Divvy Chicago: Orders from Der BikeStag ( formerly Chicago Dept. of Transportation)

Now, I am a close-knit ethnic, Roman Catholic, meat eating (fish on Fridays),  south side dwelling heterosexual and then some, moderate-to-savage cigarette smoking, fossil-fueled motoring, tax-paying and tubby middle aged male - not cool. Unless. of course, I change and change utterly . . .Nah.

I hear tell of mean folks.  People who shout, "Hey That's My Bike!" whenever they spy two or more persons  aboard a Schwinn and out for a two-wheeled speed. Just mean.

I mean bikes are okay. If Jesus rode a bike he'd look like this -

 but He did not and the Romans nailed Him to Cross. Hey, I'm just sayin'!
Another morsel from the Right Sides of History - The Axis Armies used bicycles extensively in WWII



The Bataan Death Ride April 1942. Those ain't G.I.s aboard them Mitschwinbitsis.

I rode bicycles up to my twenty-fifth year on Mother Earth.  I took a header when the front tire of ten-speed blew like Susan Sarandon in White Palace.  I was biking back from a morning's fishing under Warner Bridge Road in Kankakee County, when this mechanical misfortune took me off the ten speed aficianado demographic for keeps.  

The hike back to Kankakee City which followed my ergonomic tossing of the bent frame in a big-assed dumpster somewhere near the Parkway Inn Tavern (above) in the region known as Altorff.  Fine folks there about the Brady family dominates the woods along the river -taught most the children, I did. Bandaged and spirited the seven mile perambulation to my windowless apartment above Home Appliances on Station Street was dedicated to Peace with Bikes.

Bikes are fine.  Most cyclists are grand folks, but every NPR listening jerk with a trust fund deemed it most important to become a mirror image of the bicycle messenger on PCP.  Congested,gentrified hipster communities attract bicycle fascists quicker than Obama makes a federal regulation. In recent years, after the new millenium, the bike lobby hooked Richard M. Daley through the gills and boated that bass.  Lance Daley cleared the way for Critical Mass activism to its supreme achievement (be like Seattle) -turning the Chicago Dept. of Transportation in Der  BikeStag.

I have nothing against bicycles nor the people who choose to ride them.  I have a universal dislike of jerks, JOs and Janissaries of agendas large, loud and limited.

Divvy is owned and operated, I think, by the City of Chicago in the same way that Chicago owns the Skyway and Parking Meters. The concept is swell:

• Ride Public Transporation
• Be a Divvy
• Bike away traffic
• Bike the shopping
• Bike the dining
• Bike the concerts
• Bike to court to bring suit against the Mexican Lanscapper you cut off when giving the finger to an elderly Jewish lady trying to cross Dearborn over by the Newbury library
• Bike the bars- you will not be charged with DUI unless you hit and scratch up Ald Cappleman's PriusLock the Bikes and make sure you lock it according to the code, People!
• Be Bangor, Be Bangalore, Be Bejing!

Already the the south and west side communities are Bike Deserts.  Is it Progressive, is it Hip, is it Coo, Is it Chicago Proco Joe to deprive people whose ancestors survived Maafa, Jim Crow and CPS the opportunity to Divvy? Is it Chicago values to break out Break Away Everyday in white upper class arugula and Whole Foods communities?

Divvy stations are taking up parking spaces - no parking -no driver - no customer at Wicker Park gin mill but walk-in trade. N.B. Biker peddlars don't tip

Bicyclists are as rare as Progressive philanthropists here in Gresham, Englewood, Roseland and even Chatham.  The bike lanes on Vincennes Ave. have faded like the last Rose of the 2012-13 Bulls Season.

Gov. Pat Quinn, Folks! I've had warts go away faster than him.

"When you point your finger at others there are three fingers pointing  back at you . . .unless you are Governor Pat Quinn" said Governor Pat Quinn.

"This is an emergency. This is a crisis. This requires the full attention of those elected to the General Assembly, Gentlemen we must protect our phoney baloney jobs!  I wannna hear a Harrumph!!!!! " Quinn said.

"They cannot take time away and ignore this issue," Quinn said. "The best way to do that is hit them in the wallet. The way I hit everyone else in this State"

This guy kills me . . .not just the State of Illinois.

This is Important!

I anticipate making the tigh tright hand turn off of 79^th Street at Sangamon into the tight cul de sac pavement that aprons the Leo High School staff and Alumni parking lot. I anticipate up a storm. I can see the chimney of Leo High School before I even get to Damen Ave. and it dominates the eastern skies of the Gresham neighborhood, suggesting welcome, safety, brotherhood and opportunity.  To arrive at that Holy Have requires grit, fore-thought and eyes on the mirrors.

I try to keep my eyes in rear view mirrors, especially to my immediate right. 79^th Street is a truck path between the Dan Ryan Expressway and the freight and rail yards that begin west of Western Ave. and continue to trucking and warehouse village of Hopkins in Archer Ave – Rt 171. 

Not only is there a legion of cars, SUVs, vans and hillbilly Cadillacs of all shapes, sizes and wheel fixture, but forty-foot tractor trailers and utility vehicles of monstrous size and intimidation insinuating their collective will upon my lightly armored vehicle and filo pastry thin heart.

The turn, as I said is tight, tighter than the pockets on a fat man’s pants, because 79^th Street is a wholly theoretical two lane street with bus and turning lane –east bound and west bound.   I longer take Vincennes to Halsted to 79th Street, avoiding a disasterous left hand turn at Sangamon altogether.

