it is a trifle warm? Early this AM, as I wandered in search of a 20 oz. coffee, I passed several Georgians, bungalows and raised ranches with lawns sporting a sign for Carroll Roofing. Eddie Carroll is Carroll Roofing and a finer man never hitched up his strides in the pride of knowing that he remains not only a craftsman of Old World quality, but a roué of Old World manners and sensibilities to charm the affections of women - 16 to 60, blind, crippled or crazy. That last is much, too much a heavily layered jape. Suffice it say, Eddie Carroll is the Morgan Park Maurice Chevalier. Thank Heaven for little, mid-sized and Botticellian proportioned Girls!


Recently while quaffing a pint of iced soda water and lime with my pugish nose tucked into the leafs of Rilke's prose collection Die Aufzeichnungen des Malte Laurids Brigge, my peripheral gaze caught the sight of the affable contractor, Eddie Carroll himself, saunter through the black doors of Keegan's Pub ( 10618 S. Western Ave.)and amiably call for a round on him. Another soda water for me and some pink concoction for the young woman sitting on the North ( Protestant) side of the bar beneath the poster of Irish balladeer Christy Moore. She was the sunny side of forty and fetching in a summer weight frock with Auburn tresses that adorned the thick athletic whiteness of breasts that betoken the bounty that is woman.

Eddie Carroll immediately noticed this young lady at the bar on her own. After requisite cooling swallows of malted grain beverage, he decided to offer her another drink and make the afternoon light with small talk and the broad promise of mutual affection.

"What's your name?" Eddie aked after opening gallantries regarding her habiliments and the tautness of her frame.

"Carmen Needham," she replied.

"That's a lovely and operatic name," he said. "Did your mother or father name you for Georges Bizet's tragic gypsy who scornfully tosses the ring Jose gave her only to take his blade -Cette bague, autrefois? I absolutely live for dance and the Dionyisian spark of music! Did mother and Dada so name you?"

"Neither parent was responsible," she said. "I changed my name when I was 18 from Sharon to Carmen."

"Odd that -As Sharon betokens the the fertile plain of Israel, why did you do that? " he asked.

"Well," she explained, "I like men and I like cars, so that is how I got my name. What's your name?"

"Mr. Beertits Quickly," the affable contractor replied.

I thanked Eddie for the bonus cocktail and returned to Rilke.

Is it warm. or is it me?

*

Carroll Roofing & Construction
Carroll Roofing & Construction
stars Be the first to review
10912 S Western Ave
Chicago, IL 60643

(773) 445-5756

Wendi Murdoch's A Good Sheila

Wendi Murdoch jumped up quicker than starvin' dingo on a slab of good tucker to protect her husband. Wendi is the jailbait bride of 76 year old Rupert Murdoch the # 2 most powerful man in business, answering the questions of politicians would snuggled in Murdoch's power and now want to go all Big I Am for the British Media.

Some eedjit shock jock, or Bill Maher tried to cream pie Rupert and got walloped by Wendi and she whacks the mope like a Mother McAuley Spiker!



Here is Telegraph report from Lucy Jones:

So now we know the real reason Rupert Murdoch married 42-year-old Wendi Deng: her kick-ass slam dunk. As the stupid git in the checked shirt sabotaged Louise Mensch’s questioning to attack Rupert Murdoch with a foam pie, Ninja Wendi jumped to his defence. And she didn’t hold back. Was her swift reaction and killer shot helped by years of playing volleyball? What a gal.
From the beginning of the Select Committee, it was clear – from her body language and eyes following his every move – that Wendi is Rupert’s great protector. But no one expected she’d be a better bodyguard than the Metropolitan Police! Could this story get any more surreal? Wendi Deng, you’re a hero.

Wendi's a good Sheila.

I'm gonna try and catch the Red-head on Live Cable this afternoon.

Leo High School Website - Get Another Perspective on Inner City Young Men

MCG, D, and Me - President Dan McGrath, Sophomore Leader Darnell Harris and a Really Good-looking Middle Aged Gent With More Chins Than a Chinese Phone-book. BTW - Darnell* never looked happier.


Another two police officers were shot in West Garfield. God Bless the Officers and their Families. Every time we open the papers there are photos of chalk lines, yellow police-line tape, and the dead-eyes in the mug shots of the arrested.

The prose is not much better or uplifting. Englewood, Gresham,Roseland, Lawndale, Brainerd, Grand Crossing, Garfield, Back of the Yards, and Chatham are proper nouns as familiar in Winnetka, Wilmette, Highland Park, Burr Ridge, and Barrington because they are the place names for the other people who have the problems.

I work in Gresham five to six days a week at Leo High School. Last Thursday, Leo President Dan McGrath and I bid God Speed to the Varsity Football Team as they set off for Rantoul, Illinois and camp. Hakim Chapman ( 2012 and Captain) and me are old pals. He is one splendid young man - he can go sideline -to -sideline without so much as moving his head and put a definitive end to a well-crafted and executed play by another Catholic League rival, as middle line backer. In classroom, Hakim is all business and makes sure his less engaged fellows understand why they are in a Leo classroom.

Hakim assured Dan McGrath and me that all the guys could be counted upon to stick to tasks and represent Leo in a manner that would make Ike Mahoney, Whitey Cronin, Horsey O'Neill, Jimmy Arneberg, Bob Hanlon and Bob Foster proud.

Dan McGrath told Hakim, "You always do." They do.



Football Coach, Admissions Director, and Father Flanagan Mentor Mike Holmes called the brawny stalwarts together with the coaches -they said the Our Father and asked God's blessing for safety on this trip, for our families and all Leo Men.

