John Kass has been Denounced by the Politburo of Small Minds

 

Inventing the Enemy uses stories of personal relationships to explore the behavior of ordinary people during Stalin's terror. Communist Party leaders targeted specific groups for arrest, but also strongly encouraged ordinary citizens and party members to “unmask the hidden enemy.” People responded by flooding the secret police and local authorities with accusations. . . . every work place was convulsed by hyper-vigilance, intense suspicion, and the hunt for hidden enemies. Spouses, coworkers, friends, and relatives disavowed and denounced each other. People confronted hideous dilemmas. Forced to lie to protect loved ones, they struggled to reconcile political imperatives and personal loyalties. Work places were turned into snake pits. The strategies that people used to protect themselves – naming names, preemptive denunciations, and shifting blame – all helped to spread the terror. Inventing the Enemy , a history of the terror in five Moscow factories, explores personal relationships and individual behavior within a pervasive political culture of “enemy hunting.”   intro to Inventing the Enemy by Wendy Z. Goldman 2011

“I denounce because though implicated and partially responsible, I have been hurt to the point of abysmal pain, hurt to the point of invisibility. And I defend because in spite of all I find that I love. In order to get some of it down I have to love... too much of your life will be lost, its meaning lost, unless you approach it as much through love as through hate.”Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man

"Political language — and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists — is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind. One cannot change this all in a moment, but one can at least change one's own habits, and from time to time one can even, if one jeers loudly enough, send some worn-out and useless phrase — some jackboot, Achilles’ heel, hotbed, melting pot, acid test, veritable inferno, or other lump of verbal refuse — into the dustbin where it belongs."  George Orwell


The Muhammad Ali of the canon of African American writers is Ralph Ellison; never the less, Black writers from James Baldwin and Leroi Jones to the second raters of our day detested Ellison as one who would not play group think.  Artificial outrages couldn't make Ralph Holler.

I love it when Progressive voices begin to rise to the level that only mutts can hear.  That is almost a daily event.

Yesterday, some writer named Stephen Gossett wrote an Old Timey Joe Stalin Amalgamated Textile and Cash Register Workers DEE-NUN-SEE-Ay-SHUN of Chicago Tribune columnist John Kass. Citing no less authoritative voices as Wonkette,

Stephen Gossett does total Battle of the Cowshed on Mr. Kass:

"John Kass' lodestar is provocation—and that has taken the Tribune columnist into some pretty ugly, even quasi-racist territory. But his latest incitement represents a new low.
First off, here's how Kass chose to introduce the column, titled "Murder numbers don't tell the story in Chicago. Shootings do," and published Thursday morning . . .

"The feral boys of #Chicago with their death sticks, a direct product of the #Democratic welfare state." Just let that rattle around for a second, then try to compose yourself.

As former Chicagoist editor Marcus Gilmer* pointed out, "feral" has become a preferred epithet for the alt-right, along the lines of "thug." And "boy," well, that sad, racist history precedes itself. This is, of course, the Trump-ian mode of public communication, borrowing "nationalistic" language and turning the dog whistle into a megaphone. But its familiarity makes it no less virulent.

The piece itself begins right away with more reprehensible language, particularly after mentioning Chicago's undoubtedly awful murder statistics"

Reprehensible language like this, " nihilistic feral boys, brandishing their guns in cars, waving their death sticks in rap videos, young African-American men who believe they have no future, waiting to die."

Nihilistic is dog whistle language for someone or some people with nothing to guide them - like a lodestar, or good Old Polaris, Stephen Gossett, but to be too provocative,myself.

Brandishing guns and waving death sticks is dog whistle language for props used in Face Book selfies by nihilistic feral boys.

You see, friends and neighbors, words matter.

When people are blocked from using the words in our language and culture by prissy little pundits with precious little to offer in the way of talent or impact,  as if a word's very existence caused genocide, famine and Skittles on the sidewalk, we end up with Hillary v. Trump.

The denunciation is a journalistic form of shunning.  It can be effective, especially when the readers have limited scope in their reading and experience, or are just dopes. It is especially effective when pleonastic sesquipedalians toss out them big words and studied up facts/

Post-factual race-baiting has been made the new normal in 2016; and now Kass seems all too content to join the worst of the fray. That's the true feral nihilism. And it's especially loathsome when its delivered by a messenger parachuting from the outer suburbs. Notice the location stamp on his tweet: the hard front lines of Berwyn.

Post-factual race-baiting has been the new normal in 2016 - hundreds of thousands of people have said so, during the global warming/climate change costume change and red carpet show.  Hey, Stephen Gossett, I read Variety, as well as Salon.

Well John Kass has been denounced as a writer of the English Language and as a suburbanite.  I know Joe Epstein lives in Evanston, but I do not think that Joe knows, or has read Stephen Gossett.

You are denounced John Kass. You and John Dos Passos, Camille Paglia, Ralph Ellison, Mark Twain. Saul Bellow,John Steinbeck, H.L. Mencken, Russell Kirk, Joseph Epstein, Walker Percy, John Kennedy Toole, P.J. O' Rourke, . . .**

* ??????????Marcus Gilmer - related to Jimmy Gilmer?

** Denunciation Alumni

“You and the other officers will not make it to court.” - The Voice of the Unschackled in Judge Tharp's Court

Yesterday, a 71 year old gentleman was shot in the stomach by two thugs on bikes in the Marquette Park neighborhood.  Though a security camera caught the act taking place, I seriously doubt if the youths will be brought to book.

Yesterday, six of the magnificent seven dressed in suits and Bill Cosby sweaters had the opportunity to study the faces of "anonymous" jurors in Judge John "Jay" Tharp's courtroom in the Dirksen Federal Building in the Hobo Trial.  Last week, Judge Tharp deemed it too prejudicial to shackle the members of the Hobo super-star coalition of gangs, even though Federal Marshalls asked that they be so restrained in the interest of safety and justice.  Judge Tharp took the Atticus Finch approach - the high-minded, think-out-of box, Yankee spit in the face of common sense, ACLU approved self-focus.
Far left -Judge John "Jay" Tharp nominated to the bench by Mark Kirk (R, Durbin) - Never Right


Appeals Court Chief Judge Richard Posner could not have done better than Judge Tharp and Posner is always playing Brutus, Clarence Darrow, or Larry David,  in the court of public opinion (media), it seems to me.

Now, people who are doing their civic duty in the American Justice system are imperiled by Judge John " Jay" Tharp's play acting To Kill a Mockingbird.

Still, the potential jurors found themselves facing the six accused Hobo gang members in Tharp’s courtroom. The allegedly violent gang members* wore suits, dress shirts and chunky sweaters as they studied the men and women who could decide their fate. Federal prosecutors have accused the men of committing nine murders, as well as a series of brazen robberies, home invasions and other crimes.
The final group of jurors will sit through a trial that is expected to last months. . . . The judge took roughly five hours to question the first 16 potential jurors from Chicago and its suburbs — a group that included a handful of retirees, a bartender, a college student and a man who has spent nearly four decades as a puppeteer. (emphases my own)

The trial will take months - that is plural sets of four weeks.  Judge Tharp is deliberate.  Now, it seems to me that in a number of months the Unshackled Hobos and their families, friends and well-wishers will manage to lift the veil of anonymity from the imperiled nine good citizens and true.  Notice that they Hobos studied the men and women who could decide their fate, from the get-go.

