Illinois School Reform is Dead -says Gov. Pat " Everyday People" Quinn

"Squeezy Will Now Choke School Reform to Death! Pension Debt?  . . . Not So Much!"

"These plutocrats at the top of the power heap, they may have a lot of money, but they don’t have any understanding of everyday people and what they go through." - Gov.Pat Quinn and the Family Stone

After picking up tree branches from the Chicago parkway on my property ( hard to get my head around that bit of Burnham ownership) I coffee'd-up and fended off potassium deficiency with an Irish-owned Chiquita banana and took in my morning's quota of political empty calories from Illinois Governor Pat " Everyday People" Quinn.

The Sun Times offers a political blog with the darling politically incorrect title of Early and Often ( the old-timey Democrat encomium for people who wanted to keep their jobs) which places solid reporters like Dan Mihiapolous and Natasha Korecki in close proximity to oily, or waxy political pests and nudniks needed by no one but editorial boards and other grifters.

Ms. Korecki is as solid and professional a reporter as one could hope for and did yeoman like work covering the vast decoupage that was the waning months of Gov. Rod Blagojevich's oil spill.  Korecki is no one's Carol Marin.  She is tough, witty and gifted with a foresight few journalists possess, because Korecki thinks for herself.

Sadly, Ms. Korecki is burdened with this Chicago Sun Times Civics Sesame Street for Dummies task, along with her more serious workload.

Nevertheless, Natasha Korecki, an everyday person if there ever was one, punches the time clock and gives editorial Star Chamber social engineers a solid eight.

Today, this morning, following coffee and banana, I joined Ms. Korecki for a Quinn-acopia of flat rhetoric and opaque insights.  Quinn drones about Stu Levine with whom Blago and Quinn spent many a happy hour in finding new and better ways to erase the middle class via pension and retirement scams  and Ralph Martire pie-charted tax increases.  Quinn squeezies  onto Stu-ey Levine like a plush python offered to teach Illinois morons about our unfunded mandates and pension debts.  I could almost see poor Natasha Korecki nodding off like a teacher at faculty meeting, when she too decides enough is enough.

The only take away of any substance in her exchange with Gov. Platitude Quinn comes about when Natasha Korecki somehow snaps herself out of a nap with a question that puzzles the droning Governor.

Q: Paul Vallas supports charter schools. Since you picked him as a lieutenant governor, does that mean you’re open to charter expansion?
A: No, Paul Vallas believes in public education. So do I. We believe in funding public education. A very, very important issue this year, we’ll be talking about that soon. ... He’s committed to a fair, open budget to properly fund education.

"No, Paul Vallas believes in public education!" ( exclamation mark my own)

Now, hold there a momentito!  Paul Vallas is The Grand Daddy of AMERICAN Charter Schools - ChiTown, Philly, N'Orl'ns, Connect -I-Cut!  Moreso, Paul Vallas has ALWAYS been open to Vouchers!  Real School reform.

Paul Vallas is every day people!  I know Paul.  I love Paul! I respect Paul!  If Paul were the top of this ticket, I'd vote Democrat in november.

Catholic schools comprise the bulk of private schools in Illinois.  Therefore, Catholic schools is a local euphemism for private education ( Non-public - no tax-money), including Dutch Reformed, Lutheran, Jewish, Muslim, and non-Denominational schools, as well as the elite first tier schools like Chicago Latin and Chicago Lab Schools.

Paul Vallas is solid man.  Pat Quinn is a pest with persistence, like all Progressives.  Like all Progressives, Pat Quinn is incapable of original thought and spouts only Hyde Park/Evanston Vatican Doctrine and Dogma.

Pat Quinn is no friend of Catholic schools.  By extension he is no friend of every day people who send their kids to Catholic schools.  Pat Quinn spoke for Paul Vallas.

Pat Quinn is the only one speaking - like any Progressive.  Everyday People, everyday people, everyday people, mean exactly what Pat Quinn thinks them to be - drones like himself.

Great job, Natasha Korecki!

Illinois Governor Pat " Everyday People" Quinn Owes Sly Stewart Some Coin

"I've been in a lot of tough fights," Quinn said in his victory speech. "Illinois is making a comeback and we know we have a lot more work to do. That's why we're here today. We have work to do on behalf of everyday people."


That drumbeat coming from Illinois Governor Pat " Everyday People" Quinn is pounding on the Nine Mansions with The Gospel of Envy!  From the get-go, Pat Quinn has been all about just folks.  Quinn lifted texts from the Bible (Wisdom St. Paul, Minneapolis, Isaiah, ); he quoted Lincoln, Carl Sandberg and Gwendolyn Brooks.  He grabbed that public domain by the short and curlies and made the 1% howl!