Mike is married to the lovely Hon. Pat Holmes an Illinois judge and legal wizard. Mike is the mentor anyone would want for a child. Mike is the Fatherly Mother Hen of Leo Men. There can be no doubt that Mike Holmes admonishes the Young Lions to be good men and God's men.

Hefting shoulder pads covered with Orange Black practice jerseys, helmets, equipment bags, water jugs and bookbags the Leo Lions boarded the yellow buses. Yesterday, before the blast furnace that is Leo High School in the summer got too much for me, I chatted with a couple of the returned football campers doing sprints on the turf practice field between Sangamon and Morgan Streets on the south side of 79th Street. How was camp?

" We were busy all the time, but it was good. Holmes had us real busy."

Did you have any fun?

" Hickey, it was football camp! Please."

Mike Holmes pulled up and gave me the Cliffs Notes Version and I was on my way home to some AC. The boys were sprinting.

Leo High School is a Catholic high school. It is not a Charter School. Leo High School maintains its Catholic Faith, Identity, and Traditions though nearly all of the young guys it serves are non-Catholic and a few happen to be Muslim. That is what marks Leo men - Facta Non Verba. Deeds Not Words. They come to school here and pay tuition and work. The Leo Alumni support the costs of tuition that too many families can not meet.

Catholic Schools are tuition and fund-raising driven operations. Leo High School is unique among other Catholic high schools in Chicago. The Alumni support comes largely from white middle aged and older Catholics and it is heavy. This year alone, President for Institutional Advancement Dan McGrath raised more than $ 800,000 over and above tuition payments in his first year ob the job and identified two major sources for future help. All of this in a lousy economy and the St. Sabina flap hurt us as well. Neverteless, Dan's work is a great beginning to an old story - Leo Commitment and Courage.

One of Dan's crowning achievements, along with restoring the legendary school newspaper The Oriole under the direction of editor Marcus Pass 2004, is the Leo Website.

Mary and Peggy Burke are the wizards behind this wonderful website. Thanks girls!

If your soul is abused by the news of shootings, thug-mobs and excuses, give your yourself a treat and click my post title to the new Leo Website.

The eyes of young men from Englewood, Gresham,Roseland, Lawndale, Brainerd, Grand Crossing, Garfield, Back of the Yards, and Chatham who attend Leo High School are bright with hope, self-assurance and a Catholic -based moral center.

Well done, Dan McGrath! God Bless All Leo Men! Smile D!

* Come on over to Leo High School at 7901 South Sangamon - You should see the smile on Darnell Harris' Student of Month Picture; it is much less giddy than the above.

This Time Last Year - The Journolist; This Year - Let's Get Rupert!

I am never disappointed in the Media, though I am generally appalled by the Media. The Media ( not individual reporters, copy editors, or investigative professionals) tend to be the pampered children of privilege, or protected creatures who spout contrarian opinion to common sense, human dignity, and reality.

The Media are America's collective "the makers of fashion" in pop culture and politics. Would, for example a Lady Gaga be a finalist on America's Got Talent? Likewise, who creates a Congressman Weiner, other than the Media? The Media made academia a safe have for the likes of terrorist and droning gasbag Billy-boy Ayers and his odious Old Lady - Northwestern Law Prof Who Can't Practice Law Bernardine Dohrn. The Media decided that police officers are the universally brutal systemic racist Simon Lagrees of post-Racial America. Bullying is the sole property of the Media.

Last year, at this time, the Journolist Scandal bubbled, but never really boiled with anything like fury. The Jounolist is a cabal of rich, privileged Blue Chip university grad-punksters that the Media graces with license. This Licentious Journo-List played havoc with the truth all through the 2008 election cycle and beyond.

Who are the Jounrolistas? One gent identified this cadre with sharp and witty accuracy - they are largely nerds, dweebs, and gents who are repelled by the thought of conjugal affection with any female. They took particular delight in their attempted ravaging of the Palin Family. Sarah Palin is a beautiful woman who happens to be happily married to a union man and the mother of universally welcomed children. Palins don't abort. Moreso, they breed.

Last summer, Mark Judge, a writer for The Daily Caller ( liberal journalist, attorney, Fox TV News legal analyst, and Leo High School Board Member Tamara Holder also contributes to DC) offered this dandy assessment of the core of journolist ire

Andrew Sullivan’s obsessive hatred of Palin goes far beyond the cynicism of a journalist; there is a kind of primordial spasm of rage against something so marvelously lovely, so downright awesome. It’s like that guy a few years ago who took a hammer to Da Vinci’s sculpting of David. The beauty was unbearable! Palin is an archetype that the left does not know how to contain or control: the hot female jock who also happens to be cool. The left hates good-looking Republican women and jocks, so combining the two is like an exorcist hitting a demon with not only prayers, but water blessed by the Pope.

There’s usually one hot female jock like Palin in every school. It’s a girl who is so stunning that even teachers find themselves staring, yet she is too modest to acknowledge her beauty. She plays it down or changes the subject when someone brings it up. It may be because she was raised with good values, the desire to be humble, but it could also be because she wants to be taken seriously as a jock. Palin is a triple threat: a pretty jock who is also incredibly sexy (pretty and sexy are two different things). In high school she was the kind of girl that the school newspaper nerds – the future Journolisters – despised. Pummeled with so much raw beauty, athleticism and sex appeal – and she’s nice, too, goddamn her – these fearless chroniclers of reality were left sputtering – and seething.

Like the plot of a Tina Fey script, Ezra Klein's Kommandos controlled the Media narrative, until called on it - by the non-Media. That would be anyone or thing that stands opposed to full agreement with AV-Club/'We Are So Much Smarter' Cabal of Gleeks.

The Journolistas howl, "Fox and Breitbart must be behind this bullying! Therefore, let's get some pusillanimous payback!"

