Shakman Gave Cook County Our Gang, Abortion and SEIU Political Landscape

Thanks to Michael Shakman and the Shakman Decrees a Veteran Gangster Disciple can be an Impact Political Player! Hal Baskin with the late Judge R. Eugene Pincham and former United States Senator Roland Burris.













In 1969 Michael Shakman and other Hyde Park lawyers, along with the long-dormant Progressive political players indigenous to that Chicago community, went shopping for a judge.

The nature of that legal marketing expedition evolved from sociological laboratories around the University of Chicago sparked by John Dewey and other long haired gentlemen and short-haired females. This particular push against the Democratic Political Machine affected our political psyche once it was determined by the right judge that political hiring is an intrinsic evil.

The Shakman Decrees* did nothing to end corruption; rather, they made a transfer of power from a Political Machine to Progressive Coalition Machine. Shakman Decrees created the political landscape that elected a President. All the graveyards in Cook County could not create more votes than Shakman - SEIU, ACORN, Progressive Coalitions Universal and political power remained in the hands of the very few.

Barack Obama could not have vaulted over the political gradus to the White House without Shakman.

Like Hyde Park itself, the Shakman victory is unique. Only in Cook County and in some few Illinois towns did this Dewey shower of Inquiry is Truth blossom and grow. No where else,in America, can or will Michael Shakman Enterprises flourish. What Shakman hath wrought is this:

1. Planned Parenthood's Personal PAC Has More Money and Muscle Than the Teamsters

2. SEIU and the less Public Salary Unions are Ward Organizations

3. Gangster Disciples, Vice Lords, Latin Kings, Four Corner Hustlers, Mickey Cobras
are precinct captains

I find it . . .consistent that no newspaper, or media outlet is finding journalistic grist for the mills in Chicago Magazine's well-crafted investigation into the association of gangs and political hacks.

However, my concern lies in the authors' dismissal of gang-banger activism in Chicago as a mere homage to Bathhouse John and Hinky-Dink's high-jinks, instead of a wormy Progressive abortion of political honesty rooted in Shakman and the Shakman Decrees.

Here is Shakman's effects upon our political life in Cook County

Many forms of political corruption—taking bribes, rigging elections, engaging in pay-to-play deals—are plainly unethical, if not illegal. But forming political alliances with gangs isn’t a clear matter of right or wrong, some say. In many Chicago neighborhoods, it’s virtually impossible for elected officials and candidates for public office not to have at least some connection, even family ties, to gang members. “People try to paint this picture of bad versus good—it’s not like that,” says a veteran political organizer based in Chicago who specializes in getting out the vote in minority areas. “Everybody lives with each other, grew up with each other. Just because somebody goes this way or that way, it doesn’t mean you’re just gonna write them off automatically.”

For better or worse, gang members are constituents, the same as businesspeople in the Gold Coast. Says Aaron Patterson, an imprisoned gang member: “It ain’t like gangs come from another planet.”

For some politicians, gang members can be a source of political strength—all the more so given that the once-formidable City Hall–Cook County patronage system, the lifeblood of the old Machine, is mostly gone. In the heyday of the Machine, recalls Wallace Davis Jr., a former 27th Ward alderman, political chieftains could simply snap their fingers and marshal a large cadre of city workers to go door-to-door with “a pint of wine and a chicken” to turn out the vote.

Few politicians nowadays have such armies at their beck and call. To win elections, many officeholders and candidates—especially those who represent parts of the city with high concentrations of street gangs—turn to those gangs as their de facto political organizations. “It went from wine and a chicken to hiring a gangbanger,” says Davis, who served from 1983 to 1987. “It’s unfortunate.”

Though estimates vary, most authorities and criminologists agree that there are 70,000 to 125,000 gang members in the city. In the numbers game of Chicago politics—in which, as the old joke goes, a one-vote victory constitutes a landslide—a constituency of that size gets noticed. (Keep in mind that in Illinois convicted felons can vote once they are released from prison.)

Yet, Shakman goes unidentified.

Would that the authors went further -Inquiry is not Truth; John Dewey notwithstanding.



*

Shakman at work from todays's Chicago Tribune:. . .The concession deal was struck between the Park District and the restaurant operator under then-Mayor Richard Daley. Investors in the restaurant venture included Daley friend Fred Barbara and city contractor Raymond Chin. The city is now trying to undo the 20-year deal.

The Park Grill's lawyer, Michael Shakman, called the city's lawsuit "way off base" and said the restaurant's ownership group "was not selected through political connections."

The city's lawsuit "punishes honest people who created a restaurant that was risky and uncertain when the Park Grill agreed to go into Millennium Park," Shakman said in a statement. "Now that Millennium Park is successful, the city wants to redo the deal and wants money to which it has no right. That's not fair. A deal is a deal."

The city's Law Department is reviewing the countersuit, spokesman Roderick Drew said. The city maintains that the Park District did not have the authority to reach agreements for the use of the land, said Drew, who added that the deal was not approved by the City Council, which he said is required for approval of a concession permit.

rhaggerty@tribune.com

Twitter @RyanTHaggerty

Our Public Imagination Shakman
Shakman Decrees
In 1969, one man made his stand against the Chicago political machine. Michael Shakman, an independent candidate for delegate to the 1970 Illinois Constitutional Convention, battled against one of the most enduring traditions in Chicago's politics: political patronage, or the practice of hiring and firing government workers on the basis of political loyalty. With many behind-the-scenes supporters, Shakman's years of determination resulted in what became known as the “Shakman decrees.”

Shakman filed suit against the Democratic Organization of Cook County, arguing that the patronage system put nonorganized candidates and their supporters at an illegal and unconstitutional disadvantage. Politicians could hire, fire, promote, transfer—in essence, punish—employees for not supporting the system, or more particularly, a certain politician. The suit also argued that political patronage wasted taxpayer money because public employees, while at work, would often be forced to campaign for political candidates.

In 1972, after an exhaustive court procedure and much negotiating, the parties reached an agreement prohibiting politically motivated firings, demotions, transfers, or other punishment of government employees. A 1979 ruling led to a court order in 1983 that made it unlawful to take any political factor into account in hiring public employees (with exceptions for positions such as policy making). Those decisions along with companion consent judgments—collectively called the Shakman decrees—are binding on more than 40 city and statewide offices.

http://encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/1138.html

The Common Hurd - Modern Genius

Sam Hurd is a Chicago Bear playing on specialty teams for which he is paid a tidy $ 4,000,000 per year.

In order to use his capital earned from standing on the sidelines for most NFL engagements between the Monsters of the Midway and their competition, Sam wanted to continue investing his dollars in tax-free capitalism.

No doubt apprehending the growing demand for medicinal and recreational marijuana, which Cook County President the Chicago City Council are now hard pressed to deliver to the Weed Demographic, Master Hurd sought to capitalize on that herb's future demand with a robust supply.

The NFL vetting process matches that of the national media; therefore, NIU scholar/athlete and NFL veteran Hurd saw Opportunity's fore-lock in need of a hardy tug.

He reached out in a manner befitting his status:

Hurd’s party dined on $300 worth of filet mignon Wednesday. At the steakhouse, he told the undercover agent “his co-conspirator is in charge of doing the majority of the deals” while he focused on “higher-end deals,” the affidavit said. Hurd also allegedly told the agent that they already distribute four kilos of cocaine a week in the Chicago area, but his supplier couldn’t keep up with his demands.

Hurd also asked the agent if he could provide him with Mexican cell phone numbers, “as Hurd believed that law enforcement did not have the capability of ‘listening’ to Mexican telephones.” He even referenced the money that had been taken by authorities in Dallas, and claimed “the seizure of currency could not be associated to him.”

Mexican cell phones must have that Cartel Cache Coding Device. Kind of like, Irish GPS - "Hey, Murphy sober up! Your wife is on her way and she ain't happy; now, drink up."


Modern Genius - 10 % inspiration and 90 % incarceration

MSNBC Flash Mob and Demographic

Lean Forw. . .Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Michael Moriarty in Full - Read This Brilliant Analysis of Music, Faith and the Progressive Culture of Death

Michael Moriarty has a written an important essay. Read this.

The Haunted Heaven: Chapter Twenty Seven: Old Notes In A New WayBy Michael Moriarty
web posted December 1, 2011

Leonard Bernstein again seems to have entered my memoir as a musical guide for this most revolutionizing corner of my life. His lectures on modern music, now blocked by Koch Entertainment, this one in particular, defines "composers that have something to say". In America you increasingly pay for any education that might be offered on the internet.