However, he never cited Sylvester Stewart, though grabbed at Every Day People and continues to do so.  Take this for example - " I believe in the everyday people of Illinois all my life. I’ve gathered a lot of signatures of citizens who aren't celebrities."

Primary Night -  Pat Quinn went all-in for everyday people!  People like Dr. Quentin Young, M.D., Joe Berrios, Abner Mikva, Sheila Simon, Toni Preckwinkle, Terry Cosgrove, Barbara Flynn-Currie, Karen Lewis, Jesse Sharkey, Keith Kelleher of SEIU and just folks like Eric Zorn, Carol Marin, Chuck Goudie and Congresman Danny Davis.

He even went to the Billy Goat -

At the Billy Goat Tavern on Lower Michigan Avenue tavern, Durbin and Quinn were joined by Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, Attorney General Lisa Madigan, Cook County Board Chairman Toni Preckwinkle, Cook County Assessor Joe Berrios and Lt. Gov. Sheila Simon.
Durbin, the assistant Senate majority leader, said he and other Democrats would welcome President Barack Obama to campaign for them in Illinois. In other states, some Democratic candidates  are giving the president the cold shoulder as his approval numbers have dropped.

I wonder if Pat Quinn will pay Sylvester Stewart the minimum wages he has so earned as an everyday people songwriter and artist?  How about Sly's lawyers?  They gotta eat, Guv!

And so on and so onAnd scooby dooby dooby,  Oh sha sha  We got to live together

 
"Everyday People"

Sometimes I'm right and I can be wrong
My own beliefs are in my song
The butcher, the banker, the drummer and then
Makes no difference what group I'm in
I am everyday people, yeah, yeah

There is a blue one
Who can't accept the green one
For living with a fat one
Trying to be a skinny one
Different strokes
For different folks

And so on and so on
And scooby dooby dooby
Oh sha sha
We got to live together

I am no better and neither are you
We are the same, whatever we do
You love me, you hate me, you know me and then
You can't figure out the bag I'm in
I am everyday people, yeah yeah

There is a long hair
That doesn't like the short hair
For being such a rich one
That will not help the poor one
Different strokes
For different folks

And so on and so on
And scooby dooby dooby
Oh sha sha
We got to live together

There is a yellow one
That won't accept the black one
That won't accept the red one
That won't accept the white one
Different strokes
For different folks

And so on and so on
And scooby dooby dooby
Oh sha sha
I am everyday people

Oberweiss, or Durbin? I'll Vote for the Buffoon, Rather Than the Mountebank

Now, that the charade known as the Illinois Primary is over, it is incubant upon me as a citizen/voter to weigh the qualities of the candidates and compare which one merits my exercise of the public franchise in November.

Let's stick with the race for the United States Senate, shall we?

First there is the senior Senator from Illinos and Harry's Reid's Go-fer.Senator Dick Durbin is a proven vote getter and an accomplished charlatan,cheat, grifter, mposter, swindle, con man/woman, rip-off artists who shills for the abortion industry.  In short, a mountebank. who has been caught fibbing at the national level more than once.


Durbin's Challenger is a Plutocrat Dairy Owner and perennial candidate James Oberweiss, whose hat tosses miss the ring at every level; thus, bemusing voters not employed by Oberweiss.  His qualities differ from Durbin's in the most dramatic, albeit  loveable manner. James Oberweis seems a buf·foon -bəˈfo͞on/noun

1. a ridiculous but amusing person; a clown. 
synonyms: clown, jester, fool, comic, comedian, wag, wit, merry andrew, harlequin, Punchinello, Pierrot"the king's buffoon" fool, idiot, dolt, dunce, dunderhead, dullard, ignoramus, dummy, simpleton, jackass;informalchump, blockhead, jughead, butthead, boob, bozo, doofus, hoser, nincompoop, numbskull, numbnuts, dope, twit, nitwit, halfwit, scissorbill, birdbrain, lamer

Oberweiss may, in all honesty, want very much to serve Illinois and the Nation and that makes the matter all the more right good fun and not unlike a PBS mini-series dedicated to Bertie Wooster - " Bertram Wooster, a well-intentioned, wealthy layabout, has a habit of getting himself into trouble and it's up to his brilliant valet, Jeeves, to get him out."

