"Hey, Have You Heard About The Pallium?" Who has not?

That's the pallium! The white thing with crosses around the neck and over the shoulders of Archbishop Blase Cupich, when the pallium was invested recently, after much media attention and breathless anticipation.

Archbishop Blase Cupich has the Pallium. NBC, ABC, WGN and every newspaper (including a very special edition of the Catholic New World ) in Chicago has talked about the pallium conferred upon Chicago's Archbishop by Pope Francis and sent through the Papal Nuncio to Archbishop Blase Cupich.

The Catholic pallium is, according to the Catholic Encyclopedia, ". . .  is a circular band about two inches wide, worn about the neck, breast, and shoulders, and having two pendants, one hanging down in front and one behind. The pendants are about two inches wide and twelve inches long, and are weighted with small pieces of lead covered with black silk. The remainder of the pallium is made of white wool, part of which is supplied by two lambs presented annually as a tax by the Lateran Canons Regular to the Chapter of St. John on the feast of St. Agnes, solemnly blessed on the high altar of that church after the pontifical Mass, and then offered to the pope. The ornamentation of the pallium consists of six small black crosses — one each on the breast and back, one on each shoulder, and one on each pendant. The crosses on the breast, back, and left shoulder are provided with a loop for the reception of a gold pin set with a precious stone. The pallium is worn over the chasuble."

Got that?  It is piece of garment; it is a symbol of a shepherd being a shepherd.

I have been kind of amazed by the news coverage this summer about the pallium. Does an Irish American family in St. Barnabas Parish call the Beverly Review and Can-TV the first time young Eamon, or Mickey dons his first South Side Irish shirt , green Sox Side Irish hat and over-sized  khaki cargo shorts?  Does a De LaSalle Institute lad with bloodlines linking 24th & Oakley to Lucca in Old Tuscany get his folks to rent out Ignotz for a feast and shout to all and sundry that his Pop bought him his first Three-pack of Haines 'Wife Beaters' for summer street wear?  I just don't know.

I have been a Catholic for three score and almost four years and have yet to see the level of news worthy importance placed upon an article of ecclesiastical clothing placed upon the shoulders of an ecclesiastic.



In fact, I do not remember The Eighth Ordianry of Chicago, nor his attendants making much of an issue about the pallium.  Maybe , they did.  Any way the pallium is on the shoulders of Ninth Ordinary and any and all news tangent to being Catholic in Chicago is pallium centered.  Now, even ABC 7's I Team Honcho Chuck Goudie, probably knows what a pallium is all about. By the way, the late Francis Cardinal George, O.M.I. had a pallium and a Red Hat . . .several red hats, but he only seemed to be impressed by the collar he always wore with his black clerical shirt and coat.

I don't know.  I think there might be some things, you know, like all of the things that Francis Cardinal George thought was important, might be newsworthy.  What do I know?

Perhaps, this is signal by the media that there is new age of really good feeling for Catholics, so long as matters of Faith get tucked away. Perhaps.

I know that Archbishop Blase Cupich is wearing the pallium. Cool.

Chicago's Club of the UnClubbable

  

Above - Mycroft Holmes - Below Mike Houlihan in manly Pre-Labor Day Panama tan suit gives a stern temperance lecture to an obviously clubbable and reed thin chap at a charitable event. Absent from this charitable event were members of Chicago's Union League Club.


Mycroft and Sherlock Holmes, the talented and cerebral sons of Bob and Tess Holmes, coal carters from Yorkshire, remind me of Mike Houlihan: Like Mycroft, Mike Houlihan is cerebral, philosophical and poetic:Mike Houlihan - Author, Actor, Playwright, Film Director, Columnist, Patriot, Wit, Gadabout, Free-Spender, Arch-Goodguy, Pugilist, Censor.

Like Mycroft given to deep thought to the point of ennui:

...he has no ambition and no energy. He will not even go out of his way to verify his own solutions, and would rather be considered wrong than take the trouble to prove himself right. Again and again I have taken a problem to him, and have received an explanation which has afterwards proved to be the correct one. And yet he was absolutely incapable of working out the practical points...

– Sherlock Holmes, speaking of his brother in "The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter"

From our friends at Wikpedia

And yet like Sherlock (- Ratiocinator extraordinaire, dope fiend, tobacconist, actor par excellence, musician, grifter, and wower of hot chicks) a man of the world, .

Houli is a complex man of universal tastes and inclinations - at once private and thoughtful and concurrently a Rabelaisian Rounder of the First Order.

Mike Houlihan,an 18th Century man of Johnsonian ( Samuel Johnson ) exertions and talents trapped in a faux-Edwardian world of stuffed shirts and phonies.

Houli got clubbed by the membership committee of the Union League Club - a dusty and pretentious convention center for low-brows with American Express Gold Cards. He was deemed 'unclubbale' - to use Dr. Johnson's 18th Century coinage. His heartache cried up to dry our eyes from the pulpy pages of Cliff Carlson's Irish American Magazine and made them moist with brotherly understanding - Page 28 - click my post title for the link:

Here is a poignant passage:

Of course I’m happy now that I
couldn’t join their club. Who wants
to go where they’re not wanted? But
these schmucks wouldn’t even put it in
writing, no letter, just the word passed
on to me, “Sorry you’re not our kind
darling.”
It’s all for the best. I couldn’t afford
it now anyway. However I would suggest
they remove the word “Chicago”
from their moniker at the Union League
Club. As Eddie Vrdolyak once said, “In
Chicago, we don’t stab you in the back,
we stab you in the front!” Well not
these guys.
So I will take pride in their snub and
remember my mother’s words “the bitter
lesson is best taught”. It’s what I got for
sticking my nose into a wasps nest.
Of course I forgive them and even
though I may announce to the world that
the Union League Club can kiss my fat
Irish ass, I’m actually, in my own way,
just turning the other cheek

Christian Gentleman to the backbone!

