Hickey's All-Time Ten Toughest Men Ever

One may be brave, strong, cruel, domineering and wildly successful and be a cream puff as a man.  Toughness, I believe, is measured by how much one can take, rather than dish out. Here is my list of all-time real life tough guys. Take the test linked to Toughness
           1. Jesus of Nazareth

 2. Tom Crean

 3. Bishop Walsh 4.Ralph Ellison 5. Booker T. Washington 6. Don Pero Nino 7. Moishe Dayan 8. Samson  9.  Pancho Villa10. Spike O'Donnell

Ten Tough Guys.

America's Dash from 'The Field' to Victimhood

"The Bull" McCabe: The field is mine.

The American: Well we'll see about that won't we? John B. Keane The Field
"You didn't build that!"  President Barack Obama on the stump 2012

John B. Keane was a brilliant Irish writer, storyteller and pub owner from County Kerry.  In 1965, he wrote a play called  The Field that told the story of a rough farmer by the name of The Bull McCabe.

The Bull McCabe worked land adjacent to his own - a field allowed to grow fallow and useless through neglect.  He made the field grow green and fecund by his labors.  In fact, he neglected his own family to make this once useless field of rocks and weeds flourish and become an asset.

The problem being the field is owned by a widow. It's the law.

When the widow decided not to sell the property to The Bull,  he engaged in rural terrorism to force the poor woman to give up and go away.

If The Bull had a lawyer as every serious victim seems to have, he could have made a case in court for himself under the real estate laws of Adverse Possession - A method of gaining legal title to real property by the actual, open, hostile, and continuous possession of it to the exclusion of its true owner for the period prescribed by state law. Personal Property may also be acquired by adverse possession.

The Bull, like most people, was too busy doing his work to give such thoughts only people with too much time on their hands and a few sparks of cunning between their ears their due.

Like most of us, an injustice real or perceived can race the heart to bitterness.  The Bull was bitter, due to the widow's grasp on the land and the widow, bitter about the pranks and taunts visited  upon her by  The Bull McCabe, his slow-witted son and a sneaky leach called The Bird.

The widow determined to sell the property to a Rich American - The Yank - sight unseen.  The play ends in tragedy.

John Keane's wonderful play concerned human labor and property rights at its most basic. Keane's characters played to the fates without a politician to come to aide of either side.

That was in 1965.  LBJ was President. There was a War on Poverty and War in Vietnam.  Victim hood became the greatest revolutionary tool since anarchists international discovered that fused pyrotechnic could shake Bourgeoisie into submission.  Bomb tossing had little effect. Victim hood won the day for the Masses.

America's greatest essayist, wrote a history of Political American Victim hood in the Weekly Standard.  Epstein writes,

Victims of an earlier time viewed themselves as supplicants, throwing themselves on the conscience if not mercy of those in power to raise them from their downtrodden condition. The contemporary victim tends to be angry, suspicious, above all progress-denying. He or she is ever on the lookout for that touch of racism, sexism, homophobia, or insensitivity that might show up in a stray opinion, an odd locution, an uninformed misnomer. People who count themselves victims require enemies. Forces high and low block their progress: The economy disfavors them; society is organized against them; the malevolent, who are always in ample supply, conspire to keep them down; the system precludes them. Asked some years ago by an interviewer in Time magazine about violence in schools that are all-black—that is, violence by blacks against blacks—the novelist Toni Morrison, a connoisseur of victimhood whose novels deal with little else, replied, “None of those things can take place, you know, without the complicity of the people who run the schools and the city.”
Public pronouncements from victims can take on a slightly menacing quality, in which, somehow, the roles of victim and supposed antagonist are reversed. Today it is the victim who is doing the bullying—threatening boycott, riot, career-destroying social media condemnation—and frequently making good on their threats. Victims often seem actively to enjoy their victimhood—enjoy above all the moral advantage it gives them. Fueled by their own high sense of virtue, of feeling themselves absolutely in the right, what they take to be this moral advantage allows them to overstate their case, to absolve themselves from all responsibility for their condition, to ask the impossible and demand it now, and then to demonstrate virulently, sometimes violently, when it isn’t forthcoming. (emphasis my own)

We are victims waiting for shoes, bricks, bats, bullets and bombs to drop - unless we have a lawyer in our wallets'

Americans have run from The Field.   John B. Keane's character The Bull McCabe would have none of that -things will go very tragically, I am afraid; unless, we snap out of it.

Another Leo Class of Men Set to Graduate, Because of Mr. McGrath, Coach Holmes and Miss Latifi!

Leo High School President Dan McGrath wil J. Robinson 2018



Coach Mike Holmes raises us up!

The Lion Queen, math teacher Miss Aurora Latifi


These are the final examination days for the Leo High School Class of 2015.  
Latrell Giles will go to St. Joe's in Renssalaer, Indiana - million miles from 37th & Rhodes.

I am going to miss these fine young men - one gent will be going to the United States Coast Guard Academy and another will study and play football at St. Joseph's College in Rensselaer, Indiana where Leo Legend Jimmy Arneberg once coached and Chicago Bears held their summer work-out camps.  All have been accepted to at least one good college, or university.  The 2015 Valedictorian wants to opt for the skilled trades, probably the stationary engineers - great trade and vocation that.

Leo Men will go on to proud lives.  These are proud people around this school - proud Alumni, proud leadership, proud parents and families and proud students.

I'd like to credit this pride to three individuals: Leo President Dan McGrath, football coach and Father Figure Mike Holmes and the Lion Queen, Miss Aurora Latifi.

I can think of no trio people who have done more for each and every member of the 2015 and for Leo High School's traditions of commitment and courage.

Dan McGrath spends every waking hour anguishing over Leo High School and young men it serves.  Dan is at every Leo event - academic, athletic or social.  Not an hour goes by that misses a Dan McGrath moment for each and every student under this roof, all the while bringing his many talents to the onerous tasks of meeting payroll, strategic planning, correcting a student's prose, or reaching out to new money.

Mike Holmes raises up young men. Mike takes every student to his massive heart with a father's pride.  He is the most positive, joyful, fierce and sweet-hearted man our young men will ever meet in life.

Aurora Latifi commands love and respect in the math classes she teaches and in halls she patrols. Leo graduates know algebra, calculus, geometry and basic math when they accept a diploma at graduation, because a pretty girl from the mountains of Albania would not allow failure.

Our young men succeed because Leo expects that of them.  No three people set that bar higher than Dan McGrath, Mike Holmes and Aurora Latifi.

Anthony Burgess - How Writers Paint with Words

Better to illuminate than merely to shine, to deliver to others contemplated truths than merely to contemplate.

Aquinas, Thomas. 13th Century.

Outside, the main doors behind him, he was hit full in the chest by autumn. The doggy wind leapt about him and nipped; leaves skirred along the pavement, the scrape of the ferrules of sticks; melancholy, that tetrasyllable, sat on a plinth in the middle of the square. English autumn, and the whistling tiny souls of the dead round the war memorial.  from The Doctor is Sick* by Anthony Burgess

My God! That man could paint with words. The simple 'he was hit' gets a gloriously imaginative pigments from the full palette of Burgess's final picture. 'He' is hit "full in the chest by autumn."  The happy dog of Fall lands both paws squarely on the old heart box, and leaps and nips and skirrs not only at the man's feet, but also a concrete foot honoring English war-dead.