Welcome to summer of Rupert. Rupert Murdoch is an Empire of Opinion that runs counter to the Nerdocracy that is the American Media. The American Media has political pit-poodles like Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois who began yapping for Congressional Hearings aimed at Murdoch's problems in Perfidious Albion.

Sen. Dick Durbin is always a contrarian delight, whether he is parsing for Planned Parenthood, calling American miltary folks Nazi's, or trying to make things just a bit more comfortable for our Gitmo guests. If Durbin is for it, I generally feel that it is a really bad idea. Sen Durbin is a Tapioca Bernie Sanders. Any digging at great Federal expense for Murdoch Muddy Water will be a dry well, here in the Colonies. It will probably happen, because Murdoch represents the Yin to the Media's Yang; therfore, the Progressive Pit Poodle will go on his nerdy Fox Hunt.

The Media is a abuzz with the arrest of Titian Tress ed Murdoch Babe*, who was married to the Shrek-like Ross Kemp until his Rainbow Randy Roisterings ( Ross, it seems batted from the other side of plate) were cause for marital infidelity divorce proceeding, much objected to by an openly Gay MP. This homophobic harpy had to go! The Rebekkah Brooks titillation's will take up the balance of summer, until the lady is released.

All in all, the Media is a hypocritical band of nerdy Mean Girl Boys. They will always have a place at the table, until people decide to not accept their nonsense.

http://iowntheworld.com/blog/?p=29858 Get a load of these dweebs!


http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2011/07/transatlantic_heat_wave_temper.html Rupert Agonistes!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/phone-hacking/8639887/Rebecca-Brooks-flame-haired-Queen-of-Fleet-Street-News-of-the-World-phone-hacking.htmlOur Miss Brooks - I know a cohort of lusty males who would vie for this maiden's affections, or as Roofer/Philsopher Eddie Carrol might offer, " I'd take a hard run at her."

Marin 'Ates Rupert! Crikee! 'Ow The Bluddy 'eLL Does Muh,Dock Sleep A' Nigh'?

Rupert and Wendy Murdoch,OMG!

At 76, Murdoch appears to be at the height of his powers. He views Dow Jones, along with the recent launch of the Fox Business Network, as steps in the creation of a globe-spanning financial news powerhouse. Can he do it? The breadth of his ambition could be his Achilles heel - the more dominant News Corp. becomes, the more opposition it tends to provoke. Still, Murdoch has proved time and again that counting him out is a high-risk strategy. --Tim Arango

Forbes Magazine - Top 25 Most Powerful People in Business and Rupert is # 2.

He’s an Australian by birth, and media ownership required American citizenship, something anti-immigration conservatives had no problem awarding when it came to the billionaire mogul. Murdoch became a citizen during the Reagan administration.

Now, as I write this, the Murdoch scandal has taken down the publisher of the Wall Street Journal, Les Hinton, who had been with Murdoch’s News Corp. for decades.

Hinton claimed not to have known that other parts of Murdoch’s vast media empire had engaged in deplorable, illegal conduct.

It was, as they say, news to him.

Carol "Empty Calories" Marin -Chicago Media Icon and Character Dry-Gulcher

. . .Keith Murdoch, who, by 1917, aged just 30, had become a celebrated guest in the power salons of London society. Senior politicians sought his advice: generals entertained him; society ladies fawned on him: yet he knew nothing about war.

Like father, like son. Five successive British prime ministers have courted Rupert Murdoch because of his influence -- and that in turn could only have resulted from his own brutal charisma, combined with his awesome determination to have his way. Moreover, British and Irish journalism owes him a huge debt -- for only his willpower could have broken the toxic stranglehold of the corrupt and villainous print-unions over journalism, in which, rather typically, the National Union of Journalists became the flaccid and weak-willed accomplice of its actual enemies, the printers.

Given the incredible personal might of Rupert Murdoch, and the extraordinary ability of his organisations to create compelling public narratives, I should not be at all surprised in five years' time to see that the horror story of TNOTW will have become a largely forgotten footnote in the history of British journalism. For remember this: mankind does not endlessly relate tales about the truth, but instead studiously opts for tales that serve some particular social function. And of course, almost all modern Murdochian tales serve a very particular purpose indeed; namely, dynastic pride.

Kevin Myers Irish Independent

I wouldn't know Rupert Murdoch if he were buying my dinner at Les Nomades -

" 'Ere, Garçon ! See the well-set up Bloke sitting with the stunner oveh theyah? The 'andsome gent with the Brooks Brothers Outleet spawt-kit 'n the Bass Pro Shop cra-vayt - A tie you'se Yanks call'em. 'Im, the Bloke what 'eld the chay-ah fer iz Sheelah a'fore 'ee set dayun. Good on 'im! I'm buyin' 'is Tucker. Nayow scat, Ya Faht-knocker!"

That would be a nice savings on a fabulous meal, but only a day-dream.

I woke up to another of Carol Marin's poison dart masterpieces tossed at the back of the neck of a wounded prey - this time it is Rupert Murdoch. Carol kicked the late and lovely Lura Lynne Ryan during George's trial, actually just before the Kangaroo Court Ruling for no other reason than malice and to exercise her iconic power. Carol destroyed the lives of Mary and Chris Fogarty by accusing them of being an IRA hit team. Rupert Murdoch is no Jerry Springer, by all accounts. Carol brought out the heavy-guns, Harry Potter and the ghost of Royko, to lend her empty intellectual calories some weight in her latest too-too-bitchy offering - Well, that's Carol in this City! Rupert Murdoch will be fine.