Houli, My Dear Fellow, a man of your expanded worth should not be confined, much less defined by a membership. You do more in a day than most of the Union League Club's overpaid ambulance chasers in two-tone broadcloth $400 shirts do a lifetime.

Who was it that said 'Study everything; join nothing?'

Mike Houlihan's Giant's eyes take in the cant and hypocrisy of our world right here in Chicago. This man is not Clubbable? Pish Posh!

Houli, enact a Club without Walls; found an Association without a Membership Committee. Make it an open membership to whomever you have the grace with whom you deign to congress.

To the phonies, snobs, louts, boors, tightwads - you might be unclubbable.

The Chicago Tribune's Complete Blackout of Aurora Planned Parenthood Protest is Another Disgrace by Print News

Last Saturday, August 22, 2015, while I was enjoying myself at the Leo High School Black and Orange Football Kickoff, thousands ( yes, that is correct) thousands of good people protested the massive, fortress -like Planned Parenthood facility in Aurora, Illinois.

This Planned Parenthood abortion mill looks like a blockhouse protected by God's seedlings - trees ironically called the 'tree of life' in its Latin cognomen. Now, these are tall poplar type trees.  Ask a Tribune investigative reporter what the actual name of the tree happens to be.  I know, but I'd rather you ask a Tribune story hound.  Warts will vanish quicker than you will get a response.

You, see is a huge story here and the Chicago Tribune editorial board is run by Bruce Dold and Bruce Dold likes to have mealy mouthed politicians think well of him,  Tribune reader be damned.  This story has roots and limbs and all sorts of living and breathing components, just like the human beings that Planned Parenthood slaughters daily,  Bruce Dold wants this story hidden in the Tribune's 'News Womb"' with the factual umbilical snug around the neck.

This protest is linked to the national outrage over the release of the Planned Parenthood videos, but there is so much more going on in Aurora, Illinois local government and its role in doing the bidding of Planned Parenthood.

The Chicago Tribune ignores a hot story about the dicey manner in which Aurora government officials grease the way for this Planned Parenthood Abortion Mill's development an construction.

This Abortion Mill in Aurora is on thin legal ice.

No Tribune ink-slinger will tell you why, because no Tribune ink-slinger will get the task of asking any questions.

I read John Kass on-line and with Face Book.  John Kass is a heroic enemy of the American Holocaust. There are other great sources of accurate information on this national disgrace smeared with political grease paint, just like Ms. Richards and other Prada drapped dowagers of death.

A nurse from Oak Lawn who has had a Terry Cosgrove, Illinois Personal PAC, Dick Durbin and Eric Zorn pinned to her back for decades tells the accurate story. Read Jill Stanek.and turn to the sports coverage in the two rags that pass for Chicago news daily papers.

As to the Sun Times, I read only articles by Dan Mihalopoulos, Tim Novak and the estimable Natasha Korecki and the sports pages.  They stopped being anything other than Cook County PR sheet years ago.

There is a TOTAL news black out of Saturday's Planned Parenthood protest in Aurora. The Chicago Tribune editorial board is so completely wired into the murderous dowagers who support Planned Parenthood ( Personal PAC Illinois) that there is ZERO mention of this protest in Chicago Tribune on line's front page. The myth that the print media is the only 'real news' and that anywhere else one only obtains dubious reports is no longer' a dog that won't hunt' but dog of an idea that is deader than innocents slaughtered by Cecile Richards, Barack Obama, Dick Durbin and the mealy mouthed Tribune's Bruce Dold. http://www.chicagotribune.com/

Bruce Dold - at least admit you will never take up the cause of the innocents.

Hackers Reveal Hickey as a Madison Client

 Computer hackers gained access to the entire database of Ashley Madison, a dating website for people who want to have affairs, and posted the names of all 37 million users on the internet. Around 115,000 are reported to be Irish. Irish Examiner

Yes, I have cheated, treated myself in the doing with fine Dolly Madison Products.!  Here's my Peeps!

Check, Please ? I Think Not. The Epic Crime of Dine and Dash Should be on Public Television

We are soooo not paying!

Instead of self-absorbed, affluent and very transient Urban Foodies( Like these mimosa sucking cretins below) and scions of old Kenya who sleep in the White House, Chicago's own public television should produce a show with real bust-outs, louts, rum-pots and deadbeats from the Rainbow of Gender who beat the check. 

I have watched Check, Please on PBS ( WTTW - Wilmette Talking to Winnetka) whenever the paint had dried, or the grass had yet to rise above my thick and manly calf and been thoroughly repulsed by smarmy, self-important, thumb-dummy handlers of I-phones who send back orders and sniff Mogan David and Chateauneuf du Pape with matching contempt and yet complain that " This beer is nowhere near Hoppy Enough!"  Every time I watch PBS programming I get that old feeling. That now is the time for the all-too-human rubber band that holds our sanity together to go boink and then grab the Bowie knife, my sling shot and burlap bag full of ball bearings( I hate guns) and go hunting for Urban Adventurers in Lincoln Park, Lincoln Square and only a small sections of Logan Square and  Hyde Park as well as portions my own neighboring Beverly.  Wicker Park, Ukrainian Village are populated by young, hip and generally cynical young 'uns who can't stand PBS/WTTW either. Closer to home folks in Morgan Park, Mount Greenwood and all of Black Chicago seem populated with patriots and people of prayerful good sense.

I would love to see Dine and Dash Chicago.  Just recently the Northwest Indiana Times reported on a Chicago Cub Jersey festooned . . .(what's the word I am looking for . . .wait, wait; don't tell me) . . .lummox who beat Buffalo Wild Wings of Porter out of a ound personal gorging  and guzzling that totaled a little more than Half a Yard.