Like the theoretical crossing lanes at each intersection, two lane traffic, with right lane observances to ordinance and good manners, have become an urban venial sin – noted, but largely ignored. Most citizen-workers modestly follow the lane and speed limit; nevertheless, there are Byronic types for whom no law or ordinance stays they need for speed and avoiding the sight of tail-lights –universal.

Since 1995, I have been singularly fortunate to avoid collision on this thorough-fare. At Morgan I merge at at peril - courage helps an undoomed man. Others not so fortunate.  I have witnesses duels between motorists with the lane sober driver speeding up with the corsair driving with no plates. Several times, to my delight, the existentialist got crushed into a parked City vehicle. There are no bicycle enthusiast peddling 79^th Street – odd that. Why enter a lion's cage wearing a pork-chop suit?

In response to all of this haste-makes-delays driving and drivers, I have but two words –

“Trombone Shorty!”

Montaigne on the Brain and I Dream in French

"Je suis un rêveur. Je dois rêver et atteindre les étoiles, et si je manque une étoile puis je prends une poignée de nuages​​."
Mike Tyson

Many cultures attribute prophetic significance to dreams (an example of this can be found in the story of Joseph in the book of Genesis). Others are more skeptical. Aristotle wrote a treatise on dreams 2400 years ago in which he stated that "most so-called prophetic dreams should be classified as coincidences" On Prophesying by Dreams. Aristotle, translated by J. I. Beare,

My dreams mirror me.  Most of the time they look like this:

Sometimes they reflect my sadness over the loss of a quality Network Television program, like Pan Am -late of ABC:

Or, a dream (s) may  have much to do with cautionary tales themed accordingly in devotional readings before night-night.

I made the mistake of reading Michel De Montaigne the French Joseph Epstein whose 'sentences' are bon-bons for the mind.   I read Montaigne on facing my own mortality

Je veux que la mort me trouve plantant mes choux.*

And off I winked all forty

Things were looking mighty mal and so I hit the fast forward REM cycle, remembering this quote from Montaigne

e veux qu'on me voit en ma façon simple, naturelle, et ordinaire, sans étude et artifice; car c'est moi que je peins...Je suis moi-même la matière de mon livre.**

As Dan Savage always says, It gets better! So did the dreams -

*Translation: I want death to find me planting my cabbages.

**

• Translation: I want to be seen here in my simple, natural, ordinary fashion, without straining or artifice; for it is myself that I portray...I am myself the matter of my book.

Chicago Poet - JJ Tindall: Wallace Stevens Without The Insurance Plan and Ezra Pound With All of His Marbles

 

My pal, Chicago poet JJ Tindall smoking a corn-cob pipe ( dang!).  My mistake reciting his brilliant poetry to a worthy audience.

Poetry is math. 

R-CALCULUS     by Jonathan Holden of Kansas

               "The child is the father of the man." 

                        -- W. W. Wordsworth

     Back then, "Calculus"

     was a scary college word,

     and yet we studied it

     from the back seat, we studied   

     the rates at which

     the roadside trees went striding  

Sound and Sense kids!  Poetry ain't poetry without  'em.  Poetry is math -  Math for the guys who cannot make their way through Algebra.  The lyre and the slide-rule were very often the tools for clever kids sent to the Lyceum and hang around with the smart guys in order to pick up  useful applications for living the examined life.

Every culture has poets, bards, shops, shapers, singers and bar-flies caging a few wet ones for the price of a song.  Some people will argue ( wrongly, of course) that any culture is equal to the other.  That is nice and very WTTW and all but about as wrong as Ald. Proco Joe Moreno on a full breakfast.  Shakespeare is superior to Charles Bukowski, the late-Lil Jo Jo, and anything by Katha Polite.

Poets must pass the finger test - e.g. dactylic hexameter if you wish to go Epic. Six feet of DAK tills - A long syllable followed by two short syllables ( Dumb-Diddy) The Greek word dactyl has two meanings 'finger/toe -thus, a metric foot. English is spoken in

 Iambs; thus iambic pentameter Ta Tum/Ta tum/Ta Tum/Ta Tum /Ta tum - five feet to the measure.  Are you bored shitless by now? It is timing, beat, measure matching mood and meaning. That's the math.

Try this by Seamus Heaney 

Digging.

Between my finger and my thumb   

The squat pen rests; snug as a gun.

Under my window, a clean rasping sound   

When the spade sinks into gravelly ground:   

My father, digging. I look down

Till his straining rump among the flowerbeds   

Bends low, comes up twenty years away   

Stooping in rhythm through potato drills   

Where he was digging.

.....

Seamus Heaney is the real deal.  In the last century (20th -remember that one?) there were three truly outstanding American poets - TS Eliot, Ezra Pound and Wallace Stevens.  TS Eliot was pretentious creep: a St. Louis Hoosier affecting the speech of the British upper classes who had his brilliant and talented wife slapped in the looney bin. Great poet, but a louse that regular guys would love to slap around. He passes the finger test for meter and the one fipped by people of goodwill in direction of cads, bounders and creeps.

Ezra Pound was a sho nuff Hoosier from Indiana who so immersed himself in his art that the art took over - Pound did radio broadcasts for Mussolini, because he liked the trappings of fascism -columns, daggers, legions & etc.  William Butler Yeats was no different from Pound and avoided a trip to hotel silly only because Eire was neutral in WWII and he happened to die in 1939. But like Pound, Yeats, to quote Pope Pius XII, was "as crazy as a shit-house rat."