I may be entirely wrong.  Jim Oberweiss may be only interested helping Dick Durbin retain his tattered and tarnished seat in the United States Senate . . .but that would be really cynical of me.  
I hope to vote for the buffon, the Bertie Wooster-like Milkman over the unctious, smarmy, moral shape-shifter of a mountebank now occupying the senior post in the United States Senate.

The best chance the Milkman has against Dithering Dick would be for him to spend the balance of the campaign in quality time with the Missus in Florida - make no statements, debate not, speak not and gaffe not. Be the name on the ballot in November and allow Durbin to be Durbin.

I believe that Durbin asked the Milkman to run - that's just me.

Proof of that will be Oberweiss shooting his mouth off until even the most ardent Durbin foe would need to cast a vote against the Milkman.

The news media embargo against Doug Truax, lifted only at the 11th hour, is another indication of the Illinois rigged deck.

Keep it simple, madcap Milkman!  Keep it simple.

I reconnect with some Funny Little People at the Downtown St. Paddy's Day Parade

You will always run into funny people at public events . " Funny How?  Like a clown?  "  Sometimes.  Funny can be  like the inebriated goof who had begun his day with big brimmin' cup full of Happy Cossack Vodka and wanted to know what "Bik Showders Fun us a Boud?"  and shortly careened away prior to an answer.

Funny.  I imagine the balance of his Saturday, which no doubt ended before noon parade step-off, was equally hilarious and joyful for himself and those folks he gladdened the day.

Then there were funny trades men and rivals from Catholic Schools north, south and west.  There are no Catholic High Schools within Lake Michigan.  

Shortly before the Leo Contingent of the Big Shoulders Fund Marchers stepped north on Columbus Drive, I noticed the Stockyard Kilty Band.  This year we mourned the loss of Leo Man Dave McKinney '46 was a founding member of the bag-pipe band.  I mentioned to our guys that a Leo Man was instrumental in the training of generations of pipers.  and into the mix of black and gold tartans strolled two of the Funny Little People.  

When I was baby teacher at Bishop McNamara High School in Kankakee, IL, I played banjo and guitar with the Sons of Reilly's Daughter as part of MadCaps - an annual November All-School Fund-raiser that helped keep the revenue up and tuition down and doors wide open.  We were a hit - playing Irish songs, Italian songs, Polish Songs, Hillbilly songs and telling dirty jokes within the parameters of good taste and Catholic dignity . . .most of the time.  However, the show stopper was an anonymouspair of hilariously costumed characters who busted in on our show and danced up a storm.  They were known only as the Little People and they were funny.  It turned out that the Funny Little People persons were one of my students and the little sister of our band Director Kevin McNuty.  Sarah McNulty and Dave Gregoire made a modest industry from a great concept.

In 1976, Dave Gregoire and Sarah McNulty came up with an act for a local fund-raiser. They were inspired by Dave’s original 1st place Halloween costume. A few years later, Dave and Sarah were stitching together sophisticated characters who could lip-sync, show off their dance moves, and make people laugh at nightclubs, sporting events and a few private parties. Eventually, Dave and Sarah quit their day jobs, and by the mid ‘80’s hired about 10 more performers, mostly relatives and friends.

These are some funny people in the best of possible definitions.  Here is Big Shoulders Fund's James O" Connor meets the founder and the creative force behind the Funny Little People.

Leo President Dan McGrath is a fabulous wit and a gentleman Ryan " Hilarity!" Hodo in the grey Hodo Bros.Hoodie and Nick "Funny Attendance" Hyland to McGrath's right are part of the Canaryville Round Table/

These guys present what passes for wit on Sangamon

None of them think I'm Funny . . . well, 'funny lookin'!'

Celtic Youth Charity Foundation Fundraiser Was A Smash!

The Joyce Clan!

photo by Mike Joyce above (The Cousins of the Joyce Clan celebrate the wonderful showing of Sam Joyce (center) who was swinging like saloon doors on pay-day in the square ring only moments after this picture was snapped.) Sam Joyce and the great James Kitchen

The Celtic Youth Charity Foundation* drew hundreds of boxing fans, boxers and neighbors to 115 Bourbon Street for a score of cards featuring pugs as young as nine years old. Mike Joyce's** massive heart and hands attract friends to a great cause like Milwaukeans to a wedge of cheese.