With his customary brilliance, Bernstein reveals how a final diatonic, major chord, orchestrated as Stravinsky does in his Symphony of Psalms, can even sound "new".

Next, I'm watching Bernstein put Bachian muscle and balance into the execution of a Bach orchestral work.

Now, the St. Matthew Passion, as Bernstein himself says, "writing music was religion for J. S. Bach'.

"His godliness shines through all his music, first to last."

Bernstein's own divine genius as a teacher, as a composer, as a conductor?

It is beyond indisputable.

Alright.

Follow my reasoning, my deduction. If one looks at the political forces and "themes" that run and increasingly clash? Cacophony? Or modern music?

Bernstein might say, "Both!"

In that monosyllabic declaration lies Bernstein's infuriating equivocations politically. What might he be thinking now, were he alive? Would he, for one, be defending Roe v Wade?

Of course, as the only "civilized thing to do!"

Hmmm … and since Protestants, Progressive Protestants such as the Clintons and the Obamas actually promote abortion, Bach, being a Protestant child of Luther's Reformation, might agree, mightn't he?

There has always been a war between artistic genius and sanity. The confines of sanity, however, begin with "thou shalt not murder". Wander "out of that box" and you either have lunacy or just pure evil.

Crime and sin for the sake of crime and sin … until, of course, the thrill of crime and sin for the sake of crime and sin is gone.\ Then crime and sin would continue for no other joy than the pure abandon of evil. That is not lunacy, that is Evil. Evil's pure and conscious intent is the utter destruction of Good. That, of course, would mean the end of God.

Progressive "Reason" would inevitably necessitate the end of religion.

The end of God.

Eventually.

Not that the Progressives like the Clintons wouldn't lie to the faithful. They would lie and already have lied, as they say, "Big Time!" The Devil's Lobby, I call it.

C. S. Lewis, an Anglican of all things, wrote a great deal about The Devil in The Screwtape Letters and was later re-immortalized in the 1993 film, Shadowlands.

Catholic writers, of which I consider James Joyce, of course, one of, if not the greatest – the greatest, that is, if you don't consider Shakespeare a Catholic (many do) – have a profoundly more complex and subtler relationship with The Devil. The Church has truly split hairs about the depth of Hell involved with each transgression.

Forgiveness, of course, for any of the sinners is always possible, depending, of course, upon the sincerity of the sinner.

How did I get here in a chapter entitled "Old Notes In A New Way"?

There are few existing and major "old notes" that are older than the Catholic Church. The preceding Greek and Latin cultures, of course, haunt us in the same way they haunt the Catholic Church. The Catholic church, however, will be known eventually as the creation that saved the human race by her unswerving stand against abortion.

What is haunting me now is why a video accompanying a January, 2011 article, The Ox-Bow Generation, didn't work for quite some time. Yet it works now, months later. The Hanging of an innocent man is, indeed, an abortion.

The Fierce Faction For Abortion, and that is the only name I could label it with at this point, has massive influence obviously.

At the same time, this is the second day of the Arizona shooting in Tucson and Sarah Palin is still being targeted, ostensibly for her "target" symbolism.

No. It is for her stand against abortion. No one more fully represents pro-life than Sarah Palin.

Now, with Palin out of the 2012 Presidential race, it is Herman Cain who has been "forced out", not, as the press say, because of his marital past, but because of his unmitigated stand against abortion. Such a position is an assault against all "modern women"!

This is an example of The Bipartisan Progressives using gossip and marital secrets as propaganda in an "old way".

"Using old propaganda tools in an old way."

Michelle Malkin's article The progressive "climate of hate:" An illustrated primer, 2000-2010 lists, with her column's telescopic memory, the ten years of hate engendered by the fallaciously "hate-hating" Left.

The Left is well-known for serving up its vengeance cold.

Proud of it.

Glenn Beck, while on television, was doing his best to warn the Right against violence of any kind but righteous indignation can be tranquilized just so long. Perhaps that is why he avoided the issue of abortion as best he could. He was rather pushed into one episode dealing with the horrors of infanticide. Though Beck eventually proved too inflammatory and expensive for Fox Network, even he knew the hot potato that abortion has always proven to be. I don't follow his radio show so I have no idea how concerned he's been about Roe v Wade's spiritual destruction of the American soul.

However, 37 years of legalized murder could very well amount to 89 years of legalized slavery. We know how America and Americans could endure such inhumanity for just so long and then …

Ending legalized slavery is an "old note" for America.

Ending legalized abortion, with the hindsight we have about slavery, can be handled legislatively and at a much slower pace than the five years of Civil War.

Something, however, must be done now!

Why?

The American soul and her "inalienable right to life" have been destroyed by Roe v Wade.

As I have said one thousand times, the Golden Rule does not read, "Do unto gestating infants what you would not have wanted done unto your own gestating infancy."

Devoid of the Golden Rule, the American people's silence before the murder of Roe v Wade seems to be begging for an even colder indifference to human life out of the present, Far Left American government.

How does one resist a one hundred year-old Progressive Movement with profoundly international support and resources?

The Catholic Church.

An old note to be played in a new way.

Michael Moriarty is a Golden Globe and Emmy Award-winning actor who starred in the landmark television series Law and Order 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.

Caitiffs and Cads -Bounders and Blackguards

Of course a monarch can never be a caitiff, cad, or bounder . . .much less a blackguard.

This miserable measure the wretched souls maintain of those who lived without infamy and without praise. Mingled are they with that caitiff choir of the angels, who were not rebels, nor were faithful to God, but were for themselves. The heavens chased them out in order to be not less beautiful, nor doth the depth of Hell receive them, because the damned would have some glory from them.

Inferno by Dante Alighieri

That ain't good . . .to be a caitiff. The word comes from the Anglo-French of the 11th Century, following the name change William The Bastard of Normandy affected with his conquest of Harold the Saxon in 1066. It's better to be a conqueror than a bastard. Being a bastard is tough, because one inherits only his skin and is required to acquire a name for oneself. The word caitiff differs a bit from a bastard.A caitfiff is bastardized form of the Latin captivus or captive.




One was expected to die in combat, rather than become a captive. A caitiff therefore is someone who was there at a battle, and surrendered - called it quits.

From that military meaning evolved a judgment of character - one who surrendered was implied to be a wretch, a craven, a coward. Someone without the honor to die rather than surrender, because he lacked inner feelings of virtue and nobility. Such a craven person would huddle with other like minded self-interested cowards in a township.



A Cadet ( Capitellum or 'little head') was a townie. Someone who curried favor of his betters - not to the Manor Born. If you lived in a Manor, you were noble by birth and blood. From Cadet evolved the caddie, a low-born person who did the bidding of his betters. A Cad was one who strayed into a better circle of society by dint of service and might flirt and play the dandy with the Lady of the Manor, but a Cad who went over the boundaries was a bounder -first employed in our living language around 1550. The extent of a Cad's excesses would be semiotic -signals and promises of exhausting pleasures - and go no further.



A Bounder is a complete rotter, scoundrel, or near-do well. One capable of any and all manner of miscreance - a breaker of faith. One might trust Clive Ajouter-Sur -Un-Matelas, the family wine steward, to distinguish a claret from a Rhenish, but should not be altogether floored to find Imported Frog-eater bouncing on the Baldacchino Supreme atop of Lady Salope.

Clive has gone from cad to bounder. A Cad might intend to diddle Lady Cuisses-Chaud Salope, but a bounder will enact the deed.

A Caitiff merely will know what is going on in the chambre à oucher master
between Lady Salope and Clive and smirk and ooze about his daily tasks.

A Bounder becomes a Blackguard when he mocks, curses, thrashes and ultimately beats Lady S following a particularly Herculean assignation, confronts Lord S with the unhappy fact that his Lordship has been goated. . . has been goated vigorously and often, with a grand sweep of the cape given him by her Ladyship exits Salope Manor with a great Spanish leather Gladstone choked with Pounds Sterling and minor coin as well as trinkets and stones snatched from Lady S's horde of jewels and successfully publishes his 3rd person omniscient account of the decade long carnal romps with Lady S all the while plotting against Baron Vaine Salope's appointment to the Ministry of Exchequer.


A Blackguard is the top of the wicked tree here. Caitiff and Cads edge close to the boundaries of a higher social circle, while taking only those liberties afforded their place in life. Thus a Caitiff who ventures to flirt with Lady S becomes a Cad and Cad graduates to Bounder when seals the carnal deal. However, a Blackguard goes the extra mile in letting the world know about it - kiss and tell, don't you know.