The Unshackled Hobos and the Hobo coalition will be in the unprejudiced position to nod signals and gesticulate interests in particular jurors to friends and family.  It does not take a Nero Wolfe, or August Dupin to come up with an identity in this City - unless of course one might be in proximity to an old man watering his lawn when two thugs bike up and shoot him.

I would rather be Nero's Mom than a juror in the Unshackled Hobo trial in Judge John "Jay" Tharp's court.

Gee, what could possibly go wrong?

*  Federal prosecutors say the Hobos, a “renegade group” of Gangster Disciples, Black Disciples and other gangs, terrorized Chicago’s South and West sides between 2004 and 2013. Among the defendants headed to trial are alleged Hobo leader Gregory “Bowlegs” Chester and alleged assassin Paris Poe.
Poe is accused of participating in the slayings of federal informant Keith Daniels and Chicago police informant Wilbert Moore. The feds also say he once threatened a police officer scheduled to testify against him, standing within two feet of the officer in a Cook County courthouse and saying, “You and the other officers will not make it to court.”

The Noble Irish Terrier

     

The over-all appearance of the Irish Terrier is important. In conformation he must be more than a sum of his parts. He must be all-of-a piece, a balanced vital picture of symmetry, proportion and harmony. Furthermore, he must convey character. This terrier must be active, lithe and wiry in movement, with great animation; sturdy and strong in substance and bone structure, but at the same time free from clumsiness, for speed, power and endurance are most essential. The Irish Terrier must be neither "cobby" nor "cloddy," but should be built on lines of speed with a graceful, racing outline. -The Irish Terrier

This morning on the way to services at St. John Fisher Catholic Church, I ran into Rocky - an eight year old Irish Terrier puppy.  These dogs stay pups until they go to heaven.  Rocky was all business yanking the leash of the young lady taking him out for his matin mouvement de l'intestin et de la miction des arbres , des souches , des poteaux et bouches.  That's French for his refreshemnt complète.

Rocky turned his attentions to me - a natural patsy for play.  He was all a shudder and whiskers.

Rocky reminded me of Leroy Hickey my dog from 1965 - 1977.  Leroy was an Irish terrier that my Dad bought off of one of my Grandfather's pals - Pete Bradley - from Scartaglen, Co. Kerry.  Pete had a bitch that pupped nine red beauties and my Dad picked the feistiest  one in the litter.  About two weeks later the Old Man took Leroy back to Pete to have his ears and tail properly clipped.

Pete had had a few.

The result. Leroy's tail was about three inches shorter than it was supposed to be and his ears were lopsided.  This is the downside of getting products, pets and promises from any 'guy I know.'

Leroy needed to shake, not only his tail and the attached money maker, but his entire being to signal delight. Other dogs took his tail-less greetings with wary approach.


The Irish Terrier breed is about 2,000 years old and was bred for protection of the home, children and to do constant warfare on rats and other vermin.  With snooty Progressive patrician WASP bigotry, the Irish Terrier was not recognized by the American Kennel Club (AKC) until 1885.  The Irish themselves much later.

Like most of the aboriginal Irish of the two-legged variety, these bastards can dig.!  Leroy would have made a great Streets and San guy. They are superb ratters.  There was not a rat within six blocks of our house and Leroy would bound over the backyard fence or front gate to get after a rat or feral cat on the B & O tracks embankment at 75th Place.  They'd go to ground and Leroy would dig them out.

They are very loyal, protective, stubborn and fearless.

Leroy had a reputation as the only dog in Little Flower Parish to have gotten the best of Bowser Lanigan - mixed mutt Rottweiller.

Irish Terriers are great with children, but very tolerant of others.

Leroy remembered Pete Bradley and would foam at the mouth whenever Pete's car pulled away from Grandpa Hickey's house at 7535 S. Marshfield and totally ape-scat if his blue Pontiac ventured west on 75th Place anywhere near our house.

I hope to see more of Rocky on my way to church. 

Out of the Mouths of Cops - People Still Speak to One Another: Inspite of City Hall

"Thank goodness for bloggers. They closed the Taverns so people could not meet and spread the word. The news in chicago is more like the propaganda ministry. If it weren't for blogges (sic) the truth would never get out." Comment from Second City Cop

 Working men and women could walk to a neighborhhod tavern at one time, Richard M. Daley put an end to all that. Ironically, it was saloon goers who became the Daley Government in Exile that made him States Attorney and then Mayor of Chicago.  How about that?

I always turn to a Chicago Police officer for the straight dope on things.  My first reads every morning come from Second City Cop (SCC) and Beachwood Reporter. SCC tells the facts of the matter, in same way that one could pick up the straight dope from a guy who was there, or knew a guy who could and usually did, get something done - like in an old time neighborhood saloon. I remember reading some stuff from a few years back that verified with actual data what I already believed from an honest man.

"In 1988, the year before Richie Daley became mayor of Chicago, 11 taverns were closed as public nuisances. The next year, there were 49. All told, between 1990 and 2005, there have been more than 1,000 license revocations citywide." Last Call for Taverns

In the days before television, people — mostly men — sought diversions in neighborhood taverns, says Michael Ebner, history professor emeritus at Lake Forest College in Lake Forest, Ill., a Chicago suburb. "There was a degree of camaraderie there and a sense of neighborliness as well," he says. "The social bonds that evolved … were quite enduring."

Home-cooked meals often were available at taverns, which became hubs of political activity and, eventually, places to watch sports events on TV. "The tradition lives on, but in sharply diminished proportion," Ebner says. . . .

In 1990, about 3,300 Chicago establishments had tavern licenses allowing them to serve alcoholic beverages; places that also offer live entertainment, charge admission or serve food as a primary source of business require different or additional licenses.
The number diminished as city leaders sought closure of bars that prompted police calls or complaints from neighbors, and since 2009, the number of tavern licenses has held steady at about 1,200. USA 2012

Richard M. Daley closed more saloons than Billy Sunday, Frances Willard and Carie Nation combined. This I know, because a man who sold bar cleaning products for forty years in Canaryville and who operated the non-PC handled Lily White Products at  635 W. 47th Street was put out of business, by Daley anti-saloon crusade.  William Schoenecker began his business by filling rinsed out empty bottles with bleach, at his home on 55th and Wells and selling them to the many saloons, taverns and restaurants in Chicago, at the time. After serving on a sub in World War Two this gentleman expanded his business and flourished, until Richard M. Daley began his progressive anti-saloon crusade.  Leo High School placed William Schoenecker's name into nomination for the Leo Hall of Fame in 1995, for his generous donations to Leo high School scholarship funds over forty years. I was tasked with doing Bill "Lily White's biography.

I asked him why he was closing his once very successful operation in Canaryville.  Bill told me, " No saloons to sell to, Kid.  Daley don't want people going to neighborhood taverns and beefing about him, or his pals.  Here in Canaryville, you have TNT's Pizza and Kelly's on Wallace and  Pat's on 43rd.  That's it.  Bridgeport - it is the same. Tome was that guys could get off work, clean up and stroll to the tavern.  Now, a guy needs wheels and after a few toddies he's got himself a drunk driving beef. Money for the City and no shared wisdom over a couple of pitchers of Old Style - that's the idea."

Daley closed neighborhood bars and used 'public safety' as an excuse.  He gamed the ordinances that would permanently void a liquor license, citing residential complaints, noise and public urination.  Fights happen in bars to be sure.  But they also happen anywhere. There are more brawls in Walmart s than saloons and Chuck-e - Cheese is the place to go for a swell donnybrook.  