Luminaries like Boxers Black Irish Kenny Murphy, Irish Johnny Collins, James Kitchen, Jack "Killer" Kilmartin, Morgan McGarry, civic leaders Worth Township Chieftain Johnny O'Sullivan Skinny " The Polar Plunge"  Sheahan, Ald. Matt  O'Shea (Chicago 19th), The Artist Known as Houlie ( Mike Houlihan), Evergreen Park Mayor Jimmy Sexton, Leo Football Coach Mike Holmes, best-selling author John Linehan and defense attorney Frank Avila rubbed shoulders, butts and elbows with union leaders, township officials, Streets and Sanitation Warriors Frank Hodorowicz and Mick Murray and scores of fight fans in the big hall of 115 Bourbon Street last night.

Leo Boxers helped fill the cards for a great event helping to fund a genuine program that actually helps kids avoid the streets, trouble and the thumbing numbing non-sense of video games. Working their corners and helping the ref, were Leo Boxing legends Thomas "The Hitman" Hayes (27-1) and Captain of the U.S. Army Boxing Team, Staff Sergeant Marvin Carey.

All the squares stayed home!



This'll stir the blood of those that have it!

Proceeds will benefit the Celtic Youth Foundation, a sports program whose mission is to coach and mentor young individuals in order to promote health, fitness, work ethic, self-respect, respect for others and a sense of community in these individuals.
Through the foundation’s boxing and other after-school activities it seeks to offer internships, mentorships, scholarships and apprenticeships to deserving youth who participate in our program and adhere to its high standards.
In the past foundation has had its youth train alongside police officers, state’s attorneys, firefighters and other first responders. The results of this interaction between at-risk youth and members of the public service community have been outstanding.
Virtually 100 percent of the program’s participants have gone on to college, the military or organized labor unions. Officials are now expanding the program and desperately need help to do so. They are counting on members of government, business, organized labor, educational institutes, professional sports organizations, the clergy and the media to become involved with the program.
The organization is seeking assistance from the public with mentoring, tutoring, financial assistance and employment opportunities through sponsorship.
That support will make a positive difference in a deserving young person’s life, resulting in safer and stronger communities.
The Celtic Youth Foundation has applied for recognition as tax exempt under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code and anticipates receipt of same within the next 180 days. The Celtic Youth Foundation anticipates that donations to the Celtic Youth Foundation are tax deductible as charitable contributions to the fullest extent allowed by law.
For more information, call (773) 779-7266.

** Mike Joyce began boxing as a teenager while attending Leo High School and competed throughout high school and college in amateur boxing tournaments including the CYO, the Chicago Park District and the Golden Gloves. As a boxer Mike had the privilege of being trained by the best coaches in Chicago; Owen Putman, Marty McGarry, Vic Leonard and Herman Mills. Mike capped off a successful amateur boxing career by representing Chicago against the Irish National Boxing Team. After a brief pro boxing career Mike returned to school to obtain his law degree from John Marshall Law School. During law school Mike remained active in boxing by training, managing and promoting up and coming boxers.

In addition to the Celtic Boxing Club, Mike Joyce manages two other boxing gyms under the auspices of the Illinois State Crime Commission/Police Athletic League where he serves as legal counsel for the PAL Boxing Program. Both of these gyms are located in Chicago’s inner city.

Another Leo High School Snowday, but it's March 12th!

There. That wasn't so bad!

The winter! the brightness that blinds you,   The white land locked tight as a drum,The cold fear that follows and finds you,   The silence that bludgeons you dumb.The snows that are older than history,   The woods where the weird shadows slant;The stillness, the moonlight, the mystery,   I’ve bade ’em good-by—but I can’t.

Robert W. Service - The Spell of the Yukon

The next mope or mope-ette who offers me another Currier & Ives observation on the white wonderland that is Chicago will receive a lengthy, passionate and serpentine French Kiss from me, after three Marlboros and 22 ounces of Dunkin Donuts coffee have worked their charms..

Snow was predicted. Classes were cancelled.  I did not get the news until I had plowed my dependable and my tenacious 2008 Chevy Malibu from Morgan Park to Gresham neighborhoods and opened the gates to the faculty parking lot on the southwest side of 79th & Sangamon and venerable Leo High School.

News radio WBBM AM 78 informed me that the roads were impassable, but assured that salt-plows were out in force, reinforcing Rahm Emanuel's Chicagoland mythopoeic formulae that Old Coon Eyes is in fact not only Residential Voter Friendly, but Presidential Timber. Empirically,  I'd need to disagree. Western Avenue from 107th Street to 79th Street was Ice Station Zebra and 79th Street east to Sangamon was right out of a Robert W. Service Poem.