I like bounders.

Our Leave it to Beaver President - Ward, Has a Real Man-to-Man Chat in the Den with Barry.

Guard One - کید آن را می خواهد. ( The kid wants it back.)

Guard Two- نداره، او را دمار از روزگارمان درآورد، ما آن را نگه داشتن. (Nah, #$%^ hiM; we're keeping it)
Ward Calls Beav. . .Barry into the den:

Ward Churchill - Barry, step into the den, I want to have a word with you about taking care of your possessions. Sit down there on the davenport. . . .

Now, when I was a boy, I liked to sail kites and balsa wood gliders.

Sometimes they'd get caught in the phone lines, trees or just fly away. Othertimes, the tough boys from the Catholic schools would grab my things from me and call me names like like Faux Injun Plagiarist and smash up, those toys, cut my pony tail, pull down my pants and paint my butt blue . . . I was none too happy about that, I'll tell, but I got more than even. Well, Barry, they went on to become cops, firemen, and skilled tradesmen and I went on to become a protected distinguished academic for no real work at all; just like my pal Lumpy -Mr Ayers to you, young man.

Now, Barry, the toys that I lost were cheap. Kite and balsa wood Saber Jets only costs about five nickels, back then, but now-a-days they'd retail at about $ 8.96 because of the 1% who want to keep down us 99% folks.

Well, Barry that particular drone we gave you and you lost was a super- advanced Lockheed Martin RQ-170 Sentinel, nick-named the Beast of Kandahar and boy did you have a lot of fun with it. Yes, Sir, you sure did.

Now, Barry, even I know that the loss of the drone is important and I am as phony as a Chris Matthews Let Me Finish. Now, look at me.

Boy, when you saw that You shouted to know if it came with a Garrett TFE731 or General Electric TF34! Now, Barry that drone was expensive. In fact we are keeping the costs of it under wraps for the time being, but you know that the average drone flight you have been playing with costs between $10,000 and $25,000 per flight.

Barry, you did not order the self-destruct on that toy. I know, you wanted no opportunity for an explosion in or over our Persian neighbor's yard and all, but maybe you should have done that.

Oh, come on now. No need for tears. You say it was not your fault and everyone believes you. Some of your Army guys are even telling folks that the Iranians are showing a fake drone. Fact of the matter, Beav . . .er, Barry -Now Iran has a perfectly good RQ-170 Sentinel and you know what that means? You don't.

Now, Barry, you go back to Mr.Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and ask him nicely again. You go back time and again, Barry, like we taught you. Bow to his wishes. Now, scoot you rascal! . . . And take care of what we give you, Son!

Now, if you lose an expensive drone, you might also lose a second term and we can't have that happen, now, can we?

Rahm, Explain NATO/G-8 Benefits to "Everybody" . . . Very, Very Slowly.

“Everybody understands the big upside for our city’s economic activity, job creation. There’s gonna be world leaders, foreign ministers, finance ministers, press from around the world to see what we all know to be the greatness of the city of Chicago*.”

Yep,and Yessiree, Bob! Why only last August the protected activists announced the icing on Rahm's Window to the World Welcome Cake! Light them candles!

Chicago could see crowds of protesters similar to the 35,000 or so activists who descended on St. Paul, Minn., during the 2008 Republican National Convention, said Joe Lombardo, co-coordinator for the New York-based United National Anti-War Committee.

"With the war (and) the global economy as they are, and the (U.S. presidential) election in full swing next spring, I think it will have the potential to be bigger than the protests in Minnesota," said Lombardo, a retired New York state government worker who has participated in demonstrations since the 1960s. "Those issues are not going to go away (by May), and Chicago is a larger city than some of the other places they've had these summits recently."

Chicago activist Joe Iosbaker, who helped organize the RNC protests in 2008 and whose home was raided by FBI agents in October 2010, said he applied for permits to hold demonstrations in Daley Plaza and Federal Plaza downtown the day the White House announced the city would host the summits.

So far, he has not heard anything about the status of the permits from Cook County about using Daley Plaza or the agency that controls Federal Plaza. City officials also have said organizers will not be able to apply for a permit for a planned march through the city until the first of the year, Iosbaker said.

"They told me they would get back to me in two weeks to let me know at least that we were in the process of getting the permit," Iosbaker said. "That was nine weeks ago."

Local activist Andy Thayer said demonstrations will be peaceful, despite a recent statement by police Superintendent Garry McCarthy that the department is preparing for "mass arrests" of protesters during the summit. . . . Iosbaker noted that events like the G8 and World Trade Organization summits have seen some violence in their host cities. Iosbaker attributed the clashes to aggressive police and said his group is planning to do nothing to disrupt the city or the conferences.

"What we want is a safe, permitted, legal protest," Iosbaker said. "Something that parents feel safe bringing their babies in strollers to, and we want our voice to be heard."

DUDE!!! Anarchists, SDS Senior Citizens, Joe Isobaker's XXXXXL SEIU Purple T-Shirted Shouters, Andy Thayer's Gay Rainbow Multi-Purpose Protest Coalition, Mummers, Zombies, The Hamas Cruise Directors, ISM's Kevin Clark and the Catholic Schoolgirls Against the War, Happenin' Dudes in V-Masks, Code Pinkettes, Wobblies, OWS Veterans, Billy Ayers and his Odious Old Lady, Peoples Law Office Ambulance Chasers, More Andy Thayer, Clowns, Balloons and Michael Moore Rides for the Kids!

My Questions, Rahm:

Ample Parking? What about Ample Parking?

Cinco De Mayo? No Mas, or will it be a moveable feast like October Fest?

How you gonna get all the off the clock Euro-Trash Conventioneers to the Horseshoe Casino?

What's the Over and Under on the Litigation Net?

Where's the Youthful Flash Mobs supposed to loot?

Does Christine Amanpour still get a press pass?

Will CTA Forest Claypool be get time and half, or double bubble driving buses without a pee?

How will this affect side-walk cafe life for the Liberal Gentry?

North Avenue Beach? Open? Closed? Film at Ten?

Should be a dandy May.


*Chicago Principles
• Our solidarity will be based on respect for a political diversity within the struggle for social, economic and
environmental justice. As individuals and groups, we may choose to engage in a diversity of tactics and plans of
action but are committed to treating each other with respect and working towards a common goal of peace and
justice.
• As we plan our actions and tactics, we will take care to maintain appropriate separations of time and space
between divergent tactics.
• We oppose any state repression of dissent, including surveillance, infiltration, disruption, limiting our action
to “free speech zones,” and violence, or attempts to divide our movement through the conscious creation of
divisions regarding tactics, organization, strategies, and alliances.
• Any debates or criticisms will stay internal to the movement, avoiding any public or media denunciations of
fellow activists and events.http://cang8.wordpress.com/
https://www.google.com/search?q=NATO+G8+Summit+in+Chicago&rls=com.microsoft:en-us:IE-SearchBox&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=ie7&rlz=1I7GGIH_enUS268

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_summit

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Resist-the-Chicago-G8NATO-Summits-May-2012/199067310146117

Actress Kara Zediker - A Great Talent from Kankakee, Illinois

One of the great rewards of a teaching career is seeing the lives developed by students who endured your time with them.

Kara Zediker and her brother John were two wonderful youngsters and are now very successful and splendid young adults. Kara is an actress and John is a CEO for a private company and works on the Du Page County Board. Their folks are Carol, "Cookie," and Phil Zediker one of the great husband and wife teams - Phil is a psychiatrist and Cookie taught with my wife Mary and me at Bishop McNamara High School.

Kara was a member of the Paula Aubrey Dance Studio while a student and acted in every play and sang at every opportunity. Kara is a very pretty kid happy in her own skin - her best role was as Mammy Yokum in the musical Li'l Abner, though she could just as easily filled the role of Daisy May.

Kara and my wife Mary, an art teacher, were great pals. Mary was always the invited guest and I got dragged along to dinners and outings. More so, like the dusty twerp in James Hilton's novel, my wife made me look better and kept the students from hiring a retired Scout Sniper. I was and continue to be a huge pain in the ass. Imagine being a 14-18 year old kid stuck in a desk with me for 50 minutes, or more. I do not know how they did it.