PORTAGE | Police are seeking the public's help identifying a suspect in multiple dine-and-dash incidents.
Police on Thursday released a photo of a man they said failed to pay his bill Aug. 13 at Buffalo Wild Wings, 6530 U.S. 6.
Police said he failed to pay for $51.67 worth of food and drinks.
Police said the man in the photo wearing a Cubs jersey has used the name Terry at the restaurant.Anyone with information is asked to contact Detective Cpl. Ted Uzelac at (219) 764-5707.

Imagine, a thirty minutes long weekly docu-drama with real people empaneled to present and discus their experiences of cheating bartenders, waiters, waitresses and restaurant owners out of tips and purchases!

Our host could be a toothsome young gusher from Lincoln Park who would chirp. 'Tonight,  we, . . . Ah,. . . some random, Ah, . . . You now Okay dashers.  Tim originally from MacMansionland Naperville and now stays in McKinley Park will tell us about beating the check at Tufano's Vernon Park Tap.  Tim, you, ah, just got of Ok, . . .Illinois Rehab . . .but had a Um great meal?  Right? "

Tim,  a soul patched and tattooed Occupy Chicago veteran and  hipster living in McKinley Park, because Bridgeport is so 2010, is wearing a colorful and thick Heavy wool Toque and 'I Love Spam' t-shirt under and open flannel ginoormous-checked shirt, replies" It was, So kind.  I started with eight Blue Moons at the bar, 'cuz they make you wait, and I told this old lady that I had stuff to do later and she was all like 'Sinatra waits; you wait.' whatever and this random guy like a cop says to mind my manners or he'll give a slap and I'm like 'that's harsh!' So, then the old lady says, I can sit done, but I've had seven Blue Moons and I said - "Hey I'm enjoying my cocktails." The cop-like guy, probably from Homan Square and up for going all Burge and Gitmo on me gets up and I'm like 'Okay!'  So, I get a table near these breeders and their kids which is cool, because it's always better to have a crowded place to beat the check and I get another old lady who says 'What can I get you?' and I'm like '2016 Pitchfork Passes, Granma!'  Not cool I guess but I order a bottle of Layer Cake Primitevo and the fried calamari, two orders of pizza bread and salad. Then I got the Tufano's Lemon Chicken and potatoes. Now, I'm stuffed and buzzed.  I got cannoli to go. Now, this is sweet.  I get up and pretend to go to the toilet and stand there like some old dude is like still in there and so I go stand next to cop guy at the bar, like I'm interested in the sports game hockey, or something and wave to an imaginary guy I know near the door and shout, " Dude! This place is Sweet!' and act like I'm going to shake his hand and then out the door.

Chirpy, the half-wit daughter of an Obama bundler from Evanston, squeals, " Sweet! What a total scam.  But tell us what followed."

Tim, feigns bashful, " This  huge dude parking cars grabs me and tosses me in the street and shouts that I'm like lucky this neighborhood gentrified, cuz if it had been twenty years ago at The Sisters, or the Nut House I 'd be in a sewer in pieces and then he gets all harsh-up on me and then I'm like in Illinois Rehab and a dude from Peoples Law Office files a wrongful beat-down suit against them and tells me I should score big when they get the right judge. Whatever."

Yep, that would be sweet and so 2015 Chicago.

The next guests - Alderman Proco Joe Moreno and CPS CEO Forrest Claypool.

Leo High School Plans Television Production Studio ( WCHI NEWS)

Leo High School begins its 90th year of serving Chicago with a new opportunity - a television production studio.

A donor has provided a studio ( WCHI NEWS) and all of the equipment to begin giving Leo students the chance to learn television production skills in front of and behind the cameras.

This digital television production studio will eventually be directed and operated by Leo students and advisors from the school and colleges like Columbia College, as well as media professionals from Chicago.

President Dan McGrath and the donor conducted a series of meetings this summer to discuss feasibilty and implementaion of the gift.

 Chicago Actress Kara Zediker with Bill Figel (Leo '73 and President Dan McGrath ( Leo '68)

On August 18th McGrath's Committee met in the Leo Board to set immediate goals. Leo Alumnus, retired Sun Times Sports writer and PR executive William Figel*, Chicago based actress and Columbia College Alumna Kara Zediker **and Editor John Weeks of WCHI News offered counsel.  This committee agreed after two hours that the month of September provided our students with three big school events for student reports.

It was determined to immediately get equipment into the hands of the students and begin shooting footage with the goal of having enough skills to cover three events in September

• Chicago Sports Team visit ( as yet must be kept secret)  at Leo September 15th
• Entrepreneur and scion of the Jackie Robinson legacy, David Robinson’s Visit September 16th
• West Point Cadet and Leo Boxing Event September 19th

Students will begin shadowing WCHI's John Weeks and other tech savvy pros in the editing. sound mixing and animation in production.

 Leo High School  will begin the process of resourcing student talent from Columbia College, who will supervise students along with a moderator from Leo High School, as interns gaining academic credit for hours served. Interns will help Mr. Weeks in training cameramen, sound and animation production, lighting gaffers and script production and editing.

With footage and some practice in editing our goal will be to have a basic quality product to show prospective parents, use in recruitment, put up on You Tube, and attach to grant requests.
 Leo VP, football coach and father figure Mike Holmes showed the Media Resource Center to John Weeks being constructed in the old Leo library at the moment.

This is an opportunity that comes at no better time in the proud history of Leo High School. .

* Mr. Figel teaches Leo's Journalism Course - pro bono.

