Ode To Klas: Bohemian Restaurant Icon to the Tune of the Stone's "Last Time"

Klas is closing its doors.  Klas is located on the street named for Chicago's best known Bohemian Anton Cermak and therestaurant that once served as a meal/meeting destination for Al Capone. Another landmark Chicago family restaurant disappears.  

My God, what is next?  The magnificent Italian strip in the Heart of Italy?

The food was exquisite and atmosphere delightful.  It was no faux-hipper-than-thou foodie mecca surrounded by tinted glass, chrome and zinc bar affectations.  It was gloriously Old World - not global.

I will miss this place, already panged by the thought that another piece of solid Chicago is tossed into the Orwellian memory-hole.

Others feel the pain.  My pal Daniel Kelley, attorney and Chicago folklorist and Chicago's greatest historian Richard Lindberg forwarded this poem/parody to the tune of the Rolling Stones - last time.

Ode to Klas ( This Could be the Last time)by Jim A. Moran
“This Could Be the Last Time”

Well I told you once and I told you twice
I like my dumplings washed down with Weiss
Oompa bands try very hard to please me
Where the potato pancakes go down so easy
Well this could be the last time
This could be the last time
Maybe the last time
I dont know. oh no. oh no
Well, I’m sorry girl but I can’t stay
My beef ghoulash is on the way
When Klas shuts down there’ll be much sorrow
Gonna get weiner schnitzel there tomorrow
Well this could be the last time
This could be the last time
Maybe the last time
I dont know. oh no. oh no
Well I told you once and I told you twice
Kolackies are included in the price
But here's a chance to change your mind
cuz I’m going there for pork tenderloin
Well this could be the last time
This could be the last time
Maybe the last time
I dont know. oh no. oh no
Well, this could be the last time . . .

James A. Moran

Sounds like it is, Jim. 

Trampas or the Virginian: Trump and The Spooks and the Supine Media

 

Sworn Donald Trump enemy John McCain admitted Wednesday that he passed the dossier of claims of a Russian blackmail plot against the president-elect.
The Arizona senator issued a public statement amid mounting questions of his exact role in the affair - and how a document riddled with errors and unverifiable claims came to be published.
'Late last year, I received sensitive information that has since been made public,' he said.
'Upon examination of the contents, and unable to make a judgment about their accuracy, I delivered the information to the Director of the FBI.
'That has been the extent of my contact with the FBI or any other government agency regarding this issue.' The Daily Mail

“the document was prepared for political opponents of Trump by a person who is understood to be a former British intelligence agent.” Ben Smith Buzzfeed

Super. Pretty wet out there with all the leaks, Golden Showers, Sobbing spooks and CNN unabe to fathom the fact that the Electoral College worked the way it was supposed to work.

So yesterday the media and the clubby spooks got a nose bleed.

I immediately thought of Owen Wister's great novel - The Virginian.  This is a novel more about the constructive and community forming application of words, than it is about the single show-down and gun play.

The character known as the Virginian is opposed to the glib, cowardly and shameless Trampas.  The Virginian will allow a friend, a person with whom he has shared danger, laughs and a few drinks, to call him an S.O.B. any minute of the day.  He will not tolerate, however, any malicious tag to sit in his aura for a second.

Five or six players sat over in the corner at a round table where counters were piled. Their eyes were close upon their cards, and one seemed to be dealing a card at a time to each, with pauses and betting between. Steve was there and the Virginian; the others were new faces.

“No place for amatures,” repeated the voice; and now I saw that it was the dealer’s. There was in his countenance the same ugliness that his words conveyed.
“Who’s that talkin’?” said one of the men near me, in a low voice.
“Trampas.”
“What’s he?”
“Cow-puncher, bronco-buster, tin-horn, most anything.”
“Who’s he talkin’ at?”
“Think it’s the black-headed guy he’s talking at.”
“That ain’t supposed to be safe, is it?”
“Guess we’re all goin’ to find out in a few minutes.”
“Been trouble between ‘em?”
“They’ve not met before. Trampas don’t enjoy losin’ to a stranger.”
“Fello’s from Arizona, yu’ say?”
“No. Virginia. He’s recently back from havin’ a look at Arizona. Went down there last year for a change. Works for the Sunk Creek outfit.” And then the dealer lowered his voice still further and said something in the other man’s ear, causing him to grin. After which both of them looked at me.
There had been silence over in the corner; but now the man Trampas spoke again.
“AND ten,” said he, sliding out some chips from before him. Very strange it was to hear him, how he contrived to make those words a personal taunt. The Virginian was looking at his cards. He might have been deaf.
“AND twenty,” said the next player, easily.
The next threw his cards down.
It was now the Virginian’s turn to bet, or leave the game, and he did not speak at once.
Therefore Trampas spoke. “Your bet, you son-of-a—.”
The Virginian’s pistol came out, and his hand lay on the table, holding it unaimed. And with a voice as gentle as ever, the voice that sounded almost like a caress, but drawling a very little more than usual, so that there was almost a space between each word, he issued his orders to the man Trampas: “When you call me that, SMILE.” And he looked at Trampas across the table.
Yes, the voice was gentle. But in my ears it seemed as if somewhere the bell of death was ringing; and silence, like a stroke, fell on the large room. All men present, as if by some magnetic current, had become aware of this crisis. In my ignorance, and the total stoppage of my thoughts, I stood stock-still, and noticed various people crouching, or shifting their positions.
“Sit quiet,” said the dealer, scornfully to the man near me. “Can’t you see he don’t want to push trouble? He has handed Trampas the choice to back down or draw his steel.”
Then, with equal suddenness and ease, the room came out of its strangeness. Voices and cards, the click of chips, the puff of tobacco, glasses lifted to drink,—this level of smooth relaxation hinted no more plainly of what lay beneath than does the surface tell the depth of the sea.
For Trampas had made his choice. And that choice was not to “draw his steel.” If it was knowledge that he sought, he had found it, and no mistake! We heard no further reference to what he had been pleased to style “amatures.” In no company would the black-headed man who had visited Arizona be rated a novice at the cool art of self-preservation.
One doubt remained: what kind of a man was Trampas? A public back-down is an unfinished thing,—for some natures at least. I looked at his face, and thought it sullen, but tricky rather than courageous.
Something had been added to my knowledge also. Once again I had heard applied to the Virginian that epithet which Steve so freely used. The same words, identical to the letter. But this time they had produced a pistol. “When you call me that, SMILE!” So I perceived a new example of the old truth, that the letter means nothing until the spirit gives it life. The Virginian Owen Wister (emphases my own)

The Media makes me want to shower.  The spooks ?  Who knows from spooks?

Obama's Long Goodbye and No, We Kant.

Gotta say, I am no fan of the President.  I set the bar of expectation for the man himself long ago.