Every neighborhood had a great number of local taverns.  I grew up in Little Flower and there were taverns, lounges and saloons, as well as Visit Our Tap Room liquor stores every few hundred feet from one's front porch - on Wood Street, On Wolcott, on Ashland and all along both sides of 79th Street.  I can not recall anyone ever getting a drunk driving beef.  Dads walked to Billy Ellis's Wooden House, Louie Katecki's Lou's, BH, Shannon's, the Mirror Lounge - Home of Cal Starr, Mel Collins' Sea Breeze Lounge, Sol's Tap Room, Caruso's and Casto's.  The thought of driving to a palce to 'get a drink'  was nonsense.

More than the liver, the heart, the soul and the brain were massaged in places  where Schlitz and Sunnybrook was sold - saloons were where topics ranging from the Vietnam war to the rise of First Wave Feminism were as much a topic of discussion as the hopes of Leo Durocher, or the Dreams of Dr. King.

LBJ called Richard J. Daley about the Vietnam War.  Old Man Daley opposed the war, but supported the boys doing the dying.  Mayor Richard J. Daley expressed the views of people who worked at Darling Rendering and Wrigley gum on Ashland, Spiegel Warehouse on 35th and Lee Lumber on Pershing Road spoken with heart and head in the taverns and saloons, like McGloins at Ashland and Archer Avenue in Mopetown. LBJ listened to Robert McNamara and Nixon became President.

Richard M. Daley listened to only the Robert McNamara's of his times - the University of Chicago crowd, the IVO Hyde Park Mafia and Newton Minnows.

You can not make policy where people have a voice and closing the opportunities to speak in the name of 'public safety' was a Progressive turning point in our history.

Today, people do not frequent saloons, bars, or taverns in the manner of generations of Chicagoans past.  People go to bars and get hammered.  The music is always excessively at volume max, because as a noted south side mixer master told me in 1976 - "You can't talk; so you drink more and try to shout over the music. Louder music; more booze sold."  Flat screens dominate any perspective.  One meets not for ' a drink,' but a bacchanal.

Saloons were open all day because of shift work.  Shifts are found only in the First Responder World of cops, fireman, ambulance teams and nurses.  Everyone else is 9-5.

In this environment, ideas are not shared; traditions are not passed on; nor is the simple courtesy of listening to another person necessary.

Except on the blogosphere.  The Internet is the place where neighbors can share ideas for better or worse. It's dry, however.

No one seems to know this more than the Police officers who have been targeted by the very people responsible for the policies that have created our blood soaked streets and our group-thought intellectuals.

This Labor Day ask someone who actually walked a picket line from 1936 through the 1950's about real labor.  Find a saloon somewhere outside of Chicago, or ask some blogger.

Federal Judges and Sound Judgement Not Always a Fit: Foot Loose Hobos in Judge Tharp's Court!

              Mark Kirk's Judge John Jay Tharp (blue striped tie) Hobo Friendly

With seven Hobos scheduled to go to trial in September, prosecutors alleged for the first time this week that the gang was responsible for nine killings as well as countless shootings, robberies and home invasions. No gang has been charged in a federal indictment with that level of violence since the El Rukns two decades ago. Chicago Tribune June 16, 2016

In today's Chicago Sun Times, Jacob Wittich tells us that 'several' Hobos will be in Judge Tharp's courtroom and Judge Tharp does not want them unduly prejudiced by being shackled.  Foot loose!

The Hoboes, not the bindlestiffs of yore, nor Lords of Boxcars, a super group coalition ( Gangster Disciples/Disciples & etc.) of gang thugs are about to be tried in Dirksen Federal Court.

They are wildly dangerous.

Their Hobo associates, who will pack the court, just might be more than mildly dangerous.

The United States Marshall Service asked for permission to shackle the 'several members' ( I am unclear of how many persons constitute a 'several' - more than two, but less than many, I guess) of Hobo coalition, due to manpower shortages, and the danger to the public this gang and their associates pose to everyone.

Well, truth be told,  there are Seven Hobos - a Magnificent Seven - being tried in Dirksen Court. That is seven dangerous persons with seven circles of family and associates.  Sounds like the seven circles of Hell having its day in court.  What could possibly go wrong?  Mark Kirk?


Senator Mark Kirk ( R, Durbin) recommended, President Obama nominated and  the U.S. Senate confirmed by a vote of 86-1 Judge John "Jay" Tharp to the United States District Court for the Northern District. republican Senator Mike Lee of Utah was the only Senator to vote against Jay Tharp.

I would love to speak with Senator Mike Lee.

Mark Kirk has made a national jackass of himself in the United States Senate and he will be soundly defeated by a very weak ( hack) candidate on November 8th.

We have Judge Tharp.

The Hobos will be unshackled. Gee, what could go wrong?

But U.S. District Judge John Tharp denied those requests during a Friday status hearing, claiming the shackles could sway the jurors’ perceptions of the defendants.
“The charges in this case are obviously quite serious, and the concern that the marshals have raised is quite appropriate,” Tharp said. “That said, there’s obvious prejudice that [shackling] inures, and I have to try to balance the rights of the defendants against the legitimate needs of security.”
“What reinforces this is the fact that should the defendants not comport themselves perfectly appropriately at the trial, the prejudice that will float to them from that sort of misconduct will far outweigh the prejudice of shackles,” he continued.
Tharp said it was a “difficult” decision that he will not hesitate to revisit during the trial if necessary.
Tharp also addressed concerns that a guilty plea by one of the defendants could adversely affect the other defendants.

Ask any County Court ( brawlers, drunks, non-political grifters, thieves) veteran about their appearances in the local County Court shackled to other accused after a long night in County.   Yep, shackled for safety reasons - their own and the public.

Shackles like nooses remind us of Roots, Twelve Years a Slave, Ben Hur and Flash Gordon.  We are always reminded that "We are better than that" and "those are not American Values." No, they are constraints. Progressives love their prose purple and their metaphors mixed and Judge Tharp delivers, " . . .  there’s obvious prejudice that [shackling] inures, and I have to try to balance the rights of the defendants against the legitimate needs of security. What reinforces this is the fact that should the defendants not comport themselves perfectly appropriately at the trial, the prejudice that will float to them from that sort of misconduct will far outweigh the prejudice of shackles,”

Ah, yes!  They will rue the day they acted out in Judge Tharp's court!

Judges have great credentials.  Some judges even have common sense.

The United States Marshall Service are ignored by Judge Tharp.  What could possibly go wrong?



Stay tuned.

Bullet Points With Alderman Emma Mitts( 37th): Intellectual Beef Jerky at All Race Pressers

beefbēf/Submitverb informal1.complain."he was beefing about how the recession was killing the business"synonyms: complain, grumble, whine, carp, bitch, gripe, bellyache"they're constantly beefing about the neighbor's dog"

To Beef:

(photo Galloway -Sun Times)

• “This is racism at its best,” Ald. Emma Mitts (37th) said at Thursday’s news conference. 
• “Why are our kids constantly shooting each other? 
• You know why, because they’re angry. 
• They’ve been locked up. 
• They haven’t had any jobs and no resources and they want to make a dollar. 
• They haven’t had parents who been able to teach them. 
• The system failed from many, many years ago,” she said. Emma Mitts

Now that is a fistful of seven sticks of beef jerky that will keep your intellectual molars grinding the live long day.