Our third poet, in my estimation, was best of the lot. Wallace Stevens demands your fullest attention as a man and as a poet.  I'd hang out with him at Beachwood Inn, Chip Inn, Home Run Inn, or Stash's Never Inn any day.  He was one of the top Hartford Insurance Salesmen and practiced his art outside of the public eye.  Stevens' family only learned of his fame as a poet after his death.  By all accounts, Wallace Stevens was not only a brilliant poet, but a great guy.

Here's Chicago's Wallace Stevens without an Insurance spiel and Ezra Pound with his marbles carefully maintained.  JJ. Tindall folks!

Chicagoetry: A Wren in a Wreath

By J.J. Tindall

A Wren in a Wreath

So: there's this ghoul

in my soul,

a wren in my wreath.

In a heart full of holes

lurks a golem of grief.

A compendium of flaws,

a contraption of of fate, he.

He's not everything,

he's just a part of me.

Of course, I have forged

a life mask with a modicum

of charm and finesse

(God! To get through the day!)

and crowned my fell heart

with a laureate's wreath

for endurance under duress.

Like us all, I swirl

with embattled selves.

Within croaks a ghoul

with an elephant's memory

for bleak humiliation

and roiling defeat.

I've christened him

the wren in my wreath.

He commands a gallows

of heartworn dreams, caretakes

a graveyard of botched ambition.

He embodies my Elephant Man:

swollen skull of cracked, grey leather,

hair-sprouting warts, drooling lips,

a vocabulary of phlegm-wracked slurs.

Yep: like a drunk

just a shot away.

I don't like him

but I must love him.

Because he's there.

Stress, fatigue

and crude draughts of relief

enable the guy

with the elephant grief.

Garlanded elephant

with a wren mahout

straddling his blades

and whipping his flank.

OK: not one wren

but a chime of wrens

like a murder of crows

with a case of the bends.

He's there, my wren,

my wrench in the works.

This Eve of All Hallows

I'll drag my life mask to the gallows

and for this night

I'll let the wren reign.

Yep: I'll purge the wrath

and savor compassion

for all ravens, rooks and knaves.

This night shall go judgment

to the grave.

To dawn

and the Day of All Saints

I bequeath

my shabby heart, my wren,

my wreath.

-

J.J. Tindall is the Beachwood's poet-in-residence. He welcomes your comments. Chicagoetry is an exclusive Beachwood collection-in-progress.

JJ Tindal has the great good sense to imbibe Pierian Beers at Beachwood Inn with American Journalist and Pintsman Steve Rhodes.

-

Chris Zorich and The Angel

Chris Zorich in less ugly times . . . for him.

Chris Zorich's lawyer noted that the ND Hall of Famer, NFL Star of 1990's Chicago Bears. 'Must Have' Charity Draw and Urban Prep Board Director is more than flat-broke.

Chris Zorich — the former Chicago Bears star whose tax problems landed him in federal court — is broke, his attorneys said Wednesday.
Zorich, 44, has a net worth of $302,000, but owes $348,000 in a case the Illinois attorney general brought over the questionable finances of his charity — and likely more than $90,000 more in IRS interest and penalties, his lawyers said in a court filing.

The comments about this great hearted and obviously very trusting young man are about as mean-spirited and thoughtless as one can expect from unhappy people.  They read about the serial killing New England Patriot and the other twenty seven felony raps garnered by NFL this post season and mold the identical pecksniffing meme.

All of this ugly information makes people, with nothing much else to do, want to sleep-out on sidewalk until the Federal courtroom opens on July 12th when Chris Zorich is sentenced for misdemeanor tax-evasion.  The Angel whom Zorich helped is invisible, because the Chicago media only looks at what it is told to look at and goes stone-cold blind on command.

Who served on the board of directors for the Christopher Zorich Foundation?

I think that Chris Zorich had a job done on him, because a protected angel took advantage of his good nature, but that's just me.

I remember Chris Zorich when Lou Holtz commanded Notre Dame football.  Lou Holtz did not use athletes, he educated them.  Chris Zorich was a powerful athlete with a puny CPS education K-12.  Had Chris Zorich been a lither, nimbler and much taller athlete he would have had an outstanding career at Simeon and University of Miami and with NBA. He played football.

Lou Holtz ensured that his players were tutored, if they were deficient.  Chris Zorich was tutored, by an ex-Navy officer and PhD candidate in English literature.  Chris Zorich graduated with a degree from University of Notre Dame - that still means something even in our idiotic gladiator culture of sports.

Chris Zorich was not a Mongo, nor was he a Gary Fencik.   He was a gentleman-athlete who behaved like a gentleman.  He was not arrested on gun charges, or for beating women in Clubs on Lake Street.   Chris Zorich had no diamonds in his teeth to go with a recreational drug and vodka habit.  Evidently Chris Zorich managed to leave the violence on the field on any given Sunday and avoided larceny seven days a week. He made a pretty good buck as a pro.  Chris Zorich's football injuries ended his pro career. He took care of his Mom and created Christopher Zorich Foundation. 

With his NFL salary and benefits Zorich seemed to try and do some good for other people.  When  any one tries to do that, the grifters, creeps and frauds crawl out of the societal and social woodwork.

Chris Zorich, like many other pro athletes, wanted to do some good for poor kids and philanthropy always produces charity lamprey eels. They are always media protected and affiliated hipsters who always seem to have powerful political friends of family.

I noticed, at the turn of this century, that Chris Zorich had become associated with a guy who had run the finances of Hales Franciscan Prep into the ground  in five short years, but managed to avoid any public inquiry concerning his mismangement. Oprah called the guy 'an angel.'

Well this Old Divil got up in the Angel's Grill, as the lads at Leo are wont to say.