 He rubbed me the wrong way, when I tried to secure scholarship funding for the families of Leo High School students in the mid and late 1990's, when young Mr. Obama was executive director of the Woods Fund and a director of the Annenberg Challenge.  I found him arrogant, snotty, full of himself and not very bright.  Each subsequent meeting with him lived up to my low expectations.

What do I know?  He rose to become not only an appointment on charity boards and an adjunct faculty member at University of Chicago, but an Illinois Senator, a United States Senator, Nobel Laureate, touted to be a Constitutional Scholar and a two-term, wildly popular American President.

I caught his farewell speech on WTTW.

Many first person singular  personal  pronouns and pious platitudes.

So I first came to Chicago when I was in my early twenties, and I was still trying to figure out who I was; still searching for a purpose to my life. And it was a neighborhood not far from here where I began working with church groups in the shadows of closed steel mills.
It was on these streets where I witnessed the power of faith, and the quiet dignity of working people in the face of struggle and loss.  

(CROWD CHANTING “FOUR MORE YEARS”)

I can’t do that. ( belly laughs abound)

Now this is where I learned that change only happens when ordinary people get involved, and they get engaged, and they come together to demand it.

After eight years as your president, I still believe that. And it’s not just my belief. It’s the beating heart of our American idea — our bold experiment in self-government.

And etc,


It was pretty much a validation of the opinion of himself that he shares with the thousands of people who waited in line, braving the Chicago low temps and cutting winds to clutch a single ticket for this speech and the legions of People Like You at WTTW, CNN, ABC,CBS, NBC, MSNBC, the chicago Tribune & Sun Times, Hollywood and with Goldman Sachs.

It has been a wild ride, alright! The President offered a litany of the great things he believes that he accomplished, set right,  shared and made just for the "the waitress, the laid off factory worker," who voted for Donald Trump and reminded America of Jim Crow and Atticus Finch and that politics is a battle.  Been there and heard that for years.

What plugged me between the horns was this, " It is that spirit — it is that spirit born of the enlightenment that made us an economic powerhouse."

Really?

Immanuel Kant was a founding Father?  Rene Descartes needs a musical too?  Johnny Locke and Spinoza were captains of industry?

I am going to miss President Obama's nattering, but not for real long.

Okay, what's for breakfast?  How about  McCann's?

 

  It is that spirit — it is that spirit born of the enlightenment that made us an economic powerhouse.  Now, that's enlightened!

Snow, Man, and'The Snow Man' Makes it Better! Behold Nothing That is Not There!

Well, so far I have had to use the trusty old MTD ( recently serviced by the estimable Mike Green) this winter.

We have been promised Snowmageddon again.  The Farmer's Almanac predicted a real bone snapper.

Thus far, but a dusting this A.M. - can't worry about accumulation. All a body can rightly do is praise the Lord and plow.

It's winter neighbors.  We get snow.

Here is a brilliant way to get over ourselves and revel in God's winter weather work - The Snow Man by Wallace Stevens.

One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;  

And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter  

Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,  

Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place  

For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

Like a snow man, Stevens built upon three - five triplet stanzas.  Each 'snowman' relies upon 'perspective.'  We each and everyone of us look at the cold hard facts out there and each of us comes away with a different perspective.  The facts are supposed to dominate us, like a Tom Skilling warning of 'temperatures at Zero and wind chills down to negative fifteen.'  Tell that to a troop of eight St. Cajetan fifth grade boys on a snow day and the chance to sled down Beacon Hill at 107th & Longwood Drive.  Tell that to their teachers who have a day off! McNally's, Ladies!

Science, hard facts and snow mean something.  Never the same thing.

12 Years is all that is Required to Examine Obama's Presidency and You Thought Getting His College Records was Tough

           

   

By late morning Tuesday, Chicago seemed to have been taken captive – albeit willingly – by plans for an enormous election party in the city’s front yard, Grant Park, where Senator Barack Obama, would spend election night. Monica Davey reported throughout the day from park. By the time of Mr. Obama’s victory speech, according to city officials, an estimated 240,000 people had gathered in the park and its surrounding streets.  New York Times November 5, 2008

 But consider, too, the intangibles of his legacy, things that Chicagoans share and will pass on about Obama to our next generation because we were there from the start.
No matter our political ideology, race, gender, religion or income, we have a story to tell. We were there when a state senator from Hyde Park with a funny name catapulted from Springfield to the White House — with a brief stop in the U.S. Senate — all in the span of about four years.
A Chicagoan broke a racial barrier and became the nation’s first African-American president. And then he won a second term, running both national campaigns from headquarters in downtown Chicago.
We can’t sugarcoat this: Chicago has been grappling with persistent problems with violence these years while Obama has been in the White House. The city’s longstanding, race-related problems and festering issues with the police department did not vanish just because Obama was the president. There were 780 murders in Chicago in 2016.
That doesn’t diminish the fact, though, that Obama is “indelibly in the fabric of Chicago, the history of Chicago,” said Bill Daley, a former Obama White House chief of staff who is part of Chicago history himself as the son and brother of Chicago mayors. " He Made us all proud"  Lynn Sweet Chicago Sun Times January 8, 2017

Sorry, Lynn. Just not seeing it.

President Obama's Legacy is vanishing.  Not because of Trump, or Republicans, but because of the very thin-skinned and prickly man himself.

His last days in Office have been tantrums, terrorist releases, land grabs and brag fests to his pet media lap-dogs, like Carol Marin and other sycophants.

He believes that if you want to know about him, ask Hollywood, watch South Side With You  and the up-coming box-office stinker Barry, ironically about top-secret college days.

The genuine man, the man I have met, spoken with and remain thoroughly underwhelmed by, is pretty much the man I refused to cast a vote for in 2008 and 2012 - a thin-skinned, prickly, egoist with a genuine lack of gravity, substance and people skills. I found him to be rather a dim bulb, as well. That's just me.

His term of office never let me down. I had set a very low bar for him long before he announced for President.

Historians and regular people who deeply and passionately fell in love with the man image, fabricated by Valerie Jarrett, Desiree Rogers, David Axelrod, Rahm Emanuel and the Brothers Daley between 2004-2008, remain so and may never know what happened in America for eight years. They will not be moved, but they will forget.

Obama had his college records disappeared, he had his work for Bill Ayers and the Annenberg Challenge suppressed at University of Illinois Chicago library and last July did the same for his Presidential records.

Obama ordered his Presidential Records to be suppressed for Twelve (12) Years:

The letter, released to POLITICO on Friday under the Freedom of Information Act, also indicates that Obama is exercising his rights to put many of those records off-limits for 12 years after he leaves the presidency later this month. While the move could be seen as at odds with Obama's frequently stated commitment to transparency, it's a step other recent presidents have also taken before leaving the White House.

Well his legacy will vanish of its own accord.  Eventually the passionate people who wept real tears of joy in Grant Park  and around America on November  5th in 2008, or thousands of Chicagoans who stood in single digit Chicago arctic wind outside of McCormick Place to secure one (1) ticket to Obama's Farewell Speech tomorrow night, will wonder what exactly was it that Obama actually had done for eight years, besides, party, vacation, golf, bow, divide races, fire military leaders, bitch slap America's history and people, draw red lines and smirk.