The statement above comes from a Chicago Alderman during a news conference called by the usual voices of race-hustling, opportunism, snappy patter with mixed metaphors,  and political bull jive: Jesse Jackson, Commissioner Richard Boykin, Alderman Emma Mitts, Urban League President Sharon Runner and Congressman Danny Davis ( D. Rev. Moon).  These worthies are calling for . . .now here is something that might really bring thug violence to a screeching halt . . . a walk, a perambulation, a healthy constitutional through "endandered communities."  That is the answer from the people the media goes to for answers 24/7 in Chicago: Thug-Step One: Shoot someone!  Make good your escape! Lay Low It's All Good .  The Community-Step Two: Call the Media! Don't Identify the Shooter! Don't arrest the shooter. Offer a Reward!  Create an Activist Network  Have a March! Have March! Have a March! Call the Media.

In the wake of the deadliest month Chicago has seen in 20 years, the Rev. Jesse Jackson on Thursday said he would join other black leaders in an “Endangered Communities Tour” that will hold town hall meetings in nine of the city’s hardest-hit neighborhoods. . . .“In a war zone, you don’t have to be guilty to be crucified,” Jackson said Thursday, emphasizing the innocents that get caught in the crossfire. (Mixed Metaphor)

Beef Jerky -  .“In a war zone, you don’t have to be guilty to be crucified,” 


I asked a Vietnam veteran at Mass this morning about the number of crucifixions he witnessed during the Siege of Khe Sahn and he asked me, " You on the pipe?  Get some breakfast in you."

Jesse Jackson has been a continuous presence in the public imagination concerning all matters of race and picking up a buck.

Race relations are great, when black and white people meet  on street, at work, in neighborhood sports, charity work, at Mariano's, Aldi's and Fair Play foods, riding the Metra and serving their neighbors.  That is not news.  Race relations are not so hot on news at 5,6 and 10 PM, or all over the newspapers and on the radio, or every time someone gets tuned-up riding the Red Line.

The solemn-suffering faces of usual suspects at every Race Bait presser and their bullet points are dry, chewy and badly spiced slabs of empty intellectual calories making morbidly obese craniums every where nod in robotic solidarity.

Pastor Pfleger maintains his own Jerky operations on 79th Street and eschews the $10.00 National Barrel of Beefs required for Rainbow Coalition's gnashing of teeth.  When Pfleger goes national this is what happens





Lord Ha' Mercy!  And Hillary is back at the plate!



Therefore, grift locally and backtrack more easily - he is ecclesiastically bullet-proof with Francis Cardinal George home with Christ. Pfleger can "God Damn a Cop!" at his services brush it off* like link on a black Armani suit.  It's all good. Pastor Pfleger will be a bishop before long.

Beef jerky is for folks that have been over-served.  Back in the day, it was Slim Jims.  It has no nutritional value, but tastes good at the time.

Emma Mitts is a lucky woman.  She is a Chicago Alderman.  She is and her colleagues are mandarins of the oligarchy - they manage things by voting the way they are told to vote.

However, the Alderman's very words leap out of the narrative after the first bite!  Racism (Whitey) caused two angry, locked-up, no job/no resource, dollar-less lads with bad parents to continuously shoot Dwayne Wade's cousin on "O" Street**.

These tow unhappy gents sound like they have been brainwashed by Fox News and must have become Trump voters.  Did Pastor Pfeger endorse Mrs. Clinton yet?  Plenty to chew on.

Then,  the last pull of dried meat blames " the system"  - civil rights, affirmative action, race based set-asides, housing?

Tasted Ok for a while.


*Rebuttal :"This a "representative" of the "community." An un-elected representative by the way. And supposedly, a representative of an organization that is supposed to prevent people from straying from the path to eternal salvation.


What happened to "love the sinner, condemn the sin"? Or "Treat others as you would be treated"? Or does all of that take a back seat to the cult of personality running amok on the south side in the guise of Catholicism?"


** The real tragedy behind the constant grifting of hustlers:

". . . Among those killed was Nykea Aldridge, cousin of Bulls star and area native Dwyane Wade.

Nykea Aldridge | Facebook photo

Aldridge was shot in the head as she pushed one of her four children in a stroller in the 6300 block of South Calumet in the Parkway Gardens neighborhood, a particularly violent area colloquially known as “O Block.” Two men were charged in her death."

Hillary Could Toss a Bucket of Puppies into a River and Still Win on Novermber 8th

Paloma Partners, a $4-billion hedge fund that has spent much of the last three decades politely turning away would-be investors, is opening its doors, if only a crack to newcomers, three people familiar with the fund's plans said.
With fresh trading opportunities emerging as investors worry about global growth, interest rate moves and who will win the U.S. presidency . . . Reuters

              I am shocked at how much time I spend in the White House.  Hillary Clinton


I am not voting for Hillary Clinton.  I can not stand Donald Trump, but he is not Hillary Clinton. The other two, Dr. Stein and Governor Johnson are all but Planned Parenthood approved.

While abortion remains far-less repulsive as a euthanized gorilla, or box full of puppies tossed into river rapids, America will never be a great nation again.  Read that, El Trumpo!

Now, down to the issue at hand. Hillary should win the presidential election.

I expect our nation to further shred like a quality pork shoulder in a slow cooker.  Only then will people say to themselves, " Is it possible that the newspapers were wrong about polling, policies and first principles - Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.  That's pursuit and not guarantee.

We will go along with another four years of the Obama melt down of trust - foreign and

Hillary Clinton and the entire hillbilly mafia of globalist oligarchs - Saudi, Soros and Sachs - have a vise grip on our principles.

Therefore, Hillary could toss a crate load of puppies into the Potomac at high noon, light a box full of kittens on the lap of Old Abe at the Lincoln Memorial at 5PM EST, or do her business on the Constitution in the spirit of President #44 and still win.

Four years from now, the United States will be flatter than hammered horseshit after a Macy's Day Parade.  Then, some of us will lift our tiny noggins up and say, " Yep, that is enough.  Let's start to do things the way were are supposed to do things - no legislation; just act rightly."

It should start by not allowing the murder of children in the Land of the Free and Home of the Brave. 

Slow Cooking from a Slow Guy -Hickey's Lancashire Hot Pot

Now, that I no longer need to cook for my bairns, as they are all out of the nest, I prepare food for a few days at a time.  The Hamilton Beach Slow Cooker is an exceptional device - Ratatouille, Soups, Pulled Pork and one of my ethnic favorites Lancashire Hotpot.

Lancashire was often the destination for the Irish, prior to coming to America.  Liverpool, home of the Beatles is called the Capital of Ireland and three of the fab four were Irish to the bone.  The docks of Liverpool provided passage fare for Paddy and Mick and Larry, my County Kerry grandfather.

One of the first phrases of praise came from my Grandpa Hickey - Lawrence - Larry - Father who rated every product, food, attitude, fashion, or manner by the standard - Liverpool.

" Jesus, that is a fine soup. Tastes like it came all the way from Liverpool.  Liverpool was as much of a standard of excellence as one's ability to dig:   "He has the honors and degrees, but he can't dig worth shite,"or "That Mossy Enright is a hell-of-a-man! He can dig so. Not as good as Martin Ford, mind you, but good."

I learned to cook from Larry's sons and daughters.  My Grandmother was a magnificent cook who learned her arts from two Black women and a Mexican lady.  Granny Hickey could lay down some serious cooking chops and spiced up many dishes.

Hickey men do the same.