His tabloid empire across the pond has been interestingly assaulted by the world media. The same hypocrites who unsealed Senate Candidate Jack Ryan's divorce files to ensure that back-bencher Barack Obama ran against nutty Al Keyes for US Senate, who outsourced help to unearth dirt about Governor Palin's tenure and personal life while Governor of Alaska, who Jounolista'd it up across America to assassinate character as ordered by the Politico-Bureau, are all trying to chip away at Rupert Murdoch, while praying that some Deus Ex Machina will descend to give him am ideological come-upance.

I look at the world and its players and try and consider the sources concerning who is criticizing whom - Carol is consistent. I know only one person who has ever met Rubert Murdoch in person and that is Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist Jack Higgins. Jack said that he was very nice. Jack also works for the Chicago Sun Times. I respect Jack Higgins and I understand Carol Marin.

More so, Rupert Murdoch is married to Wendy. Rupert will be fine.

Belly Achin' - No Futures in Bacon

The Chicago Mercantile Exchange butchered Hog Belly Futures yesterday. The cleaver came down on trading of this wonderful commodity at the closing bell - Friday July 16th in the Year of Our Lord 2011.

The closing had been expected. Trading in pork belly futures had dropped to nearly zero in recent years after the meat industry became integrated and used fresh pork bellies instead of frozen ones to make bacon.

Pork bellies, as the name indicates, are cuts of pork that come from the underside of the hog and are made into bacon. Demand for pork bellies and bacon increases in the summer when tomatoes ripen and people make bacon-lettuce-tomato sandwiches.

Because pork production peaks in the autumn, the frozen pork belly contract was created as a way to give pork companies a means to cover the cost of storing, or freezing, pork bellies until the following summer when they were thawed and processed into bacon, said long-time Chicago trader Bob Short,

"The name sounded attractive. Nobody knew it was bacon. It made people laugh," Short said.

Though Bacon is with us yet, one more historical item has been consigned to the Orwellian Memory Hole and Hog Belly Futures will go the way of carburetors, Conestoga Wagons, Zippo Lighters, Black Jack Gum, CTA Transfer Tokens, Coal Chutes in architecture, and historical sensibilties.

However, a young Korean American genius by the name of Bernard Moon* writes a Blog Silicon Moon which features his poetry. I found his Ode to Bacon most fitting.

Ode To Bacon
Bacon, oh, bacon
You wonderful thing!
The tigers and lions
All rise and sing!

The grease that comes
From your rich loins
Are an unequal sum
To millions of coins.

Breakfast, lunch, dinner
Teatime, bartime, late night too!
Every meal is a winner
And more enjoyable with you!

Wrapped on scallops,
Or in Korean stew
Nothing makes me gallop
More than you!

Clogging my arteries and veins
With your beautiful juice!
You drive me insane
Like a bull cut loose!

No matter how filthy you originally are
No care to what Vincent Vega thinks
Bacon is the shining star
That kicks the ass of sausage links!!

Bernard Moon

Joseph Addison might gripe that Brother Moon's line might not scan elegantly - could not pass the finger test, and old poetry scansion cranks might agree; however them lines is finger licking Okay!

Read more Bernard Moon poems by clicking my post title.


*

Bernard Moon
Co-founder & CEO of XS Groupe
I'm Co-founder & CEO of Vidquik, a new easy-to-use web conferencing platform, and Co-founder of XS Groupe, an online luxury private sale site. I was previously at a private investment firm, the Lunsford Group, which was involved in real estate, healthcare and other industries. I was Co-founder & VP of Business Development of GoingOn Networks, a social media platform for companies, and also led our product development where BusinessWeek recognized us in their "Best of the Web" list. I co-founded a couple other startups, raised over $50 million in venture capital, and love to help other entrepreneurs as much as possible.

I'm active on a few nonprofit boards, such as the Shih Yu-Lang Central YMCA, which serves the Tenderloin district in San Francisco, and Liberty in North Korea (LiNK).

I grew up in suburban Chicago, and attended Wisconsin (Go Badgers!) and Columbia University. I have a strong interest in public policy, which is what I studied during graduate school, and why I did the Coro Fellowship, a post-graduate leadership development program. I have lived in Springfield, IL, St. Louis, MO, NYC, Hong Kong, Seoul, San Francisco, and now reside in Palo Alto, CA. I enjoy writing and exploring various topics, so I maintain a blog about my random thoughts and write op-eds for various technology blogs, such as VentureBeat. I love to travel, eat, ski, play basketball, and watch our twin girls grow.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/breaking/chi-cme-shuts-down-iconic-pork-belly-futures-market-20110715,0,2388573.story

Unsolicited Assesment of the Character of This Blogger

There was an exchange of opinion in the commentary section of these postings concerning my lineage, ancestry, and inclinations -civic, amorous, and otherwise. These offerings violated taste, wit and concern for the winsome hearts of ladies everywhere. Nevertheless, this exchange between two worthies might clear up any and all misconceptions regarding the character and deportment of your humble servant.

His handsome face and rich attire had appealed to their admiration, his cool daring and the way he had handled the bully of the town had won their respect.

"I tell ye what, boys," a burly miner remarked, "he ain't no slouch, ef ye hear me squeal, but did enny of ye ever see him afore?"

'I did," a grizzled old prospector offered this of the paragon Prolific Hickey" I know'd the villain over in Custer Park, 'bout Twenty Seven yar ago."

"An' what war his record thar?"

"All white;- a chief— free with his dust, his dukes, and his derringers, jess as it'd suit ye; an' clear grit down to hard-pan."



"I thought so— he looks it. An' that kid o' his'n (Conor Oliver Hickey)! I sw'ar he's a whale! the little feller came ridin' in on thet thar hoss, an' a-singin' out Lord, boys, so like's 'f he meant business, an' when I reckon he did, ye could a-knocked me down with a chaw o' tobacco, I war so 'mazed like."