Gold, Frankincense and Murph

They came into the house and saw the young
child with Mary, his mother, and they fell
down and worshiped him. Opening their
treasures, they offered to him gifts: gold,
frankincense, and myrrh. Matthew 2:11

Today is the feast of the Epiphany, or the visit of Wise Men (Magi) to the Holy Family.  This is a wonderful feast, recorded in the Gospels and celebrated throughout the Christian world.

When we were kids we called it Greek Christmas.   It is their Feast of Lights, celebrated as the emergence of the Church of Christ into the light, after three centuries of life in the catacombs under Roman persecution.  Our Greek buddies had two Christmas celebrations and our Jewish pals had Hanukkah which was a prolonged series of gifts as well.  We did Ok.  Only suckers beef.

You see for the Greeks and the Eastern Rite Churches The Epiphany encompasses not only the birth of Christ, but also celebrates the Baptism of Jesus, the visit of Magi and Marriage Feast Cana.

To us Catholics, Latin Rite, we think only about the visit of the three Wise men.

Theologically, it was the Greek Rite that has the more elaborate sensibility. The Eastern Orthodox patriarchs of the early Christian Church fused the Theophony of Christ ( Nativity) and the Epiphany of Christ ( the appearance of ) as the Body of Christ ( the Church) emerging to the light.

When I was a little guy, I got a particular kick out of the three Magi.  Two white guys and a black dude, Caspar, Melchior and Balthazar. How the hell we came up with those names is a wonder because none of the three Gospel accounts mention their names.  Ok by me.   They, to me, were like Bob Hightower, Pedro, and the Abilene Kid from the Three Godfathers.   They were like my many uncles who dropped off gifts, unannounced and for no reason other than they thought of me.

To the Christ Child the Magi brought gifts.  Until I was in third grade, I was totally flummoxed on their holiday selections: gold, frankincense and mur. . .murph.

For years I thought it was Murph, like my Dad's cousin Bart Murphy, who played for the Leo Lights in 1945.

I did learn that it was; Myrrh was an oil used for anointing Kings.

Gold, I could understand. Everyone needs some walking around money; especially a young Jewish couple on the bad side of King Herod and flopping in a stable.

Frankincence was a perfume, or kind of incense that made sense - in stable and new born baby and all.

But Myyrrh?

Oil - like the stuff we oiled our Wilson, Rawlings and Spaulding mitts with, sticking a baseball in its hollow and tying it up tight for a few days.

Oil makes things soft in order to make them tough.  Tough is pliable, durable, but never hard,

Hard is ruined.  Leaving an un-seasoned baseball glove out in the rain made it hard, brittle and useless.

Oil is for annointing us, toughening us and keeping us from becoming hard.  It is probably the best gift of the three.

Four hard people tortured a special needs kid, this past week.  Stone hard killers continued their work here in Chicago.   A hard man killed gunned down innocent people in Florida,  A hardened terrorist ran a truck into and killed four Israeli soldier.  At every ramp on every expressway, people with a hard road will beg for change and some of us will harden our hearts to them.  It is 18 degrees and they are asking for a little help.  I saw a couple load up on surf and turf at the Golden Steer on Friday night and leave no tip whatsoever.  People need some myrrh.

A hard guy can never ever be a tough guy.

Wish St. Matthew had written, "they offered to him gifts: gold, frankincense, and oil."  I went a long time thinking it was Murph.

Meet the Press - They Do Not Respect You

 Police said the incident began when an off-duty Chicago firefighter began to argue with motorists in the funeral procession who were blocking a fire lane. Police said the argument became “verbal and physical.”
Beal’s family members have said the incident began when an off-duty police officer tried to run one of their relatives off the road. Sun Times Frank Main &Mitch Dudek  

The shooting, which took place three days before Donald Trump's election as president, happened in Mount Greenwood, a largely white enclave heavily populated by police and firefighters on the mostly black and Hispanic South Side. Dueling protests followed, and the groups traded racial slurs and insults; supporters of the police, largely white, made clear those protesting the shooting, mostly black, were not welcome in the neighborhood. Chicago Tribune - Elvvia Malagon

         Kofi Ademola is a community organizer with Black Lives Matter Chicago and has been in                    regular contact with the Beal family since the fatal shooting.

He had not spoken to the family Thursday but reached out to offer some encouragement during this difficult time. Ademola said the family was already grieving when Beal was fatally shot. And now they are dealing with the arrest of Beal's brother Michael, who was taken into custody following the shooting for allegedly tackling with the officer and attempting to grab his gun.
For Ademola, what stood out among the new information was the 911 call from the officer. He said the officer's tone backs up the family's claims that painted the officer as both "aggressive" and "antagonistic." DNAinfo Kelly Bauer and Howard Ludwig

The media comments on a shooting that took place in November.  The accounts of the video released by the lame-duck Independent Police Review Board and soon to be Rahm-reconfigured as COPA, indicate a good police shooting.

Meet the Press!

None of the above reports from today's sources are accurate.  The funeral possession went on without the family Beal - they were weaving in and out of traffic, one vehicle was doing a U-Turn on 111th Street at Troy and then blocked the entrance to the FIRE HOUSE - which dispatches an Ambulance to black and white residents of Morgan Park and Mount Greenwood.

DNAinfo has been disgraceful from the day of the shooting. Only Ed Komenda presented exactly what had happened.

The incident happened about 3 p.m. Saturday near 111th Street and Troy Avenue. Joshua Beal was in a procession of cars returning from a funeral when he stopped in front of a firehouse on 111th Street, according to prosecutors.
An off-duty police officer told Beal that he was blocking access to the firehouse and the confrontation started, prosecutors said. Another off-duty officer in a nearby barber shop joined in on the confrontation, prosecutors said.
A group of nine people approached the second officer and started punching him, prosecutors said.A police sergeant driving to work saw the fight. He got out of his car, drew his gun and said he was a police officer, authorities said.
"You're not the only mother------- out there with guns," Joshua Beal said and waved the gun "back and forth," according to prosecutors. Joshua Beal then pulled the trigger, prosecutors said. It was unclear whether the gun actually fired.
Beal, who was in town to serve as a pallbearer at his cousin's funeral, refused to drop his gun, and he was shot multiple times, prosecutors said. He later died at Advocate Christ Medical Center.
Michael Beal then tried to pick up his brother's gun, prosecutors said.
"F--- you," Michael Beal said, according to prosecutors. "You killed my brother. I'm going to kill you."

Ed Komenda wrote that accurate account on November 8th and has not written about the Beal shooting since - Howard Ludwig, Kelly Bauer, Joe Ward are the compelling narrators.

The Tribune uses 'dogwhistle' racism and race baiting.