• Here is what I call Lancashire Hotpot.  I go to Pat & Jacks, County Fair, or Mariano's for lamb.  I use a lamb steak cut from a leg of lamb* with the bone ring and all of its tasty marrow and a pound and half of lamb cut into bite sized pieces.
• I use a pound and a half of Melissa's Baby Dutch Yellow Potatoes. I leave them whole - a traditional Lancashire hot pot uses thinly slice potatoes as the last layer browned in the oven.  The Baby Dutch are small and fall apart nicely.
• Eight thin carrots cut into chunks
• One large Vidalia Onion cut up in chunks
• A paste of basil, oregano, thyme, rosemary, olive oil, and garlic  2- 3 Tablesoons Worcetershire sauce
• Sea Salt and Coarse Black Pepper
• One cup of celery chunks

I layer the celery on the bottom of the hot pot. Dash of Sea Salt an black pepper, Then the Lamb steak - salt and pepper, a layer of whole Baby Dutch Yellows, Salt and Pepper.  Next a Layer of Onions and One big teaspoon of herb paste.  Then  the lamb chunks -salt and pepper.  Another layer of Onions. Then the carrots and the  remaining potatoes more salt and pepper and the remaining paste. Eight or nine generous dashes of Worcester Sauce. Cover.

This needs NO water or broth. All of the juicy goodness placed in the pot works up a storm!

Cook on high for six hours and on low for another two. Serve with a great crusty bread and a side dish of red cabbage, or not. It is plenty good. Oh, do not try and eat the lamb bone ring. Tough on the buckers.

* I have used lamb ribs and chops as well - seared in butter. 

South Side With Yu -1979

My film version of my imaginary date with Linda Yu at Marquette Park in August 1979.

I remember it like it was yesterday, only yesterday I cut the grass and pulled a few weeds, because Mike Regan made fun of me and my lawn again, " Hey, the Hickey Urban Prairie is in full flowering . . .I mean dandelion-ing.  Jesus, Hick do you ever put any Scott's on this patch of weeds?"

Yes; yes I do.  To my reverie.

1979 - I was beginning my fourth year as a teacher in Kankakee, Illinois at Bishop McNamara High School.  It was August and school would begin in a week and went home for the weekend and tended bar Reilly's Daughter on 111th Street.  The Chicago Ag School was still a working farm.  Jimmy Carter was in the White House. Mike Bilandic was still in the big Chair on Five. Thin Lizzy Played at Comiskey Park with Carlos Santana and Eddie Money on August 5th, Boz allowed me to pick up a few bucks behind the bar.  I also played guitar and banjo in the trio - Sons of Reilly's Daughter -but this weekend Berwyn Moose an eight piece rock big band comprised of talented medical students who played brass-rock Chicago, Ides of March, Buckinghams, Motown and jazz standards would be packing the place.


Two women worked with me; the  one behind the bar was also an assistant manager and the other as waitress for the tables in the bar and out in the big beer garden.

I worked Friday afternoons from 11 AM to 6PM, when Denny Leake took over.  I filled the coolers with Heineken's, John Courage Ale, Becks, Miller, Miller Lite, checked the barrels of Bud, Michelob, Guinness and Harp for the taps, cut fruit for the cocktails, washed the bar and glasses.  At about 11:30  AM guys my Dad's age popped in for a few toddies.  These guys, all WW2 veterans, were not huge on snappy banter, witticisms, opinions, cheerful bon mots, or other indicators for their collective semiotic evaluations," Give your ears a chance, Kid. Nobody likes a bullshitter."

Short of answers to," Got Sunnybrook?"  verbal intercourse must be kept as secret as what these guys and their brides did behind closed doors - " Get me?"

I made great martinis, old fashions, gimlets and poured a well timed shot on request and with the promptitude earned by the killers of Japs and Nazis.

By three in the afternoon, tradesmen began popping in and pitchers of draft beer would stabilize the eight hours of hard labor with an evening of domestic joys.  Crews of Street and Sanitation workers, electricians, wood butchers, fitters and laborers crowded Reilly's Daughter's beer garden and the waitress St. Pauli Girl's fists of pitchers out to the thirsty gents.

The Roman collar on a beer is as important as the aroma and the taste.  I learned that no one wants a pitcher of flat looking beer and if there was not enough foam collaring the top the pitcher, all I need to do was stick a rolled up paper towel into the brew and give a few swift swirls.  " Pitchers Up, Rennie!"

At five o'clock a gorgeous Asian girl took a stool right in front of the Jewish Typewriter - the Epstein - the cash register.   I had been stuffing the trays with fives and tens from the last order and was gob-smacked by the vision of loveliness that I had turned to see.  I was unattached.

As Mike Regan might offer, " What's it to you?"

Well, every man confronts destiny.  I gave her my best dispassionate and professional, " What can I get you."

The beauty who seemed to have brought a personal spotlight on her charms smiled, " A Guinness please."

I put one up as directed allowing the magical black and cream colors to cascade and settle - sit - add more- settle and sit - do the magic with spoon to top off and place before the client for inspection and acceptance.

In Indiana some gump pulls once on the sacred black back & forth handles and plumps the visual equal to Quaker State 40 weight before a beer swiller - that is not a Guinness.  That is an affront to St. James's Gate and centuries of porter acolytes who made Guinness synonymous with goodness.  This was Reilly's Daughter on the south side of Chicago and not some shot and beer joint in Bum Hump, Indiana.

The Black Magic was about as good a pour as I could master.

" You really know your stuff. I usually get a glass of flat black water.  I had heard that this a great place for Guinness," the girl who could shame Nancy Kwan herself had been pleased by my mean efforts.

A six Gimlet Man, veteran of WWII, called over , " Hey, kiddo, I missed a few of your cousins on Luzon a few years back."

Unfazed the pretty girl fired back," Wrong, my dear man.  I am Chinese American."

That quieted the man.

" Sorry, these old timers do the same when some one seems too German for them, as well and then the jokes start."

"Jokes?"

"Yeah," I answered, " Have you heard about the deal at the German barbershop?  Haircuts $4."

" $4," she drew out the pay-off.

" A dollar a side."

Again, I had gained smiling approval and even more exciting the old veterans were hitting the silk and heading home. I must plunge.

After collecting fees and tips from what would soon be called The Greatest Generation, I cleaned glasses and allowed the gorgeous woman to enjoy her Guinness.

She asked for change to play the juke box and played the The Logical Song, " I love Breakfast in America!"

Now, I plunged, "What is your name if you don't mind my asking."

" Linda. And you are?"

"Pat Hickey, I am a high school teacher in Kankakee?"

" Is that near here?"

" No, it is downstate a bit."

" I just took a job here in Chicago.  I was born in China and moved to Los Angeles."

" What do you do," I asked in the most probing of 'none of your damn business but friendly Chicagoans always ask anyway' manner.

" I'm in TV -I will be anchoring the NBC weekend news."

" That's great. Have you found a place to live?"

" Yes, I have an apartment in Lincoln Park.  NBC helped me find a really nice studio with great view of the park.  It is near R. J. Grunts, that is a nice spot. Have you ever been there?"

I said no but that Boz the Owner used to hit the brunch there once in a while.  I was breath taken, floored - stone in love. I asked, " Have you seen much of the south side?  Would you care to see Marquette Park.  I am off  in twenty minutes and we could leave your car here in the lot."

" That will be nice."

And Linda and I headed out to Lithuanian Plaza.  I pointed out Rockwell Hall at 71st the Home of the fruitcakes of the American Nazi Party.  

Then I suggested that we take in the art deco memorial to Lithuanian aviators Darius and Girenas, Lithuanian Deli for some good old Loogan  Kibinai

We walked around the lagoon and she took my hand. " This was a very nice visit to the park. Hard to believe that Dr. King was hit with a brick here, " she offered
       .