Kara and John were both superb students and very popular kids as well. Kara studied at Columbia College here in Chicago and was selected to act with Goodman Theatre and Steppenwolf and bravely acted with John Malkovich in a perfectly horrible play -A Slip of the Tongue*. She also had roles in The Babe with John Goodman and Uncle Buck with John Candy.

Kara plays the lead in a short film to be released in 2012 and plays an Italian woman in a period piece called No God, No Masters about the 1919 Palmer Raids against Italian immigrants.

Here is a trailer for Wedensday's Child The story of a young girl who discovers that her entire nine year existence has been a series of experiments for books written by her parents, and the drastic action she takes to force them into admitting the truth.

Wednesday's Child from Mike Kwielford on Vimeo.

here is Kara as a nurse from a recent episode of Without a Trace-



Phil and Cookie raised two great kids. Kara is an especially talented young lady. Houli! Remember Kara for your next film!


John Zediker - http://www.dupageco.org/CountyBoard/Members/12024/

Kara Zediker-http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0954150/


*

Past Threatens Nation`s Freedom In `Slip`
February 07, 1992|By Lawrence Bommer.
It was inevitable: A play has emerged depicting Eastern Europe after the fall of the Iron Curtain. Opening Sunday at the Steppenwolf Theatre Company,

``A Slip of the Tongue`` is a world premiere by Dusty Hughes that takes place in an Eastern European country both before and after the revolution of 1989. Its hero, Dominic Tantra, is a leading dissident writer who has spent years in exile in a rural area.After the fall of his repressive government, he returns to the capital city, where he`s given all the privileges he`d been denied. Conflict arises when Tantra, who wants to forget about the past, discovers that the movement that he was a part of and suffered for has become preoccupied with retributive justice. The story focuses on Tantra`s relationships with four university students.

Playing the lead role in Simons Stokes` staging is Steppenwolf stage and screen star John Malkovich. Other cast members are French actress Clotilde Courau, British actress Lizzy McInnerny, Chicagoan Kara Zediker and Lithuanian actress Ingeborga Dapkunaite.

``A Slip of the Tongue`` runs through March 22 at 1650 N. Halsted St.;

312-335-1888.

Bears - Mrs. McCaskey Needs To Lead You Guys to Holy Name Cathedral - Pray to St. Humility

St. Humility carries the bricks to build a church; Tim Tebow carries Denver

In fact, everything about Tebow, a 24-year-old Floridian, seems polarizing, from his unabashed religious proselytizing to his unorthodox approach to playing quarterback. If you crossed a tight end with a fullback and raised him in the God-fearing home of a pious linebacker — a Mike Singletary type — you’d have Tim Tebow.

Dan McGrath Chicago News Cooperative December 10, 2011




13-10 - Biblical. The Bears had a 10-0 lead in the waning minutes of a defensive brawl in Denver. Then, as the clock ticked away precious seconds, an unnecessary trip to the sidelines struck down the Monsters of the Midway like the staff of Moses on the Rock - and there poured forth a Biblical end.

Guess what? The year 1310 AD marks date of the death of St. Humility.

Born Rosanna Negusanti to a noble family from Faenza, she was married at the age of fifteen to a nobleman named Ugoletto (Ugonotto) dei Caccianemici (d. 1256). She bore two children, both of whom died in infancy. In 1250, Ugoletto became a monk upon recovering from an illness that nearly killed him. Rosanna entered the same double monastery of canonesses named Saint Perpetua, near Faenza, becoming a nun and taking the name Humility.

She became an anchoress in a cell attached to the Vallumbrosan church of Saint Apollinaris in Faenza, where she lived as a hermit or recluse for twelve years.

However, at the request of the abbot-general she founded a monastery outside Faenza and became its abbess. Blessed Margherita became one of her disciples.

In 1282 she founded a second convent at Florence, where she died in 1310 of natural causes. She left a number of mystical writings.

She was canonized on January 27, 1720 by Pope Clement XI.

Her feast day is celebrated on May 22.

The relics of Humility and her disciple Margherita are venerated at the convent of Spirito Santo at Varlungo near Florence.

St. Humility was loaded. She was a mother who watched her children die and nearly lost her husband -who entered a monastery. St. Humility did the same. That is something.

Tim Tebow is something. He has all the gifts -especially humility. Humility is the recognition of the dirt under our feet -from hence we came. Dirt, turf - real or artificial - dust to dust and all that jazz.

One of the most devout persons in Chicago, of any faith and creed, is Mrs. Virginia McCaskey, scion of the Halas Family and matriarch of the Chicago Bears. Mrs. McCaskey spends a great deal of her time in the pew and the balance doing acts of charity.

Mrs. McCaskey is loaded, but that does not seem to matter much to her.

Virginia McCaskey is our Tim Tebow. Perhaps a field trip to Holy Name Cathedral and more than few laps around the rosary might be in order, as opposed to goating poor Marion Barber.

Humility is not dancing in the end zone.

Humility seems to work in Denver.

December 20, 2011- Meet the Top Bidder for Public Square 10th Anniversary Dinner for Six with Bill Ayers and His Odious Old Lady

WE have a Winner! WBEZ is proud to announce the top bidder for the scintillatingly unforgetable dinner with Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dorhn - Retired Chicago Police Officer Byrne Yuras. Officer Yuras and five of his best friends and fellow members of the American Knights Motorcycle Club, Chicago Chapter.

Officer Yuras has had a colorful career in Law Enforcement since he returned from Vietnam in 1969. Joining CPD in 1970, Officer Yuras was briefly assigned to the Red Squad but after that unit was disbanded remained a patrol officer until his retirement in 2008. He is a widower, weight-lifter, motorcycle enthusiast, member of Mensa Brighton Park Chapter, Knight of Columbus and an Illinois Megaball Jackpot winner.

Officer Yuras says that he and his fellow retired officers will ring the doorbell with their elbows. He's bringing dessert and entertainment. You are listening to WBEZ, in Chicago! The time is 8:28.

Description:
Enjoy an unforgettable and scintillating dinner for a party of six cooked by veteran activists and educators Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn. Fascinating conversation over a meal is the agenda for this special evening.

William Ayers, Distinguished Professor of Education and Senior University Scholar at the University of Illinois at Chicago (retired), has written extensively about social justice, democracy and education, the cultural contexts of schooling and teaching as an essentially intellectual, ethical, and political enterprise. He is currently the vice-president of the curriculum studies division of the American Educational Research Association.

Bernardine Dorhn, Clinical Associate Professor of Law at Northwestern University and founder of the Children and Family Justice Center, is a child advocate who teaches, lectures and writes about children’s law, juvenile justice, the needs and rights of youth, and international human rights. With Steven A. Drizin, she is co-founder of the Center on the Wrongful Conviction of Youth.

Dinner will be arranged on a mutually agreed upon date before September 30, 2012. All sales are final.

Ask us a question about this item.

http://www.akmc.us/index.php

Catholic Liturgical Ditties and Sacred Music

Music can trigger a wake up call for my better angels. The softer side of our selves is what makes us respond to our place here on earth and our understanding of that delicate and brief posture we show to the universe and the face of God. We might not know all about the art, the words, the tone, or the ritual taking place but we know that something we are experiencing takes us out of ourselves to someplace wonderful. We can only experience this mystical journey if we put ourselves exactly where it is possible: a library, a museum, a monument, a place of worship. We gotta go there.

Last night, I was swept up by the Nine Lessons and Carols Concert at St. John Cantius, where the works of Canadian Comper Healey Willan were performed. Healey Willan was commissioned to compose sacred music for the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. The St. Cecilia Choir performed his Hodie Carol. Hodie, Cristus Natus Est. Today Christ is born- declarative, simple and elegant. Sacred.

Catholic liturgy should use music with greater care and it does not. St. John Cantius is a parish on the north side of Chicago where the stated mission is to return God's people where they belong via the sacred. St. John Cantius is the Catholic Church many of us Baby Boomer and older Catholics remember. The entire atmosphere is reverent, beautiful and sacred. The music is exquisite and the performance by the St. Cecilia Choir under the direction of a non-Catholic, Dan Robinson more than matches the musical manuscripts.

The Sacred is rare in our culture. The sacred is parodied or dismissed in public life, education, politics, conversation and child care. Why else could we as a culture embrace everything anything as disposable - books, razors, friendships, and life itself. We seem to have replaced the Sacred with Sanctioned. I am as guilty of that most hours of the day.