Has a black or Hispanic Community ever been referred to as an enclave?  Is Boystown an enclave?
Might Hyde Park be an enclave?  What is the diversity of Chinatown?  Mount Greewood is a neighborhood and black people live there next door to white people.

Enclave's etymology from the French for 'enclosure' and the Latin root word clavis offers a dog whistle to sensitive ears.  Clavis or 'key' suggests locked up, violent and hostile.  Shucks, link up Google's images for enclave and it jibs with Neil Steinberg's smears.

We get it.  The story of what actually happened on November 5, 2017 at around 3 PM on the north side of 111th Street in Mount Greenwood has yet to be told in the Chicago press, dissected by Phil Ponce on WTTW, or smirked about on WBEZ.

The core of the story is lost in the feathers and boas of 'compelling narrative.'

• 60's style racism
• Tweets from high school girls
• Ja'mal Green's political future
• Pastor Pfleger's grift box
• CPUSA and REVCOM
• Racism, racism and more racism

No an idiot who violated traffic laws with easy contempt, was confronted by people who are not idiots. A fight ensued.  Police officers announced them selves and pulled service weapons when the idiot was 'unresponsive' to police orders. The idiot pulled a gun on the announced police officers who returned fire.  The idiot died, God be good to him, and the press, Ja'mal Green, Black Lives Matter, REVCOM and Pastor Pfleger did the rest - Oh, and Kofi Ademola wants in too. 

Meet the Press!  With contempt. 

Broetics: The Path Into the Male Mind

"ut pictura poesis (l. 361),"  Hoarce from ars Poetica

Final Final Fantasy
I will not spend one hundred and thirteen
hours of my life on a video game
ever again. I will not rationalize,
claiming that it is somehow "research" for
my future career as a comic book
writer. I will not allow myself to be
sucked beyond the event horizon of an
RPG situated on a distant
planet, no matter how good the graphics are
on the nubile female lead character's chest.
I will no longer waste my time seeking out
arbitrary unlockable achievements.
I am going to start beating games faster. Brian McGackin

As in pictures, so in poetry.  The camera eye of the brain works wonders and the poet brings to life images and sentiments akin the apprehended.

Women ask of men, " What are you thinking right now."

Sister, you don't wanna know.

Really.  Usually it is nothing anywhere near akin to ocean spray and white stallions running through the surf, while I saddle up my rippled and coiled muscles and sinew in the direction of an imaginary sylph.

Nope; it is usually black and white cartoons from the 1930's of emaciated cows goosing one another and giving out with snappy patter - 'Solid, Jackson!'

Real men play cartoons in their heads, when not thinking about conquest, the next food item, or excuses. Productive cognition is for the job, fixing the furnace, or doing the checkbook alchemy.

Even Poets, if they be male, drift on clouds of hilarious time wasted.

Blind Milton, I am sure made up scenarios of dead Papists being pitchfoked into the Devils maw by industrious and trim Puritans.

Today, we  are blessed to feature the Man's Milton 2017 - young Master Brian McGackin&* - the Broet Laureate.

I have recently completed the slim volume of many Broesy - Broetry. 

Here is yet another sample of verse by a man, for men and thoroughly about men.

For Mama Celeste, as a Child
Mother cut tiny
slices for my small boy hands:
delicate pizza.
For Mama Celeste, in College
Hold up. This whole time
you were only a dollar?
You cheap, frozen whore.
For Mama Celeste, after College
Sorry about that.
Please take me back, Mama C.
I'm sick of ramen.

Men, get a copy of Broetry; Ladies read and learn what men have on their minds.  Stephen Hawking is filthy gent from what I hear.

As in days gone by - Poetry written by men is Broetry:

 If, after I depart this vale, you ever remember me and have thought to please my ghost, forgive some sinner and wink your eye at some homely girl. H. L. Mencken

"quandoque bonus dormitat Homerus (l. 359)"  Horace -Ars Poetica

* Brian McGackin is the author of BROETRY (Quirk Books, 2011) and DEATH IN THE RICK (http://deathintherick.com/).
He has a BA from Emerson College in Something Completely Unrelated To His Life Right Now and a Masters in Poetry from USC.
He enjoys Guinness, comic books, and Bruce Willis movies 

Inherited Wealth and the Marxist Grifter - The Two-Faced American Progressive

I always get a kick out of watching Katrina Vanden Heuvel on cable television (for some reason she is never on Fox) and delight in her class warrior makeup.

She reminds me of my youngest daughter who donned a jet black wig over her red tresses and faux-leather bodice and snow boots as she fought Gods and Monster as Xena.  Vanden Heuvel is an heiress to a huge fortune that allows her to open doors all over Manhattan and Cambridge and East Egg and L.A. to spout class war with Rachel Maddow, Chris Hayes and fellow trust fund baby Anderson Cooper.

Today, in the Washington Post, this doyen of democracy deconstruction sparks up the Birkenstock Bolsheviks of America with ways to combat Donald trump.

She leads off by quoting one of the most egregious creeps in American philanthropy - Gara Lamarche.

Gara Lamarche looted billions of dollars from Chuck Feeney's Atlantic Philanthropies all through the 1990's and into the New Millennium.  Now, here is a reather lengthy bit of read to whet your appetite for further study of Marxists who loot family foundations:

 Feeney’s “transformational philanthropy” across five continents focused on laying down a big check early on to support major projects (usually centered on a new building of some kind), which would in turn inspire others to make their own large contributions. But Feeney wasn’t focused on the buildings themselves (he never allowed them to be named for him) but rather the way large new facilities could revitalize a local neighborhood and also spur long-term growth in a larger area by boosting the educational and medical sectors. Just as he heeded Andrew Carnegie’s injunction not to die rich, he also heeded his predecessor’s advice to build “the ladders upon which the aspiring can rise.” This was the niche where Feeney had found his proudest moments as a philanthropist—such as the $125 million that AP committed in 2008 to the University of California San Francisco Medical Center in the run-down Mission Bay neighborhood. Or the $62 million AP provided to Galway University in Ireland, which is just a portion of the $800 million AP has provided to fund education in Ireland. Or the $350 million AP provided to Feeney’s alma mater, Cornell, so it could build a campus on New York City’s neglected Roosevelt Island (a fraction of the estimated $1 billion AP has awarded to Cornell).
For his part, LaMarche had his own answer to this question, one he had proffered even before becoming AP’s CEO in 2007: amplify AP’s funding for “community organizing” and “social justice giving,” as O’Clery puts it. In other words, embrace the philosophy of Soros and the Open Society Institute, and fund battalions of radical Alinskyite nonprofit protest groups.
As O’Clery writes, “from 2007 to 2011, under LaMarche’s management, [AP] would make over one hundred contributions to 501(c)(4) organizations” such as HCAN. (See examples below.) In this, LaMarche enjoyed a particularly strong rapport with three members of AP’s board: Frederick “Fritz” A. O. Schwarz Jr. (AP’s board chair, a prominent liberal lawyer and great-grandson of the famous New York toy baron); Elizabeth McCormack (a long-time fixture of the Rockefeller family’s philanthropic interests); and Michael Sovern (one-time Columbia University president and former trustee of Bill Clinton’s legal defense fund).
O’Clery writes that “Feeney was initially supportive of LaMarche’s prioritizing health care reform.” But the wider consequences of this shift towards smaller grants was not lost on him. It meant a major change in the size of grants AP had been making for most of its history, as well as their intended impact.
Feeney has liberal political leanings, but his philanthropy was another matter – more rooted in a philosophical, rather than political, view of the world. AP’s record of grants can be best understood as an expression of Chuck Feeney’s personal background. Feeney’s family of origin was not a wealthy one, but it was rich in terms of values—including charity towards others. One gets the impression from O’Clery’s book that Feeney’s philanthropy gave him a chance to express some of his most dearly held personal values, as handed down by his parents and neighborhood. Said his daughter Leslie:
“He has incredible empathy with people, which has its roots in his Irish Catholic background. He is a real child of his time. One needs to understand those Irish American neighborhoods during and after [World War II], how they worked, how they helped each other. That’s a big part of his life. He saw his mother and father take people off the street, helping people.”
For Feeney, the chance to do something extraordinary for others in need was no light matter—not out of a desire to be ostentatious or court publicity, nor out of a sense of “guilt” that he had become a rich man, but more likely, perhaps, for him to demonstrate that his basic beliefs remained undiluted by his great wealth.
In strategy, tactics, and impact of philanthropy, the approach of LaMarche, who seems to live for political controversy, activism, publicity, and adulation, could not be more different from Feeney’s.
The philosophical battle lines between founder, key board members, and the foundation’s senior leaders were drawn.