In 1996, I was asked to attend a meeting of Catholic high schools that serve the inner city to discuss a strategy for sustained support, hosted by Oprah's little angel himself at Hales.  The stategy was this -" Share your data base with us."  There thoughtful nods, and murmurs of ascent from my colleagues.  I looked and Pete Doyle, Leo Principal' for the go ahead nod and offered, " Are YOU out of your @#$%ing Mind? ( GASPS ALL AROUND!!!)  Leo gives its Alumni list to no one. Not only is that just stupid, but complete abrogation of fund-raising principles."

Waxing full Franklin with a direct quote The Angel cried " If we do not hang together, we will all hang separately!"I laughed, " Hang and be damned! Let's blow, Pete."  And blow we did.   Hales suffered the Angel's lifestyle and legacy to Hales finances only because of the heroic efforts of Talk Show host Jenny Jones, the late Don Hubert and especially The Big Shoulders Fund. The Angel flew off before the rope could be made available with announcement of his 'retirement' on WBEZ. In 2000 Hales Franciscan with The Angel's flight to greener clouds, was in the hole . . . .a very deep hole. Everyone agreed that the Catholic high school for African American boys was under water, but no media questioned just how the ship was scuttled.

The Angel even took Hale's colors, dress code and student handbook with him, but no blame for its perilous condition. Hang separate!

That financial jackpot became an urban mystery.  Jenny Jones helped Hales.

Who's Jenny Jones?  Chicago Trib:  "Talk show host Jenny Jones continues her quest to keep Hales Franciscan High School . Jones has donated another $125,000 to the school."

The Angel attached himself to the Charter School Movement and Chris Zorich. Zorich coached football for The Angel, hosted poker tournaments with D-List celebrities like Richard Roeper and golf tournaments that attract celebrity wannabees and photo dopes. Kewel!Made some money. An anonymous gift that was to be matched up to the amount of $1M pops up all the time in annual reports. I wonder who that might be, or have been, but that is a matter fiduciary confidence. We won't know and none will wonder.

A foundation is tough to manage - especially with every mission competing with every grift in its proximity.  With an Angel whispering in the ear of a trusting soul it gets even tougher - even Federally tougher.

I'm no angel, but I suspect that Chris Zorich's foundation problems just might have a lot to do with the Angel in his wallet. That particular Angel will disappear and scrub his association with Chris Zorich as much as he did with Hales, in my simple man's opinion.

The Angel will be fine because no one looks at him.  Chris Zorich will be sentenced on July 12th and that is sad.  Chris Zorich will remain a good, trusting man.

Celebrate Liberty - Eat the Roasted Flesh of Hooved or Cloven Beasts

"Whatsoever hath the hoof divided, and cheweth the cud among the beasts, you shall eat." Leviticus11:3 - Douhy-Rheims

"Meat first and spoon vittles to pour on! - Mark Twain

"Yeah there was ham an' there was turkey, there was caviar 
An' long tall glasses, with wine up to h'yar"  - Leo Sayer

Feast like a Patriot, this 4th of July.  With moistened eyes, tuck away in celebration of Valley Forge, Yorktown, Princeton and Monmouth.  I intend to honor our Liberty with libertine's portion of roasted flesh - hog, swine or beef. I will not eschew fruit du mer swimming, crawling or clinging if so offered, let me just tell you. I am a Patriot.

That first Fourth of July is believed to have taken place at City Tavern, the Philadelphia public house that hosted many a gathering of the founding fathers. Tavern Chef Walter Staib says the menu likely would have been based on the recipes of British culinary authority Hannah Glasse, whose book “The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy” dictates not only every dish of the three-course dinner, but where it should be placed on the table.
Glasse’s July menu suggests the signers of the Declaration would have supped on roast turkey and fricasseed rabbit, pigeon, crawfish and lobsters. There would have been tongue and turnips and lamb testicles. And for dessert, apricot tarts and roasted apples, plums, jellies and custards.

Because Philadelphia was a major port, the meal likely also would have included delicacies from abroad, Staib says. Limes from the West Indies were used for lime curd. Exotic fruit such as mangoes, pineapples and coconuts might have been available, as well as spices such as cinnamon, nutmeg, mace and vanilla. Plus, there was local seafood, such as salmon, sturgeon and oysters.

Don't say nothing about no salad.



Let Freedom . . .digest with ease and contement.  Happy 4th of July, Citizens

Will Traitor Edward Snowden Seek Asylum in Chicago, Our Sanctuary & Laundered Life City?

Billy, tell Eric Z to 'call' me; I thinks I gots a place for that kid, Snowden.  How's retirement?  I see you are doing side-walk marketing for Liberty Tax Preparations - pensions sure ain't what they was! "- Stanley Ikernberry Uof I Utility Grifter

A spokesman for Russian President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday that Snowden had withdrawn his request for asylum there because of Putin’s (dubious) requirement that Snowden stop doing damage to the United States. WikiLeaks announced Tuesday that he’s still seeking asylum from 20 countries, including such bastions of freedom as China, Cuba and Venezuela. Dana Milbank - Washington Post


Chicago is the only only city in the world where a law breaker can get square deal.

Milton Bradley, formerly of the Chicago Cubs and MLB, parted our sanctuary city for the sunnier coast. Between 2011-12 he tuned up his bride, because he was smokin' loud in front of kiddies.  He will now go away for six semesters. Had Milton not been the obstreperous lout with a lousy batting average, he might have avoided incarceration altogether and garnered an academic posting at De Paul University, or as an Urban Translator along side of Gator Bradley in Wrongful Conviction Heater Trials.

Milton, you should have stayed put, Son!  Tio Hardiman's missus has been 'induced' to drop the Brown Hand Procedure charges.