Like Vermeer before an empty canvass, Burgess has mixed his pigments and slathered them onto the palette of his mind's tongue and allows his hands and fingers to form a mighty scene.

Tell me God's hand avoid human expression.

* The "doctor" of the title is Edwin Spindrift, Ph.D., an unhappily married professor of linguistics who has been sent home from Burma to England suffering from a mysterious brain ailment. While Edwin is confined to a neurological ward, undergoing a battery of diagnostic tests, Mrs. Spindrift amuses herself with some disreputable new friends at the surrounding pubs. Sometimes, to Edwin's distress, she sends these friends to keep her husband company during visiting hours, rather than come herself. Most of the novel is a dream sequence: while anesthetised for brain surgery, Edwin's anxiety over his wife and the company she keeps turns into a slightly surrealistic fantasy in which Edwin leaves the hospital and encounters his wife's friends, with whom he has various adventures.

Anthony Burgess: Not Good Writing, Great Writing

                This Leo HS Sophomore is my personal Guidance Counselor


Mr. Apple*..... is a sophomore at Leo High School.  He has a magnificent brain wired to tangle of behavior circuits in need of some minor adjustment. In short, if a pane of glass, left leaning against a locker,  gets smashed, the search for the culprit is not an extended one.  He is a healthy adolescent male.  That is how we roll.   The man is working on his 16 year old impulse control circuitry, I'll say that for him. If I had half of his brains, I'd have one.  His academic chart is only now beginning to reveal an arrow pointing up to what some people might call achievement.

Since, Mr. Apple . . .happens to hold a past record of low-achievement due to his manly impulse to do whatever he feels like doing at the moment and has thickened his disciplinary jacket to RR Donnelly proportions, as well as remains  in possession of the one of sharpest minds on campus, I sought his counsel about my return to the classroom.

I presented Mr. Apple. . .. with a copy of Ralph Ellison's " King of the Bingo Game" and asked him to read it over the weekend.  I told him that it was an example of great writing in prose.

We talked about classroom management (consistency ) and agreed that students act up when bored with a teacher.  When they get bored with a teacher, the subject gets the same treatment.  It ain't pretty.

" Teacher'll says 'This is a great book' and leave it at that," my counsellor told me and added, "Well, it ain't great . . .it's boring. and then he/she gets mad  and says 'take out some paper it's quiz time.' Just because it's in a book don't make it great."

My Man!

Mr. Apple. . . .,  asked me about the difference between good writing and great writing.  I said, "You. "

What you bring to the reading of the book must meet what the writer who wrote it in a way that knocks you backwards.

Here is the best example that I know of in one paragraph.  This is from a brilliant short novel by brilliant guy -Anthony Burgess.

Outside, the main doors behind him, he was hit full in the chest by autumn. The doggy wind leapt about him and nipped; leaves skirred along the pavement, the scrape of the ferrules of sticks; melancholy, that tetrasyllable, sat on a plinth in the middle of the square. English autumn, and the whistling tiny souls of the dead round the war memorial.  from The Doctor is Sick

How's your forward motion?  We'll take a look at this paragraph tomorrow, Kids.  Read and see why I dare call it great writing.

* Fearless defensive back in football, a chess master , two time Gold Honor Roll Student  and undisputed King of Detentions!

In the 19th & 20th Centuries The Reds Went to Jail; Today The Reds Arrest The Cops: Francis O'Neill and Emma Goldman, Best Friends Forever!

In just a little more than century, Reds (Marxists who demand to called Progressives) have finally beaten Law Enforcement.  With time, treasure and talent, the Roger Baldwins ( founder of the ACLU and NAACP) have managed to bulldoze the moral high ground of American life to its current valley of the shadow of death.

All it took was money from the once prosperous American middle class and put it into the hands of lawyers, academic, criminals and of course journalists.

Six police officers are in custody in the City of Baltimore for the murder of a man - three officers are black and three are white, but it matters not because the current wisdom defines them as White African Americans.
They are "white" because they joined the Baltimore Police Department. N.B. Let's try and remember that novelist Tom Wolf was being sarcastic when he said, in the Bonfire of the Vanities, that black men become Irish the minute they join a police force. America is evolved - Audie Murphy and Chris Kyle are psychopaths and Al Gore and Michael Moore are cross-trainers; Bishop Fulton J. Sheen long canceled by ABC TV is forgotten and  Sodomite Social Critic Dan Savage is on ABC TV Disney  Cops are locked up and Criminals made Millionaires/Les One Third to Cockroach Commie Lawyers

Somethings need to be permanent -Racism, Class Envy, Ostentatious Displays of Vulgarity. Others, totally forgotten, like police officers are human beings.

Come with me back in time to the turn of the twentieth century. Emma Goldman was planting bombs and getting away with it, because she had the best lawyers and Captain Francis O'Neill Superintendent of Chicago Police was preserving Irish music, catching bad guys, stepping between plutocrats and strikers and making next to nothing annually.

Emma Goldman lectured late in her career as a Revolutionist and here recounts her time with  Chief O'Neill after the assassination of President McKinley: From steppingstone.com

The subject of my lecture in Cleveland, early in May of that year, was Anarchism, delivered before the Franklin Liberal Club, a radical organization. During the intermission before the discussion I noticed a man looking over the titles of the pamphlets and books on sale near the platform. Presently he came over to me with the question: "Will you suggest something for me to read?" He was working in Akron, he explained, and he would have to leave before the close of the meeting.

Mary Isaak came in to tell me that a young man, who gave his name as Nieman, was urgently asking to see me. I knew nobody by that name and I was in a hurry, about to leave for the station. Rather impatiently I requested Mary to inform the caller that I had no time at the moment, but that he could talk to me on my way to the station. As I left the house, I saw the visitor, recognizing him as the handsome chap of the golden hair who had asked me to recommend him reading-matter at the Cleveland meeting.
Hanging on to the straps on the elevated train, Nieman told me that he had belonged to a Socialist local in Cleveland, that he had found its members dull, lacking in vision and enthusiasm.. He could not bear to be with them and he had left Cleveland and was now working in Chicago and eager to get in touch with anarchists.
At the station I found my friends awaiting me, among them Max. I wanted to spend a few minutes with him and I begged Hippolyte to take care of Nieman and introduce him to the comrades.