Gara Lamarche is up to his game and Katrina Vanden Heuvel delights in his coaching.

 As the new year begins, any honest progressive knows the political outlook is bleak. But if we’re going to limit the damage that President-elect Donald Trump inflicts on the country, then despair is not an option. The real question, as Democracy Alliance President Gara LaMarche recently said, “is how you fight intelligently and strategically when every house is burning down.”
Indeed, with Trump and Republicans in Congress aggressively pushing a right-wing agenda, progressives will need to invest their resources and attention where they can do the most good — both now and over the next four years. With that in mind, here are three steps to take to resist and rebuild as the Trump administration gets underway.
First, while strong national leadership is certainly important, progressives must recognize that the most significant resistance to Trump won’t take place in Washington. It’s going to happen in the streets led by grass-roots activists, and in communities, city halls and statehouses nationwide.

Katrina touts Governor Moonbean of the nouveau secessionist State of California as a 'national leader' who just might confound American Trumpery and save this nation for the Banana Republic Obama founded . . .and lost in an election.

Progressive always seem to be people with bucks up to their butts - trust fund babies like Bill Ayers, Katerina Vanden Heuvel and Bill De Blasio, or Cadillac Commies leeched onto to hide of 501(c)3 family fortunes.

They make sense to the news media.  Progressive America is a two-headed monster fueled by wealth and hungry for power.  Our media has taken the short-cut to access and power and waddles along the Progressive Path - Deconstruction of Universal Truths, Abortion, Dependency, Identity Victimhood, Race and Class Warfare.

The rest of us know Progressives and "the Media"  to be phonies and snobs. Progressives created the opportunity taken by Donald Trump.  I just hope that he is not one of them.

He inherited his wealth, but that does not make him a bad guy.  I know plenty of uber-rich folks who are as down-to-earth genuine and sincere as the ladies of the St. Cajetan Altar and Rosary Society and the guys at the Evergreen Park VFW - John Buck, Ron Gidwitz, Ty Warner and the late Don Flynn come to mind, here in Chicago.

Progressives want something for themselves - power.

Everyone else a happy, secure and meaningful life.

The two-headed monster is still breathing 

Chicago Will Cure Cancer Decades Before It Does an Accurate Prognosis on Killings

Editor’s note: To memorialize the victims of Chicago’s most violent year in two decades, the Chicago Sun-Times wrapped Sunday’s print editions with 618 faces of the 780 people murdered citywide in 2016 — every victim’s photo that the newspaper could obtain. Columnist Mary Mitchell offers her take on steps to address the city’s violence problem here. To read more stories of homicide victims, go to the Homicide Watch Chicago website: homicides.suntimes.com.  Chicago Sun Times

"You're not the only mother------- out there with guns," - the late Joshua Beal

 What's the cure to Chicago's homicides?  An accurate diagnosis would be a great start. However, compelling narratives are the rule of the day.  People kill people.  They will use a gun, a 2 X 4, a tire iron, a rock, a blade, or  broom to effect the demise of some person who has something the killer wants, or to send a message, or to quiet a witness, or burnish one's street cred, or just playing.

White people kill, black people kill, even Alsatian Quakers kill, if they are accustomed to bad behavior, have no moral core, or happen to be psychopaths. People tend to work their way up the gradus of bad behavior, before becoming killers.

Compelling narratives frame people with very bad behavior as victims of systemic racism, economic exploitation, or identity frustration.  But that is not why people kill.  People kill when they believe that they can get away with it.  If one gets away with misbehavior at every turn, be it jaywalking, disrupting the classroom, intimidating weaker people, stealing, spitting,littering, raping and looting, why not light some one up?

Shopping Malls are up for grabs as mobs of kids act out, just as they do during the school day.  Dots remain unconnected.

We see the problem as a chalk outline and not the previous few hours and minutes of the life outlined and its encounter with a gun owner.

When we are sick and hurting we need good, no-nonsense physicians attending our problems.

 My son was three years old and one morning he could not walk.  " My legs somehow can't work."  His older sister cried, "Conor can't walk!" Terrified his mother and I scooped him up and darted to La Porte Hospital ER.

There the child was examined for hours.

In the mean time, I had called Dr. James Kennedy, M.D. recently retired surgeon who was himself in the early stages of the Parkinson's Disease that would take his life, far too soon. Dr. Kennedy spent all of his free time either going to swimming meets for his seven  athletic children, or attending burn seminars, or surgical methodology demonstrations.

My two physician pals, Doctors Rick Clark and Mark Manning trained under the gimlet eye of Dr. Kennedy.  They told me of a mass shooting that flooded victims into the St. Mary's Hospital ER in Kankakee, Illinois one summer's night.  Dr. Kennedy was off and the ER was a madhouse.  Dr. Kennedy happened to be walking west on Court Street when he saw the all of ambulances charging toward St. Mary's.  Doc went straight there.

Into the chaos, panic and blood appeared Dr. James Kennedy - deus ex machina!  Quiet, order and efficiency saved a dozen lives.

Doc Kennedy counselled, " Don't sign off on anything.  Stay calm like your wife, Mary.  She never panics.  I 'll be there in an hour."