I Knew that it was time to end our time together, " Linda, may I ask you out on a date?  I would to take you to Baby Doll Polka Club and 6511 Club on Kedzie."

" You may ask, but seriously doubt if I will find time to seriously do anything but keep my job here, Pat. You will be going back to Kankakee and I will anchor the weekend News on Five. You pour wonderful Guinness and this Lithuanian food is a treat. but let's just leave it at that."

I asked," What is your family name, Linda?"

"Yu."

"What?"

"My family name is Yu - Linda Yu. Will you please take me back to my car - this was very nice."

We drove up Kedzie, past the Nabisco Cookie plant and through Tommy More parish, Evergreen Park, past Mac Lang's on 103rd, where I took a right to Pulaski and then south to 111th Street and Reilly's Daughter.

Yep, I like to think that I spent some quality time of the south side with Yu. Linda Yu.

If the Ag School were open then I could have spent some quality time on the south side of Chicago with ewe.

Chicago Tribune Data Under-Mines CPD

You can't keep masses of folks in poverty, unemployment, incarceration and in communities looking like Third World Countries. The shooting, murder and disrespect of law enforcement is really not a surprise, they(the police) are the enforcer of America's injustice....but Dr. King also warned us that our fight must not be in the lowest form, using violence....WE must use our MORAL FORCE and dismantle an UNJUST AMERICA ......I understand the anger...but, VIOLENCE: whether by Police or CIVILIANS is NEVER AN ACCEPTABLE SOLUTION - Pastor Pfleger

“I don’t understand how every good cop would not want a very harsh, strong police board,” Pfleger said.

Pastor Pfleger was a member of Daley's first Independent Police Review Authority and he was a on Daley's search committee that hired Jody Weiss in 2007.  The following year, Pastor Pfleger sort of disappeared when a video of his sermon at Jeremiah Wright's Trinity United Church of Christ went . . . viral.

Chicago's Social Justice elite managed to soldier on without Pastor Pfelger for the next eighteen months or so as the fiery and controversial media star clashed with Cardinal George.  Police continued to be undermined, smeared and second guessed in the media that was all agush for Professor Dave Protess and the Wrongful Conviction kids, but that sort of went sour as well.

More and more, calls came for private police services and a national security force as President Obama's Hope and Change Justice Departmemt helped erode confidence in policing nationwides.

I wrote this in 2009 and it has come to pass.

When all of the Horse-manure created and manufactured by bad people and promoted in Chicago's Media Community is weighed and added up -
1. Systemic Racism Get Out of Jail Free Card
2. Police Brutality 24/7
3. Community Control of Everything - thus no Consequences for Anything Crime or Vice
4. Constant Vilification of Police Officers
5. Bleeding Revenue to Lawsuit Lefty Lawyer League ( G. Flint Taylor, Jon Loevy)
6. Advocacy Politics
7. Laughingstock CPD Command

Total Comes to a Privatized Corporate Police Force. 
Since Fahey and O'Brien were murdered by the Wilson Brothers, Leftist Academics, Lawyers, Journalists and Americans who swallow anything, have orchestrated a complete undermining of any and all confidence in Law Enforcement. When Daley pulled Tisa Morris, an African American attorney, off of the responsibility of tracking CR beefs and handed the list of police officers targeted by the Lawsuit Lawyers and created a rubber stamp Board that is comprised of Police Haters, he tipped his hand. 

In 2007, Daley caved to the leftists and tossed out a tough, fair, honest and unbribe-able prosecutor that he had placed in charge of the Office of Professional Standards.  This greased the way for Pastor Pfelger's brief tenure on the newly created IPRA 

Chicago was and is on the way to the elimination of the Chicago Police Department.  It seems to me that Hillary Clinton will complete President Obama's objective of creating a National Police Force, leaving municipalities to hire "rent-a-cop" Private Security Firms, not unlike the Divvy bikes eliminating city parking and Uber taxis, destroying the cab companies.

Today the Chicago Tribune's attempt to coat-tail the success of leftist Jamie Kalvan's Invisible Institute that is on its way to becoming for police and justice, what Shakman has been for politics and government.  Good for a select few and disastrous for everyone else.

FOIA has been a goldmine for the Left and an IRS audit for everyone else.  With Freedom( for the few) of Information the media is able to data for social scientists and come with an excuse to do whatever the agenda demands.

Last month the Chicago Tribune investigative data miners plumped up a series intended to smear pork farmers and help boost pork prices. Today, the Tribune did the very same to ensure the swift demise of urban policing in Chicago.

The tone and the rhetoric of 92 deaths, 2623 bullets:Tracking Every Police Shooting, by Jennifer Smith Richards , Angela Caputo and Jason Meisner, is as set as the conclusions drawn long before the data was mined.

Every five days, on average, a Chicago police officer fired a gun at someone.
In 435 shootings over a recent six-year span, officers killed 92 people and wounded 170 others.
While a few of those incidents captured widespread attention, they occurred with such brutal regularity — and with scant information provided by police — that most have escaped public scrutiny. . . .

The Tribune's analysis showed that Chicago police are the only witnesses listed in most of the shootings, with civilian witnesses identified in just 83 of the incidents.
Alexa Van Brunt, an attorney with Northwestern University's Roderick MacArthur Justice Center, said it's often challenging to prove misconduct or a cover-up when it comes to an officer's word against that of a civilian.
"We don't have video evidence often," Van Brunt said. "And if you have police officers lying on reports, that becomes the official record."

The Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun Times have helped create the daily blood bath that is Chicago - they have been a huge help.   In taking the side of the crusading Cadillac Commie and Buzz-cut Bolshevics of People Law Office and the Northwestern University's Bernardine Dorhn tutored journalism and legal think tanks and Centers For ( MacArthur/Blum/Wrongful) over law enforcement professionals, experienced non-partisan judges like Boyle and Egan and promoting the loud and consistent voices of  Advocacy Politics flim-flamers like Pfleger both papers succeeded in bring the City of Chicago to its daily blood bath.

The Better Government Association covers up the crimes of the powers that be and holds worker bees of the Justice System up for public lynchings. Commander Glenn Evans is one and now there are ten officers denied due process in the Laquan McDonald shooting - none of the ten pulled a trigger. The BGA has the gall to ask for people to think outside the box and throw more money at Ceasefire - the gang-bangers alumni association.

Today, the Chicago Tribune presents another data stew stirred by a pre-cast iron conclusion.

The end game is no more CPD.

An Approved Sun Times Letter Writer Is Way Off Base on Police Officers

OPINION (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)

Wednesday letters: Cops not alone in contending with danger

In an editorial last week, you asked what other job, other than police officer, requires people to “take such a risk.” Residents of black, brown, poor or mixed-income communities with high crime rates take those risks every day — in every aspect of our lives. We risk our lives stepping out our front doors, watching TV in our front rooms while listening to shots fired outside, riding public transportation to and from work, and, worst of all, being stopped and harassed or assaulted by those charged to “serve and protect.”

I have been robbed on the L on the way home from work, mugged returning to my office from lunch and assaulted by a drunken security guard at a music festival. I have been a passenger when my partner was stopped for “driving while black.” On numerous occasions, persons who thought my small stature made me an easy target tried to intimidate or maul me on the street or on the CTA. How many police officers have experienced as many dangerous situations as I have? I am not armed, nor do I wear a bullet-proof vest or carry a badge of authority. Nevertheless, I have been able to intervene when I have seen wrongdoing.