The journey was filled with adventure - Numb-nuts who have four-wheel traction vehicles, habitues of late-night drinking emporiums who have reached bullet-proof capacities of strong drink determined to have their homes and apartment buildings 'pull up next to' their vehicles and the natural obstacles -arboreal limbs of varied sizes placed by the laws of force, weight and gravity onto the side streets.  With the grace of God, the Illinois Rules of the Road, a smidgen of common sense and GM craftsmanship, I arrived safe and sound of limb and vender.

Now, I will engage my mountain of missives and await the arrival of Leo President Dan McGrath to discuss the mysteries of Institutional Advancement.

I never seem to get bored. Now, I shall take calls -' Is there school today?'  No, there is not. Enjoy the splendors of winter in Chicagoland!

Governor Pat Quinn Hits Up Illinois Exiles in Hollywood

GOV. PAT QUINN, the film industry best friend, will be guest of honor at a Bob Teitel-hosted reelection fundraiser in LA on Friday, March 7, for Hollywood honchos and Chicagoans in the industry. Last March, film producer and Chicago native Teitel held a private reception for the gov in his home.This time, the event will take place in the more casual setting of a cigar bar. Suggested donation last year was $1,000 and presumably it will be the same this time around. 

Gov. Pat Quinn avoids questions abvout giving Dorothy Brown's Old Man six figures of Illinois Buckeens by hiding out in Hollywood.

Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn's re-election campaign is getting an out-of-state boost. 
The Chicago Democrat flew to Los Angeles on Friday for a fundraiser attended by actors and others in the movie industry. 
Quinn campaign spokeswoman Leslie Wertheimer confirmed Monday that Quinn was in Los Angeles for the fundraiser. She said a similar one was thrown in his honor in 2013. 

The  Oleaginous Governor of Illinois makes Convict Governor Blagojevich seem like an ad for the Dry Look. 

Man, I Gotta Dance!. That A Problem, Clyde?

Man, I gotta dance!  Don't know what it is, but Jack I gotta hoof!  I hear the sounds of the CSX railroad in front of my house, the drip, drip, drip of the basement laundry sink which my kids never shut off all the way, or the memories of dances at St. Nick's of Tolentine Hi-Club, Mendel Buckingham dances, or the Catalina's ( AKA Tradewinds Four/TW Fours?STIX) at Little Flower circa 1966-'70) who dressed in red blazers and ties for the 1st three sets and ended in Hippie gear and Werewolf from bookishly sweet and devout Pat Hickey into Jimmy McGonigle!!!!!!!




Man, I'm dancin'!!!!!!!! Watch out, cat!

My Design and Site Proposal for the Obama Library in Chicago

Tribune reporters

9:59 p.m. CST, March 6, 2014

The University of Chicago has been working behind the scenes to get competing factions to collaborate on a unified bid to build the Obama presidential library in Chicago, but U. of C. officials said Thursday that they won't select a neighborhood for the library — the president and first lady will.

"The Obamas know Chicago like the back of their hands, and for us to say we want it in one spot does not make sense if they want it someplace else," said Susan Sher, a senior adviser to the university's president and coordinator of its library effort. "At the University of Chicago, our approach is to build it on the mid-South Side of Chicago within a few miles of the university. But we have no specific site." Chicago Tribune

Me and the guys do!!!!

Since the announcement calling for proposals for the design and site of a future of Presidential Library named for Good Old Number 44- Barack H. Obama, I have been feverishly reading Wolf Hall, by Hilary Mantel, watching Old Maverick re-runs that I taped from Encore's the Western Channel, planning dinner menus to suit the gustatory discernment's of my son, meeting the standard obligations of good citizenship in the light and heavy snow removal incumbent upon us all with advent of Global Warming, dating a gorgeous woman, attending Leo High School basketball games in its run to capture the IHSA basketball title and generally doping off.

In the last thirty minutes, or so, I put together a nondiverse team of gender specific 19th Ward Democrats and retired city workers to meet the challenges posed by Marty Nesbitt's team of Library sycophants and Obama bundlers.

Hickey's Big O Library Design & Site team - L-R- Aloysius T. Byrd, Mike "Slim" Cullen, Terry "Four-Eyes" White, Pabst " Blue" Ribbon, and Neary Lee Dunne enjoy a breakfast turkey and brainstorm.

We met in my kitchen, when Brewbaker's closed this morning.  The ideas were wholesome and praiseworthy.  As Obama is the most transformational, unprecedented, omniscient and fluid of men, we hit on a design that just might - meet the mark.  Between the turkey and the spuds it was determined that our design should tell the story of the man himself.