"Same here, pard."

"And here."

. . .& etc. as like encomiums poured on!

Debt Duel - Obama v. Cantor - Progressives v. Everyone Else

" Stupid Bush. . . . Stupid Congress . . . This is a Big Deal . . . Joe! Wait up, Joe!" ( Photo from Gateway Pundit)

“The meeting ‘ended with the President abruptly walking out of the meeting,’ Cantor told reporters after the session,” per the New York Daily News. "I know why he lost his temper. He's frustrated. We're all frustrated."

The New York Post: “Angry Obama walks out on debt-limit talks.”
The Hill: “Obama warns Cantor: 'Don't call my bluff' in debt-ceiling talks”

Roll Call: “As news broke late Wednesday that Moody’s Investors Service was mulling a downgrade of the U.S. government’s triple-A credit rating, Congressional leaders emerged from a ‘tense’ White House meeting that ended abruptly after a heated exchange between President Barack Obama and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.).”

The Wall Street Journal: "Moody's Investors Service said it was reviewing the government's top Aaa bond rating for a possible downgrade, citing the ‘rising possibility’ that the government's $14.29 trillion borrowing limit won't be raised soon enough to prevent the U.S. from running out of money to pay its bills."
Stu Rothenberg’s take: “Fundamentally, the two parties are fighting over values, not dollars. … [I]n reality, what we are witnessing is nothing less than a fight over the role of government. And it is much harder, if not impossible, to “split the difference” on these kinds of matters of opinion.”

In sum, here it is . . .
Who wins?

Low Ceilings Are Intimate, Warm and Good for Americans

High Ceilings are scary.

"We're running out of time," Geithner told reporters after a private lunch meeting with Senate Democrats. Chicago Tribune - I'll just bet that such urgency to raise the national debt ceiling didn't put them off their feed.

It's a cozy little place with subdued lighting and a low ceiling, creating an intimate feel. We were directed to our seats by a pleasant hostess and attended to by a very nice waitress who was attentive and perky. . . ..

Review of a Pub Restaurant

One can not beat a joint that features 'attentive and perky' waitresses. Nor, should one scorn a low ceiling. A lovely woman called my attention to the ceiling phenomenon. As in all things, it takes a woman to address most subjects that do not involve my next meal, episodes of Rawhide on ME-TV, or other less savory instincts. We were passing yet another in the endless and genuinely un-appealing McMansion Developments -homes with very high ceilings - when she lectured me on the psychology of architecture. What follows is what I drew from the lesson.

Too many Americans have fallen into debt by building or re-configuring homes with high ceilings - the boorish and Yup-Scale McMansion -over-priced, over-mortgaged, and over-head ceilings that require more and more adaptors to the wonderful painting idiot-sticks in order to paint the ceilings, or a complete scaffold construction. My son Conor can stand in the living room and apply colonial white to the ceiling with a simple hand-held roller, while Pater Familias Hickey splashes and slathers on egg-shell to the walls in our simple Helot warmth of the Chicago Raised Ranch.

Ever attend a gathering in such a high ceiling-ed home? Guests scatter to cluster in little groups in the primordially human attempt at safety, welcome and warmth. Lessons of the Cave and the Follies of the Temple. I worship at the Catholic Mass of Scared Heart Mission Church where I am tightly packed in with fellow communicants longing to escape the attention of Cantor Terry McEldowney's commentaries. It is old-world worship of intimacy and community rooted in our peasant pasts.

George W. Bush raised the debt ceiling eight times during his two terms and saddled poor President Obama with debt that he feels impelled to excede. President Obama, like that low-brow scoundrel President GW Bush love high ceilings - it keeps the guests at bay.

I say keep the debt ceiling as low as Media Integrity.

Robert Reich Calls Debt Ceiling Debate "a Game of Chicken" - Americans Respond

Former Clinton Secretary of the Labor(NAFTA) Robert Reich calls the debt ceiling impasse - A Game of Chicken.

ROBERT REICH On Why The Wildly Partisan And Theatrical Game Of Chicken Will Miraculously Vanish -- Until 2012
McConnell’s plan would allow the President to raise the debt limit. Congressional Republicans could then vote against the action with resolutions of disapproval. But these resolutions would surely be vetoed by the President. And such a veto, like all vetoes, could only be overridden by two-thirds majorities in both the House and Senate – which couldn’t possibly happen with the Democrats in the majority in the Senate and having enough votes in the House to block an override.

Get it? The compromise allows Republicans to vote against raising the debt limit without bearing the horrendous consequences of a government default.

No budget cuts. No tax increases. No clear plan for deficit reduction. Nada. The entire, huge, mind-boggling, wildly partisan, intensely ideological, grandly theatrical, game of chicken miraculously vanishes.

Until the 2012 election, that is.

I no longer trust Channel 9 WGN Weather guru Tom Skilling to tell me the weather forecast, as Amiable Tom has been off his game for some time. Speaking off their game, Financial Rainmakers like Bob Reich, Timmy Geitner and the absent Austin Goolsby cry chicken all the time - America goes on economic Def-Con Six Crisis Mode every time Chris Matthews,Big Ed and everyone else in MSNBC clown car get a memo from Green Energy ( GE) boss Immelt.

Minnesota's Progressive Governor refused to allow his State a Walker Moment and rubbed the Legislature's nose in Dog Food for Grannies and Ecomonic End of Days! No Rapture. The bridges still are up and the State Cops are still pulling over Cheesheads, Hawkeyes and FIPs who get over-served at the Little Red Wing Eye-Opener Pub. The only thing that is down is the Lotto.

I say, Leave the Ceiling where it is!

