Pray, Live and Act Solid and Solidarity Happens

Many Americans are fired up in a bad way about Trump getting elected, and the Revolutionary Communist Party, aka RevCom, founded in 1975 by UC Berkeley grad and party chairman Bob Avakian, are particularly vocal about it. A stroll by Revolution Books, in the alleyway just west of Telegraph, between Durant Avenue and Channing Way, will tell you as much. Outside the store sits a signboard with a large poster of Trump in a KKK cap, complete with Hitler-stache—an image made all the more sinister by the gloom of the dark, rainy skies that have been drowning the Bay in the wake of the election. “MEIN TRUMPF,” it reads below his scowling pumpkin-colored face, “A Thoroughly American Fascist Pig.” Below that, a flyer states: “WE REFUSE TO ACCEPT A FACIST AMERICA.” Cal Alumni Association

The Revolutionary Communist Party are the printers for the Solidarity crowd. Instead of the old Union Printers Bug One is more likely to see this at the bottom of every Solidarity march in the rainbow.

In November such signs were brought into my neighborhood to provoke and stir up outrage after a an idiot was shot and killed for pulling a loaded gun on people on 111th Street at three in the afternoon.

The Chicago Media (especially DNAinfo Chicago) never cited the Revolutionary Communists. They never will. The oligarchs need the divisive to rule the complacent.  It works swell in Chicago.

As to the November provocations, cool heads prevailed, in spite of a daily dose bad, incomplete and false information from the Chicago media, a street hustling priest, and Chicago's Episco-politician prelate.

The calls for Solidarity by agents of change are more like cattle calls for unoriginal thinkers, casting calls for self-absorbed people and opportunities to vent frustrations by most people who march, chant, moon and go home to HBO, than heroic phalanxes of determined patriots facing tanks, coiled Spetsnaz killers and fifty years of totalitarian rule.  Andy Thayer and Ja'mal Green ain't Lech Walensa.

I am teaching Social Justice to juniors at a Chicago single gender (make) Catholic High School.  The textbook for the class is very skewed toward PC Socialism, rather than Catholic Social Justice - Leo XIII, Rerum Novarum, Bishop Bernard Shiel, Francis Cabrini, or Bishop Dagger John Hughes.

Rather, it is propaganda for street activists and big dominant and wildly highlighted  word is Solidarity.  The book insists that Wealth is an evil as opposed to a pile of cash, much in the same way that the Left has made an anthropomorphic villain of a firearm.  Guns kill People!  Yes, in the same manner that pencils fail exams.

Thomas Aquinas would have the strap out for the editors.

I point out the more glaring falsities and less than subtle propaganda. High school students believe a text is true because it is 'on the test.'  My aunt believed Liberace was a catch for some nice girl. The USCCB approved the text as, -OK!

The book is bad and I'll leave it at that.  I voiced my opinion to the gents and they seem to agree.

Jesus was not a community organizer.  Jesus liked people.  Jesus did not like phonies and thieves. Jesus chided zealots.

In fact, St. Simon called the Zealot, is a confusing character to most scholars. Blockheads who saw and absorbed Jesus Christ Superstar insist that Simon influenced Jesus go all Che Guevara on the Romans.

Jesus said exactly what He and His Pa expect of us - said so this past Sunday:

"You have heard that it was said,
You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.
But I say to you, love your enemies
and pray for those who persecute you,
that you may be children of your heavenly Father,
for he makes his sun rise on the bad and the good,
and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust.
For if you love those who love you, what recompense will you have?
Do not the tax collectors do the same?
And if you greet your brothers only,
what is unusual about that?
Do not the pagans do the same?
So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect." MT 5:38-48

Fr. Thomas Jackson, O.P. gave a delightful and poignant homily on this core text of Catholic Social Justice.  Father Jackson, an African American fullback of a man, begged us to pray for him.  Pray that he and all of us might turn down Bill O'Reilly, or Bill Maher and get real with our lives.  He mentioned that he still has trouble 'turning the other cheek' when confronted with real evil.  He said our grandfathers fought real evil and their sons and grandsons continue to do so in Iraq and on the streets of ChiRaq.  We all must confront real evil - not pretend evil - but there are those of us , like Knights Templar of old, who must and should wield the sword.  We who do confront evil as soldiers and police officers, should work for peace.  No salary, just do the right thing and treat people with respect.  Paid Peacemakers tend to be creeps who take the easy and the low road that never seems to be thick with consequences.