** Ms. Zediker appeared recently on NBC's Chicago PD and may soon grace the small screen on Chicago Med. 

How Leftists Looted a Charity - Chuck Feeney's Money Went to Build Goverment Policy and Not Help People

MacArthur will narrow its focus to address global climate change and reform the U.S. criminal justice system - Julie Stasch,President of the MacArthur Foundation

“I can only surmise that you underestimate, or perhaps wish not to engage with, my misgivings about, and objections to, Atlantic’s current grant making focus, the structure of the board and certain of its practices, and a number of operational aspects, including ever-increasing staff numbers and elevated overhead costs.” Feeney reiterated that he was less exercised about “social justice” as a philanthropic theme than he was about whether it was “a worthy use of our resources - from Chuck Feeny Fights Back

Big Charities ( Ford, Hearst, Polk Brothers, Joyce, MacArthur, Annenberg & etc.) 

Chuck Feeney* is one of my personal heroes.  He is working class, Irish Catholic from Elizabeth, NJ who through his own genius amassed a fortune and decided to help people.  Mr. Feeney came from the same background as me, but in much tougher times.  Feeney grew up in Depression/WWII New Jersey and witnessed how Irish immigrants and Irish Americans squeezed out a living and managed to share with their less fortunate neighbors.

When Feeney made billions of dollars with his Duty Free Airport shops, he decided to give away most of what he had earned.  He formed Atlantic Philanthropies and 501(c) 3 organization dedicated to making better world.  He formed a board, as did John MacArthur here in Chicago, and trusted people to make good use of his money.  In 1981, Chicago based John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation purged its board of any and all member with "conservative" inclinations, like former Secretary of the Treasury William Simon. Atlantic Philanthropies did likewise.

However, Chuck Feeney fought back.  Here is a detailed story of how Marxist and Left Leaning activists abuse philanthropy. Click Chuck Feeney's name in the first paragraph to read the full story.

This is very long, very clearly written piece.  I will merely cut and paste the conclusion for you here below, but do read the study in its entirety - Public Policy is not Philanthropy.  The Public Policy Pirates and people who hate how Chuck Feeney made his fortune work with political leeches and agenda driven activists to make this world, more hungry, less free and very dangerous.

Conclusion
Chuck Feeney initially sought anonymity as he gave away his fortune, but he is now very much a public figure. In that anonymous January 2010 letter, Feeney’s friends said they hoped he himself would make public the story of how AP’s board grew deaf to the wishes of its founder—as paraphrased by O’Clery, “so that those who might follow [Feeney] could benefit from his mistakes as well as his successes.” That would include the matter of how hard Feeney had to fight to preserve his vision for his own foundation versus that of certain board members.
Feeney’s story contains an obvious lesson about protecting donor intent, one that this writer imagines is being very carefully, if quietly, studied by individuals and families who have already endowed, or are considering endowing, some of their wealth to foundations.
On that score, there’s a telling moment in the book where Feeney, Bill Gates, and future AP CEO Christopher Oeschli are sitting together in January 2011. Oeschli asks Gates about his experience with “outside advisors” in running a foundation. “We discovered they bring an agenda and ego of their own,” Gates says.
As Feeney’s own story shows, that agenda and ego can clash directly with a donor’s stated, expressed intent. But a donor does not have to simply cave in when that intent comes under attack. The donor doesn’t have to accept the attacks, or be intimidated by self-important “advisors” on a foundation board with august pedigrees or overfed egos.
If there’s a lesson in Feeney’s experience, it might be (paraphrasing Esther Forbes’ novel Johnny Tremain) that “a donor can stand up.”
Neil Maghami’s most recent piece for CRC was “Tom Steyer, the New Paladin of the Left” (Foundation Watch, August 2014).

FW to friends.

*Charles Francis "Chuck" Feeney is an Irish-American businessman and philanthropist and the founder of The Atlantic Philanthropies, one of the largest private foundations in the world

Collecting Water Using Only a Beachball, or Dialog With a Progressive

Progressives constantly call people to dialog with them.  Most human beings converse, share ideas, do the old verbal gambit.  There is give and take. The Progressive opens with previously drawn conclusion

• Police torture black people 24/7 and use Homan Square as their Racist Gitmo
• Marriage is only about emotion
• President Obama errs not
• Bicycles and their riders are above the law
• Blackhawks Patrick Kane raped a girl, because it was in the news and he is a sports figure and right-winger . . .on the ice

Disagree and get dismissed. I was told by a very talented and well educated young man with sterling career as a journalist and with whom I have spent some very happy moments, to stay off of his Facebook and other means of communication, because I said that it seemed like the accused but not charged hockey player was being set up for extortion according to eye-witnesses.  That is disappointing.   An educated man not just uninterested in one side of story, but censorious

That is the current spiritus mundi and that person's problem. Emotions are not facts and pre-drawn conclusions not truth.  Truth has always  a moveable feast for Progressives from the day John Dewey shared his treacle become gospel. 

You see, nowadays. there is only group thought ( read Daily Kos or other Progressive site commentaries) and no grey area, no doubts and above all there certainly is no God. Progressives also reject 'shared truths' -apriori. Shared truths are what bring people together.  Without shared truths, politics and government can provide millions of dollars to people who teach, advocate and legislate for the final solution to shared truths.That is why my Eurpean blood kin the  Irish people, who in reality are most welcoming generous and loyal people, rail against the Jew Media and Israel, support Hezbollah, smuggle weapons into Gaza along with Palestinian relief and agree that Pre-Obama America must be brought low. It is a head-scratcher, reading the Kerryman, or the Irish Examiner to find that school children in my grandmother's hometown, Cahirciveen were trained by a teacher to be Jew baiters at Christmas time in 2013.