Other Americans like these lusty young chaps should introduce Robert Reich to the real game at stake here in this our Republic!



Bob is cut!

Com Ed is On It! Imagine if it were a Government Agency.

Monday's brief but bold storm knocked out power all over Chicago Metro Area. A buddy of mine in Morton Grove, the Marathon Pundit his own bad self, John Ruberry, has been doing the 19th Century/21st Century morph -burning candles and using the old palm-messenger device ( which must be re-charged at a library or Starbuck's with power) to keep up on his reading and writing.

The storm knocked out power in the 18th & 19th Wards from 79th Street North to 109th Street south and roughly from Ashland east to Pulaski west. Power was restored by 6 PM on my block between 107th & 108th Street on Monday. Imagine the loss to families in the costs of spoiled meat and other groceries from family stockpiles in the deep freezer. More significantlty, were another gully washing downpour rain upon us, the sump pump has no power.

In all nearly 800,000 customers were without power - multiply that by four ( your basic husband;wife; three kiddies) and that is a crowd of folks.

By this morning, power has been restored to all but about 100,000 customers. That is pretty damn good work.

I know a bunch of Com Ed workers, most significantly the great Gino Ford who coffees up with me at Kean Gas most mornings - no sign of Gino the last three days; that boy has been up the pole, or in the bucket doing his Electrical Voodoo that He Do So Well!

This morning, I got over to Leo especially early and witnessed a parade of utility vehicles -Bucket Lift Rigs of all sizes and shapes and by my estimate there had to be forty, or more vehicles parading west on 79th Street. The odd thing was that they were all from Punta Gorda, FL. ComEd jumped on the crisis and brought in teams from neighboring states,

I found this press release issued from Com ED on July 11th.

ComEd currently has approximately 480 crews in the field and is requesting assistance from all available resources, including contractor crews and assistance of crews from neighboring states. It also has enlisted additional staffing to manage the large volume of calls experienced by the customer call center. Customers also can visit ComEd.com to report outages and follow us on Twitter to obtain restoration information.

“We recognize that power outages disrupt the lives and businesses of our customers,” said Anne Pramaggiore, president and chief operating officer, ComEd. “ComEd crews are working hard to restore service to customers affected by the storm as quickly and safely as possible.”

The powerful storm began moving through the ComEd service territory around 6:00 a.m. and departed by 9:30 a.m. Most damaging to the ComEd system was intense lightning, with high winds as a factor in causing extensive tree damage and bringing down power lines. The resulting outages are more difficult and time consuming to restore as they involve attention to more individualized equipment.

The largest number of outages is located in the company’s northern and western regions. ComEd is working with municipal officials and businesses to provide ongoing updates to them regarding restoration efforts.

ComEd’s restoration process begins with damage assessment, this process enables the company to determine hardest hit areas and factors into restoration times. The company then prioritizes outage restoration to ensure public safety first such as police and fire, then hospitals and other critical customers. Next, ComEd restores feeders, which allows us to return power to large numbers of customers at one time, followed by smaller service restorations and individual outages.

Public safety is paramount during storms and ComEd encourages the public to remember to take the following precautions:

This is great attention to customer service and public safety. We beef about utilities and their cost hikes - I know I do.

However, I was really impressed this morning by number of trucks and command vehicles brought into the Chicago area to fix the power outage. No one can say that Com Ed is not doing everything in its power to restore power.

That power lies in the hands of Gino Ford and guys and girls in the 480 bucket truck crews. Imagine if the utilities were in the hands of the government.

Welcome to Port Au Prince, Illinois.

Great job Com Ed!

Joel Kotkin's Warning to the GOP ( The Party That Blows Its Own Toes Off) -Stick up for the Middle Class

. . . under the first African-American president the employment rate for black men now sits at a record low since the government started measuring the statistic four decades ago.

This recovery has been particularly parlous to the middle class, of all races. Despite the massive stimulus, small businesses — the traditional engines of job growth and upward mobility — have barely gotten off the matt. Indeed, according to a recent National Federation of Independent Business survey, they are now more likely to reduce payrolls than expand them.


Many blue-collar and middle-class Americans are becoming increasingly pessimistic about the future and their children’s chances for achieving their level of well-being. Middle-age college graduates, who supported Obama previously, increasingly have shifted from the administration. Even the young seem to have lost their once fervent enthusiasm. After all, they are seeing their prospects dim dramatically.

In Wisconsin the GOP tried an idiotic dodge to stack the Primaries with Plants and had their asses handed to them. The GOP treats victory like so many Lotto winners - they are broke and worse off after the Big Win.

President Obama has proven himself to be the back-bencher empty suit that many Americans suspected him to be, yet, the GOP is running against President Obama and not for the people his endlessly haughty ineptitudes have harmed.

Instead of treating the patient for skin cancer, Doc Elephant orders a hip replacement. Working to solve the economic undertow destroying the American Middle Class should be the only concern of any Presidential Candidate. Instead, GOP candidates play parlor tricks with social issues. Worse,like the dummies in the Wisconsin GOP, they take pages out of the Progressive Playbook. SEIU/ACORN idiocies should not be a two-way street.

I have been reading Joel Kotkin for years. The guy is a smart and sober observer of social, demographic and political trends. Today in Forbes, Mr. Kotkin offers a stern warning to the Party that Blow Off Its Own Toes:

Of course, not all the blame belongs to the White House. The formerly Democrat-controlled Congress largely ignored the middle class’ concerns over the economy and jobs. Instead they focused on health care — which, according to the Pew Foundation survey, ranks as only a middling concern among voters — and climate change, which ranked dead last among the top 20 issues for the electorate.