The doctors ran a series of blood tests on the little guy. They were very concerned. Recently, a three year old in Long Beach had been diagnosed with cancer and the first sign had been an inability to walk.

Mary and I clutched hands and prayed.

Dr. Kennedy arrived and needed no introduction as his reputation preceded him even here in Indiana.

" What's the trouble Conor?"

" I can't somehow walk."

Dr. Kennedy examined his feet and legs, " He has been wearing cowboy boots," he stated and not asked.

Mary told him that her mother had bought Conor and his two cousins cowboy boots at Lighthouse Square the week before.

" They're too tight."

No cancer.  no Byzantine pathology required.  No extended stay, or observations necessary.  Conor went on to play every sport but baseball, never dropped a snap as a football center in four years of play at St. Rita and La Lumiere.  He is walking to the Cotton Bowl to watch the Broncos of Western Michigan challenge the Badgers and walks proudly.  He never again wore cowboy boots.


Chicago's murder scores sit at 795.

Here is current wisdom from activists, politicians and the go-along Chicago Media and my rejoinder.

• It's Guns - inanimate objects; pencils do not fail exams
• It's Gangs - Old Homies no longer run the show
• It's Poverty -guns are not free
• It's Unemployment- guns are not free
• It's Racism - what isn't?
• It's Policing - Policing has been outlawed by City Hall, the Peoples Law Office, Black Lives Matter, Carol Marin, Eric Zorn, The Chicago Tribune and Sun Times and WTTW
• It's Not Policing - Depends upon which side of the compelling narrative the media got up on

My Dr. Kennedy-esque empiricism tells me that wrapping the Sunday Edition in photos of the murder victims, Pastor Pfleger Photo Ops, Mag Mile Marches, Blue Ribbon Panels, ACLU studies with pre-cast conclusions, and weeping and wailing for the cameras are all very nice, but will not stop the killing.

Checking behavior at the root, just might.

Acting the fool, playing the Cell Warrior, just playing, cutting in line, playing chin check, just playing, passing in the imaginary right lane, and working the gums 24/7 are very early indicators of a person capable of riding the 9 down on some chump. See - the late Joshua Beal*

Bad medicine.

Until the Chicago death diagnosis recognizes the true cause of the problem - an inability to realize that getting over on people is not getting by - our 'legs won't somehow work.'

* Ed Komenda's DNAinfor account was the only media piece to exactly report the incident. 

Cook County Forest Preserves - Our Greatest Natural Asset for Education, Pleasure and Recreation

 

To acquire … and hold lands … containing one or more natural forests or lands connecting such forests or parts thereof, for the purpose of protecting and preserving the flora, fauna and scenic beauties within such district, and to restore, restock, protect, and preserve the natural forests and said lands together with their flora and fauna, as nearly as may be, in their natural state and condition, for the purpose of the education, pleasure, and recreation of the public.  Cook County Commissioners 1905

1904 had been a tough year for Chicagoans, especially south siders -  Chicago lost the Summer Olympics to St. Louis and the Streetcar and Stockyard Strikes. put many people in financial, physical and even mortal jeopardy - scabs opened fire from rail cars used by the packers to safely transport them to and from the yards and killed several strikers.

Orchestra Hall was completed largely through the subscriptions of the Swift, Armour.  Schwarzschild & Sulzberger packinghouse barons. Very few stockyard workers attended the symphony, I would hazard a guess.

What did working people do and where did they go for relaxation?  What was available to them?  Saloons.  Church.  Union Halls.

The Great Conservationist was in the White House. President Teddy had designated vast tracks of land for the edification, enjoyment and education of the American people.

It seems that in 1905, a few like-minded public servants did the same.

Some brilliant people staked out  68,000 acres of field, wood and water around and within the City of Chicago and gave us the Cook County Forest Preserve District.

This soul tonic of a resource is one of the wonders of living where we do - one wonders if a contemporary public official has the heart and brains to match the vision of the 1905 County Commissioners.

Following the lead of Dr. John Rauch's  Public Parks, City of Chicago (Chicago, 1869), the great sanitarian who fought Yellow Fever and cholera here and beyond Chicago,  some clear headed people put the Forest Preserve into being just after the 1904 strikes and the loss of Olympics.

The 1905 document calling for the creation of a Forest Preserve District was weakly written and it was not until 1911 that the dream came to life.

From that time, the common man, as well as the swell, had his own 'green retreats.' Dan Ryan Woods, Maple Lake, Willow Slough, Joe Louis Golf Course, Brookfield Zoo, Arie Crown Botanic Gardens, Busse Woods, Desplaines River Trail and Camp Dan Beard became places where the grey canyon of La Salle Street, or the red dust of Hegewisch might be forgotten for  a couple of restorative hours.

• Chicago kids could take nature hikes, toboggan, sled, swim, play football, softball and jog.
• Old Timers could take their Kerry Blue, or mixed mutt breed out for a chase of a tennis ball.
• Lovers could neck.
• Families could barbecue, picnic, camp and relax.
• Children at the Nature Stations like Little Red Schoolhouse could learn about the flora and fauna of Cook County
• Teens learned to 'drink responsibly

For one hundred and eleven years, the working stiff and the well-heeled have been afforded a pastoral paradise.

Quality people put this into being.  Let's pray that quality people will preserve the Cook County Forest Preserve District.

All photos of Dan Ryan Woods

The United Nations is King Herod The Great - The Senator Dick Durbin of His Day

 Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL), the US Senate Majority Whip, received the International Family Planning Award from the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Planned Parenthood of Illinois and the United Nations Foundation (UNF).

 "A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more."[ Jeremiah from The Gospel of St. Matthew

By geographic region, abortion policies were most
restrictive in Oceania, followed by Africa and Latin
America and the Caribbean. Only 6 per cent of
Governments in Oceania and Africa and only 12 per
cent in Latin America and the Caribbean allowed
abortion upon request. Eighteen countries in Africa,
12 in Asia, 8 in Latin America and the Caribbean and
8 in Oceania allowed abortion only to save a
woman’s life. Europe and Northern America, in
contrast, had the most liberal abortion policies in
2013. Both Governments in Northern America and
73 per cent of Governments in Europe allowed
abortion on request.  United Nations -Abortion Policies and Reproductive Health

Today is the Feast of the Holy Innocents.  Herod the Great was an oily Progressive thinking opportunist who switched allegiances at the drop of some blood, but was very civilized and sophisticated.   He was a Jew who who took a  Nishtkefelecht attitude towards matters of religion and conscience, like an Irish Catholic Democrat who is praised by Planned Parenthood. Think of Senator Dick Durbin and you understand King Herod.  Totally, sophisticated.

Civilized and sophisticated people, United Nations explains, approve of abortion - a woman's reproductive health.

Unsophisticated people take the lessons of Matthew's Gospel to heart:

When [the Magi] had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. Get up, he said, take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him. So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night, and left for Egypt, where he stayed until the death of Herod. And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet: "Out of Egypt I called my son."[7] When Herod realised that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old or under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi. Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled: "A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more."