Professional Peacemakers never seem go to North Korea, or chant 'Hey, Hey, Ho, Ho,/Boko Haram must let the girls go!' - now, why is that?  Well, because Kim would use them for mortar practice and Boko Haram would rape and butcher them.  Peace advocates never call for Solidarity against ISIS(l).  No they spit at, abuse, threaten and advocate the killing of police officers, Trump voters, or Milo.

It is tough to love everyone.  That is why sainthood is not for cupcakes. I am as yellow as a duck's foot and as crabby as Charlie Sheen after a long weekend.   Like Father Jackson, I need prayer.  I need courage. I need grace. The only source of those comes from Christ.


I will not obtain the grace to love my fellow man, even the creeps on AARP commercials, by marching in Solidarity with cherry-picked identity victims.

Solidarity requires that one hate the haters.  Someone else picks the haters. Standing in Solidarity places you against of your neighbors.   Pretty soon, rounding them up seems like a great idea.

Pray, live and act like a solid person.  You will find yourself in great company.

 

Lemonade Stands All Over the 19th Ward From February 17th to President's Day

 Did your carbon footprint create this glorious weather?  Well, aren't you ashamed of yourself?  No?  Me, neither.

This was one glorious weekend in February!

Here in the neighborhood ( Morgan Park/Beverly/ Mount Greenwood), I found side-walk chalk markings all up and down Talman and in the parking lot of St. John Fisher, but more importantly, while hiking my lard around the Ward from Friday through Sunday, I nearly went broke buying lemonade.

Kids were busy kicking up a buck at 108th & Campbell, 110th & Washtenaw, Talman between 109th and 103rd looked like a county fair.

Little ladies and gents were hawking their Real Lemon Reconstituted, water and Domino's mixed elixirs from card tables, wagons, lawn chairs and or porches.

" Buy some Lemonade, Mister!"

The dude abides.  

ABC 7 I-Team Smear of Cops - Chuck Goudie Couldn't Find a Car Dealership on Western Avenue

A Tree knows how to respond to a Chuck Goudie investigation. 

Chuck Goudie has had a long and sad career as reader on Chicago Channel 7, ABC (Disney) News.

Chuck violated a crime scene during the investigation of Lee Miglin's 1997 murder.

Over the years, Goudie and some other aggressive reporters have come under criticism at times for perhaps going too far to get a story.
Goudie found himself squarely in the national media spotlight in 1997, when he covered the hunt for Andrew Cunanan, who was accused of killing Chicago developer Lee Miglin and designer Gianni Versace.
In Miami Beach, Goudie was let into a hotel room where Cunanan apparently had stayed, but that the police and FBI had overlooked. Goudie filed a report that showed him holding some items in the room.
Law enforcement officials were outraged and accused Goudie of crossing an ethical line in his reporting and possibly tampering with evidence. Some colleagues, including the news director for the ABC affiliate in Miami, which ran video of the report, were harsh in their criticism.
He says he had been told that police and the FBI had already been through the room, and that the room was ready for someone else to use.
"I was surprised some people in my business turned on it so quickly," Goudie says.

Gee, sounds like Chuck all but invented alternative facts.

Then, Chuck went on to smear Leo High School.

 By Chuck Goudie and Ann Pistone

 3 CHICAGO AREA CATHOLIC SCHOOLS KEEP DANGEROUS SECRETS, SEX ABUSE VICTIMS SAY

Tuesday, June 02, 2015
CHICAGO (WLS) -- The ABC7 I-Team looked into claims by nearly 100 alleged victims of sexual abuse in metro Chicago that the archdiocese and some of its schools are keeping dangerous secrets.
The case involves claims of sexual and physical abuse by priests and teachers at three local Catholic high schools. The three high schools have been a part of a Roman Catholic order called the Irish Christian Brothers. Hundreds of men and women accused members of the North American order of sexual abuse. . . . He says this to close Investigations, ” The I-Team left numerous messages at , Leo and . . . , but never heard back.”