Even with the Main Street economy grasping for air, Congress chose to impose new regulations and taxes on the entrepreneurial class. Meanwhile Washington has given huge government support to often marginal green ventures such as Tesla, which is building $80,000 plus electric cars. Such assistance was not extended to the struggling garment-maker or semiconductor plant forced to compete globally largely on their own.

Of course Democrats resort to stirring up class resentments, but their credibility is thin. After all it’s New York Sen. Charles Schumer, not some fat-cat Republican, who remains the financial industry’s designated hitter on the Hill. Instead of chastising the big financial institutions, the administration has largely coddled them. Despite the obvious abuses behind the financial crisis, there have been virtually no prosecutions against what Theodore Roosevelt once identified as “the malefactors of great wealth.”

This has created a class divide large enough to propel a Republican sweep next year. Some Republicans, like former Bush aide Ryan Streeter, understand this opportunity. Streeter argues for the GOP to become more economically populist approach. He calls for an “aspiration agenda” based on policies to spark private sector economic growth and a wide range of entrepreneurial ventures. To succeed, the GOP needs a viable alternative to middle and working class voters who are losing faith in Obama-style crony capitalism but who do not want to replace it with policies focused on enhancing the bottom-lines of the top 1% of the population.

Yet at a time when people are worried primarily about paying their bills and prospects for their children, many Republicans seem determined to campaign on social fundamentalism, something that is already distressingly evident in the Iowa primary race. This may have worked in the past, in generally more prosperous times. Right now what sane person thinks gay marriage is the biggest issue facing the nation?

Neither right-wing ideology nor mindless support for corporate needs constitute a winning strategy in a nation plagued by a sense that the system works only for the rich and well-connected. Only by focusing on working and middle class concerns can the GOP permanently separate the people from the party which pretends to represent them.

Listen hard. Right now, President Obama looks like a lock for a second term.

Villa Rides! Skinny and Houli Live! Ample Parking! July 15th at Jack Desmond's Pub

Brynner and Mitchum!
Skinny and Houli!

Well, in truth, Pancho has not actually mounted a steed in decades - had a little trouble with a pattern of .45 slugs from a Tommy Gun south of the border some time ago, but I digress . . . Pancho Villa has always been one of my favorite Jefes Del Norte* icons and man of singular abilities and motivation . . .that was a tease . . .I'm getting to it! . . . Fine.

Last night, I hit the wake for Ahmad Wali Karzai, took the Red Eye Home in order to help with the debt ceiling mess, clean the gutters again, head back to Kabul and should be back from the funeral sometime Friday afternoon ( skip the repast of course), stop and see Boz at Reilly's Daughter Pub at Midway when I de-plane, drop off my bags Duty Free gifts, and head over to Jack Desmond's Pub for the first live taping of the Skinny and Houli Show which will be broadcast on Saturday at 3 PM. Yep, it's a plan.


You wanna party? We'll party!
The question is rhetorical, but the sentiment genuine. Do Party** (Verb Intransitive: (third-person singular simple present parties, present participle partying, simple past and past participle partied) and all that this portmanteau neologism of lower brows implies

Join us for A Hooley with Skinny & Houli At Jack Desmond's Irish Pub
10339 S. Ridgeland
Chicago Ridge

The Skinny & Houli Show Live! Arriba,Compañeros! Venga Se! Villa Rides!
Friday July 15, 2011
We start taping at 6PM
We're taking our show on the road to hang out at Jack Desmond's, one of our favorite sponsors. Please come on by and join the party.

We need everybody to bring his or her best "Who Cares?" shouts! And we'll bring some surprise guests too!

Don't miss this first ever remote taping of The Skinny & Houli Show
Skinny & Houli every Saturday from 3-4P
WCEV 1450 AM
Skinnyhouli.com
putting real Chicago back in radio

Party, Indeed! Party Hearty! Party Clouded With Slight Chance of Rain!

*

La División del Norte es la formación militar encabezada por Pancho Villa, que obtuvo importantes triunfos en la lucha de la Revolución mexicana. La División del Norte se componía sobre todo de gente del pueblo, rancheros, vaqueros, caporales y otros elementos de la población rural del norte de México. También dio cabida a miembros del ejército federal que lamentaban el asesinato de Francisco I. Madero, por las fuerzas de Victoriano Huerta.
Pancho Villa recibió apoyo de un militar de alta escuela, el general Felipe Ángeles, quien durante la campaña de 1911 a 1914 hacia la ciudad de México siempre fue su asesor estratégico y militar. La División del Norte dominó militarmente el norte del país, lo que permitió a Pancho Villa implantar en esa región una serie de reformas sociales y políticas. Pancho Villa, al mando de la División del Norte, tomó las plazas federales de Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, Torreón, Saltillo, Zacatecas, entre otras. Después del triunfo revolucionario contra Huerta, en Julio de 1914, Villa rompió con Venustiano Carranza.
Venustiano Carranza huyó a Veracruz y desde allí lanzó la contraofensiva contra Villa, con la fuerza militar del general Álvaro Obregón.
Álvaro Obregón logró derrotar definitivamente a la División del Norte, en 1915, en las famosas Batallas del Bajío como son: Batalla de Celaya, Batalla de Trinidad, Batalla de León, en donde Obregón perdió un brazo. A partir de entonces, Villa se replegó a Chihuahua, y la División del Norte comenzó su dispersión, hasta quedar reducida a un puñado de hombres que siempre fue fiel a su jefe Pancho Villa. Ya actuando como el famoso guerrillero del norte llego en 1917 a atacar la población de Columbus, Nuevo México.

**

The use of party as a verb is certainly not limited to frat boys, despite their efforts in the verb's activities, and is older even than National Public Radio.