Police officers need to quit whining and focus on being part of the solution, not part of the problem. The press needs to stop calling police heroic for doing the jobs they are paid to do. If all police are heroes, so is everybody — residents, teachers, mail carriers, etc. — who live or work in high-crime areas.

Muriel B#$%^, Hyde Park (emphases my own)

Sorry for your troubles Muriel, it is a jungle out there.  Even more of a jungle.  

You and I have first world problems; cops attempt to keep Chicago from sliding into Third World status - NPR loves The Third World, emerging nations, developing countries and diverse cultures, but it really hates American culture.  I expect you just might be a huge fan of public radio, television and the Progressive weltanschauung it promotes, when not talking pledge drive.

Life in Chicago can be combative.  The only people who answer calls to danger are cops and firemen; newsmen hear about the calls; activists get a heads up from the editors, or social media.

Only cops and fire fighters show up to stop brawls, thefts, murders, harassments, sexual predators and public nuisances. You and I and other witnesses stand on the wrong side of the yellow tape.  We can have our thoughts and opinions so long as they are somewhat fair.

I believe you are out of line.  No biggie.  You have a great deal of company from our President, to Mary Schmich to Ja'mal Green.

Read, however, the recent account of a midnight shift reporter and his three years in the jungle hell of Chicago's Thug Comfort Zone. 

Peter Nickeas has written an account worthy of John Steinbeck and Richard Tregaskis's World War II correspondence.

The first scene I went to on my next shift was the shooting of the man police suspected of the previous night’s crime. He’d been shot on the West Side and was in critical condition. Police said he’d been set up by his getaway driver.
I barely had time to process any of that. The following night, multiple witnesses started calling in gunfire from a single neighborhood, many giving descriptions of the shooters. I was just a mile away. As I got closer, driving slow along a stretch of 47th Street where giant trees loomed overhead, creating the effect of a tunnel, I cracked my window, listening. There were no cops in sight. From about a block away, I saw a handful of guys standing in the street, one of them shooting. I saw the muzzle flash, could smell the smoke, saw it hanging over 47th Street in the cool blue of early morning. Everything slowed down at that moment. Each shot echoed and reverberated. It was as if I could feel the sound moving toward me.
I pulled over and watched the guys jump into two cars and start speeding in my direction. They flew past, toward the Dan Ryan Expressway. Two SUVs followed. I could hear the engine of the first one thrumming as it sped through a red light at the intersection where I was parked. The trailing SUV swerved around a van coming out of the old stockyards and careened through the intersection. I watched the SUVs in my rearview mirror, and just as I was thinking, Please don’t crash, they did. One into the back of the other.
Two guys jumped out of one of the SUVs and fled south. The other SUV kept flying toward the Dan Ryan. Feeling exposed, I pulled into a tiny parking lot just off the intersection and turned my lights off. A car circled the block twice. The third time, the driver slowed down, leaned forward to make eye contact with me, yelled something I couldn’t understand, and drove off. I waited a few seconds and, sensing a safe moment to get a little farther from the scene, started to pull away just as a police Tahoe approached. One of the officers got out, shouldered an AR-15, and made a wide circle around the passenger side of the smoldering SUV while his partner walked up to the driver’s side, right hand on her gun. I thought there was a chance that they would find a victim or a shooter inside, but the SUV was empty.
I got out to talk with the officers. They said the crashed vehicle was registered to someone who lived nearby. It was a “rammer,” bought by gangbangers for a few hundred dollars so they could wreck it chasing other guys around the neighborhood. In the end, no one had been shot. Just a bit of chaos, barely a city news footnote.
When it was all over, I was shaking a little, but I felt good. I hadn’t freaked out. I’d kept my head clear and my eyes open.

I had my eyes open on more than a few occasions, myself.  What is true in those occasions is merely a very small part of what I experienced, like Peter Niceas, in medias res.

Classical tragedy always begins in medias res.  The audience has some of the truth 'revealed' or has its collective eyes opened by the drama unfolding on the stage.

Life is prosaic.  It is not neat and tidy, like the poetry of a Sophocles, or Shakespeare and no where near as tight and complete as the agreed upon narrative played out in the media and by the grandstanding investors of social engineering.

There is no right side of history. That phrase was first used by Rabbi Henry Pereira Mendes in his 1903 book Old Eygpt.   The right/wrong side of history is only determined well after the impact of events can be determined.

Cops are heroes.  A scant few of them are not.  The efforts of heroes to stop the madness of urban thug-ery remains smeared by poetic rhetoric emanating from academic/lawyers and politicians with the goal of ending all local law enforcement and instituting a National police force.  God help us.

If you are supporting that, just say so.  Do not diminish the truth of what police officers experience.

The Sun Times has taken the side against the police, but not a right or wrong side of history.

Ceasefire: Throwing Money on a Blood Soaked Street

Ceasefire was ceased back in March of 2015.   That means simply that Ceasefire received no more State Money from us to them.

Ceasefire's web page commands, Cure Violence.  Well, Ceasefire is smoked, salted, honeyed and cured like any great piece of pork and it is done.

Now, the Illinois voices that depend upon Illinois Alzheiner's (IA) are calling for the return of cash to Ceasefire $$$$$$. Illinois Alzheimer's- voters forget everything, every screwing, every promise, every election.  IA is the only explanation for the continued public life of Dick Durbin, Jan Schakowsky, Mike Quigley, Forrest Claypool, Toni Preckwinkle, 90% of the Chicago City Council and the guy from over by Midway, what runs the State. IA allows Ralph Martire to continue to pie-chart Illinois into the poor house.  IA allows Lisa Madigan to shine the light on workers and not the real gonifs - SEE Above.

Illinois Alzeheimers is chronic, progressive and fatal.

IA comes from being a person of normal intelligence, generous sentiments and modest income being too afraid to tell his neighbors, that 'No, I do not think that Andy Shaw is not a goof, I do believe that WBEZ is as lame as Derrick Rose, I am not with Hillary, Abortion is always killing a baby and the Sun Times is the Tribune with more wasted space.'

This fear being termed a Tea Party Palin-ite, Earth Hating, Meat Eating, Cretinous Downton Abbey Ignorant, Trumper Bumper Sticker, Racist Homophobe is all too real and has made all of us afraid to speak our minds and our expeinces, for fear that Bill Moyers will pop out the bushes and DEFINE US!  Being defined by other people who need social reassurances verfied by WTTW, only hurts once.  You get over it. It gets better and that is the Savage Truth.


Now, Ceasefire is back on the tongues of people taking the Metra to the Merc, looking for great seats to Hamilton and finding just the right candelabra for the last picnics of the summer at Ravinia.

Only last night I heard a jazz fan at the Serbian Village, a Chicago Police Officer say, " Ceasefire will get funded, but cops will get railroaded out of existence."  I agreed and we listened to the music, Waiting for the Train to Come In.

Rich Miller's Capitol Fax Blog - the Illinois Clearing House of Budget Scams and Legislation lashing, is all in for Ceasefire. Miller offers a hand-wringing lament over the numbers of Chicago's fallen citizens,

Today’s number: 425
Monday, Aug 22, 2016
* Tribune…
Through Sunday, 425 people were slain in Chicago, up 50 percent from 283 in a year-earlier period, according to official police statistics. During the same period, shooting incidents rose by 48 percent to 2,136, up from 1,443, the data show.
Other violent crimes such as sexual assaults, robberies and aggravated batteries also have spiked by double digits.
- Posted by Rich Miller      

and opens the door for commentary by lobbyists and Democratic operatives around Illinois

 - uptown progressive - Monday, Aug 22, 16 @ 11:11 am:
There is no magic bullet - but in my community we lost CeaseFire funding (violence interrupters) and the CCBYS funding (crisis intervention with at-risk youth) was greatly reduced. No expansion in youth employment opportunities or for fully funded afterschool programing. These programs do make a difference.