Well, in 2015 I was working at Leo High School;  I replied to Chuck and his I-Team in the Chicago Daily Observer:

 Not true, Chuck.  One lovely young African American single mother of two answers, or takes down every phone message, every e-mail and every carrier pigeon missive that come to Leo High School, where it has been since 1926 at 7901 S. Sangamon Street 60620, ph.(773) 224-9600 ex. 208 (for me) and fax at (773) 224-3856. E-mail come to admin@leohighschool.org. Also, every communication with regard to Leo High School goes through a genuine journalist and newsman, Leo President Dan McGrath.  This inquiry, Chuck, would not be Dan McGrath’s first rodeo.  We got nothing from ABC, Channel 7, or the I-Team.
Nothing from I-Team and nothing from Chuck. So, that is a smear – saying we do not return phone calls, much less keep “dangerous secrets.”
Unless Chuck Goudie is prepared to call a lovely young African American single mother of two a liar, I’d say Chuck should crawfish on his report in a very public manner.
In a really nice world, a Leo Alumnus who has a very public record of going to court and righting public wrongs should give Chuck Goudie an old school legal ass-kicking.

Leo never heard from Chuck Goudie, before, during and certainly never after Chuck's investigation went nowhere.

Chuck gets fed his dope by people with an agenda and that is what he calls "investigative journalism."

Today, with bodies piling up all over Chicago, hostility toward police at toxic levels, a Banana Republic operating out of City Hall and the County Building the ABC 7 I-Team led by Chuck the Boneless tosses piles of domestic violence numbers at the wall to see if anything will stick:

By Chuck Goudie and Ross Weidner, Christine Tressel, Barb Markoff
Thursday, February 16, 2017 10:34PM
CHICAGO (WLS) -- The ABC 7 I-Team uncovered a stunning number of domestic violence complaints against Chicago police officers and an overwhelming lack of disciplinary action resulting from those complaints.
If you are a Chicago police officer accused of domestic violence, Code 600 will be the likely outcome. That is the police jargon for no disciplinary action.
In nine of every 10 domestic violence allegations made against officers by their spouse or children, no disciplinary action is ever taken. And there are a lot of allegations.
Chicago police respond to nearly 500 domestic related calls a day, according to the latest department data; calls for help at home from across the city.
But the I-Team uncovered surprising domestic violence complaints about police officers themselves.
"It kind of shakes people to the core to have to deal with that reality that this may be the person who's answering your call for help," Diane Wetendorf, police domestic violence expert, said.
Wetendorf is a police domestic violence expert and advocate based in the northern suburbs. For years she said she helped victims who were abused at the hands of Chicago police.

Gee, a for-real domestic violence expert and advocate!

This level of nonsense goes nowhere, but into the maws of critics of police and into the pockets of experts and advocates.

Police work is brutal, but not as brutal, small-hearted and idiotic as Chicago's mewling political lickspittle media.

Chuck Goudie is the media.

American Media - Our Own Oroville Dam: Thank You, Mrs. Conway!

The Conways




The American Media

News hucksters paved Donald Trump's path to the White House and wasted every brick trust in so doing.

People who wanted to see an end of to the global corporatist oligarchy built by Progressive Democrats during during the Clinton years and tuck-pointed by GOP mavericks and Skull and Bones opportunity trowel masters, hoped for Scott Walker or Rand Paul, or James Webb, or Ben Carson to emerge from the political hair-ball that was 2016 Election, but due to CNN, MSNBC, New York Times, Washington Post and  Internet-pockets of pimply Journolism at Salon, VOX and Daily Beast bet that Donald Trump would suck all of the air out of atmosphere and blow life into Hillary Clinton.

These people, me included. turned to Donald Trump as the only choice and hoped that he would be better than he seemed.

He was and sure seems to be - Michael Flynn notwithstanding.

I read that Morning Joe, as well as CNN has banned Kelly Anne Conway.  Good.  Kelly Anne Conway makes sense and confounds airheads like busty Mika and vapid Joe.