The first recorded use of this sense is in 1919; by 1922 E.E. Cummings was using it in correspondence: "Have extensively partyed with Er former Heditor." It does not seem to have been terrifically common at first, but by the 1940s onwards we can find a large number of examples.

Most of these examples do not suggest that the word is especially slangy, or even informal. Note, for instance, the juxtaposition of the verb with an overly formal avoidance of a sentence-ending preposition in this quotation: "Los Angeles rockers do not lack for private places in which to party" (Time, 1977). (We must acknowlege, though, the probability that the writer was being arch.) While I don't know when NPR first used it, I don't think that their use should be considered that remarkable.

What is more notable is the distinctly slangy use of party down 'to party energetically', a phrase that first emerges in the mid-1970s and was considered slangy from the start: "Going out to a discothèque, dancing for hours, and having a good time. They say to each other, 'Let's party.' Or--and this is the coolest way of saying it--'Let's party down'" (The New Yorker, 1976). These hipsters were ahead of the game; the term became more widely used in the early 1980s. Another more slangy sense is the noun sense 'a sex act with a prostitute' and the corresponding verb 'to copulate, esp. with a prostitute' ("Wanna party?"), both of which arose during the 1940s and are probably rare on NPR.

While we're on the subject, we should mention party animal 'an especially active reveler', from the 1970s, and party hearty! a rhyming compound from about 1980.

The very earliest use of party as a verb was in the seventeenth century, in Scottish use, where the word meant 'to take the part of; side with'.

http://www.randomhouse.com/wotd/index.pperl?date=19990224

Happy Birthday July 13th 2011 -If This is Your Birthday That Is!

I offer the best on this your Birthday -visual art, poetry, and the incomparable Blossom Dearie -

When You are Old William Butler Yeat

WHEN you are old and gray and full of sleep
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true;
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face.

And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead,
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

One of the best people I know was born on this day! This person is private . . .very, very, very private. Therefore, I offer this heart-felt and sincere Happy Birthday ( I am in possession of your birthday present and it is apropos)!

N.B. If today is your Birthday, and you have no contact, association, or familiarity with me, I hope that your Birthday Present from those who love you will be fitting, fun and fantastic! From me, you get a hearty handclap when we meet, but that about sums up the worth of my gift.

July 13 Cancers have a charismatic personality that complements their gentle soul. They have a fear of change yet understand that it is only through change that they are able to discover their true nature. They realize all experience is a rite of passage toward spiritual transcendence.
Cancer Information
for July 13
You should embrace: Truth, mental toughness, sophistication

You should avoid: Vacillation, foolish choices, disapproval
Friends and Lovers

Despite their intelligence, July 13 natives often choose the wrong people to be their friends and lovers. On the face of it, that's not good, but they may learn lessons that can help them later in life. They love with a true heart yet sometimes feel forced to compromise.

Children and Family

July 13 individuals may spend the major part of their lives trying to come to grips with their background. With their own children, they may experience an early emotional separation. This is because they are likely to encourage youngsters to make their own choices and decisions from an early age.

Health

Good health undercut by poor habits characterizes July 13 natives, who dislike monitoring their diet. Although they usually have an active enough lifestyle to avoid putting on weight, they may be denying themselves much-needed nutrients. It's more beneficial for them to indulge in an exercise program on a daily basis.

Career and Finances

July 13 folks do well in professions where they must deal with people one-to-one. Their magnetism makes them both likable and believable. They do especially well in sales positions. Money matters can be complicated for them. They either spend beyond their means or have trouble maintaining a steady income. Fortunately, the acquisition of money isn't one of their primary aims in life.

Dreams and Goals

July 13 natives have high ideals, and they're anxious to fulfill them. If they can influence others positively through their words or actions, they feel as if their fondest wish has come true.

Join the Pea Party!

President Obama Nailing a Pea Sub! or, Is That a Chicago Style Pea Dog?


"Pull off the band aid. Eat our peas." It doesn't sound like much now, but neither did Remember the Alamo!; Don't Tread on Me!, or Can't I Finish My Waffles?

Sacred Cows and Peas are on the menu as it appears that President Obama will beard the lions of the American Tea Party in the den, man-cave. lair, and cable-ready trailers of Average Guy U.S.A.!

What better way than form his own Pea Party!@ Media Matters, Stalking for America, MSNBC, and Salon.

The Pea Party will be dedicated to symbolically yanking off band aids and gobbling platefuls of peas in solidarity with President Obama.

Taxes are peas - Now Open that Gullet! Peas ain't so bad. Peas are mighty tasty.

I like Peas! In Ireland, I learned to love the wonderful snack treat of Chips and Peas ( French Fries and Peas in a greasy mixed bag doused with malt vinegar and sprinkled with Sea Salt) - that's good eating!

Here is how to eat them peas!

Pat Hickey Pancetta Peas with Mint!


Italian cubed pancetta from Calabria Imports on 103rd Street
2 Cups of frozen peas
1 Cup sugarsnap peas
One big-ass knob of Kerry Gold butter
2 tbsp chopped fresh mint
a pinch of sugar
Ice Water Bath for the peas

Fill the old kettle with water and put in to boil.

Heat a small frying, add the pancetta and cook over a medium heat for 4-5 mins, stirring occasionally until the pancetta is really crisp and golden.

Drain off excess fat on a kitchen roll and set aside.

As the pancetta cooks, place the frozen peas in a large saucepan, add boiling water from the kettle to cover and return to the boil, add the sugar-snap peas and boil for 3 minutes. Then put them in the old ice water bath to keep the peas the proper green.

Drain in a colander then return them to the saucepan, add the pancetta, butter, mint and sugar and toss well to mix. Toss in some Sea Salt and Carck in a bunch of black pepper. Serve straight away.

Pea Party!

Are there Pea Baggers?