How long has it been since Cleveland had an elevated train?
My holiday in Rochester was somewhat marred by a notice in Free Society containing a warning against Nieman. It was written by A. Isaak, editor of the paper, and it stated that news had been received from Cleveland that the man had been asking questions that aroused suspicion, and that he was trying to get into the anarchist circles. The comrades in Cleveland had concluded that he must be a spy.
I was very angry. To make such a charge, on such flimsy ground! I wrote Isaak at once, demanding more convincing proofs. He replied that, while he had no other evidence, he still felt that Nieman was untrustworthy because he constantly talked about acts of violence. I wrote another protest. The next issue of Free Society contained a retraction

As I stood at a street-corner wearily waiting for a car, I heard a newsboy cry: "Extra! Extra! President McKinley shot!" I bought a paper, but the car was so jammed that it was impossible to read. Around me people were talking about the shooting of the President.
Carl had arrived at the house before me. He had already read the account. The President had been shot at the Exposition grounds in Buffalo by a young man by the name of Leon Czolgosz. "I never heard the name," Carl said; "have you?" "No, never," I replied. "It is fortunate that you are here and not in Buffalo," he continued. "As usual, the papers will connect you with this act." "Nonsense!" I said, "the American press is fantastic enough, but it would hardly concoct such a crazy story."
... While I was waiting for the man to fill out his order, I caught the headline of the newspaper lying on his desk: "ASSASSIN OF PRESIDENT McKINLEY AN ANARCHIST. CONFESSES TO HAVING BEEN INCITED BY EMMA GOLDMAN. WOMAN ANARCHIST WANTED."
By great effort I strove to preserve my composure, completed the business, and walked out of the store. At the next corner I bought several papers and went to a restaurant to read them. They were filled with the details of the tragedy, reporting also the police raid of the Isaak house in Chicago and the arrest of everyone found there. The authorities were going to hold the prisoners until Emma Goldman was found, the papers stated. Already two hundred detectives had been sent out throughout the country to track down Emma Goldman.
On the inside page of one of the papers was a picture of McKinley's slayer. "Why, that's Nieman!" I gasped.
When I was through with the papers, it became clear to me that I must immediately go to Chicago. The Isaak family, Hippolyte, our old comrade Jay Fox, a most active man in the labour movement, and a number of others were being held without bail until I should be found. It was plainly my duty to surrender myself. I knew there was neither reason nor the least proof to connect me with the shooting. I would go to Chicago.

I had often heard of the third degree used by the police in various American cities to extort confessions, but I myself had never been subjected to it… On the day of my arrest, which was September 10, I was kept at police headquarters in a stifling room and grilled to exhaustion from 10.30 a.m. till 7 p.m. At least fifty detectives passed me, each shaking his fist in my face and threatening me with the direst things …
I reiterated the story I had told them when first brought to police headquarters, explaining where I had been and with whom. But they would not believe me and kept on bullying and abusing me. My head throbbed, my throat and lips felt parched. A large pitcher of water stood on the table before me, but every time I stretched my hand for it, a detective would say: "You can drink all you want, but first answer me. Where were you with Czolgosz the day he shot the president?" The torture continued for hours. Finally I was taken to the Harrison Street Police Station and locked in a barred enclosure, exposed to view from every side …
I woke up with a burning sensation. A plain-clothes man held a reflector in front of me, close to my eyes. I leaped up and pushed him away with all my strength, crying: "You're burning my eyes!" "We'll burn more before we get through with you!" he retorted. With short intermissions this was repeated during three nights …
Since my arrest I had had no word from my friends, nor had anyone come to see me. I realized I was being kept incommunicado. I did get letters, however, most of them unsigned. "You damn bitch of an anarchist," one of them read, "I wish I could get at you. I would teat your heart out and feed it to my dog." "Murderous Emma Goldman," another wrote, "you will burn in hell-fire for your treachery to our country." A third cheerfully promised: "We will cut your tongue out, soak your carcass in oil, and burn you alive." The description by some of the anonymous writers of what they would do to me sexually offered studies in perversion that would have astounded authorities on the subject. The authors of the letters nevertheless seemed to me less contemptible than the police officials. Daily I was handed stacks of letters that had been opened and read by the guardians of American decency and morality. At the same time messages from my friends were withheld from me. It was evident that my spirit was to be broken by such methods.

The same evening Chief of Police O'Neill of Chicago came to my cell. He informed me that he would like to have a quiet talk with me. "I have no wish to bully or coerce you," he said; "perhaps I can help you." "It would indeed be a strange experience to have help from a chief of police," I replied; "but I am quite willing to answer your questions." He asked me to give him a detailed account of my movements from May 5, when I had first met Czolgosz, until the day of my arrest in Chicago. I gave him the requested information, but without mentioning my my visit to Sasha or the names of the comrades who had been my hosts. As there was no longer any need of shielding Dr. Kaplan, the Isaaks, or Hippolyte, I was in a position to give practically a complete account. When I concluded—what I said being taken down in shorthand—Chief O'Neill remarked: "Unless you're a very clever actress, you are certainly innocent. I think you are innocent, and I am going to do my part to help you out." I was too amazed to thank him; I had never before heard such a tone from a police officer. At the same time I was skeptical of the success of his efforts, even if he should try to do something for me.
Immediately following my conference with the Chief I became aware of a decided change in my treatment. My cell door was left unlocked day and night, and I was told by the matron that I could stay in the large room, use the rocking-chair and the table there, order my own food and papers, receive and send out mail. I began at once to lead the life of a society lady, receiving callers all day long, mostly newpaper people who came not so much for interviews as to talk, smoke, and relate funny stories. Others, again, came out of curiosity. Most attentive was Katherine Leckie, of the Hearst papers … A strong and ardent feminist, she was at the same time devoted to the cause of labour. Katherine Leckie was the first to take my story of the third degree. She became so outraged at hearing it that she undertook to canvass the various women's organizations in order to induce them to take the matter up.

Buffalo was pressing for my extradition,but Chicago asked for authentic data on the case. I had already been given several hearings in court, and on each occasion the District Attorney from Buffalo had presented much circumstantial evidence to induce the State of Illinois to surrender me. But Illinois demanded direct proofs. There was a hitch somewhere that helped to cause more delays. I thought it likely that Chief of Police O'Neill was behind the matter.
The Chief's attitude towards me had changed the behaviour of every officer in the Harrison Street Police Station. The matron and the two policemen assigned to watch my cell began to lavish attentions on me. The officer on night duty now oftern appeared with his arms full of parcels, containing fruit, candy, and drinks stronger than grape-juice. "From a friend who keeps a saloon round the corner," he would say, "an admirer of yours." The matron presented me with flowers from the same unknown. One day she brought me the message that he was going to send a grand supper for the coming Sunday. "Who is the man and why should he admire me?" I inquired. "Well, we're all Democrats, and McKinley is a Republican," she replied. "You don't mean you're glad McKinley was shot?" I exclaimed. "Not glad exactly, but not sorry, neither," she said; "we have to pretend, you know, but we're none of us excited about it."