Israeli journalist, Sarah Honig, was in Ireland to celebrate the mutual love for freedom between the Israelis and the Irish an and learned that the worm had definitely turned. Trocaire a thickly Marxist organization is much like the hijacked former charities here in Chicago ( MacArthur Center for Justice & etc.) dedicated to dividing people and damn the cost.  I read for a living and tend to remember what I read.  More importantly, many former 501(c) 3 charities were boarded and seized by Marxist buccaneers in the late 1980's and 90's and redirected the money of MacArthurs, Annenbergs and others from charitable purposes to identify and agenda political cooperatives. The news media paints these Marxist in inoffensive pink and purple and yellow pastels and the dodge works.  Most people believe the philanthropic dodge and dismiss any thought of chicanery.  Most people are so much nicer than I happen to be, "  The Easter Bunny in front of the Walgreens is really an axe-murderer, but he looks so cute!  Let's take the kids to play with him."

Trocaire and the local school abused kids. 

Santa hat wearing school kids were raising money to be given to Trocaire to plant olive trees for the Palestinians in the town of Daniel O'Connell - The Liberator, explained that Palestinians were suffering at the hands of the evil Jews.  Their teacher had shared his OxBridge BBC Talking Points with these children, which happen to be reinforced by RTE ( Irish Radio and Television) and too many in the Irish Government especially President Michael Higgins, a fierce enemy of Pre-Obama America and Israel.  

Presenting ideas to Progressive, much less gaining any hearing whatsoever, is like collecting water with a beachball.  

Leo High School Begins Its 90th Year of Service to Chicago

Leo High School will be 90 years old on September 9, 2016.  The school opened on that day in 1926.  !926 was the year that

• Chicago's Blackhawks took to the ice for the first time
• Vitners Foods began making their snack products
• Rainbow Cone scooped pistachio, chocolate and orange sherbert over vanilla icecream

We serve this city and produce great products.

Here are only a very few of the productive people who light the way for Leo Men to come.

General Thomas P. Gerrity ( Leo 1930) - father of Air Force Missiles and Logistics

Thomas A. Murphy ( Leo 1934) CEO of General Motors during its Golden Age

Dr. James B. Hartney ( Leo 1939) Pathologist and Hero of Our Lady of Angels Fire

Frank Considine (Leo 1939) - CEO of National Can and the man who modernized Egypt's Economy for Anwar Sadat

John P. Fardy (Leo 1940) - Congressional Medal of Honor Recipient

Dr. Stafford Hood ( Leo 1970) University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Department of Curriculum and Instruction

Andre Brown (class of 2000), NBA forward (2006–present).

Thomas R. Fitzgerald (class of 1959), retired chief justice of the Illinois Supreme Court

Jason Jefferson (class of 1998), NFL defensive lineman (2005-08).

Jim O'Toole (class of 1955), Major League Baseball pitcher, starter for National League in 1963 All-Star Game

Chris Watson (class of 1995), NFL defensive back (1999–2003).

Multipy these great men by twenty five and you will have an accurate understanding of why Leo High School means so much to this city.

From all this we may learn that there are two races of men in this world but only these two. The race of the decent man and the race of the indecent man. Both are found everywhere, they penetrate into all groups of society. No group consists entirely of decent or indecent people. In this sense no group is of pure race. Viktor Frankl, author, physcian and Holocaust Survivor

Why Anyone Would Side With Donald Trump Is Beyond Me.

' Megyn Kelly,dyed her hair/DooDah, Doodah!"

I like billionaires.  I can safely say, that I know two billionaires, one is a Chicago real estate developer ( as is Trump) and the other makes plush toys.  The two billionaires that I know are gentlemen to the backbone, witty, kind, hard-working and very generous.

Then there is Donald Trump.

I first became Trump conscious in 1988, while teaching at La Lumiere School in LaPorte, Indiana.  My wife and I ran a dorm called Becket House on the heart-breakingly beautiful campus hugging a spring fed lake.  We had twenty three young gents of the junior class in our charge and one of them was Murph.  Murph was a delight.  He has a Fred Flintstone mug attached to a head that was the size of a boulder in a Gene Autry western, to paraphrase Skinny Sheahan.  Murph wanted to be a billionaire.  He was a rock-ribbed David Stockman/Ronald Reagan/Russell Kirk Republican from the far western suburbs of Chicago.  Murph was built like a bull and owned a generous, merry-hearted  savagery that was delight to watch from the sidelines of Laker football.  He loved combat and dominated  at middle linebacker, but was a sucker for the draw play. Murph!!!!!!!!  Don't Blitz on Every GD Play!!!!!!

I had Murph in English class and he constantly topped off his armful of books with Trump: The Art of the Deal.  I caught the lad yellow marking this flabby tome, when he should have been reading Billy Budd, during each day's mandatory two and 1/2 hour silent study in the dorm.  I was perched at my desk in the common room situated between our living quarters and ten double occupant rooms of my charges and did my work as well as hush up the lads, look for and confiscate walk-men buzzing with Dead Head tapes, wake up sleepers and generally maintain the sanctity of study.  This required that I get off my broad manly ass and manage by walking around.

Murph was an incorrigible.  Sleep? You bet.  Eat his Korean dormy's candy?  Check!  Read the Art of the Deal?  Only when not sleeping, or eating imported Haitai Cherry Marus from the Heedon's round metal candy box. More than the Asian confections, Murph stuffed himself with The Art of Deal.

" Murph!  Eighty Six that idiot's tripe!"

" Mr. Hickey, Trump's a genius and you're just a Thackeray geek."

"Notwithstanding. Get to work on your weekly essay.  It is Thursday and you have yet to write alick."

" I'm on it. Hey what is Mary making us? Damn she can cook, Hick Old Man."