The Square peg in the round hole.  It was determined that such an All-Seeing-"I" of A Man deserves a placement worthy of his waters - The 68th Street Water Crib out on Lake Michigan. Imagine the morning halo, like all those pictures of the BIG O taken by the hand-picked White House Boy photoger!

The site should fit the Presidential self-styled south sider and Sox Fan - he can see Adam " Big Donkey" Dunn from the library were it to sit out on the Lake. 

There should be enough shelf space for both of President Obama's books and all of the swag he's collected.

 The Big O out on the Lake! Sun Rise; Sun Set!

This work was not done over night - took only a couple of minutes, like filling potholes and increasing property taxes.

Celtic Youth Charity Fundraiser Presents The 4-Fs of Boxing at Bourbon Streets: Fists, Friends, Family & Fun!

Boxers Dicky Ecklund and Mike JoyceMike Joyce and his Father-in-Law Mike's Father-inLaw's Boss and Trainer the late Angelo Dundee
Mike Joyce and Denis Leary

 Mike sparring with boxer and NFL great Tommy Zbikowski in the Leo Boxing Gym


You never know with whom Mike Joyce will bring around.  One time it might be Dicky Ecklund and another it could be Willie Nelson; yet again philosopher professor and boxing journalist Gordon Marino and Rhodes Scholar/Song-smith/actor and Golden Gloves Champ Kris Kristofferson.  More than likely you will witness Mike's vehicle du jour packed with an ethnic assortment of Pops's cheeseburger eating eight year olds after a work-out at Celtic Boxing Gym, or African American scholar tough guys from Leo High School.

This I know and have experienced.  Mike Joyce is the head boxing of Leo High School, as well as founder and operator of Celtic Boxing Club and Celtic Youth Charity Foundation. I know that celebrities* who actually do something for other people are going to join the those of us do just that 365 days a year at Bourbon Street on March 13th.  For the price of ticket you get to watch great boxing, mingle with great people, chow-down of the wonderful spread provided by Chicago's # 1 Charity Venue - Bourbon Street -groove to the great sounds provided by the political Godfather of Worth Township Johnny O'Sullivan's DJ gear, spill some over flowing beverage and help youngsters develop the confidence, the skills, the work-ethic and recognition of others less fortunate that only boxing in the square ring provides.

Only the Squares Won't Be There!

Celtic Youth Charity Fundraiser
Boxing Exhibition


Thursday march 13th  6:30-9:30
115 Bourbon Street  Merrionette Park
Donation $30 adults   $15  under 18

* Charity Fundraiser-Boxing Exhibition-music, buffet, open bar
* Donation $30. adults $15. under 18
*
* Proceeds to benefit Celtic Youth Foundation a sports program whose mission is to coach and mentor young individuals in order to promote health, fitness, work ethic, self respect, respect for others and a sense of community in these individuals.
* Through our boxing and other after school activities we seek to offer internships, mentorships, scholarships and apprenticeships to deserving youth who participate in our program and adhere to our high standards.
* In the past we have had our youth train alongside police officers, state's attorneys, firefighters and other first responders. The results of this interaction between at risk youth and members of the public service community have been outstanding.
* Virtually 100% of our program's participants have gone on to college, the military or organized labor unions.
* We are now expanding our program and desperately need your help to do so. We are counting on members of government, business, organized labor, educational institutes, professional sports organizations, the clergy and the media to become involved with our program.
* What we are seeking from you is assistance with mentoring, tutoring, financial assistance, employment opportunities and the use of your good name and that of your organization through sponsorship.
* What we offer in return is the gratification that you will receive knowing that you have made positive difference in a deserving young person's life. Your efforts will also result in safer and stronger communities.
* Please consider assisting The Celtic Youth Foundation at whatever level of participation you can commit to in helping our youth.
* Thank you so much for your consideration in becoming involved with us in our program. Any level of support is sincerely appreciated and guaranteed to make a difference.
* The Celtic Youth Foundation has applied for recognition as tax exempt under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code and anticipates receipt of same within the next 180 days. The Celtic Youth Foundation anticipates that donations to the Celtic Youth Foundation are tax deductible as charitable contributions to the fullest extent allowed by law.

115 Bourbon Street
3359 West 115th Street, Merrionette Park, Illinois 60803
View Map · Get Direction

* The term applies with this caveat - Great People Don't Act Like Big Shots.  I have yet to hear a great person say 'Do you know who I am?'  Don't You?