My friend Jim Bowman, a dedicated career religious journalist, posed this issue at Blithe Spirit quoting from an article he read on Catholic Liturgical Music and the empty pews in the light of the recent Catholic Campaign to Return Home:

A long time Catholic of bourgeois sensibilities, a man who trying to hold on to his faith but doesn’t attend Mass on a regular basis, decides that it is time to try again. He goes to a parish not far from his house. The processional says to him: nothing has changed from the last time I tried this. He grinds his teeth throughout. By communion time, he is nearly losing his mind. The recessional hymn puts him over the top. He goes out to the parking lot cursing under his breath, mad all over again, recalling why he doesn’t go that often.

The problem is the music. It is bad pop music, shabbily done by people who nonetheless seem to be pretty proud of their performance. The entire Mass, the man keeps asking himself: how does it happen that the most beautiful liturgy, the product of 2000 years of tradition, could be reduced to this? More importantly, isn't there something that can be done about it?

There is, but, like everything else, the problem is more than fifty years of neglect that needs to be addressed. The Masses composed around the Big Six (Kyrie,Gloria,Credo,Sanctus,,Benedictus and Agnus Dei) by Cavalli, Bach, Mozart,Haydn, Beethoven, Liszt,Schubert,Verdi, Rossini and Antonin Dvořák, became as irrelvant as Latin, the Memorare and the Prayer of St. Michael.

The music became the property of Sister Sally and the Electric Prunes ( yes, the lads who brought us "I Had Too Much to Dream Last Night" composed an electric guitar Mass in F Minor) and local kids who played the guitar very badly. The Mass became relevant as Hell. It was profaned. I know profane inside and out, God help me. I do and get profane, much more than necessary, and it has its place.

There have been many modern compositions that are sacred and fitting to liturgy, but these are ignored, because parish liturgists have been trained to do their own thing.

Again, from article cited by Jim Bowman:

The number one issue, in my own view that has been formed over a decade of close study, is that the musicians themselves do not know better. Most people doing music in the Catholic Church do not even have a rudimentary understanding of the musical demands of the Roman rite. They do not know what parts of the Mass constitute the ordinary structure of the Mass. They do not know that the propers of the Mass exist. They have no idea how the music is related to the word or the calendar (apart from Christmas and Easter). They have no idea what is mandatory, what is an option, what is the Church’s choice, what is the publisher’s choice, what tradition consists of, or how to tell genuine liturgical music from nonliturgical music.

This is because they have never been told. And a reason that they have never been told is that very few people actually have this understanding at all. You can attend ten national conventions, read ten books, subscribe to all the major liturgy publications, troll websites all day, talk to your pastor and grill your predecessors, and still never discover these basic points about the Catholic liturgy and its musical demands. Yes, you will come away with some slogans and with the knowledge that “the people” need to participate but do not (it’s always easier to focus on the sins of others), but that’s about it.

The core information about the role of music is not known because it is not known, and this problem is not only serious at the grass roots; it goes straight to the top. Again, it is not malice that is preventing this knowledge from leaking out; it is just that so much information has been lost during these confusing decades that there are very few around that truly get it.

Want to get it?

Here is a pretty good tutorial that helps us understand the difference.

Can you tell the difference?? from Corpus Christi Watershed on Vimeo.

That's a baby step. We need to walk into Sacred Places to experience the Sacred. You'll know it.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healey_Willan
http://www.chantcafe.com/search/label/Jeffrey%20Tucker

http://blithespirit.wordpress.com/2011/12/10/read-this-and-weep-ye-pewsitting-catholics/

A Great Profile of a Great Catholic Priest - Bishop Thomas Paprocki

Bishop Thomas Paprocki has our backs, Catholics.

‘You’ll get no fable that’s told by me.

For Paul, in writing there to Timothy,

Reproves those who swerve from truthfulness,

Relating fables and such sinfulness.

Why should I sow chaff from my fist,

When I can sow wheat, as I would wish?

So I will say, that if you wish to hear

Of morality and virtuous things here,

And grant me of my speech an audience,

I will gladly do Christ full reverence,

Giving you lawful pleasure, as I can.

But in truth I am a southern man;

I cannot give you “rum, ram, ruf” by letter,

And, God knows, I hold rhyme little better.

Rhyme and alliteration I’ll dispose

With, and tell you a merry tale in prose,

To knit up all this game and make an end.

Parson's Prologue -Canterbury Tales.

The only real priest and honest Churchman in the Canterbury Tales is the Parson. Chaucer lived in a time when Church was identified more with clerical abuse than sanctity - Monks were slum-land-lords, Nuns were no better than Rush Street Cougars, Friars were sots on the make and Abbots were gang-banging Warlords. The Parson was Christ-like.

Yesterday, I read a wonderful profile of Springfield Catholic Bishop Thomas Paprocki, by Bruce Rushton in Illinois Times. Bishop Paprocki is a tough Polish kid from 'over-by there.' Paprocki is a priest's priest and a jock-strap: an very educated man who remembers that he walked in alleys and ran through gangways.

Like the Parson of Chaucer's poem, Bishop Paprocki gives Catholics hope.

Only Catholic clerics who cave-in to secular agendas get fair play with academics, media mouth-pieces and political opportunists in and out of office.

Abortion is unacceptable. Marriage is between a man and a woman. Sex outside of marriage requires a trip to the confessional box and not a plebiscite. Social justice should not require a public relations team.

Esse Quam Videri was stated by lawyer and orator Cicero - To be rather than seem.

The Catholic Church has seemed to be anything and everything for more than forty years. That is far too long. Bishop Thomas Paprocki lives what must be, for Catholics and other good people. Good people protect their children, their rights and their souls as best they can.

They call him the Holy Goalie, the bishop who saves goals and saves souls. He is, according to Jeff Rocco, director of the Sacred Heart-Griffin hockey squad, the real deal in the net – you’d never know that he didn’t take up ice hockey until the late 1990s, when he was closing in on 50.

What possesses a man in mid-life to become a puck target?

“Why do you want to play goalie – it’s like, why do you want to be a priest?” answers Paprocki, who also runs marathons. “Part of it, I guess, is being at the center of the action. Being a goalie is like being a bishop: You’re at the center of the action.

Really, Paprocki says, it isn’t much different than playing goal in floor hockey, which he did back in the eighth grade while growing up on Chicago’s south side. There were no ice rinks, and so his six brothers and their friends played in a basement beneath his father’s pharmacy.

“The basic principle is, you play the angles,” he says. “You just want to position yourself in a way so the puck hits you.”

Plenty of pucks have hit Paprocki since his arrival in Springfield 18 months ago. He doesn’t shy from strong statements, which has earned him critics who call him divisive, arrogant, inflammatory – and worse.
. . . After passing the bar exam in 1981, Paprocki and Grossman founded the Chicago Legal Clinic, which still provides legal services to the poor. Grossman is executive director while Paprocki remains president. Grossman, who is Jewish, says the bishop has a keen sense of humor, the sort who enjoys stories that begin with “A priest and a rabbi walk into a bar….”

“He always tells those jokes,” Grossman says.

But Paprocki knows where the line is located.

“He is never not a bishop,” Grossman says. “It’s not a job for him. It’s a lifestyle. It’s something that permeates every aspect of his being.”

Paprocki entered law school three months after he was ordained – it was all part of a plan that made sense to him, he says, but perhaps not to others.

“That all fit for me,” he says with a chuckle. “I describe the law as a tool for ministry. Other people looking at that, ‘He was ordained a priest and now he’s studying to be a lawyer? He’s already so dissatisfied with the priesthood...’ . . .
Between explaining himself on high-profile matters, Paprocki leads the day-to-day life of a bishop, lawyer, marathon runner (he finished 531st out of 1,330 finishers with a time of 4:08:39 in the Kansas City Marathon last fall) and, Grossman says, a man who is making plans to earn a master’s degree in business administration. Somehow, he finds time for matters large and small.

“You can imagine a person in his position must get asked a favor or for something a million times a day,” Grossman says. “He always, always, always takes time for people.”

Including for members of the Sacred Heart-Griffin hockey team, which won its first-ever championship last season, when Paprocki served as the squad’s goalie coach during his first year in Springfield. The bishop attends about 70 percent of the team’s practices and games, says Rocco, the team’s director, and he commands respect by blocking 60-mph shots by college-bound players.

“He can play,” Rocco says.

You got that right, Rocco. Play is damned serious these days.

We Interrupt the Endless Looping of Insipidly Produced and Performed Christmas Music . . .