Wife beaters get work in Chicago - columnists and anti-violence activists.  Charges disappear like magic.

Any malefactor can get work in the City That Works for Some. Cliff Kelley is a disc jockey.  America's domestic terrorism Mr. & Mrs. North - Billy and Bernardin Ayers & Dorhn helped kill cops and blew up buildings only to become Distinguished Professors at Cement City (UICC) and Northwestern University.

There are ex-con Aldermen and ex-con Obama strategists, like Bob "the Shank" Creamer - Terra Haute Alumnus and Schakowsky Spouse. Chicago is a sanctuary city for illegal aliens, but more so the de facto sanctuary city of Progressive Blessed Criminals. Rahm ordered Chicago be the Welcome City! More so, Chicago provides The Laundered Life!

Chicago is not unlike a medieval church where felons find not only shelter but a comfortable income.

Why would Edward Snowden opt to end his days in banana burgs like La Paz, Quito, or Caracas, when he could Lou Malnati his way to a quiet grave right here in Chicago - via the Laundered Life.

My advice, to Snowden would be

1. Dump Glenn Greenwald and seek the patronage of Stanley Ikenberry ( Bill Ayers' Chinaman U of I Utility Grifter)
2. Have Dad make a drop to the Re-elect Pat Quinn Campaign, Personal PAC, or WTTW
3. Reach out to Carol Marin for a series of heart-tugging columns about your being bullied by Pipe-fitters and Cement Finishers
4. Wear Cubs gear in the Russkie airport
5. Advocate for Gay Marriage . . .after you leave Moscow of course

In no time at all,   Eric Snowden will be a resident and distinguished fellow of Something-or-Other at De Paul,  corned beef stacking judge at Manny's, WTTW panelist, BGA Whistle Blower Lecturer and roof-top seating life member, Hyde Park Neighborhood Watch Member and permanent guest of Chicago: The Sanctuary City!  Be as big as your dreams and as big as the lies.

Take a Knee! The Media's SNAP Judgement and the War on American Catholics: Cardinal Dolan is No Rembert Weakland

Grab  a knee; listen up!

All of you men, and yes,  you fine women, on this team know all about the sex-abuse scandal in the American Catholic Church - priests, like boy scout leaders, doctors, rabbis, school teachers and TV anchors, are human beings blessed and plagued by impulses and the strongest just might be our sexual appetites.  Most people reign-in those inclinations with what we call ethics ( what 'ought' to be) or morals ( what you can and can not do).  Some people have no off button.

Now, as an example, I have an impulse to knock the living shit out of Carmody, here, every time his snot running mug comes into my peripheral vision.  I fight that impulse with the knowledge that all of you are children of loving parents, except Carmody, here, and are being influenced by my total behavior.

I am like a lawyer working for a client, I must do all in my power to meet your needs and Carmody, like all of you does not need me knocking the living shit out of him.  That said, let's get down to cases.

Today, all of the newspapers and TV haircuts will be tossing shots at Timothy Cardinal Dolan, Archbishop of New York and President  of Conference of Catholic Bishops.  He's the top bishop in America.  Before he was Archbishop of New York, Dolan was Archbishop of Milwaukee.  The beef du jour . . .Carmody!  Pay attention, for once, will you . . .the beef du jour is that while Dolan was bishop of Milwaukee, he put some dough for the Church aside, in order to keep Church looter Jeff Anderson's mitts off of it.  Anderson is ambulance chaser. 

Dolan took over that bankrupted and looted archdiocese from Rembert Weakland - the first openly homosexual bishop in America. 

Weakland was loved by the media, because he went counter to the teachings of the church on hot button issues - he was accommodating. Here, I got this old clipping from the New York Times 2009 article in my windbreaker here - Get a load of this - 

On the ABC program “Good Morning America,” the archbishop watched a man he had fallen in love with 23 years earlier say in an interview that the Milwaukee archdiocese had paid him $450,000 years before to keep quiet about his affair with the archbishop — an affair the man was now calling date rape.
The next day, the Vatican accepted Archbishop Weakland’s retirement.
Archbishop Weakland, who had been the intellectual touchstone for church reformers, has said little publicly since then. But now, in an interview and in a memoir scheduled for release next month, he is speaking out about how internal church politics affected his response to the fallout from his affair; how bishops and the Vatican cared more about the rights of abusive priests than about their victims; and why Catholic teaching on homosexuality is wrong.
“If we say our God is an all-loving god,” he said, “how do you explain that at any given time probably 400 million living on the planet at one time would be gay? Are the religions of the world, as does Catholicism, saying to those hundreds of millions of people, you have to pass your whole life without any physical, genital expression of that love?”
He said he had been aware of his homosexual orientation since he was a teenager and suppressed it until he became archbishop, when he had relationships with several men because of “loneliness that became very strong.”
Archbishop Weakland, 82, said he was probably the first bishop to come out of the closet voluntarily. He said he was doing so not to excuse his actions but to give an honest account of why it happened and to raise questions about the church’s teaching that homosexuality is “objectively disordered.”
“Those are bad words because they are pejorative,” he said.

Carmody, 'pejorative' means bad. Okay,  Weakland resigned as archbishop of Milwaukee, because it was learned that he had paid out almost a half million buckeens to former Marquette University student who accused Weakland of raping him.

Weakland was OK with homosexuality which he did feel God cared about and as archbishop of Milwaukee Weakland felt that it was OK to use church money to keep the kid quiet.  The American press was OK with Weakland and it still is OK with Weakland.  Weakland is a reformer.