Buffalo failed to produce evidence to justify my extradition. Chicago was getting weary of the game of hide-and-seek. The authorities would not turn me over to Buffalo, yet at the same time they did not feel like letting me go entirely free. By way of compromise I was put under twenty-thousand-dollar bail. The Isaak group had been put under fifteen-thousand-dollar bail. I knew that it would be almost impossible for our people to raise a total of thirty-five thousand dollars within a few days. I insisted on the others being bailed out first. Thereupon I was transferred to the Cook County Jail.
The night before my transfer was Sunday. My saloon-keeper admirer kept his word; he sent over a huge tray filled with numerous goodies: a big turkey, with all the trimmings, including wine and flowers. A note came with it informing that he was willing to put up five thousand dollars towards my bail. "A strange saloon-keeper!" I remarked to the matron. "Not at all," she replied; "he's the ward heeler and he hates the Republicans worse than the devil." I invited her, my two policmen, and several other officers present to join me in the celebration. They assured me that nothing like it had ever before happened to them—a prisoner playing host to her keepers.

The newspapers had published rumours about mobs ready to attack the Harrison Street Station and planning violence to Emma Goldman before she could be taken to the Cook County Jail. Monday morning, flanked by a heavily armed guard, I was led out of the station-house. There were not a dozen people in sight, mostly curiosity-seekers. As usual, the press had deliberately tried to incite a riot.
Ahead of me were two handcuffed prisoners roughly hustled about by the officers. When we reached the patrol wagon, surrounded by more police, their guns ready for action, I found myself close to the two men. Their features could not be distinguished: their heads were bound up in bandages, leaving only their eyes free. As they stepped up to the patrol wagon, a policeman hit one of them on the head with his club, at the same time pushing the other prisoner violently into the wagon. They fell over each other, one of them shrieking with pain. I got in next, then turned to the officer. "You brute," I said, "how dare you beat that helpless fellow?" The next thing I knew, I was sent reeling to the floor. He had landed his fist on my jaw, knocking out a tooth and covering my face with blood. Then he pulled me up, shoved me into the seat, and yelled: "Another word from you, you damned anarchist, and I'll break every bone in your body!"
I arrived at the office of the county jail with my waist and skirt covered with blood, my face aching fearfully. No one showed the slightest interest or bothered to ask how I came to be in such a battered condition. They did not even give me water to wash up. For two hours I was kept in a room in the middle of which stood a long table. Finally a woman arrived who informed me that I would have to be searched. "All right, go ahead," I said. "Strip and get on the table," she ordered. I had been repeatedly searched, but I had never before been offered such an insult. "You'll have to kill me first, or get your keepers to put me on the table by force," I declared; "you'll never get me to do it otherwise." She hurried out, and I remained alone. After another long wait another woman came in and led me upstairs, where the matron of the tier took charge of me. She was the first to inquire what was the matter with me. After assigned me to a cell she brought a hot-water bottle and suggested that I lie down and get some rest.
The following afternoon Katherine Leckie visited me. I was taken into a room provided with a double wire screen. It was semi-dark, but as soon as Katherine saw me, she cried: "What on God's earth has happened to you? Your face is all twisted!" No mirror, not even of the smallest size, being allowed in the jail, I was not aware how I looked, though my eyes and lips felt queer to the touch. I told Katherine of my encounter with the policeman's fist. She left swearing vengeance and promising to return after seeing Chief O'Neill. Towards evening she came back to let me know that the Chief had assured her the officer would be punished if I would identify him among the guards of the transport. I refused. I had hardly looked at the man's face and I was not sure I could recognize him. Moreover, I told Katherine, much to her disappointment, that the dismissal of the officer would not restore my tooth; neither would it do away with police brutality …
Poor Katherine was not aware that I knew she could do nothing. She was not even in a position to speak through her own paper: her story about the third degree had been suppressed. She promptly replied by resigning; she would no longer be connected with such a cowardly paper, she had told the editor.

Again I was taken to court for a hearing and again the Buffalo authorities failed to produce evidence to connect me with Czolgosz's act. The Buffalo representative and the Chicago judge sitting on the case kept up a verbal fight for two hours, at the end of which Buffalo was robbed of its prey. I was set free.
Ever since my arrest the press of the country had been continually denouncing me as the instigator of Czolgosz's act, but after my discharge the newpapers published only a few lines in an inconspicuous corner to the effect that "after a month's detention Emma Goldman was found not to have been in complicity with the assassin of President McKinley."
Upon my release I was met by Max, Hippolyte, and other friends, with whom I went to the Isaak home. The charges against the comrades arrested in the Chicago raids had also been dismissed. Everyone was in high spirits over my escape from what they had all believed to be a fatal situation. "We can be grateful to whatever gods watch over you, Emma," said Isaak, "that you were arrested here and not in New York." "The gods in this case must have been Chief of Police O'Neill," I said laughingly. "Chief O'Neill!" my friends exclaimed; "what did he have to do with it?" I told them about my interview with him and his promise of help. Jonathan Crane, a journalist friend of ours present, broke out into uproarious laughter. "You are more naïve than I should have expected, Emma Goldman," he said; "it wasn't you O'Neill cared a damn about! it was his own schemes. Being on the Tribune, I happen to know the inside story of the feud in the police department." Crane then related the efforts of Chief O'Neill to put several captains in the penitentiary for perjury and bribery. "Nothing could have come more opportunely for those blackguards than the cry of anarchy," he explained; "they seized upon it as the police did in 1887; it was their chance to pose as saviours of the country and incidentally to whitewash themselves. But it wasn't to O'Neill's interest to let those birds pose as heroes and get back into the department. That's why he worked for you. He's a shrewd Irishman. Just the same, we may be glad that the quarrel brought us back our Emma."
I asked my friends their opinion as to how the idea of connecting my name with Czolgosz had originated. "I refuse to believe that the boy made any kind of confession or involved me in any way," I stated; "I cannot think that he was capable of inventing something which he must have known might mean my death. I'm convinved that no one with such a frank face could be so craven. It must have come from some other source."
"It did!" Hippolyte declared emphatically. "The whole dastardly story was started by a Daily News reporter who used to hang round here pretending to sympathize with our ideas. Late in the afternoon of September 6 he came to the house. He wanted to know all about a certain Czolgosz or Nieman. Had we associated with him? Was he an anarchist? And so forth. Well, you know what I think of reporters—I wouldn't give him any information. But unfortunately Isaak did."
"What was there to hide?" Isaak interrupted. "Everybody about here knew that we had met the man through Emma, and that he used to visit us. Besides, how was I to know that the reporter was going to fabricate such a lying story?"

There's a pencilled note in the copy of the book I have noting that it's the Chicago Daily News that's under discussion, not the New York Daily News.
A trusted person was dispatched to Buffalo, but he soon returned without having been able to visit Czolgosz. He reported that no one was permitted to see him. A sympathetic guard had disclosed to our messenger that Leon had repeatedly been beaten into unconsciousness. His physical appearance was such that no outsider was admitted, and for the same reason he could not be taken to court. My friend further reported that, notwithstanding all the torture, Czolgosz had made no confession whatever and had involved no one in his act.

The tragedy in Buffalo was nearing its end. Leon Czolgosz, still ill from the maltreatment he had endured, his face disfigured and head bandaged, was supported in court by two policemen. In its all-embracing justice and mercy the Buffalo court had assigned two lawyers to his defence. What if they did declare publicly that they were sorry to have to plead the case of such a depraved criminal as the assassin of "our beloved" President!