Mrs. Conway belongs to my crowd of people. People who shop main street, send the kids to Catholic school, speak plainly, understand the nuances of bullshitters and respond in kind, work for a living and care about the truth.  She does not 'only watch PBS, read the New York Times, or admire David Brooks.'  Mrs. Conway reads everything and also speaks with people who can not put a dime in her purse. I am getting to like Trump, because of Kelly Anne Conway.

My neighbors feel the same way.  I mean my neighbors who do not have Shakman exempt jobs with the City of Chicago, or the County,  Those folks say little, except " Can you BELIEVE Trump is President ?"  Why, yes.  Yes, I can and do. Most others say, " Trump's doing what he said he'd do.  This could work."

The media has become the Oroville Dam. That creaky California concrete weir poised to collapse at the next drop of rain.

For years Jerry Brown and other unicorn collectors have allowed the infrastructure to rot, while they pumped millions of dollars into human give-away programs and feel good unfunded mandates.

The dam is busting.

For decades the American journalism has worked the cult of personality and befogged debate with memes/

The dam is busting.


Kelly Anne Conway can not go on CNN, or Morning Joe.

Well, done, Mrs. Conway!

Extravagant Affectations: Radical Feminist Theologian Wants Abortion

I am proud that I took my degrees at Loyola University of Chicago.  The courses were rigorous, unforgiving and complete.

Things seems to have changed at my Alma Mater - radically so.

Today, the Sun Times a secularist myna bird of a paper offered a silly screed from a professor of Theology from Loyola - Susan A. Ross.

Not only is Ms. Ross a professor, but also " a faculty scholar at Loyola University Chicago, where she previously served as department chair. She is past president of the Catholic Theological Society of America and a Public Voices Greenhouse Fellow through The OpEd Project."

The OpEd Project is a radical feminist project that collects "  the number of women thought leaders contributing to key commentary forums—which feed all other media, and drive thought leadership across all industries—to a tipping point.  We envision a world in which the best ideas—regardless of where or whom they come from—will have a chance to be heard and shape society and the world.  "

No guys.

Today's piece by Ms. Ross obfuscates Catholic tradition on abortion.

Like most Progressive abortion lovers, Ms. Ross employs the happy face of Pope Francis to mask the fact that abortion is evil, unjustifiable and sinful.

Pope Francis has challenged single-issue definitions of what it means to be Catholic. He has said that love of God and neighbor and, especially, mercy and compassion, are at the heart of what it means to be Christian and devoted an entire year to Mercy.
He has changed the rule that says abortion is such a serious sin that only a bishop could forgive it; now any priest has that power. He has chided church leaders for their focus on sexual issues and urged them to make the church more welcoming.
Perhaps the bishops are beginning to see that opposition to abortion is not the only thing that defines a “good” Catholic. With the possible repeal of the Affordable Care Act, they have also begun to make statements about the potentially disastrous impact of the loss of health insurance for millions of people.
And in the wake of Trump’s ban on immigrants from seven predominantly Muslim countries, some Catholic leaders have spoken out strongly on the devastating impact.
Perhaps over the next four years, pro-life Catholics will begin to consider the effects of defunding reproductive health services on poor women not only in the United States, but also across the globe. Or perhaps pro-life Catholics will consider marching for pre- and post-natal health care, maternity leave and child care. Perhaps pro-life Catholics will speak up for women’s voices and moral agency in a church whose leadership is made up of celibate men.

Yeah, them single issues can really enslave women. Pink knit hatted women howled against Trump. and some even mooned the guy's building near the river.   That is one enthralling single issue - hating Trump. Only thing missing form Ms. Ross's smoke job was " Keep your rosaries off my ovaries" and a nod to Virginia Slims and women's health.

I was a senior at Loyola, when Roe V. Wade was judicially legislated as the law of the land.  Loyola University was disgusted. The students were ashamed of the Ruling and America stopped being a great nation.

Today, Susan A. Ross is allowed to misrepresent Catholic traditions and teaching to smooth political opportunities for the school that I loved. Hell, why should De Paul get all the great land deals from the Chicago Banana Republic?