While Weakland was the reformer Archbishop of Milwaukee ( 1977-2002)  priests with identical impulses of Weakland felt that it was OK to act on homosexual impulses - no different that a Cole Porter Mass, or liturgical dance.

Along comes Jeffery Anderson.

Jeffery Anderson owns SNAP - SNAP is the Survivor's Network Against Priests.

SNAP receives most of its funding from lawyers who target the  the Catholic Church

Jeffery Anderson is one-time alky-bust-out ambulance chaser, who sobered up and discovered that suing the Catholic Church in America is a gold mine.

Jeffery Anderson is the George Hearst of this Catholic specific mother lode. SNAP is data mining operation dedicated to gathering persons who were, or have come to believe that they were abused by Catholic clergy.

Now, listen up!  You will not read or hear about Rembert Weakland in any of the news about the recent revelations of Jeffery Anderson and SNAP about Cardinal Dolan as Archbishop of Milwaukee.

Rembert Weakland was to the media a church reformer and an accomodating cleric who just happened to be as Gay as The Mikado, raped his student and hushed it up with half a million buckeens.

Carmody - pay attention!

The Catholic Church is and will always be opposed to killing unborn babies and will always recognize marriage as a sacred union between a man and woman to make a family.

Because Our Church is against abortion and the redefinition of marriage, as well as providing Trojans to Sandra Fluke,  our enemies use the term 'shielding predators.' as a pejorative, to quote Rembert Weakland and dismiss the fact that homosexuals were doing the abusing and most of shielding of abuse - like Rembert Weakland.

Weakland gets a pass and crap gets tossed at Dolan.  That's the 4th Amendment in the hands of hacks and litigator - activists. 

Cardinal Dolan is facing lawyers, SNAP activists, journalist hacks and easy opinion.

He'll be fine.

Alright!  Drink plenty of water and hit the sleds!  Oh, Ms. Carmody, here is that $ 20 I owe you.  Thanks Sweetie.

The Clearest Statement on SCOTUS's Gay Marriage Works

Francis Cardinal George, OMI, Archbishop of Chicago is a scholar.  The Gay Marriage initiative is a pop culture civil rights demand that opinion triumphs over truth.

It takes a man and woman to make a baby in Nature. Dow Chemicals or Green Futures BioGenetics, LLC might work on some form of Insta-Kidz, but that would not be natural - as the organic and free range farmers are wont to note.

Gay Marriage is a political power play candied up as civil rights, by hack journalists and pricey politicians. Andrew Sullivan is a homosexual writer, baptized a Catholic, and branded by his liberal publishers as a 'conservative voice' on American culture.  The breathless and the clueless on MSNBC, Fox and CNN will c cite Andrew Sullivan, or Dan Savage, the borderline Kiddie porn advocate and Gay sex-life advice columnist as Catholic opinion on the SCOTUS Rulings and Gay Marriage.


Here is the only succinct and cogent reaction to the twin rulings of last week found in my vast and eclectic readings during the last few days.

STATEMENT OF FRANCIS CARDINAL GEORGE, O.M.I.
REGARDING SUPREME COURT DECISIONS ON MARRIAGE
June 26, 2013
This morning, in the guise of technical legal language, the United States Supreme Court advanced the project of making marriage in the United States a genderless institution. Since women and men are not interchangeable, the Court's action is illogical and pretentious. The Court abuses its own authority when it permits civil law to alter the definition of marriage, which is a natural institution. What is truly at stake in these decisions is not the right of adults to love whom they please, but rather the right of children to have both a mother and a father.

Today's decisions also bring us one step closer to the day when those who continue to distinguish between genuine marital unions and same-sex arrangements will be regarded as "bigots." We have already seen the negative result of gender-free unions on Catholic social services here in Illinois and other states.

We can all be grateful that the Court did not create a new "right" to same-sex marriage, allowing Illinois and other states to continue to acknowledge in law what nature and nature's God already tell us: that marriage is the union of one man and one woman for the sake of family.

That about sums it up.

Catholics have had a target on their backs from the Founding Father and 1st Chief Justice John Jay through the evolved out of the faith Justice Kennedy, who like the evolved Justice Brennan who poked the Pope in the eyes with Roe v. Wade in 1973, proved that he his religious beliefs matter not at all.  The target is getting bigger.

Gay Marriage Illinois Will Make War on Faith, Rep. Fran Hurley.

My State Senator Billy Cunningham voted for Same Sex Marriage SB 10 and State Rep.Fran Hurley seems about to do so.


“SB 10 will force religious people and organizations into years of legal fights, likely against the Illinois government, to defend their rights to practice their faith.” Thomas More Society letter to Illinois House of Representatives May 29, 2013

If passed, SB 10 would allow same-sex couples to marry in Illinois. The bill passed the Senate and a key House committee, but has not yet been debated or voted on by the full House. While this bill extends legal marriage rights to Illinois’s same sex couples, religious institutions would not be required to recognize same-sex marriage or perform same-sex marriage ceremonies. State Rep Fran Hurley June 28th 2013

On this Gay Pride Parade Sunday, I was was struck by the gospel message at Mass.   

  

When the days for Jesus to be taken up were fulfilled, he resolutely determined to journey to Jerusalem, and he sent messengers ahead of him. On the way they entered a Samaritan village to prepare for his reception there, but they would not welcome him because the destination of his journey was Jerusalem. 

When the disciples James and John saw this they asked, "Lord, do you want us to call down fire from heaven to consume them?"  Jesus turned and rebuked them,  and they journeyed to another village.  As they were proceeding on their journey someone said to him, "I will follow you wherever you go."