Czolgosz was sentenced to death in the electric chair.
While it has nothing to do with the preceding story, I noticed while reading the book that Goldman had enjoyed visiting the fair city of San José during the Spanish-American war.
Thenceforth my most important lecture, and the best-attended, was on Patriotism and War.
In San Francisco it went over without interference, but in the smaller California towns we had to fight our way inch by inch. The police, never loath to break up anarchist meetings, stood complacently by and thus encouraged the patriotic disturbers who sometimes made speaking impossible. The determination of our San Francisco group and my own presence of mind saved more than one critical situation. In San Jose the audience looked so threatening that I thought it best to dispense with a chairman and carry the meeting myself. As soon as I began to speak, bedlam broke loose. I turned to the trouble-makers with the request that they choose someone of their own crowd to conduct the meeting. "Go on!" they shouted; "you're only bluffing. You know you wouldn't let us run your show!" "Why not?" I called back. "what we want is to hear both sides, isn't that so?" "Betcher life!" someone yelled. "We must secure order for that, mustn't we?" I continued; "I seem unable to do so. Supposing one of you boys comes up here and shows me how to keep the rest quiet until I have stated my side of the story. After that you can state yours. Now be good American sports."
Boisterous cries, shouts of "Hurrah," calls of "Smart kid, let's give her a chance!" kept the house in confusion for a few minutes. Finally an elderly man stepped up on the platform, banged his cane on the table, and in a voice that would have crumbled the walls of Jericho, bellowed: "Silence! Let's hear what the lady has to say!" There was no further disturbance during my speech of an hour, and when I finished, there was almost an ovation.

 Emma Goldman and Chief O'Neill are middle class Darby and Joan nowadays.  Real radicals make a great deal of money shrinking the middle class out of existence and cops are being assassinated and sent to jail.

Wasn't that a time?

Of Two Minds Illinois Thanks to California

 

Rahm Rauner; Rauner Rahm: "Take hold of this, Peniculus: I wish to dedicate the spoil that I've vowed.'"ENAECHMUS of Epidamnus.

Any Holiday leads necessarily to conversation over food and sports channel surfing.  Mother's Day was a cornucopia of Chicago losses.The Bulls lost to to Cavs after a magnificent bulling of the Chicago squad by King James of Cleveland in final 0.8 seconds, or was it 1.15 seconds and outside shot at the buzzer. Sox lost to Cincinnati 4-3 and Re-Branded Cubs lost to the Brew Crew for a Midwest Urban Rival Sweep of Rahm's Chicagoland Sports.

The chicken and steal kabobs came off the grill, the salad was mixed and dressed, the pilaf was worthy of Edith her own bad self and whole Fam-Damly scrambled for chairs. Dinner was served and table talk exploded into sound bytes, between bites.  It was a segue melange with political side-servings. Politics on the holidays.   Mother's Day was no exception.  When chat turns political, I generally get a preemptive roll of the eyes indicating, 'We know what you think already. Save it.'  Be silent, be happy and have another tasty Kabob.

I was all ears, because I have forum for my big flapping yap - right here.

What I sampled from the verbal candied pecans was this. My family detests Bruce Rauner (so do I); yet, backed Rahm Emanuel over Chuy Garcia.  I find this fascinatingly schizophrenic. Rahm Rauner is in the same as Bruce Emanuel.  They detest Rahm (as do I) but cast votes for his 'sophisticated economics.'  Chuy Garcia was not taken any where near seriously by anyone eating Mother's Day dinner where I was, but by me and Chuy lost thereby proving the case that one can detest Bruce Rauner, vote for Rahm and shrug and wait for Rauner to pee in our collective bowl of Wheaties.

One can not, or should not, detest one, unless one detest the other.

Illinois is a hick State and Chicago is a hick burg, where the working man will disappear in under a generation.  Rauner will get the universal blame, which will not bother him a jot. Rahm will allow his twin Menaechmus in Springfield bear the whips and scorn of political fortune and both will reap fortunes unimaginable for friends and themselves, increase the debt and unemployment rolls, watch trades unions close shop revel in a job very well done.

Rahm Emanuel and Bruce Rauner were born of a rib taken from California Jerry Brown decades ago.

Illinois is California with liposuction, chin tucks and Botox.

The Casandra of American Fortunes is Joel Kotkin.  I have been a fan for decades.  He warned of dager public sector unions had on Federal, State, County and Municipal budgets as far back as GHW Bush and Bubba.

Casandra was always right and never followed.

Our Priams continue the March of Folly.   Illinois aped California and will continue to do so.  Here is Joel Kotkin on how California is the blueprint for Blue Progressive States;

 How a writer looks at California can be increasingly predicted by the writer’s political orientation. For liberals, the nasty California that produced both Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan has been supplanted by a cooler, greener and more socially progressive state. If you are on the Right, California is beloved for reasons of nostalgia; for the Left, California is where the future once again is being shaped. Those of us more in the middle are simply unsure of what to think.

In many ways, Brown presaged many of the current trends in progressive thinking. For one thing, Brown – like much of the Democratic elite – does not much identify with middle- and working-class concerns, notably old social democratic ideals of upward mobility. Instead of tackling poverty and stagnation by creating good middle-class jobs, Brown blames the state’s high poverty rate on our “incredible attractiveness,” not on some fundamental economic flaw. This viewpoint seems not to offend some of the very people who, in other cases, rail against rising inequality and poverty.

Brown’s almost single-minded focus on climate change also fits well with a Democratic Party whose ideology – and funding base – is increasingly dominated by this issue. He also, at least for now, can claim that he has tried to save the planet while improving the economy.

Jerry Brown is a hippie grown wealthy and old.  Many hippies grew old and wealthy. Jerry Brown is elder statesman of the Progressive oligarchy dependant upon bloated government, corrupt mortgage banking tied to social engineering programs, monster bloc voting via public sector unions and a non-existent Fourth Estate.  Hippies are aped by hipsters. Hispsters are educated, affluent Gen X and younger folks who flock to urban settings. Hipsters are the new Rubes.  They'll buy and swallow anything manages to get public limelight, whether it happens to be kale, kindergartens or caring without any genuine effort.  Hipsters flock to public outcry and Occupy, or Ferguson Up, or Moveon.organize all done with the latest Steve Jobs gizmo.

They are the voice of America, because everyone else has been told to 'just shut up and evolve.'

Fair enough. Illinois replaced a doughy, soft-ball as governor with flinty hard-ball plutocrat as governor. He is the bad twin.  Chicago reelected a flinty hard-ball plutocrat as its mayor.  They are the twin Menaechmi of this pathetic politic-economic farce called Illinois government.

More Kabobs!

Happy Mother's Day - The Fifth Joyful Mystery

. . .  And when they saw him, they were amazed (Luk 2,41-51)

No human being loves like a woman.  Half of us try and make it look good.