Professor Ross has a powerful audience of radical feminists and spineless males who are perfectly happy with abortion, Kermit Barron Gosnell and the lie about women's rights.

There are more women with brains and wonderful hearts.

Abortion should and will go the way of the Virginia Slim.

The Young Pope and the Old Secularists

"I don't want any more part-time believers,"  Pope Pius XII on The Young Pope

HBO has very little use for God in all of His manifestations.  Unless, there is a political schtick and secularists stick whacking the global pious and opiated masses, HBO offers minimalist religion.

I was wondering who let The Young Pope slip by.  This is one very savvy and and less-tan PC presentation of faith, family and cynical folly.

Vanity Fair hates it. The New York Times calls it "Ridiculous." With reviews like tehse a show just can not miss!

The episodes are brilliant.  I was reminded of Frederick Rolfe's brilliant 1904 novel Hadrian VII The satire turns the pomp and pretentious around on the cynical minds that howl against faith in any form. 

 Here is a brilliant scene from an episode in which Pius XIII, who refuses to allow any 'exhibition' of Peter's successor dresses down an African dictator and a popularly 'sainted' nun who uses water as a weapon over suffering people and also all of us.

The chain smoking, opaque and delightfully orthodox Pope is a saint.

Others near him and against him also find themselves becoming more saintly. 

HBO - thanks.  No, really. 

DNAinfo Chicago Runs Free Political Ads for Illinois' U.S. Senators Double Ds

 Old Aeschylus knew war.

The media is at War with President Trump and it will take no prisoners.

Whatever.  A fun read is becoming as tiresome as SNL and the two Chicago dailies.

The Double D brand has been burned into the hide of DNAinfo Chicago.  That is too bad, because the otherwise entertaining and marginally informative 'neighborhood news' site, has been turned into yet another propaganda sheet for Illinois Oligarchs.

DNAinfo Chicago features two of Chicago's most honest, witty and ethical writers - Mark Schipper and Eddie Komenda.  These gentlemen present the news and the background a Chicagoan requires, without the mewling belly-rubs by power brokers required of too many in journalism. Sadly, the need to divide, silence and besmear people with differing political points of view erases their quality work.  Cow-Towing to oligarchs is becoming a regular feature.

Durbin and his creature Duckworth are Double D Industries.  A double dose of fatuous bargainers, representing Illinois in the 'greatest deliberative body' on the planet.  You know the one where recently Senate Majority Leader Yertle the Turtle hushed up the Socialist Saccagewea.

For the better part of a month DNAinfo has posted this Barnum-esque bunkum:

See How Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth Vote On Trump's Cabinet Picks

Wow!  See -Hercules Defeat the Minotaur!  See - Moses Part Donald's Weave!

Got it!  Every rag in this hick burg, delighted to be lorded over by jerks, cretins, grifters and well-healed oligarchs, begins and ends each day with a list of Trump Thumping nonsense that no one reads.

The Chicago Sun Times and Tribune can not cover Chicago high school sports with anything  resembling competence, but will crow like starlings in Bridgeport about its hard-hitting political coverage and ignore the daily thievery and bullying emanating from execrable City Hall and the egregious County Building.

Now, DNAinfo is a full time propaganda slinger.  Well, old Aeschylus also seems to have advised our 21st Century ink-slingers and nodders in his play Agamemnon - Do not kick against the pricks.

Much safer. 

LI Bowl Super: Commentary Not So

Houston (CNN)For the first time, a Super Bowl needed overtime, and for the fifth time, the New England Patriots are Super Bowl champions.
This time, it took the biggest comeback in Super Bowl history to do it, rallying from a 25-point deficit and defeating the Atlanta Falcons 34-28 at NRG Stadium in Houston in Super Bowl LI. CNN

Fifty-One is done and it was as toxic as 2016.  Good Lord. Net-roots nonsense ozzed into sports journalism over the past decade and sucks all of the oxygen out of the planet.

Last year, it was deflate-gate.

This year Fifty-one became LI(e) for half of the nation addicted to ESPN SJWS in Anchor Jackets and group thought. They hate Tom Brady.  He now has participated in Seven (7) Superbowls and possesses Five (5) Championship Rings, at the once tender age of 39. Gotta hate that.