Wait a minute!  Even HBO's Game of Thrones, must see TV for any sophisticate, offered an homage to St. Matthew - the late King Robert's bastards must all be slaughtered so that  creepy little King Joffrey can rule - just like Herod and not unlike the former Pro-Life Senior Senator from Illinois.

Abortion is a murder of convenience.

Today is the Feast of the Holy Innocents - slaughtered by Herod the Great in order to scientifically eliminate any and all possibilities of having a claimant to his Roman throne.

The United Nations, which has been  owned and operated by Marxist sophisticates ever since the Korean War Cease Fire, is the most sophisticated body of thugs on earth.  With pie-charts, graphs, globalist politicians and a dunghill of rhetorical polemics, the United Nations has done more to isolate people of faith ( Israel), slaughter people of Faith ( Uganda, Somalia, Syria, Lebanon) and innocents globe round than any psychopathic dictator or James Bond Villain could dream up.

I see the United Nations as a global Planned Parenthood.  I see their biggest supporters ( Senator Dick Durbin and so many others) doing King Herod the Great on a daily basis.

This is a day that commemorates the slaughter of children under the age of two by that globalist sophisticate and civilized Progressive King Herod of Judea.

This is a day for some unsophisticated examination of the deeds of some all too human monsters - individual and collective.

How Un-Evolved of Me! Loping the Mule is Not Love for Evolved

The Sin of Onan - past time of both genders and a few more.

You ladies all of merry England
Who have been to kiss the Duchess's hand,
Pray, did you not lately observe in the show
A noble Italian called Signor Dildo? ...
A rabble of pricks who were welcomed before,
Now finding the porter denied them the door,
Maliciously waited his coming below
And inhumanly fell on Signor Dildo ... Sir John Wilmot 17th Century Libertine

I have been told that I need to work on my filters.   Especially when I speak to people beyond the pale of my blue collar Catholic parish, where marriages largely remain intact, kids grow up and become useful citizens and weirdos are generally seen for what they happen to be.

Gay people are married and live happily together. Some with adopted children who are happy that someone houses, feeds, provides and most of all loves them.  That is a good thing.  Fact of the matter is those folks choose not to live in my neck-of-the-Dan Ryan Woods.  This appears to be hetero-marriage world.  I am sure that are gay couples here in the 19th Ward, I know more than few gay singles, here and about who work at the County Building, City Hall and at the Criminal Courts, who grew up in Tommy More, Little Flower, St. Dennis and Ethelreda parishes with us who chose not to marry at this time.  They are great people who would be as welcome as they are without spouses, because they are great people.

That said, and I said it many times,   Marriage is meant for a man and a woman. Way back in 2011, Illinois passed the Civil Unions Ordinance which did not confer on couples the terms 'spouses,'husbands, and 'wives.'  That was handled by Gov. Pat Quinn, the Paul Simon Insitute Polls and our elected officials on November 20, 2013.  Evolution sure has sped up some!

The legislation has yet to change the simple fact that the Yin and Yang of gender remains at play and no matter how much two gals, or two guys love one another the laws of biology discovered by Fr. Gregor Mendel, O.S.A. remain in play:

1) The Law of Segregation: Each inherited trait is defined by a gene pair. Parental genes are randomly separated to the sex cells so that sex cells contain only one gene of the pair. Offspring therefore inherit one genetic allele from each parent when sex cells unite in fertilization.
2) The Law of Independent Assortment: Genes for different traits are sorted separately from one another so that the inheritance of one trait is not dependent on the inheritance of another.
3) The Law of Dominance: An organism with alternate forms of a gene will express the form that is dominant.
The genetic experiments Mendel did with pea plants took him eight years (1856-1863) and he published his results in 1865. During this time, Mendel grew over 10,000 pea plants, keeping track of progeny number and type. Mendel's work and his Laws of Inheritance were not appreciated in his time. It wasn't until 1900, after the rediscovery of his Laws, that his experimental results were understood.

We are people;not peas!  Got it.

When gender became as unnecessary to the political culture world, it became of paramount necessity to the litigious high priests of moral legislation and jurisprudence.  Lawyers lawsuit the shit out of average un-evolved people of Faith and not the other way around.

When gay marriage was argued all the way from Springfield to the United States Supreme Court, people of sense and faith worried about the marriage between a man and his rooster, girl and her pet pony, an ardent swain and his melon, brothers seeking more than a Bromance, sapphic sisters setting up camp, Mormon poly-same sex partners and a Frog and her robot.

All objections were immediately peck sniffed and eyes rolled like Buddy Bomar was tossing them, by the evolved libertine libertarians who study morality on HBO.  Mark Ruffalo is cool with it; worship it.  It gets better.  

In France,  a woman named Lilly wants to marry her robot.  Robot passion suppression is not new - sex toys appear in every culture. For the Ladies, The Dildo, according to the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) appears, appears mind you, to have been evolved from the smoothly carved wooden, how shall I say, tool of nautical origin.

 One theory is that it originally referred to the phallus-shaped peg used to lock an oar in position on a dory (small boat). It would be inserted into a hole on the side of the boat, and is very similar in shape to the modern toy. It is possible that the sex toy takes its name from this sailing tool, which also lends its name to the town of Dildo and the nearby Dildo Island in Newfoundland, Canada.

For the Gents, the Sailor's Wife, the Mighty Mitt, the Fleshlight, or the Fifi developed in prison for the more  staunch anti-sodomy cell dwellers. The Fifi, which refers to an artificial vagina usually made by rolling a trash bag or condom inside of a towel, and using some sort of lubrication such as hand lotion.

The Robot's fiance and would-be spouse, Lilly the Frog, has science, behind her desires, of course:

University of London Computing Professor Adrian David Cheok said he believes robots will not only become common, but preferable for many people.
“It’s going to be so much easier, so much more convenient to have sex with a robot. You can have exactly what kind of sex you want. That’s going to be the future. That we will have more sex with robots and the next stage is love … we’re already seeing it.”
“Actual sex with humans may be like going to a concert. When you’re at home you can listen to Beethoven’s ninth symphony, it’s good enough and once or twice a year you’ll want to go the Royal Albert Hall and hear it in a concert hall.
“That may be the way sex with humans is going to be. It’s going to be much more easier, much more convenient to have sex with a robot, and maybe much better because that’s how you want it.”

Now, Professor Adrian David Cheok is no  ordinary jagoff.  He's a scientist, no doubt a devout onanaist as well.

All of these evolved means of onanism come down to self love - Onanism. We were sex educated ( segregated from the ladies of course)  by Father Gerrity in the mysteries of self mastery and the lists of love-making outside of the sacrament of Matrimony.   Self-love ( pocket pool, boxing the Jesuit, beatin' the bishop, loping the old mule, greasing the flagpole, chuckin' the custard ) was a thoroughly vain pursuit and the Sin of Onan.  

And sin we did!