Examples, please?  No?

 - Earnest - Monday, Aug 22, 16 @ 11:31 am:
>These programs do make a difference.
If only Rauner worried that his intentional destruction of the social service system could result in him appearing “soft on crime.”

Examples, please,  of Ceasefire bringing thug violence to a $hit-screaming halt? One deep thinker lamented the fact that blood is not spilled in Switzerland Chicago -

- cassandra - Monday, Aug 22, 16 @ 12:02 pm:
Let’s not forget that some parts of Chicago are said to be a safe as Switzerland, and those of us who live in or near Chicago know which these (predominantly white, upper-middle-class) areas are.
Chicago is deeply segregated, by race and economic status. More police and social services and persuading more folks to get married may help around the edges, but it is persistent segregation which must be addressed–and isn’t being addressed adequately at any level of goverment. Too risky for our political masters, I guess.

Well, Ride the Nine Down on my Broad Manly White Ass!   I live in Geneva!  Morgan Park!

That same Monday morning, The Better Government Association's Andy Shaw thundered loudly for all of us to "Think Ouside the Box" on thug violence ( often referred to as gun, or police violence in the Media), including opening the coffers to Tio Hardiman's Ceasefire Interrupters and Gang-banger Alumni Association

Are there any solutions?  While we’re waiting for City Hall and CPD to implement reforms spelled out several months ago in a task force report, including a new agency to replace the ineffectual Independent Police Review Authority, other well- intentioned suggestions are surfacing:
Veteran Chicago journalist Jim O’Shea, writing in the Sun-Times, encourages CPD to resurrect the Cease Fire program that enlists former gang members and ex-convicts to work with police to curb violence.
O’Shea points to the program’s impact over the July 4th weekend in Englewood last year—no homicides or shootings—compared with 11 shootings this year, after the program was sidelined by insufficient funding and CPD’s reluctance to work with the group.
“City officials and the Chicago Police Department,” O’Shea writes, “seem willing to try anything to stop the violence…except something that actually works.”

Los Angeles police chief Charlie Beck and civil rights lawyer Connie Rice, writing in the New York Times, argue for the kind of sophisticated community policing that’s reduced violence in some of LA’s toughest sections.
Success, they write, depends on communities cooperating with “humane, compassionate, culturally fluent cops who have a mind set of respect, do not fear black men, and serve long enough to know residents’ names, speak their language and help improve their neighborhoods.”

Microphone!!!!!!!

Ceasefire has done . . .nothing to stop, curb. or hinder thug violence.

LA is not Chicago, Andy. Chicago is more like Philly, Detroit, Baltimore, Cleveland, or Baton Rouge, because the Media, the political oligarchs. academics and Marxist lawyers have destroyed policing.

The answer to the problem is radical.  Stop listening to morons, grifters and Reds.  Even more radical - start voting out the morons, grifters and Reds.  That is how one avoids Illinois Alzheimers.

President Skips 2016 Water Hazzard - America the Emerging Nation

\

Afternoon at the Beach and Dinner Date in Edgartown
8 hours 42 sec ago
The Obama family headed to the beach on Saturday, their final full day of their Vineyard vacation.
The family arrived at a beach off Pohogonot Road in Edgartown around 1:30 p.m. After spending the afternoon at the south shore beach with friends, the First Family departed at about 5:30 p.m.
Later in the evening the President and First Lady went back to Edgartown for dinner at Chesca's on North Water street. The sidewalk outside Chesca's was blocked off with yellow tape, and the summer crowd lined the street.
Chesca's, a restaurant "marrying gourmet and comfort food on Martha's Vineyard," is owned by chefs Jo Maxwell and David Joyce. According to a meal ticket the restaurant posted on Facebook, the President's party ordered spinach salad, braised beef shortribs, and pappardelle bolognese, and creme caramel for dessert.
The couple arrived at 7:45 p.m and departed at 9:28 p.m. to head home for one last night in Chilmark.

DENHAM SPRINGS  — After floods devastated pockets of south Louisiana, mental scars are already showing on the youngest victims of a disaster that prompted more than 30,000 rescues and left an estimated 40,000 homes damaged.
Children who endured harrowing rescues are returning home to a jarring landscape that even their parents can scarcely grasp: Homes filled with ruined possessions must be quickly gutted. Damaged schools and daycare centers are closed indefinitely. Parents juggling jobs and cleanup work must also line up caretakers for their kids.

Hey, I ain't judging; I'm just saying.   I have 1st World Problems, generally of my own creation.  Yesterday. it rained like a cow peeing on a flat rock and my basement took on water, like a Nazi sub in them black and white movies.  If a neighbor's pooch cocks his leg on one of my three parkway trees, I get 'some moisture,' as the real estate agents say. So I shop Vac'd most of the afternoon and night - no big deal.

I did not toss my fists heavenward and scream, " What kind of a God would do this.?"  I am pretty centered.  I don't take Public Radio, or television seriously at all.  I don't give a hoot to listen to hours and hours of sap about emerging nations.  Ask the Olympic Committee how all of that gushy bullshite about host cities being from emerging nations.  Ask NBC about Rio?   Ask that Turkeybird Ticket Scalper Pat Hickey about the accommodations in Rio's Iron Hotel.  NPR - when a nation emerges, get back to me.

Baton Rouge, Denham Springs and Martha's Vineyard are all in a fully emerged nation that is President-ed by a South Side with You guy who wants this emerged nation to become an emerging nation - to sort of equal things out,

In an emerging nation, the Jefe, Generalismo, or Dear Leader never visits suffering people.  Emerging Nations tend to be run by war-lords and when all of the blood settles, oligarchs.  Dear Leaders do not jet down to famine relief stations, they have Khat, Coco , or betel leaf chawers armed with AK-47s and big Toyota Flat beds with heavy machine guns to do that.  Oligarchs go to hot spots, casinos, springs and The Emerson, or Graystone in L.A. to unwind.

President Obama is taking much needed vacation-time in Martha's Vineyard. Can't fault any family man for that.  Me?  I'd rather go up to New Glarus, Wisconsin.  At least he's not dragging the wife and kids around Civil War battlefields.

Hey, he plays golf; so what.  I read, or watch Maverick re-runs, or go out for a great meal with a gorgeous woman, or catch some live jazz.  Whatever floats your boat.

However, if yesterday's down-pour produced crashing waves along my window sills, I know that my Alderman Matt O'Shea ( D-19th Ward) would be in a row boat outside of my picture window.  Were he on vacation in Sisters Lakes,MI, Delavan, WI, or Flint Lake, IN ( the Irish Rivieras)Matt O'Shea would drive back to his Ward an personally see to it that the elderly, kids and the more delicate of souls were safe.

He would, and has in times of danger, personally put himself out on the line and direct the more robust of heart in salvage and rescue efforts behind the First Responders ( cops, fire fighters and EMTs) already on the job.

You see Matt O'Shea, belongs to the same political party as the President, but not of the same Progressive mindset.

President Obama is exiting the job in January.

In November, America will decide if it is becoming an emerging nation.   If it is, Matt O'Shea will have no business being Alderman of the 19th Ward.