I read the book. It is crap-doodle, ghosted by the guy who says that high energy is counter productive.  Really?  Relax and make millions?

I could never get Murph to abandon Trump.  I admire that in a man - fierce loyalty.  I am pretty much like that myself.  Hell, I'm still a Democrat. Don't look like one, but I am. Loyalty is vital.  Bad people manage to win the loyalty of good people.

There is nothing about Donald Trump, that could induce me to walk across a small carpet to meet him.  Not interested.  I know hustlers and users.  I have been in education since 1975 and that industry is jam-packed with creeps, grifters and protected incompetents.  Donald Trump might have made splendid member of the Obama Administration had he not gone on his four decades of gilted national hustle. He just might become President.

Donald Trump is backed by the Eugene Robinson, Chris Matthews, CBS, New York Times, Washington Post, Obama's Jornolistseses, Rachel ( "I'm Backin' Ya, Butch!") Maddow George Soros, Planned Parenthood, the League of Progressives, Rahm Emanuel, and millions of Howard Beal Tea Party Libertarian Pro-Lifers.

After the debate Trump's fans went NYC wilding on Megyn Kelly, who gave Mr. Hair Club for Men a kick in the nuts unparalleled since the fight between Butch Cassidy and Harvey Logan



Me?  I like Megyn Kelly and she has Trump on the ropes.

I wonder how Murph is doing?  God, I loved that kid!

Tonight's 2016 GOP Presidential Debate - Suicide is Painless

I expect tonight's GOP Presidential Candidate Debate for the 2016 Run for Office to look like the mass suicide cave scene from Clint Eastwood's brilliant Letters from Iwo Jima.

The ten candidates who made the FOX NEWS cut will have a golden opportunity to commit the Dutch Act before the largest expected audience in history.

They will not need CNN's John King, or PBS's Gwen Ifil to play gottcha; in fact, it will be a comfortable setting for the Party that always manages to blow off its own toes to self-destruct. The theme music from the 1969 movie M.A.S.H. would be a deft touch. 

Donald Trump will win the debate, not because he is the best candidate, but because he is the biggest loser on the stage and all of the other in-the-tank media outlets will glory in his oafish swinishness and place the debate laurels deeply upon his Hair Club for Men noggin.

This may also be the shark that FOX News has yet to bound over. 

Ruminams et sobrii civis cavete! 

Inside Out - Leo High School and a Little Flower Learning Moment Killed by PC

 

Little Flower Lancers: 1966-67  15 - 11   Palos Hills District Champions     
                             Thanksgiving Tourney Champions                             District Scores                                Semi-final Beat Stagg 85-42                             Title Game Beat St. Francis de Sales 69-66                             Oak Lawn Regional Tournament                                        

I am here at Leo High School every morning with the chirping of the birds, sometime between 4 AM and 5AM,depending on my duties to attend, or my level of laziness. This is a good time to get some work done and to write down ideas for development that might benefit this great old school.

In the winter months, I go directly to the boiler room and start up the furnaces.  It does not take long to heat up this well-constructed ninety year old gem and in the summer months my windowless inner cubicle gets hotter than the hinges of Hell.

Please, remember that I am talking about the building, a four story 32,000 square foot pile of concrete, ree-bar, wood, conduit, pipes, carpet and furniture.  It is not a school until at least one scholar arrives to learn and another to teach. Only then, does the place I drive to each morning become a school.
A school is a gathering of scholars usually disciples and a master, or masters.  From the Middle Ages all the way to the day John Dewey destroyed the notion of shared truth, students were called discipuli and the teacher magister. Latin was the langiuage of scholarly discourse.

In my lifetime, I witnessed the euthanizing of Latin and the Death of God by academics and churchmen.  Latin was deemed irrelevant, the vernacular ascended to Parnassus and the Vatican dome.  That is too bad.  The mystery of learning has gone the way of sacred liturgy -no mystery and no beauty.  Education means punching one's ticket for entry to something else.

Good teaching only comes from good scholars.  These days, paper means scholarship. Teacher certification is the stamp on the back of one's hand to the very special velvet roped section of Club Career marked education.

A good teacher has some capacity to articulate the facts, opinions, concepts and skills mastered over number of years in schools, or other occupations.  Two men who would recoil, if one called them scholars gave me a special learning moment. A young self-absorbed priest more concerned with social justice and artificial peace killed that moment.

I was in eighth grade when Little Flower High School Basketball was making a name for itself.  Parish founder and beating heart Monsignor McMahon was placed on Emeritus status and replaced by a nice guy, who allowed John Cardinal ( Louisiana Fats) Cody to systematically destroy the parish which featured a magnificent campus comprising the church, rectory, a fruit orchard grammar school and high school.  The grammar school was free to parishioners and high school almost free ( my 1969-70 tuition was $ 80).  We had many good teachers who volunteered their time, or received an almost invisible stipend for services - some were not even Illinois State Certified.

In my eighth grade year, we went to the community center in the high school - a state of the art gymnasium - to watch the Lancers on the hardwood.  These were athletic and graceful young men who had been coached by Tom Spatz (Leo '58) and Jim Dolan ( Leo '54).  They were magnificent human beings and they worked long and hard hours with us.

We (8th graders) were spazes. Uncoordinated bones and skin attached to undisciplined brain pans.

These two men, the  best PE teachers I ever had in all of my years of schooling,  made all of the boys in our class learn close order drill. Veterans Jim Dolan and Tom Spatz attempted to de-spaz thirty or more eleven year olds, by combining commands and movements: "Step with your left foot, Hickey! Your other LEFT!  Jesus Christ, did you have polio when you were younger, or are you deaf?"

We were awkward (spazmodic), graceless, distracted and chaotic, as all boys are, until we learned to keep pace, time and balance on command.