I saw the depths of a mother's anguish and sorrow in eyes of my wife, Mary, one Saturday in late May of 1991,  in a  Marshall's store near Mishawaka Mall in South Bend, Indiana.  The Hickey's went shopping for new clothes.   I had eight year old Nora with me. After Mary had decked her out in new spring wear,  I took Nora with me to look for a cassette of Paula Abdul's Rush, Rush.  We lived on the campus of La Lumiere School and Nora spent a good deal of time with the teenage ladies from Linnen Dorm and had heard the newly released pop hit - a good girl must have her heart's desire.

Mary had three year old Conor in tow.  He was a piece of work. Mary was looking for Sunday-Go-to Meetin' clothes for your scapegrace.  Three year old boys and older detest having their clothes picked out and more so fitted.    I can only imagine the verbal back-and -forths between Mary and her beloved son.

By the time Nora and I returned, an alarming situation had taken place in Marshall's.  A little boy was lost and the clerks and security guards were frantically trying to calm Mary and search at the same time.

Child abduction had been brought to world attention in 1981 when Adam Walsh disappeared.  I knew of a case that had taken place in Beverly neighborhood of Chicago on the very block where two of my friends lived at the time and little girl had been snatched from the front lawn lawn when her mom went into the house to get her a can of pop.

Mary had had a horrific labor bringing our beautiful boy into this wonderful world,  The anaesthetics had not taken effect, the epidural of all things, and Conor was breached.  Mary needs additional cutting - the episitomy - and the only thing she said, "Oww" once.  It took hours of drug free endured pain, but that was as nothing to what I saw in her beautiful blue/green eyes on the floor of Marshall's.

The search was on and South Bend police had been called.  It seemed like seconds after Nora and I witnessed the scene, that howling laugh from a big African American security guard announce " My Man! Your Mom is going to be so, happy!'

Conor had slipped into clothing carousel stuffed with winter coat overstock and had made fortress of solitude for himself and had fallen asleep.

Mary rushed to the sound of big man's voice and hugged the man!  She swept Conor up her arms and smothered him in kisses.

" I wanna Hamboygee! Let's see Doodah* at Prairie Tabern by the ducks."  Conor was oblivious to the situation, as all children should be and asked to stop at Prairie Tavern in Rolling Prairie off of Rt. 20, where he was a regular fixture at the bar.

Mary found her child, " Can You Believe Him?"

Yes.

That is Mother's Day

* Legendary bartender, sportsman and Patriot. Served as a Male Role-Model for my son.

Get Thee to L'Erable! Eat Thee at the Longbranch and Enough of This King James Thee BS!

Call me Hungry!   Whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul, or May, or Tuesday after a particularly dull Monday, I  turn my thoughts to L'Erable, Illinois; unless I get distracted by something else.

I spent some of happiest times of my ordinary life in French Illinois: Kankakee and its border counties.  This is a beautiful land inhabited by beautiful people - many of whom are of French Ancestry.

The French discovered ( with apologies to indigenous Injuns who hunted and fished and yanked wild onions hereabouts for centuries)  the soil we offend with our smelly feet and Kankakee County doubled down on its Gallic demographics in the 1840's because of the labors of French Canadian priest, who shortly upon his arrival in Illinois become the only American Catholic Apostate - Charles Chiniquy.

Chiniquy was the Michael Pfleger of the 19th Century, who never met a bishop, or Superior he did not loathe. Chiniquy tangled with every Ordinary of Chicago, until he quit the Catholic Church altogether and became a darling of the Know-Nothing crowd and lectured world wide on the dangers of the Church of Rome. Chiniquy, from my reading of his works and primary documents of the day, was a pathological liar, bully, land swindler, name-dropping fraud, roue and megalomaniac; but, some would argue that 'he did a lot of good,'

That he did. Chinquy brought great, hard-working, devout and industrious French people down from Canada and established Catholic parishes and townships south to Illinois. When Chinquy broked from the Church, most of his people said goodbye to the American Luther; thus, we have St. Anne, Martinon, St. George, Boubonnais, Papinaeu, Beaverville and just south of the Kankakee County line -L'Erable, Illinois.

L'Erable is notable for two magnificent buildings: one is the Church of St. John the Baptist and the other is Longbranch Saloon and Restaurant.


St. John The Baptist Catholic Church was built in 1856.  The Longbranch Saloon a bit later.

The Longbranch has a storied history:

The Longbranch has been in my family for the last 40 years.  I am the third generation in my family to own and operate it.  My grandparents owned it before selling to my parents who ran it for 21 years and my wife and I took over at the beginning of 2013.  We are located in a tiny unincorporated village an hour and a half straight south of Chicago in the middle of corn and soybean fields. My wife Lindsay and I are both culinary school graduates having attended the Cooking and Hospitality Institute, myself in Chicago, and her in Las Vegas.  I started working at the Longbranch when I was twelve years old, starting out as a busboy, moving up to dishwasher and cooking by the time I was 14.  I didn't go to culinary school right out of high school because I didn't think this is what I wanted to do for a career.  But I couldn't find any other career path that interested me so decided to go to Chicago to culinary school and graduated in 2005 and found myself back at the Longbranch in June of 2005 and have been here ever since.  I met my wife a few years ago and  brought her in as a chef to work alongside me and business has been awesome ever since.  We work great as a team and have been putting out some great food that people drive from all over to come and eat.
 At the beginning of the year she moved out to the front of the house but still has her hand in a lot of the cooking.  We run a few different specials every weekend.  It keeps people wondering what we'll be cooking each and every weekend and keeps them coming back for more.  What sets us apart from other restaurants around is that we always look to buy the best quality product and strive to give our customers the very best that their money deserves.  We're known for our great prime rib and steaks and have even been known to serve up some killer sushi.  But like I said we're doing something off the menu and different every single weekend so I think that makes us very unique for the area that we are in.
-Nick Bohn, owner

The Longbrach has a storied menu of great eats -seafood include Froglegs, naturalment!

Get to L'Erable!  Eat the Longbranch! Celebrate the people who put the frog in the froglegs!

As the dirty old ditty goes,  Les Français , les Français de la sale race ; ils se battent avec leurs pieds et . . . avec leur visage!

Bernadine McPolin Goes Home to Christ and Her BoyFriend/Hubby John!

I was at the wake for Leo Alumnus and WWII hero Lou Knox when my cell phone recorded my Mom's voice, sad, direct and careful -" Pat, Bern McPolin died. She is going to be waked at St. Cajetan's on Saturday. There'll be something in the Trib.'

Bern McPolin and my Mom were like sisters married to a pair of cut-ups.  John McPolin and my Dad were closer than than two brothers and had worked together as stationary engineers from the end of WWII to their retirements.  The pair of veterans and wise guys were like Jack Benny and Fred Allen: constantly trying to out-prank and out- argue-for argument's sake one another - " Jesus, you bitch you, I know you were the last one in the basement with last beer in the ice-box!"  Bern and Ginny always had to 'correct' their boys and tell them that they were both wrong, again -all of the time.

Mrs. McPolin would always pat me on the shoulder at Mass and ask about her 'darlings' - my three kids who lost their mother far too early in life and had to be raised by the Chicago version of Homer Simpson.