The other evening my beloved and I were chased out of a near north side restaurant by the endless looping ( Sirius XM) of Kenny G quality Holiday Tunes. Pan Fluted " Winter Wonderlands." Soprano Sax'd "Oh, Little Town of Bethlehams." and any version of "Little Drummer Boy" are toxic to the soul and an affront to quality of life.

It is not Christmas Music that is bad; rather, it is the selections looped and presented. More so, it is the wicked and smarmy imposition of these very bad productions by people who actually believe that one and all are charmed by their control of the atmosphere that is intrinsically pernicious.

Therefore, to gas station managers, mall directors, restaurateurs and secularists everywhere, give it a rest. In the spirit of Christmas giving may I offer this comely and well-stated ballad.



Merry Christmas and do sing along with this carol of sense and sensibility - Kenny G, my broad manly arse.

Left,Left,Left,Right ,Left


Husslers shootin' eightball
Throwin' darts at the wall
Feelin' damn near 10 ft. tall
Here she comes, Lord help us all
Old T.W.'s girlfriend done slapped him out his chair
Poor ole boy, it ain't his fault
It's so hard not to stare
At (Miranda's)honky tonk badonkadonk
Keepin' perfect rhythm
Make ya wanna swing along
Got it goin' on
Like Donkey Kong
And ooo-wee
Shut my mouth, slap your grandma
There outta be a law
Get the Sheriff on the phone
Lord have mercy, how she even get them britches on with that
That honky tonk badonkadonk
(Aww son)

Now Honey, you can't blame her
For what her mama gave her
It ain't right to hate her
For workin' that money-maker
Band shuts down at two
But we're hangin' out till three
We hate to see her go
But love to watch her leave
With that honky tonk badonkadonk
Keepin' perfect rhythm
Make ya wanna swing along
Got it goin' on
Like Donkey Kong
And ooo-wee
Shut my mouth, slap your grandma
There outta be a law
Get the Sheriff on the phone
Lord have mercy, how she even get them britches on
With that honky tonk badonkadonk
(Ooh, that's what I'm talkin' bout right there honey)

We don't care bout the drinkin'
Barely listen to the band
Our hands, they start a shakin'
When she gets the urge to dance
Drivin' everybody crazy
You think you fell in love
Boys, you better keep your distance
You can look but you can't touch
That honkey tonk badonkadonk
Keepin' perfect rhythm
Make ya wanna swing along
Got it goin' on
Like Donkey Kong
And ooo-wee
Shut my mouth, slap your grandma
There outta be a law
Get the Sheriff on the phone
Lord have mercy, how she even get them britches on with that
That honky tonk badonkadonk

That honky tonk badonkadonk
Yeah, that honky tonk badonkadonk
That honky tonk badonkadonk


(That's it, boys, that's why we do what we do
It ain't for the money, it ain't for the glory, it ain't for the free whiskey, its for the badonkadonk)

Gimlet Eye on “Chicago Way” - Joel Kotkin Excoriates The City that Shirks

Blago got 14 years. He got fourteen years, because he is a goof and was a very easy target for Federal Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald. Fitzy does not harpoon Moby Dick; he nets smelt: Rezko, Blago and other ham sammich indictees.

The core of Chicago Style Corruption lies not with the guy asking his precinct captain to go to bat for his kid. Chicago Style Corruption* is not a cop telling you that, "You were travelling $35 over the posted speed limit." Chicago Style Corruption is not some mopey kid sleeping off a hang-over in the back of a Water Department Truct awakened by Dane Placko, Pam Zekman.

Chicago Style Corruption is Lab School. Shakman Decrees were the starting blocks. When political hiring was targeted as the strawman, elected officials danced around its bonfire. No longer would an elected official be required to attend wakes, go church repasts, attend Knights of Columbus Tootsie Roll Drives, chat up soft-ball Moms, or actually do something for other people. Shakman freed political powerhouses to shake of the pests with a stentorian, "I'll look into it."

Instead, Policy was crafted to deny, shirk, ignore and dismiss. "Jesus, Guido, can't help you. Shakman. What can I do? Don't forget to pull a straight ticket, Guid. Here's some tickets to my golf outing - there a Hundo each."

Nope. Policy was crafted at University of Chicago, Northwestern, or imported by a 1960's hippie crime expert. The BGA took care of the whistle-blowers. The Media took care of the rest -ignoring policy wrought real estate scams that funneled Housing dollars into the pockets of IVI lawyers turned moguls and their kids. Policy established boards and placed cranks, loudmouths and do-gooders over the street patrolmen.

Blago got fourteen years. George Ryan got six. Rezko got ten and change. Shakman got millions. Pat Quinn got to be Governor, Rahm Mayor and Dawn Clark Netsch a comfy seat on the Ethics panel. Illinois got screwed, blued and tatooed.

John Dewey, not Paddy Bauler, invented our Chicago Style Corruption. Eddie Burke, Eddie Vrdolyk and Mike Madigan are pikers compared to the Judson Miner/Allison Davis ( who can forget Sun Times investigator Tim Novak's incisive reports on Allison Davis and his son Cullen's real estate triumphs and the tragic death of a child?) crowd. Steve Preckwinkle? No relation to Toni's hubby Zeus? Outrageous, to ask such a question. Michael Shakman defending a hot property boon-doggle?Shack them jowls in indignation!!!

Chicago Style Corruption is a co-operative, a coalition of elected officials, academics, real estate players, agenda rangers ( SEIU, Planned Parenthood,LGBTQ,)lawyers and the media. I'll take nickel snitcher anytime. A thief will leave something - even fingerprints. No body steals like Progressive Reformer, because the editorial nodders bleach the crime scenes - unless, you are a Blago.

Chicago and its Daley dictatorship has been much celebrated in the media – particularly after Obama’s election in everything from the liberal New Yorker to Fast Company, which named Chicago “city of the year” in 2008. The following year, the Windy City was deemed the best city for men by Askmen.com, for offering what it claimed was “the perfect balance between cosmopolitan and comfortable, combining all of the culture, entertainment and sophistication of an internationally renowned destination with an affordable lifestyle and down-to-earth work hard/play hard character.”

Well, you can make that case, unless you happen to be searching for a job. Over the past decade, “the Chicago way” has proven more adept at getting good coverage than creating employment for its residents. In Forbes’ last cities rankings greater Chicago ranked 41st out of the 51 largest metropolitan areas. Between 2001 and 2011 it actually lost jobs. Since 2007 the region has lost more jobs than Detroit, and more than twice as many as New York. It has lost about as many jobs – 250,000 – as up and comer Houston has gained. In Forbes recent survey of high-tech performance, the Chicago region stood at a dismal 47th among the nation’s 51 largest metropolitan areas.

Blago is going to the join and the Goo-goo's are going to the bank for a very, very, very long time.

* E.G. - Read the great Anne Leary today on the Triumph of the Policy Pirates

http://backyardconservative.blogspot.com/2011/12/ayers-on-platter-dohrn-with-fork.html

Leo Freshman Context and Consensus - Assyria & A Prophet

We often find that our academic courses begin in 1900, or perhaps with the French Revolution, or the Protestant Reformation, or Machiavelli, or the discovery of the New World. Whenever we see this happening in our courses, we must be ready to look elsewhere and seek out what we are not presented. The fact is that very few human truths or errors were not already treated by the Greeks, by Plato and Aristotle. Not to know this is a very serious intellectual impediment.

Father James Schall, S.J. Crisis


Yesterday, I had the pleasure to take over classes from Pete Doyle, who has taught on and off here at Leo High School, both as an Irish Christian Brother, lay teacher/coach and Principal since 1967.

One floor above Pete Doyle's classroom Denny Conway '62 and Dr. Jack O'Keefe '59 were conducting ACT and SAT exam prep with seniors and juniors. Denny and Jack volunteer their time and talent.

Pete Doyle and football coach Mike Holmes took a ride over to check on Father Dan Mallette who was brutally beaten and robbed in the early morning hours of Monday, by two thugs who broke into his rectory at St. Margaret of Scotland Church and robbed the saintly man.

I had a roomful of freshmen. We were studying the Old Testament prophet Isaiah. The Son of Amos was known as the Evangelical Prophet, because Isaiah foretold of the coming of the Messiah.

I asked the gents, if they knew the context of Isaiah's ministry. They did - Pete Doyle teaches.

The Kingdom of Israel was destroyed by the Assyrians under Tiglath Pileser III leaving the Tribe of Judah and taking most of Israel into Captivity.