One the assistant priests, at Little Flower, a social engineer of the Msgr. Reynold Hillenbrand stamp complained that Spatz and Dolan were turning us precious little boys into goosestepping storm troopers and the weak pastor bowed to political correctness.  Close order drill no more, Mr. Dolan de-volunteered and Mr. Spatz stuck to basketball.

We went back to spaz. In four years, Cardinal Cody sold the filled to capacity and debt free Little Flower High School and Community Center to the Chicago Board of Education.  The parish closed in 1993.

Father Cupcake saved us from the goosestep and Msgr, Go-Along made nice with Louisiana Fats.

Thus, a school activity that was deemed irrelevant by a person not engaged in the activity, whatsoever, was legislated out of existence The rise of the pest, the pain-the-ass in the vernacular, had dawned.

Good teaching has nothing to do with State Certification, Inquiry, or political correctness.

Just saying.

The Goldsteining of Pastor Corey Brooks by Action Now and Illinois Democrats and Media

So, I'm standing in the open entrance to New Beginning Church and a couple of Blue T-Shirt Bedecked-out Volunteers ask me, " You Corey Brooks?"  Now, that was Spontaneous! I love spontaneity!  Baby's laughter.  A Great Smooch! Keeley Smith on WDCB!

Unamazzed though bemused, having listened to the Action Now "Volunteers" being warmed up for five minutes east of Martin Luther King Drive on 65th Place with chants themed to say that Pastor Corey Brooks betrayed Jesus, I replied, " No ladies, I am an aging white man. Corey Brools is a big, burly and handsome young Black man"

They smiled and moved back in line; herded by two young white people: a  guy in a pink Cape Cod cap and a chain-smoking young woman with a clipboard.  I have been off my Marlboro Reds for a couple of weeks and fought the temptation to bum a smoke from the young lady.

You see, I was at one of those community activist well-orchestrated SPONTANEOUS protests of some outrage.

The outrage du jour is Pastor Corey Brooks.  Got that?

Pastor Brooks was on his way back from the hospital, where he had accompanied members of the family of a parishioner stricken with a heart attack and picking up tubs of iced down bottled water for the two dozen chanting volunteers following Action Now cheerleader with the bullhorn and herded by Comrade Cape Cod and Virginia Slim.

Comrade Cape Cod

Virginia Slim

Popeye's Pappy

There was also an aging activist citizen journalist who looked like Popeye's Pappy,  White Progressive Privilege. Love it.  These three white folks acted like border collies for the two dozen "Volunteers."

I have the feeling that a community pantry, or shelter was the place to find activists.  One lady in blue Action Now T-Shirt agreed with me.

You see, Corey Brooks is not liked by the artificial turfed Grassroots activists allied with National, State, County and City Democrats.  He supported Bruce Rauner for Governor over Pat "JRW!!!!" Quinn. Shortly after Pastor Brooks endorsed Rauner, his church was violated. Talk about action now! Now, Action Now demands that Pastor Brooks STEP DOWN! Or, so the chanters chanted. man, you'd think Pastor Brooks asked to defund Planned Parenthood, or shot Cecil the Lion. Brooks hate abortion, like a man; howver I do not believe that he had taken up Big Game hunting.  No, he has committed thought crime.

It was this public endorsement of Rauner that caused the Goldsteining of Pastor Brooks yesterday and I first caught the mighty wind of Action Now's protest on Beachwood Reporter.  I like Pastor Brooks and called to give his church members a heads-up and stand in solidarity, as the slogan goes, with a neighbor.  I park at New Beginnings Church every morning of the school year, when I pick up Leo Students from Grand Crossing and have come to know Pastor Brooks.

Pastor Brooks, unlike too many priests, preachers and prophets in Englewood, Gresham, Grand Crossing and other desperate and blood soaked neighborhoods, is no race hustler, or grifter.  He questions support of Democrats who like to play the role of plantation boss.  He even endorsed a  Republican and Rauner, like all politicians rewarded a solid with a solid. Pastor Brooks was appointed to the Illinois Tollway Commission, which is open to African Americans as well as DuPage County Dowagers.  I believe the litmus test for such an honorific appointment is spelling Tollway. Nah, it's probably a little tougher.

Quite seriously, Action Now would demand that the African American Community deserves NO representation, because Rauner plans to destroy the African American Community. Thus the Goldsteining of Corey Brooks.

It takes mob Action Now to properly Goldstein a citizen.  Slogans, chants and T-shirts targeting the target for the day is how so-called "Grassroots" Activists assassinate a person's character. Located at 820 West Jackson in the heart of Chicago's . . .Greektown.  Two dozen activist volunteers made their way from Chicago's massive south side ( The Lake to Pulaski) Black communities, at their own expense, to board  bus to bring them to a Church in the heart of the community they just spent precious Ventra Credits to get to the bus in Greektown. Or so Virginia Slim explained, they are all volunteers and came on their own.

But arrived on a bus? Together with Action Now Alinsky Border Collies, Comrade Cape Cod, Virginia Slim and Popeye's Dad?  "One never knows, do one?" to quote Fats Waller.

I guess my tone betrays my sentiments.  Pastor Corey Brooks was targeted by some Democrat, or a rival activist priest, pastor or prophet, or maybe he is all three rolled  in one.  Corey Brooks was targeted for political punishment.

Pastor Corey Brooks handed out water and Dunkin Donuts and Comrade Cape Cod and Virginia Slim immediately ginned up the hate.

Pastor Brooks smiled and forgave. They know not what they do.

Comrade Cape Cod, Virginia Slim and Popeye's Dad do.

Ron Gidwitz is Right About Kirk. Senator! Blow!