Bern McPolin was a widely respected and honored nurse who led generations of young ladies in white to be caring ministers to the suffering of their patients and their families.

Christ welcome home a great woman!

Bernadine J. McPolin, nee Hogan; Age 93; Devoted wife of the late John J. Loving mom of Beth (Tom) Moran, Terry Ret. C.F.D. (Cheryl), Kevin (Nina), Joanne (Kevin) Urbanik, and Denise (Dan) Crnjak; Proud grandma of 11 and great-grandma of 14. Beloved sister of the late LaVerne, late Eileen, and the late Janet; Dear sister-in-law of the late Rev. Patrick "Packy" McPolin (C.M.F.), late Lorraine and Dick Moravek, and the late Bob and Marie Shields; fond aunt to many nieces and nephews; retired R.N. Little Company of Mary Class of 1943; wonderful friend to many long-time St. Cajetan's parishioners; Bernie's keen sense of humor, and caring for others endeared her to all who knew her - family, friends, and the 112th St. neighbors; longtime member of the Sharpies and Kiwanis; Visitation Saturday 9:30 a.m. until time of Mass 12:00 noon at St. Cajetan Church, 112th & Artesian, Chicago. Interment Mt. Olivet Cemetery. Arrangements entrusted to Curley Funeral Home; for funeral info 708-422-2700, or www.curleyfuneralhome.com -  

Unanimous NonSense - Burge Myth Elevated to Cargo Cult!

Ald. Proco "Joe" Moreno read a roll call of torture victims he said were on hand at the council meeting, and as the men and their relatives stood in the gallery, aldermen turned and gave them an ovation.
"This is truly an historic day for Chicago, for this City Council and most importantly for the victims of some horrific behavior that happened right here in Chicago," said Moreno, 1st. "Not in Iraq, not in Syria, but right here in Chicago." Chicago Tribune

  History, after all, consisted of an unbroken succession of rulers, leaders, bosses, and commanders who with extremely rare exceptions had all begun well and ended badly. All of them, at least so they said, had striven for power for the sake of the good; afterward they had become obsessed and numbed by power and loved it for its own sake. Hermann Hesse from The Glass Bead Game

 After World War II anthropologists discovered that an unusual religion had developed among the islanders of the South Pacific. It was oriented around the concept of cargo which the islanders perceived as the source of the wealth and power of the Europeans and Americans. This religion, known as the Cargo Cult, held that if the proper ceremonies were performed shipments of riches would be sent from some heavenly place. It was all very logical to the islanders. The islanders saw that they worked hard but were poor whereas the Europeans and Americans did not work but instead wrote things down on paper and in due time a shipment of wonderful things would arrive.
The Cargo Cult members built replicas of airports and airplanes out of twigs and branches and made the sounds associated with airplanes to try to activate the shipment of cargo. San Jose State University

With the unanimous approval of all 50 Chicago Alderman, the Burge Mythology was elevated from a yarn repeatedly told in courtrooms hand-picked by The Peoples Law Office, aped incessantly from pages of Mother Jones, Chicago Reader, The Daily Worker, by the Chicago newspapers, WTTW and eventually the three news channels, in classrooms occupied by group-thought instructors and eaten like Haagen Dazs by generations of young people was elevated to State Worship as Chicago's Official Cargo Cult.

Artifacts and personalities around Jon Burge evolved into what Francis Bacon called Idols of the Tribe - abstractions in error arising from common tendencies to exaggeration, distortion, and disproportion.

Though no Chicago Police Officer, or any member of his/her extended family has ever been proven to have committed any act of torture upon any human being, black, white, brown, yellow, red  or rainbow hued, it is now the official doctrine that a Midnight Crew tortured black men 24/7 between the late 1970's and New Millennium.

The Chicago City Council without any balanced consideration of the Burge Myth ( where were the studies of Pulitzer Prize Winning journalist William Crawford, or auth Martin Preib in the discussions?), one side of story received a unanimous vote.

Well meaning and good people have been confused by very clever and not very good people to accept a new certainty that police officers, motivated only by systemic racism tortured and falsely arrested Chicago black men.

That belief is no different from the people of England accepting Henry VIII as the sole Head of the Church of England and Successor to Saint Peter, because Parliament went along with Henry's gonads with an Act of Supremacy.

Likewise, Cargo Cult People after WWII.

The Indigenous Peoples of the South Pacific waited in abandoned towers on New Guinea for the return of the powerful gods from the skies to land on the jungle over-grown airfields that onec upon a time brought gifts of Spam, cigarettes, candy, GI socks and undies, batteries, jeeps and tents.

Way to go Chicago Aldermen!

Get up in your towers and wait for what will happen.

Croesus Would Have Loved Chicago's Annointed and Appointed Grifters!

"There! That Old Lady Sneaked on!  Shoot Her!  Good catch, Forrest!  Here's another Double Saw-buck to put in your sling!"

Teachers!  7% pay cut! Sophisticated economics!  Let's here it!  Forest Claypool is still with us!

Imagine being someone like Frank Kuesi, Ron Huberman, Dave Mosena, or Forrest Claypool!  That is not a question.  Imagine if you, some poor slob of a Streets and Sanitation worker, CPS teacher, or white collar drudge saddled with dues to AFCSME had some how caught the eyes and ears of a Richie Daley, or Rahm Emanuel and somehow had flattered their vanities, or had some nasty bit of dirt on them and suddenly found yourself appointed to some lofty post with perquisites out the Ying Yang and six figure salary - then you'd be bullet-proof, frost-proof and BGA proof. BGA is run by Andy Shaw - a guy who could not find a microphone wrapped around his noggin.

Andy Shaw, boys and girls!

Such imaginings go back as far as Herodatus (485-425 BC).  Herodatus, the Father of History, wrote wonderful tales ancient glories about kings, commoners and culture in the ancient world of Persia and Greece.

One of his favorite early topics was Croesus King of Lydia.  One yarn had to do with Alcmaeon, Son of Megacles The First Archon of Athens who was booted from town for sacrilege.  Alcmeaon was the son of a judge, which always put one in good stead with someone who might need a judge on the hip. Croesus invited Alcmeaon to Sardis for doing him some good services. Alcmaeon has helped kill the suppliants of Cylon the guy who started the Olympics. It's a religious thing and religion had nothing much to do with Croesus who was all about the gold.

Croesus allowed Alcmaeon to carry off as much gold as he could carry - on his person. Alcmaeon immediately

stuffed his legs with as much gold as his boots could hold, and then, after he had filled the fold in his tunic brim-full with gold, he sprinkled gold-dust over the hair on his scalp, shoved some more into his mouth and left the treasury barely able to drag his boots along as he went.

Croesus was so tickled by the sight of this impious gonif that he allowed Alcmaeon to carry twice that weight and by Cylon's Jockstrap . . .he did.Nowadays, People who make absolutely no impact on the public good whatsoever do exactly the same thing -

Although Carter, 57, was bypassed for the CTA's top job some years ago, he held a number of posts that count there, including executive vice president and chief administrative officer. That puts him miles ahead of other CTA presidents of recent years, including Forrest Claypool (who now will be Emanuel's chief of staff), Frank Kruesi, Ron Huberman and David Mosena. None of them had any transit experience of note when they were tapped to head an agency that provides 1.6 million rides every workday.