Dick Durbin is not Just a Dope - He is an Apologist for a Cop Killer's Mouthpiece

Politics is all about people. People can be funny, especially when some people get slotted for higher office.  They are tasked by the powers that be and the money that funds their efforts to maintain or increase the pile to do exactly enough within their limited powers and abilities.  Some people in politics, with very limited skills and a complete inability to reflect on their words and deeds do handsomely, at our great expense.

There are people who should not be given the keys to a slop-sink closet, let alone the keys to national power.  Our electronic information highway culture provides the on-ramp for incompetent dopes provided with enough media cover be public persons -Pat Quinn, Jan Schakowsky, Mike Quigley, and U.S. Senators Marque Kirque (R.) and Dick Durbin come immediately to mind.

I knew Dick Durbin was a dope in 1997,  shortly after he was tapped to replace Senator Paul Simon and beat the then hapless Pat Quinn.  Durbin visited Leo on one of those 'inncer city kids' photo opportunity scams so beloved of phonies who never help the place after the pictures have been popped. Before meeting with Leo President , Durbin accompanied me on a tour of the school and stood in the trophy room gawking at Boyle and Ryan Bronzed Shoes from the 1956 City Championship Game and the many, many many football trophies dating back to the early 1930's.  He then spoke with the legendary Leo Teacher Coach, Principal and President, whop played in that 1956 City Championship game about the traditions of Leo Football from Johnny Galvin to Harold Blackmon.  Senator Durbin was introduced to the varsity head coach Mike Holmes whose Lions had made the playoffs only the Friday before and Durbin asked, " Does Leo Have a Football Team?"

Since then the senior U.S. Senator from Illinois has matched that question almost on a daily basis -

• American G.I.'s are Gulag Nazis
• Shilling for the Abortion Industry at Every Opportunity
• Make Gitmo Terrorists become Illinois Melon Patch Kids at Thomson Federal Detention Facility
• Telling Fibs about Telling Fibs That he Heard from Others About the President
• Making Ukrainians Listen to his Empty Prose While Putin Holds a Gun to Their Cousins' Heads
• Making Marque Kirque seem Statesman-like
• Asking the IRS to terrorize Old Ladies Who Like Tri-Corner Hats

I make light of this syrupy drip of a man, but that stops here.

WASHINGTON — The Senate on Wednesday voted to block Debo Adegbile, President Obama’s controversial nominee for assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, from being confirmed.
Adegbile’s nomination had been contested because of his history at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund defending notorious cop killer Mumia Abu-Jamal, who was found guilty of the 1981 murder of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner.
Senate majority leader Harry Reid pleaded with the Democratic-controlled Senate to approve Adegbile’s nomination, but enough Democrats sided with Republicans on Wednesday afternoon to block a procedural step leading to a final vote. Fifty-two senators voted against proceeding, while 47 voted for it.

The leading  voice of The Mumia 47 is Dick Durbin



“Mr. Adegbile’s representation of Mumia Abu-Jamal does not mean he lacks respect for the rule of the law,” said Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, a Democrat. “And it certainly should not disqualify him for this important Civil Rights job. In fact, his willingness to represent an unpopular defendant in an emotionally-charged case demonstrates his appreciation for the rule of law.” (emphases my own)

I took an early voting opportunity.  I took a Republican ballot to vote for Doug Truax in the primary in the hope that at least one good man has the opportunity to run against one of the most useless office holders in America.

I used be amused by Durbin's homespun basset hound pious contrarian frowns as mere pancake make-up for a dope.  Mouthing off Atticus Finch-like pieties about a cop killer's mouthpiece tears the blanket.

This is as low as one should be allowed to go.

Durbin must be voted out.

Leo Wins a Stunner Over Carver at the Robeson Sectional

My right side is beaten black blue having stood to the immediate left of Miss Aurora Latifi throughout the second half of one of the best basketball games I have ever witnessed.  Miss Latifi, Leo High School Math Teacher and Mother Lion, is most demonstrative.  Every shot that went up signaled a pummeling of my right shoulder, arm and wrist. 

The Lions played like . . .lions.  Here is Pat McGavin's report for the Sun Times.