Marque Kirque is another in the American parade of doughy mediocrities occupying political office (Senator Dick Durbin, Rep. Mike Quigley, Orrin Hatch, John Boehner, Barack Obama, former Gov. Jeb Bush) and breathing our air.

He is the Republican United States Senator from Illinois only because of the late Judy Baar Topinka, Rod Blagojevich, Senator Emeritus Roland "Tombstone" Burris and the doughy former Illinois Governor Pat Quinn, with more than a little help from hundreds of thousands of spiritually flat-lined Illinois voters.

Marque Kirque is Dick Durbin without solid media cover.  The media will chip, Spackle and paint over ANYTHING Dick Durbin lies about, screws up, sells out, cowers from or pockets, because Dick Durbin is a national stooge for America's haters and wallet-lifters.

Marque Kirque suffered a stroke, but remains a full capacity lap-dog, whipping boy and handy vote for the ever unctuous and lip sucking Senior Senator from Illinois.

In the best of all worlds, both men would have an epiphany - realize the shabby lives they've led taking coin from Henry Van Ameringen, George Soros, Planned Parenthood USA and Mrs. Murphy of 10Sex57 S. Rockwell, Chicago, Illinois and resign, retire and repose in Sylvan glade to count their payoff money.  That only happens in a Disney movie, or Dan Savage Disney sit com.

It gets better.  Really? Can't set your watch by it.

We live in Illinois. That takes a guy with some $trength of character, $Partan values and $Parkling clean dollars.  Someone with political muscle wrapped in Benjamins . . . thousands of Benjamins.

Ron Gidwitz thinks Marque Kirque should go.  Speak on it, Ron!“I do not believe he will be a U.S. senator in 2017 and, as top of the ticket, he could cause collateral damage [to other Republican candidates]. I call on him to step aside and allow other Republicans to seek his seat,” Gidwitz told

Ron Gidwitz ran for governor and was stabbed in the back by the Illinois GOP, especially the late Judy Baar Topinka an accomplished kidney surgeon from way back ( ask George Ryan).  Ron Gidwitz would have made a superb governor. Much more honest, skilled and empathetic than Governor Rahm Rauner . . .I mean Governor Bruce Emmanuel.

Gidwitz was talking to Crain's Chicago Business and spoke his mind.

I like it.

Mr. Gidwitz backpedaled on his remarks, in the time-honored Illinois GOP tradition of blowing off ones own toes, but that does not diminish the power of his words.

Hey Marque Kirque!  Blow.  

Whiting's Pierogi Fest 2015 - Dough Matters & Odzemok on 119th Street

Today is the last day of the Whiting, Indiana 2015 Peirogi Fest - the absolute best street fest anywhere.  I have been going to Pierogi Fest since the 1990's when I lived in Griffith, Indiana. This is a celebration of people manifested in the treats prepared by busha, or jaja, depending upon ethnic origin.  For northwest Indiana, that means Slovak, Polish, Czech. Bohemian, Moldavian, Serbian or Croatian more than likely.  These folks were the manufacturers of American steel and the refiners of John D. Rockefeller's oil for the 100 years of the American Century.

The American Century seems to embarrass too many people today.  That is sad.   Sad people call the tunes too often these days - they are the ones out among the happy people with the 'equality and fairness' tape measures squawking about hurt feelings and feelings not as yet pinched.  Sad people do not celebrate, they berate, ridicule, ignore and forget.  Happy people dance! Happy people eat!  Happy people sing!  Happy people put away as much Pierogi as they can lay hands upon.

I am happy.    I spent the entire day among happy eaters and dancers: earth launched boot slapping Slovakian horn-dogs locking metaphorical antlers with other athletic swains from the valleys and meadows of the Heart of Europe in thick rut for the attentions of gorgeous, black and blue-eyed beauties in bright pink, black, green, orange and yellow dresses whirling wildly enough for this old geezer to remark "I See London; I See France!" Odzemok, Boy-oh! Three Slovak Dance Troupes from Detroit, Cleveland and Toronto wowed me.

I am happy!  I watched hundreds of kids hurling 12" softball at a modestly sized target-trigger in order to sink a little Carmelite nun into a vat of cool water.  For $ 5 you get three shots to Dunk the Nun.. I couldn't dunk a Camelite.  Had it been a Sinsinawa Dominican or a Sister of Mercy, I'd still be peeling off $20s. I donated my five and bought sister a cold beverage of malted grains.  Best believe that, Junior.


I am happy.  I spent some quality time with Mr. Pierogi, his own bad -self.

I am happy.  I spent a few Jacksons on Pierogi prepared by a landsman - Conley's Pierogis!

 I had Taco Pierogis. I had Louisiana Gator Pierogis!  I had Big Daddy's BubbaQue Pierogis.

I am Happy!  I was with people I know and Love! Neighbors who celebrate!  Sad people don't celebrate - they organize, march and howl. Happy people celebrate up a plenty!

The heat and humidity was exquisite and the massive crowd of happy people enjoying the celebration of genuine happiness was courteous to all and sundry.  Even the eight month olds were happy.

Get happy.  Get over to Whiting.



*Odzemok, considered by many to be the "national" or most typical dance of Slovakia, has been well preserved up to the present time. The physically strenuous and virtuoso movements of odzemok, along with its martial elements, make it basically a man's dance that is very special, indeed.

Variants of the dance are known throughout the Carpathian region by various names and are often referred to as "weapon dances." Such dances were originally danced by soldiers, robbers, and shepherds, but later they were also danced by the nobility. Accounts of this dance form survive from the 16th century and by the 19th century information became more profuse. Still, in this century, its vigor is quite remarkable.

Odzemok is found everywhere in Slovakia but is richest in the central and northeast parts, especially in the High Tatra Mountains.