Jesus answered him, "Foxes have dens and birds of the sky have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to rest his head." 

And to another he said, "Follow me." But he replied, "(Lord,) let me go first and bury my father." 

But he answered him, "Let the dead bury their dead. But you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God."

And another said, "I will follow you, Lord, but first let me say farewell to my family at home." 

(To him) Jesus said, "No one who sets a hand to the plow and looks to what was left behind is fit for the kingdom of God."  Saint Luke 9:51-62. 

I'm one of those guys,  "I will follow you Lord, but first let me check my Beverly Bank bank balance - Wells Fargo mortgage, Peoples Gas, ComED, County Fair, Gas, walking around money, Rahm's Water bill, vehicle plate sticker, Rahm's sticker, . . .sorry, pal, can't make the trip. Catch me after next year's tax return and we'll do some good."

I do some small good, I think.  Pay day is every two weeks.  Money matters, especially if you have kids living at home.  My income for the last forty years has been as a Catholic school teacher and a pretty good one at that - never been fired and never did any gypsy job hopping.  As a Catholic, I believe in the teachings of the Church, despite the flaws, scandals and the opinions of others. I am also a Democrat.

I remain a Catholic, because I believe in what it teaches despite the folly and crimes of the past.  I remain a Democrat in the hope that the party will snap out of its folly and crimes past current and future.  I voted Republican in 2008 and 2012, because I believe the candidate and President is summation of those follies and crimes.  Same sex marriage, which is not about civil rights, much less personal fulfillment, is the worst example of folly with the crimes against faith and conscience only months away. 

My State Representative, from the time I moved back to Chicago was Democrat Kevin Joyce, who resigned to take a position with Ave Maria University in Florida and feed his wife and eight children.  Kevin represented our community, which is largely Catholic, without apology and without the support of Planned Parenthood and its allies.    Kevin was never replaced - he was succeeded by State Sen. Billy Cunningham and now Fran Hurley.  Both support the initiatives of Illinois Boss Terry Cosgrove. Cunningham voted for Senate Bill 10, which is the most hostile bill of any same-sex marriage bill in the country.  Fran Hurley sent this response to my letter asking her to vote against this bill in the Illinois House:

Dear Pat,Thank you for reaching out to me about the same-sex marriage legislation proposed in the Illinois legislature.If passed, SB 10 would allow same-sex couples to marry in Illinois. The bill passed the Senate and a key House committee, but has not yet been debated or voted on by the full House. While this bill extends legal marriage rights to Illinois’s same sex couples, religious institutions would not be required to recognize same-sex marriage or perform same-sex marriage ceremonies.I continue to listen to constituents on this important and contentious issue. I will keep your thoughts in mind as we debate these issues in Springfield and will keep you updated as this issue progress.Again, thank you for contacting me about this very important issue. I appreciate your feedback and hope that you will contact me if you would like to discuss this or any other issue facing the state.Sincerely,Fran HurleyState Representative, 35th District

Thank you for the form letter, Fran.

Candidate Fran Hurley took money and the endorsement of Illinois Personal PAC ( the abortion industry and same sex marriage) , I would assume  because she believes in its mission, or that someone or some people directing her career told her to do so.  Kevin Joyce would never have done so. 

Rep. Fran Hurley clearly will vote for Senate Bill 10.  Why,  because she is using the language of the Party Meme - the one used by Steve Chapman and the editorial board of the Chicago Tribune.   The Supreme Court decisions last week did not so much clear the way for conjugal happiness universal. as it did setting the tone for the redefinition of marriage and the national legal defining of bigots, haters, traitors, mopes and dummies - thought criminals.  I am a Democrat and a Catholic and a citizen.

I will not be defined by Justice Kennedy, Windy City Times, Terry Cosgrove, or IL Senate Bill 10.  I will have my liberties challenged.

True dissenting faiths will not be compelled to perform non-Euclidean Marriages, but Catholics, Calvinists and Contrarians will be compelled to swear that the circumferance of circle is a right angle alone. 

SB 10 would make Illinois the most hostile state in the country to the religious freedoms of people of faith,” says Peter Breen, vice president and senior counsel of the Thomas More Society, a national public-interest law firm. “SB 10 would generate years of litigation and cause those who faithfully practice their religion to be mislabeled as ‘discriminators,’ stripped of government benefits, and subjected to fines and penalties simply because they abide by their sincerely held beliefs. Legal scholars have urged on a bipartisan basis that SB 10 in its current form be rejected. Illinois legislators should heed this bipartisan call.”
The letter cites numerous examples of businesses and organizations that are being sued around the country for actions taken in compliance with their religious beliefs. The letter concludes by stating, “Instead of being a ‘Religious Freedom’ bill, SB 10 will devastate the liberties of individuals, businesses, religious organizations and religious charities all across our state of Illinois.”

The Party meme holds that I will not be forced into a same sex marriage, nor will my parish be forced to sanctify a same sex marriage and therefore I and my co-religionists have nothing to fear.

St. Cajetan Parish does, if it does not 'permit' a gay marriage party in its hall - woe betide St. Cajetan.
Little Company of Mary sure does if it does not provide full same-sex insurance benefits to employees
Leo High School, Brother Rice, Mount Carmel, St. Rita and Mother McAuley will face penalties if state mandated approval of same sex marriages in curriculum and instruction.

If any citizen or institution refuses to accept same marriage that person will be judged a 'discriminator.'

If the Illinois House votes to pass Senate Bill 10, there will be a great deal of discrimination against religion and religious people.

Jesus took a tough path to Jerusalem and warned us - that's gospel.