However, self control and human will tempered by moral adjustments and canon law, prevented generations of hearts wanting what the heart wants from shivering our timbers 24/7.  That and exhaustion, I suppose. We  managed to fall in love, marry and procreate and then do that providing and loving for the bairns.

On the secular side of things, Planned Parenthood demands more wiggles and giggles and more penetrating productions. A gal has to make a buck.

Grabbing the gecko was not an act of love, but an imitation of sex.

Evolution is a hoot in this Anthony Weiner World of Ours!  Just maybe not all that . . .gratifying.

Allow me to speak on Siebert's Pub and then St. Raphael's Catholic Church - Greeting a New Wave of Catholics With the Grandeur of West Side and South Side Icons

If you’re looking for a family friendly place with a unique menu, full bar and 12 draft beers then... 
Siebert's Pub is the place for you!

This is why I left you in Crete, that you might amend what was defective, and appoint presbyters in every town as I directed you (Titus 1:5).


Last weekend, Terry Sullivan and I spent some long planned quality time with two of the most impost important people in my life - Kate and Charlie Olson. Both of these people got me through the toughest times in my life and made the happiest ones beyond special.

Charlie and I taught at Bishop McNamara High School in Kankakee, IL.  Kate was senior the year I began there and was one year junior to my wife Mary Cleary Hickey.

In 1988, Mary and I went to La Lumiere School in Laporte, Indiana and shortly after Charlie and Kate moved up to Lake County, Illinois where Kate worked as an engineer for Baxter and later Abbott Labs and Charlie taught and coached at Grayslake North.

When Mary was diagnosed with brain cancer, Charlie and Kate would drive to our home in Griffith, Indiana and often take the three kids with them.  They were with us all through that horrible time.

They helped me recover from loss and regain my balance - sort of.  They are delightful friends.

Though last weeks Arctic Chill and blizzardy road conditions turned Lake County into a scene from Dr. Zhivago we soldiered out to Salem, Wisconsin just over the State Line and had a great dinner at Sieberts Pub, which seems to have shanghaied a four star chef from somewhere, because the sea food and other dishes made more happy Packer Fans, than the Bears did the next day. Charlie and I both had the grilled Ahi Tuna steak, lightly seasoned with a side of homemade wasabi mayo. Most places do to tuna steaks, what TGI Friday's and Chili's do food in general.  
You eat it with all gusto and passion of David Mamet strapped to chair and subjected to 48 hours of Bill Moyers on PBS loop tapes -"We must have a pie. Stress cannot exist in the presence of a pie." In the absence of a fine pie, go to Siebert's*.

Siebert's prepares ( Medium rare tuna – Cooking temperature 132°F (56°C) – Cooking time 30 minutes) the fish and presents it with care.

Kate and Terry had pasta and pulled pork, but I am so self-absorbed that I only can comment on what I had for dinner.

Siebert's is and old timey road house on Antioch Road above the Chain of Lakes.  The staff are very welcoming to south of the border FIPS. Never once, did I feel the need to comment on the Packer wear, nor the fried cheese curds getting vacuumed up at the bar, by all and sundry.

We were stated and satisfied.

The next morning We went to 11A.M Mass at St. Raphael the Archangel Catholic Church, before the trip home and my daughters Christmas gathering in Oak Lawn.

St. Raphael the Archangel is a work of genius.  This original place of worship was a typical post-WWII era, cookie-cutter modern American barn-like ecumenical design - externally indistinguishable from the the 11th Day Unitarian Temple of Coexistence, or an interior not unlike a rock concert venue.

Some people think that Catholic Churches are empty, only because of the scandals, or that the liturgies are too traditionally Catholic.

Nonsense, the Catholic Church has had scandals ever since Acts of the Apostles.  The Catholic Churches in the Catholic Church that are unashamedly Catholic - not Episcopalian/Methodist Lite, or Unitarian Book Club variety - are packed on Sundays.  If it looks Catholic, it more than likely is that.  Try and get a seat at St. John Cantius, or St. Odilo's three minutes before the Gospel and then try and reserve parking in front of City Hall.

We took Little Grassy Road east to Route 45 and then north for about a mile and there on our left ascended a blast from the past.

St. Raphael the Archangel was the dream of the late Francis Cardinal George, a Chicagoan steeped in our towns faith and history.In 2006, knowing the ever increasing population of Lake County, Cardinal George ordered Father John Jamnicky to assess the need for and begin the planning for the construction of a traditional Catholic Church.  On April 30th, 2007 Father Jamnicky became the first pastor of St. Raphael the Archangel. It was a barn - literally.

"An old barn, on the Alfred and Florence Pedersen farm in Antioch, converted into the temporary St. Raphael the Archangel Catholic Church.
Liturgical artifacts and furnishings salvaged from various shuttered Chicago Catholic churches and recycled in the temporary church."

Unlike too many houses of worship, it did not stay a Catholic barn.

The beauty of the immigrant built churches of Chicago reflected the authenticity and power of the devout who labored and penny'd - up the pew money to build St. Adalbert's, St. Patrick's and Our Lady of Perpetual Help Basilica in Chicago.  The parish cut out a fine Mission:

St. Raphael the Archangel is a young parish, only 6 years old, of approximately 600 families. We are currently holding Mass in a remodeled barn, which we believe to be the most beautiful temporary church you will ever see, while our permanent church is being built in Old Mill Creek.
We are a traditional Roman Catholic Church that teaches the Gospel and the Bible with clarity and enthusiasm. We are loyal to the Magisterium – the teaching authority of the Roman Catholic Church. It is important to us that we live our beliefs, that we are witnesses of the compassionate love of Jesus for all people, that we share his message with others so that they may grow in spiritual life and find salvation. It is our goal to affirm and advance the Catholic faith.

St. Raphael the Archangel took the best of Old Catholic Chicago - the facade of St. John of God and the interior of St. Peter Canisius - matched the 'welcome home' mission sparked by Cardinal George.

His spirit rises above the prairies of Lindenhurts with the Bell Towers and Stained Glass windows of St. Raphael the Archangel.



The place was packed.  There were many young families, especially Mexican and Filipino, as well as former Chicagoans.  A south side priest Father Michael McGovern is pastor of St. Raphael the Archangel.  Father grew up in  Christ the King parish. His homily reflected the many signs demanded of God by weaklings like me and the daily signs that blow by my notice.  An angel told Mary and Joseph to expect the unexpected. They did not blink.  I get whacked between the eyes with two by four and I ask when lunch is served.

St. Raphael the Archangel is a sign that Cardinal George is very much with us, renewing Christ's Church by pointing to the signs of our faith in history. Pretty good weekend trip north of Madison Avenue.

Food for the soul can come with wasabi mayo or a parish that dedicates itself to renewal without erasing tradition, beauty and history.


* Siberts Pub: 8403 Antioch Rd, Salem, WI 53168
Phone: (262) 843-4621:  Aaron & Kim Edmonds owners