The Assyrians ( Medes, Babylonians, Persians, & etc.) were a New World Order in the 800 BC Cradle of Civilization. Israel was plagued by self-interested kings. Ahaz was the Jimmy Carter of the day. The Children of Zion went into Captivity - Babylon.




Isaiah railed against Kings going against God's Will. It is believed that Isaiah was martyred by the son of Hezikiah -Manasseh who cashed in faith for economics.

The guys had the context. We talked about being a prophet. Most of the kids at Leo are African American and most are Baptist and AME Christians, a few are Nation of Islam. To say the least, these guys are schooled in the Old Testament.

Okay, Gents - what is a prophet - Isaiah is said to be one - what makes him a prophet? Raheem?

A prophet appears in a bad situation for his people and speaks to truth.

Nice words. What do they mean?

We got into it. We covered all manner of topic merging to our core issue.

Jabari -A prophet is a guy who is aware of what is going and can make sense of it by what went on before and predict future outcomes.

Joe S.The person who refuses to accept bad terms in exchange for moment a peace is a prophet.

Chris McS. A prophet can not be bribed or bought off.A prophet will not be a crook.

Raheem A prophet believes in more than his own comfort. Like Father Mallette, Hickey!

Context - Father Mallette is beaten viciously, but Father Mallette forgave his torturers.

Consensus That is a prophet, Hickey.

You may say, gentlemen.

I never work a day in my life.

A Real Priest - Father Dan Mallette Viciously Beaten

The prayers of the Leo High School community and those of the Hickey family are with the parishioners of St. Margaret of Scotland. Last night at least two cowardly savages viciously beat and robbed Father Dan Mallette while he slept. It was thoughtful of the savages to do so while this eighty year old priest and boxer was asleep, because he would have taken these lice apart.

A longtime Chicago priest who provided outreach from his South Side Catholic church to try to stem violence and poverty became a victim of violence himself this morning when two men broke into his church and beat and robbed him, authorities said.

The attack happened at about 12:30 a.m. in the rectory of St. Margaret of Scotland Church in the 9800 block of South Throop Street, according to police.

The Rev. Daniel Mallette, pastor emeritus at the 83-year-old Longwood Manor church, suffered broken ribs and a swollen face in the beating, according to Cook County sheriff Tom Dart, a close friend of the priest.

Chicago TribuneLeo Men Pete Doyle and Coach Mike Holmes are with Father as I write this.


My thoughts are ugly and so I will try and limit myself to prayers. Father Mallette has already forgiven them.

Chicago - Urban Center Progressive Playland

Meet Poe Witry -Chicagoan.


We are sitting on geological shifting plates - the New Madrid Fault down around Cairo, Illinois and another over in Indiana the Wabash Valley Seismic Zone*. Yep, it is a dandy. Slabs of rock right under our feet and infrastructure -quakes and seismic shocks.

They are as nothing compared to political and economic earth rattlers about to happen right here in the City of Big Shoulders - Soon to be City of Slim Hips. For years, smart sizing and diet concerns of Progressives have become policy. Policy is what replaced politics. Politics was glad-handing and quid pro quo battering for votes that was the igneous rock upon which urban, county and state government was built. The City that Works, remember that?

The Urban Gentry largely childless, secular, affluent and educated scorns the bootless and unhorsed breeders who send their kids to Catholic schools and retain the values of the parish as well as citizenship over Progressive doctrines- they always have and they always will, whether it is on the davenports of Hull House, or on camera at WTTW, the Gentry Liberal can not stand neighbors. Neighbors live in parishes and neighborhoods.

Thanks to Michael Shakman and his community of judges, lawyers, journalists and academics, politics became a dinosaur with the compliance of short-sighted politicians and Progressive architects. Added to Shakman decrees, unique to Cook County, are more ordinances and policies heaped upon public safety agencies - Police and Fire. Cops wear more handcuffs than criminals.

Crime is now merely "bothersome." Violent crime is merely an "opportunity," begotten by poverty. Life is a Lab!

More bothersome are the people who stand in the way of transforming Chicago from a City into an Urban Center - neighborhood residents.

Rarely does the media refer to blocks of people living together in a particular area as neighbors - rather, they are community members. Communities need to be organized into cadres of marchers and concerned activists for doctrinally approved Progressive Agendas. Communities allow real estate manipulation and easy access to programs and the treasure they store from government programs.

These programs get put in place by a City Council of aldermen who vote the will of the Progressively approved doctrinal mandates. E.g. Community Policing, Urban Translating and Gang Meet-'N-Greets trump law enforcement. City Workers must live in the City, for now. Rahm will lift the residency mandates for all city workers in a few years.

Rahm Emanuel will part the Resident Sea like Moses, but only after the supine City Council votes in the Garbage Collection Grid. Smart Size! Say good by to the truck drivers and crewmen on big blue vehicles of Streets and Sanitation and hello to the Green and Gold Garbage Packers of Waste Management! Now, all of those family men and women formerly subject to the Ward Pharaohs shall be freed . . .of their City Jobs.

The Mount Greenwood, Morgan Park, Edison Park, Garfield Ridge, Auburn-Gresham, Hegewisch and the Brighton/McKinley Park helots can go to ZION or Braidwood, Custer Park, or Posen.

Chicago is planned to be an Urban Center with biker/walker-friendly easements and paths, medicinal marijuana boutiques Hula-Green park scapes, many cafes & bistros, health centers, open-air markets, abortuaries of course, and slick residences for the affluent, the childless the multidegree'd and most importantly the very secular. Chicago will be a monohue center -one color - white. No one love es the BLUES like rich white folks!

The darling progressive cities like Portland are white demographically speaking. They celebrate diversity, but damned if they will live with diversity.

To be sure the odd black chap or woman, urban out-fitted of course - will have a condo, or townhouse somewhere in the urban center; ditto the Latino earner sans chicos y chicas. Denzels and Domingas will be embraced, but Turners and Ignazios not so much. Likewise, Catholic-non-sectarians ( Unitarians who do not go to church), from the better secondary schools, who no longer use the diminutive given names like Bobby, Tommy and Dinny well into late middle age, or the more colorful breeder apellations of Headsy,Slurp, and North-eye, will not disturb the welkin of a Bistro with tales of Mount Carmel or St. Rita derring-do.

The mantra shall be, "If you (Faith families of breeders - Blacks, Hispanics and White Catholic ethnics)are not like us, leave.Quickly, once your labor is no longer necessary."

(From Mick Dumke at the Chicago Reader April 15, 2008)

ZIP WORKERS SIDE OF TOWN
60655 3,422 south ( My Hood -Morgan Park, Mount Greenwood)

60638 2,873 southwest ( Clearing & Midway)

60631 2,140 northwest

60652 1,853 southwest

60634 1,742 northwest

60643 1,660 south

60617 1,503 southeast

60628 1,289 south

60630 1,282 northwest

60620 1,248 south ( Over by Leo HS)

60619 1,210 south

60656 1,199 northwest

60646 1,183 northwest

The ground is shifting. What are you going to do about it? Harsh.

*

On March 13, 2009, a research group based out of Northwestern University and Purdue University, funded by the United States Geological Survey, reported in the journal Science and in other journals that the New Madrid system may be "shutting down" and that tectonic stress may now be accumulating elsewhere. Seth Stein, the leader of the research group, published these views in a book, Disaster Deferred, in 2008. Although some of these ideas have gained some amount of acceptance among researchers, they have not been accepted by the National Earthquake Prediction Evaluation Council, which advises the USGS, or the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

In the November 5, 2009, issue of Nature, researchers from Northwestern University and the University of Missouri said that due to the lack of fault movement, the quakes along the faults may only be aftershocks of the 1811–1812 earthquakes.[Researchers say aftershocks on the San Andreas can continue for a period of up to about ten years, where fault movement averages up to 37 millimeters (1.5 in) a year across California.

Obama to Invest Wisely in the Future . . .Still. Solyndra My Wallet!

The president has it. It's--it goes to education, it goes to creating the advanced manufacturing jobs of the future, it goes to making smart investments that will give people better opportunities. And so we need a, a plan and a vision that has at its core the, the, the welfare and the, the, the chances of the middle class in this country," Combover Dave Axelrod on Meat: The Press.

Solyndra! That went dandy. There's more such super great happy venture Green investments before November?

Here's a preview from the two Daves -Plouffe and Axelrod!



Bang up job,there Barry!

Lessons and Carols at St. Cantius -Saturday December 10, 2011

St. John Cantius’ Service of Nine Lessons and Carols brings you the classic carols of Christmas. Voices uplifted in song, the spirit uplifted with tradition and reverence. Blending Scripture readings and Sacred Music, this century-old tradition has become a cherished event not only for our church, but for the people of Chicago.