God Bless Chicago Cops! Two Leo Students Have You Tickets to the Baltimore Game on Tuesday Night, Thanks Detective!

Two Leo men will attend July 2nd's White Sox v. Orioles Game thanks to the anonymous gift of two tickets from a Chicago Police Department Detective. Our guys, or guy and his date, wi;; be seated in Section 102 - over by the Home Run Alley and Mall in the Park and under the Jumbo Tron.

This morning I opened my mailbox to fin an envelope addressed to Leo High School c/o Pat Hickey from CPD Headquarters at 3510 South Michigan Avenue.  Leo HS is proud to boast the great number of current and former CPD heroes among its Alumni.  CPD had many Leo Men in its Detective Division including the late Capt. Mo Higgins, Det. Eric Lee, Det. Eddie Jones, Lt. Joe Murphy, Dept Superintendent Donnie Hilbring and retired Deputy Superintendent James 'Molly" Molloy.

I do not know if the donor of the tickets happens to be a Leo Graduate, but he, or she has the heart of a Lion!

Chicago cops do more to help inner city kids of Leo High School achieve and succeed than any Center for Wrongful Punishment of All Cops at U of C, or Northwestern and every amblulance chasing Cadillac Commie Lawyer with his mitts itching for a pay-out.  Under-paid and under-manned cops and firemen have the backs of kids and walk-the- talk 24 -7.

The Race Baiters, the T-Shirt festooned march-a-thon activists, the agenda hacks and media hand-wringers have yet to step-up.  A cop, or a fireman can always count on being  portrayed as   brute, or at best second guessed by the media.  Our kids know much better!

I am giving your tickets to a Junior Math Scholar and varsity football player. He is consummate gent!  He will dispense the other ticket.

Thank you Detective and Thank you CPD!

Planned Parenthood's Dowagers of Death - "All Our Excess, Live in Texas"

"With the thousands of people who were mobilized this time around, they will be doubly that way if in fact Gov. [Rick Perry] tries to push [the bill] through again in another special session. And if he does, we'll be ready," (Cecile)Richards says.

How's things in Gosnell Land, Cecile, you smartly turned-out and smugly clueless old harpy?



Ever notice that the hags Planned Parenthood trots out to shill for abortion never look like the Moms (single and married) who ride the # 62 Archer bus to and from Brighton and McKinley Parks and Pilsen, in order to work to send their children to Catholic schools like Our Lady of Tepeyac as well as feed clothe and love them?  I don't belice that Cecile Richards ever shopped at Zemsky's for back to school items, or picked up a bunk beds at Balaban's on Ashland. Planned Parenthood is a dowager club dedecated to the proposition that poor people must have their offspring terminated up to and including post-natal procedures.

Appealing to Bystander America, Planned Parenthood's Cecile (Mrs. SEIU) Richards went on the Cartoon Network  (MSNBC) with the latest PPA pin-up girl, single mom, Texas-cheerleader Wendy Davis in orderto continue its bloody business in Texas.  Here's a typical MSNBC chin-wag andchit-chat among the girls about snipping spinal chords for health -

(My son  lookth nor Thoundth like nothing like Chrith Hayeth - why do MTHNBTHEE anchorth and analythTth remain challenged by the Etth. Thound?  but I digreth)

Bystander America is All In for this Texas Hold 'em Until the Little Bastards Stop Screaming and Wiggling.  The rest of us want to hit the pause button, at the very least, the American Holocaust called Roe v. Wade.

Ekthept in METHNBTHEE TekTheth

SCOTUS Rules That 'You Can Change Film With a Kid on Your Back' and Those Who Disagree Are Haters

After years of tears and torment, the Laws Natural and Physical have been aborted in the Third Trimester of Mankind.  At last Aspiration, Love and Desire have triumphed over custom, doctrine and good sense.

The chants of the hateful past have been over-ruled 5-4 and dissenters can await the judgment to come for being on the wrong side of history and Non-Euclidean morality. Light the bonfires!

Ya can't roller skate in a buffalo herd
Ya can't roller skate in a buffalo herd
Ya can't roller skate in a buffalo herd
But you can be happy if you've a mind to

Ya can't take a shower in a parakeet cage
Ya can't take a shower in a parakeet cage
Ya can't take a shower in a parakeet cage
But you can be happy if you've a mind to

All ya gotta do is put your mind to it
Knuckle down, buckle down, do it, do it, do it

Well, ya can't go a-swimmin' in a baseball pool
Ya can't go swimmin' in a baseball pool
Ya can't go swimmin' in a baseball pool
But you can be happy if you've a mind to

Ya can't change film with a kid on your back
Ya can't change film with a kid on your back
Ya can't change film with a kid on your back
But you can be happy if you've a mind to

Ya can't drive around with a tiger in your car
Ya can't drive around with a tiger in your car
Ya can't drive around with a tiger in your car
But you can be happy if you've a mind to

All ya gotta do is put your mind to it
Knuckle down, buckle down do it, do it, do it

Well, ya can't roller skate in a buffalo herd
Ya can't roller skate in a buffalo herd
Ya can't roller skate in a buffalo herd
But you can be happy if you've a mind to

Ya can't go fishin' in a watermelon patch
Ya can't go fishin' in a watermelon patch
Ya can't go fishin' in a watermelon patch
But you can be happy if you've a mind to

Ya can't roller skate in a buffalo herd
SPOKEN: "Ya can't roller skate in a buffalo herd"

Who's to say? Yesterday, five Justices doubled down on pop culture and  trumped truth with opinion.  Abortion and now the erasing of . . . . you name it. Cole Porter Wins!!!!!!!!