Beyond that, Carter most recently has been chief of staff at the U.S. Department of Transportation, the mothership for aging urban transit agencies that need federal cash.
"I now have an ally who can work his Rolodex just like me," Emanuel said today—for once, not exaggerating. "We can play tag team."

Not Red Tag, Coon eyes!

Forrest Claypool received a   $198000 annual salary for insulting CTA employees, staging L Rides, Shilling for Ventra Cards and Bombardier Rail Car Wheels that didn't fit the gauge of the Chicago rail line tracks, oustin the union leadership of Amalgamated Transit Worker with Michael Pfleger and wowing the britches off of Carol Marin on WTTW.  It stands to reason that Dorval Carter will pack that much in his wallet.

Claypool, as Coon-Eyes' Chief of Staff, will get a signing bonus and points above that  $198000. It will not be public record, I imagine - executive do have privilege.

Croesus to Kruesi, to Huberman, to Mosena, to Claypool! It's all about the gold . . . .which used to be in your wallet. 

Burge Mythology Victory -Chicago City Council Set to Approve - It Will Be Unanimousn

G. Flint Taylor* and arsonist/murderer Madison Hobley**

Very good people are appalled by the idea of torture. The idea of torture in Chicago by homicide detectives committed to systemtic racism has been carefully crafted and marketed over the last thirty years.

Some very bad people created the Burge Mythology and will make hundreds of thousands of more dollars, when Chicago's aldermen vote for the Burge Reparations ordinance.  It will be unanimous. Not one Alderman has the guts to ask for a true analysis of the Burge Myth.

Academics, Activists and Advocacy Agendanistas have parlayed the idea of torture into a mythology that permeates what passes for Chicago's corporate news media.

Carol Marin, Mark Brown, Eric Zorn and other iconic columnists have not tucked their snouts into the story of Area 2, but have relied completely on the work of John Conroy and the propaganda machine of G. Flint Taylor. Code of Silence, Black Box, House of Screams, Vietnam 101 Torture are part of the Burge Industries glossary developed by Sasha Abramsky, Bernardine Dohrn, G. Flint Taylor, Northwestern Law, and especially John Conroy, who can not seem to be given the contract by the corporate media that laps up his every nuanced participle. Why is he not the editor of some great metropolitan newspaper? They all redact his texts and themes.

Twelve citizens should decide for or against Jon Burge, who has been fabricated into the face of torture, by G. Flint Taylor, The MacArthur Center for Justice, Jon Loevy, Locke Bowman, Jean McLean Snyder, Berardine Dohrn, WTTW, WBEZ, NPR, and the lazy and compliant editorial boards. As it is, Jon Burge has been tripped up, convicted of perjury, sent to prison, released and now waits for the next bundle of legal barbed wire.

I have followed this story as a citizen and as an educator who spends seven days a week in Area 2 - I live here and live with the fall-out that has evolved as the result of the erosion in faith for Law Enforcement at the hands of lawyers, louts and loudmouths. A rainforest of crime has rooted up in Chicago- not in Lakeview, Highland Park, Winnteka, or Wilmette, but in Gresham, Englewood, Brainerd, Morgan Park, Beverly and Roseland.

I have witnessed the savagery of street thuggery and attended the funerals of too many sweet and hard working young black men slaughtered in the Thug Comfort Zone created by Burge Industries - Eric Ersery, Jason Riley, Steven Lyons,Antonio Collins, Eric and Steve Lee to name but a few. I have witnessed the police officers and detectives of Gresham District (6th) and Area 2.

I don't buy the systemic racist torture at all. Am I intellectually dishonest? I don't think so.

I have followed this story very religiously since Officers Fahey and O'Brien were tortured and murdered. I know that I have found the endless chorus of charges and the endless failures to make the case for torture a compelling case for doubt. What happened? I do not know, but I do not buy for one second the charges howled by G. Flint Taylor and the murdering savages that he represents. I suspect that G. Flint Taylor and others in his cottage industry including Chicago's news media want the Burge Saga to continue.

The perjury case against Jon Burge,it seems to me, was merely another legal sop paid to G.Flint Taylor, by judges and attorneys general. The City of Chicago and Cook County tried tossing millions of dollars at this public pest. They would have done well to stand in court and demanded a battle royal against the charges. They did not. Today, the City Council will 5.5 million more dollars to G. Flint Taylor and The Peoples Law Office.

A jury should decide one way or the other, but do not think for a minute that Burge Industries will ever be satisfied. If Jon Burge is ever convicted of the torture the mythology demands we accept, or is acquitted, G. Flint Taylor and his disciples will howl for more, more, more court time and greater fees.

Taylor is record for more legal battles no matter how much the City of Chicago gives away.  Not only legal battles, but political battles,” said Flint Taylor, who represents several men who accused Mr. Burge and others of torturing them while at Area 2 violent-crimes unit of the police department on the Far South Side in the 1970s and ’80s. “This is just one phase in the long struggle against police torture.”

Police officer and author Martin Preib has pulled apart the author of the Burge Mythology -John Conroy.

Conroy made The Chicago Reader the Norton Anthology of Burge Myths; however, John Conroy was discharged from the Chicago Reader, never found work on any news paper, magazine, or electronic media server, but landed a post at DePaul University after a very brief time with Andy Shaw's BGA.

Mr. Conroy never responded to Martin Preib's critique of his methodology.  Why is that?

Nevertheless, John Conroy will be kept busy and his story line will continue as Carol Marin and others play the Polyanna do-gooders.

Perhaps, William Crawford's new book on this cottage industry tied to police brutality mythology and duplicitous Wrongful Conviction Complex of journalists, criminals, lawyers and activists will wake some people up.  I hope so.



More kids will be slaughtered. If it bleeds it leads. If it gets in a column, G. Flint Taylor makes money.

The scent of easy money, like the taste for blood can not be sated.




* “…Former FBI agents have told Village Voice Media the basis for their belief that the Weather Underground was behind McDonnell's murder. The agents have revealed that two credible eyewitnesses — both former left-wing radicals tied to the Weathermen — gave detailed statements to investigators in the 1970s alleging that Dohrn and Howard Machtinger, another member of the group, were personally involved in organizing the deadly attack. Both witnesses claimed to have participated in meetings where the bombing was planned, and one confessed to having cased the police station for the Weathermen prior to the explosion,” wrote the River Front Times.  Martin Preib

**The centerpiece of the Conroy article are the claims of Hobley’s attorneys that a gas can found by detectives at the crime scene the day after the murders vindicated Hobley. This gas can was evidence of a police frame-up, according to the attorneys. The controversy over the gas can eventually led to a long evidentiary review. A judge eventually ruled that there was nothing about the gas can sufficient to overturn Hobley’s conviction. Martin Preib

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/27/us/27cncburge.html