St. John Cantius Parish is a parish in the Archdiocese of Chicago which offers the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass according to the Roman Rite in both the Ordinary and Extraordinary Forms. The Ordinary Form of the Mass, often referred to as the Novus Ordo, is offered both in Latin and in English according to the Missale Romanum, issued by Pope John Paul II in 2003. St. John Cantius Parish is also privileged to offer daily the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass in the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite, commonly referred to as the Tridentine Latin Mass, according to the Missale Romanum of 1962.

Located in the heart of Chicago one mile directly west of the famous Water tower on Chicago Avenue, Saint John Cantius Church is easily accessible by car, bus, or subway. The historic baroque church is one of the best examples of sacred architecture in the city and is home to many works of sacred art. The solemn liturgies, devotions, treasures of sacred art, and rich program of sacred liturgical music have helped many Catholics discover a profound sense of the sacred, thereby permeating their lives with a renewed faith.

Throughout the year, St. John Cantius offers a diverse selection of presentations and classes in Latin, Greek, church heritage, religious education, catechetics, and Catholic culture.

Founded by Polish immigrants at the end of the nineteenth century, the parish today represents a broad cross-section of every ethnic, socio-economic and age group. Located in the heart of Chicago, St. John Cantius Church is easily accessible by car, bus, or subway.

St. John Cantius Church is also the home of the Canons Regular of St. John Cantius, a religious community of men dedicated to the Restoration of the Sacred.

If you Google Quotations on the The Sacred, you will not find any quote by a Catholic, until you reach Teilhard De Chardin the Jesuit Paleontologist and writer. Leading off with Albert Einstein, you will get quotes from Johnny Depp, Oprah, Ganghi, Mohammad, Jim Morrison and always self-absorded Ralph Waldo Emerson's “Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind.” Really, Ralph? My own mind I hardly a sacred stopping off spot and is at best PG 13 on a good day. I always want to cuff the cheeks of Transcendalists and Brook Farm ninnies with a roll of dimes in my chubby palms; alas, they are a mouldin' the grave.

See? I am profane.

The Sacred is precious. The Sacred is accessible. Saturday, the St. Cecilia Choir and orchestra conducted by Mr. Dan Robinson will follow Father Frank Phillips in the Nine Lessons of Christmas and Carols.

If you have not witnessed the devotion to the Sacred through the liturgy, the music and rituals of traditional Catholic devotions, you should.








Get some Sacred.

December 10, 2011
at 7:00 pm


Time:
Doors open one hour
before performance


Location:
St. John Cantius Church
825 N. Carpenter St.
Chicago, Illinois 60642-5499


Lessons & Carols Program
Adult $15
College Student/Senior Citizen $10
Child/Youth (6-18 years) $5
Gourmet Dinner and Lessons & Carols Program
$100 per person (includes Lessons & Carols)

1-800-838-3006

http://www.cantius.org/go/nine-lessons-and-carols

Mike Houlihan Gives Guv a Swiftian Kick in the Jacobs

Last month Governor Pat Quinn was criticized for attending the Personal PAC ( Planned Parenthood's ATM)Honors Awards Banquet by the Catholic Bishops of Illinois. Personal PAC is all about funding abortions with State of Illinois dollars. Catholic Bishops and Catholics do not accept abortion as anything but the murder of a child.

Terry Cosgrove, President of Personal PAC/Gay Activist/Lawyer/State Employee, immeditely crafted the compelling narrative for the media - Cardinal George and the Catholic Bishops were being mean to a rape victim. Not so, but that is the spin.

The Bishops want another heart-to-heart with Pat Quinn who is already sponged and oiled by his cut-man Terry and the media. The Media is the editorial boards and iconic columnists who take up print space from reporters.

Pat Quinn, as well as the rape victim who is a Director of Personal PAC and helped Terry Cosgrove elect Quinn as Governor of Illinois, plays the martyr: Bishops are Catholic meanies and Quinn is a Christian Cupcake.

So, another round of chat and media Catholic bashing is set for the Christmas Holiday Season.

Mike Houlihan is an actor, author, film-maker and journalist. Houli is a pal of mine. This December's issue of Irish American News features Houli at his best- crafting a satirical sage that Un-PCs the hypocrisy that is a daily feature of Illinois public life and also a good swiftian kick in the dainty cookies* of Illinois Governor Pat Quinn - metaphorically and allegorically speaking to be sure.

I offer the Man in Full -Houli!

Malachy Swift was not a bit modest
about being a dog lover. He loved
his Irish Setter Finoola.
Malachy was so in love with
Finoola that he wanted to marry
her. After all, Malachy and Finoola
had been cohabitating for almost
a decade and that alone was evidence
of the integrity of their union.
They’d been together even longer in
dog years.
Actually it was dog years that
gave their romance that May-December
quality. Malachy was only
in his late twenties and had met
Finoola when she was a pup and
he was just graduating from high
school. So she was quite a bit older
than Malachy.
Malachy had invented a computer
application during college
and made a fortune on the Internet
matching up dates for the LGBT
crowd on his website, “Sockets &
Wenches.” He’d dabbled in the gay
lifestyle himself but soon grew
weary of the endless merry go
round. Malachy was curious about
inter-species affection.
One night while combing out
Finoola’s shiny red coat after an
Elton John concert at The United
Center they took their relationship
a step further. He put on a Johnny
Mathis record of Christmas songs
and poured a half bottle of Pinot
Grigio into Finoola’s bowl.
Before you knew it they were
both head over paws in love. Malachy
proposed the next night over
some milk bones and liver as he
placed a diamond collar around
Finoola’s neck and popped the
question. It was a modest proposal.
She said “Woof!” which Malachy
took as a yes.
The nuptials were delayed a bit
when they wouldn’t grant them
a marriage license at the County
Clerk’s Office. Malachy was not the
type of guy to wait though and he
immediately made a phone call to
his old friend the Governor.
The Governor sensed an opportunity
and insisted that Malachy come
for dinner at the Mansion the following
night. Malachy had donated
quite a bit of dough to the Gov’s
campaign because he believed in
his agenda of raising taxes and
increased abortions.
After a sumptuous dinner, the
two men sat smoking cigars and
sipping brandy in front of the fire
as Malachy made his pitch.
“This is very, very, very important
to me Governor. And to all of us
who crave inter species marriage.”
Are you looking for marriage to
all animals or just dogs?
“Well in my case it should be just
Irish setters and I know you’d be
on board with that because we’re
both Irish.”
Irish Catholics!
“Exactomondo! I suppose we
should include all dogs and most
farm animals as well.”
But Malachy, let’s please exclude
pigs so we don’t piss off any
Muslims.
“By the way, Governor, I must ask
you. What was that delicious dish
we had for an appetizer tonight? I
don’t think I’ve ever tasted anything
so succulent or sweet.”
I thought you’d enjoy those
Malachy. Those are baby fingers
and toes. Planned Parenthood sends
them over by the truckload. I got the
recipe from the White House chef at
the Inauguration Ball. You can only
use first trimester babies because
those are the most tender.
“Well they are just scrumptious.“
The Governor clinked his glass
with Malachy and the two agreed
that the next day legislation would
be introduced to legalize inter-species
marriage throughout the state.
Malachy thanked the Governor
and made out a $500,000 check, on
behalf of his organization Privacy
PAC, to the Committee to re-elect
the Governor. Privacy PAC is committed
to electing legislators who
support animal husbandry.
The two shook hands and Malachy said, “I’d like to get married
in church, but I have a feeling
that might be a problem.”
Not if you go to my priest, Father
Larry, over in Oak Park.
“Oh, did he officiate at your
marriage?”
Uh, no Malachy, actually I’m
…divorced.
“Was she a bitch?”
Well, she wasn’t an Irish
Setter.

A well placed kick to the Jacobs can often have salabrious effect upon a man in great need of re-thinking his point of view and publc posture. The Catholic Bishops of Illinois might be well-served having Mike Houlihan along as a consultant and avoid another bait-and-switch from a politician who uses Catholic when it suits him.

However, if the politician's said Jacobs have been well-oiled with Novocaine, those numbed anatomical twin orbs will not register the well-placed and powerful punt.

The rest of us get it.

Jacobs - Cockney rhyming slang - Jacob's Cream Crackers = knackers/cookies/reproductive vessles.