Tuesday night, Leo saw the best and brightest and a future worth getting excited about.
Three Leo sophomores made vitally important plays. Emerging star guard Darius Branch scored 14 of his game-high 28 points in the fourth quarter. All told, the Lions stormed back from an 11-point deficit to beat Carver 74-67 in a Class 2A Robeson Sectional semifinal.
“My team was counting on me, and I couldn’t let them down,” Branch said. “I just wanted to win so badly.”
Branch scored 14 of the Lions’ final 17 points. The only three points for which he did not directly account proved the difference. Sophomore Darias Oliver drilled a three-pointer with 1:12 remaining to push Leo to a 70-67 advantage.. . .The quick and explosive Branch scored 22 points in the second half as Leo (14-13) erased a 44-34 deficit midway through the third quarter. . . .( read more)

I wish I stood next to Terry Bates -  I will on Friday at Robeson for the Sectional Final. 

Putin's Next Move Will be Made by Red China

The issue is not that Putin fails to grasp the promise of western-style democratic capitalism. It is that he and other American rivals flatly reject it. -Brisbane Times

"The foe perceived that something incomprehensible was going on in that menacing Sevastopol. Those ex-
plosions and the death-like silence on the bastions made them shudder ; but they dared not yet believe, being still under the influence of the calm and forcible resis- tance of the day, that their invincible enemy had dis-
appeared, and they awaited motionless and in silence the end of that gloomy night."  Count Leo Tostoy: Sevastapol Sketches

I had coffee with a friend who loves all things Obama.  Let's say, we agree to disagree.  Despite the record of the Obama White House 2008-Present, this gent is yet a'tingle with the tranformative President; even what passes for the geo-political reenactment of Howard Zinn's American History lessons, now so evident in post-Olympic Crimea and Ukraine. My friend believes that President Obama has Vlad Putin "right where he wants him."  In The Ukraine? "Oh, Stop, Hickey, you and your neo-conservative playing Risk with American lives."

Damn me,

Putin is KGB and Obama is . . .autobiographer, Nobel Laureate, community organizer, Cook County Democratic chess piece, adjunct lecturer?

Putin is not in this alone.  Red China is backing Putin's play and while the Crimea has Valerie Jarrett's attention for the moment, I expect Vlad's next move will be played by the Chinese Reds.  

Japan and China both lay claims on Daioyu/Senkaku islands. And China's new zone overlaps with Japan's, which was formed on August 29, 1968. China contests the Japanese air defense zone as illegal, Zhang Junshe, who is with the Chinese Navy, told Xinhua.China also has stirred its South Korean neighbors. A reef called Ieodo in the Yellow Sea sits about 149 kilometers southwest of Korean and 287 kilometers east from China, and is partially covered by the Chinese ADIZ. The Koreans have established an Ocean Research Station on Ieodo. . . .

Jeffrey said the days and months ahead will be vital. If Putin faces few long-term consequences for seizing Crimea, it will set a precedent for China and other regional powers who may be considering establishing 19th century-style spheres of influence of their own.

"The Chinese," Jeffrey said, "are in the same position."

Obama organizes Planned Parenthood, White House Jay Z parties, MSNBC/Journolists play dates.  Putin goes for blood and dirt. Putin does not play.

Sarah Palin was mocked for looking out of kitchen window.  At least, she had the curiosity to take a peek.  Obama strikes me as the kind of guy who looks not out of windows, but into mirrors.

Risk is a game that I have never played in my life - too complicated.  I am a Candyland devotee, if truth be told.

And the Oscar Goes to. . .Eights Years a Disappointing Fop!

Watching theAnonymously Gender Specific Russian Thugs Walk intothe Crimea made me fully appreciate that President Obama has lived up to my expectations. - I skipped the Oscars.

• He's set back race relations with greater ease than Nathan Bedford Forrest could have dreamed
• He's had a wonderful time
• He's a Nobel Peace Laureate
• He shot Osama
• He's lowered the bar for Hillary
• He's 'gotten back to Vlad.'
• He's Guilt Free and UnConcerned
• He's the Egyptian Springs, He's Eyeless About Gaza, the Planned Parent, the Black Liberace,  the Irish Mist, the Chicken Kiev and the Magdalene Sister

Leo High School - 2014 IHSA Basketball Regional Champions!

I got this report from Leo President Dan McGrath at 9:59 PM last night*.

"Beat Epic Charter 84-67. Little sloppy at the end but we played well. Sectional at Robeson beginning Tuesday. "

Congratulations to Coach Noah Cannon and the Mighty Lions!

*   I was absent from the game, due to my obligations as a covert operative tasked with checking the menu of a steak house in Forest Park, Il, in the company of an absolutely exquisite young woman of charms that can only be matched by the excitement of Leo men who witnessed the expoits of Coach Cannon's crew on the hardwood of Bowen High.