Football has always been a holiday game.  But, Super Bowl created a new national holiday that is entirely consumer driven, secular and until lately non-political.

NFL Football is a game played by mesomophs and Caucasian, African American and Pacific islander endomorphs wearing buzz-cuts, dred-locks, man buns and retro-mullets.

With few exceptions, football players are as beautiful, delicate and momentary as snow flakes.  They vanish from our attentions and imaginations instantly and go on to ordinary lives and too many to painful, sad and lonely deaths.

Football is a male game.  At its best, high school football is and should be a game a beauty and not a Super Bowl Lite.   Prayers to Our Lady of Victory!

Pro Football is fun to watch, but painful to listen to - thanks to the pan-pest preaching of Bob Costa Living analysts and Social Justice Warriors.

We live in nation that that is slowly recovering from eight years of willful blindness.  Half the country went blind looking for something, anything, of authentic greatness in its Chief Executive and it painfully settled for gold-leaf mediocrity.

Half of the nation, kept its mouth shut out of neighborly compassion and patient understanding, but voted to recover some our sight.

People are hurting, bubbled-up, and in safe spaces where they can loudly impune and physically moon a building sporting the Forty Fifth President's Name. That'll show that inanimate object.

The Super Bowl LI  became the last gasp, it seemed to me, of the resistance.  Tom Brady who was smeared by the national sports press for "deflategate" was now vilified as a Trump backer and so were his coach and the Patriots owner.

I watched the game with sound off and played Gustav Holtz' The Planets for sound.

I spoke with many people including family members, with whom I remain on outs for not going light-limbed over Obama,Lo these many years, and they were delighted by the first half.   I said, we shall see.

The New England Patriots, Bill Belichick, Tom Brady and owner Robert Craft were relentless.

No LI. Just football.

Blue Books - Real Exams for Real Men of Theology 3

In-class essays (Blue Books) are a normal part of academic life.  Academic life, of course, is not normal.  But it does present a socially acceptable way to focus on personal skills. Properly pursued, the whole process aims to bring about change we associate with learning. As one of many academic avenues, In-Class Essays offer a way to approach yourself, to confront what you know and how well you communicate your thoughts and beliefs.  What is sometimes most scary is that we don't like what we find.  What we want for ourselves and what we have are different. Learning focuses on this difference, and Exams provide a practical and periodic way to organize what you have learned and what is missing. It is designed to challenge. If you've taken an In-Class exam in the past, you have a fair idea how difficult it is to write persuasive prose under pressure.  Time will fly. You will not be able to write as much as you know. If you have not taken a Blue Book Exam before, pay attention to what follows. Be clear:  In-Class Essays ask that you present your understanding and interpretations of course material in lucid, persuasive prose. The 'Blue Book Challenge' is not designed for fun. But the process can be gratifying.  Dr. Robert Hatch

" We take Blue Book Exams, Gentlemen."  The pause was as pregnant as the now large-with-child Beyonce,  from my thirty six times three sections of Theology 3.   This 5.4 score of young Catholic manhood, commanding desks ill-fitted to the New Millennium mesomorphs stuffed to rib cages by the particle board desk tops, responded with " Coach, what're Blue Books?  They anything like Blue Ba. . ?"

No, not exactly.

Theology, or religion classes in Catholic secondary education tend to be either a grade point booster, or, at the very worst, fifty daily minutes of Mime Clown Jesus and androgynous Godhead exercises in Unitarian principles for unhappy spinsters and life-long victims.

Somewhere in between these extremes lies the Goldem Mean - rigor without condescending intimidation.

" Coach, you're high!  We take True/False and Multiple Guess tests."

With my avuncular grin that teases raccoons out of my 19th Ward trash containers I replied, " We don't work that street no more. "

Gobsmacked young-uns, " What's that mean?"

" You employed the first person plural in the false assumption that WE means something.  We  -in the accusative =is taking only essay exams in Theology 3. "

"What's that mean?"

" Put it this way, 'Chicks who really count, dig only guys who take out  and dominate Blue Book Exams!'  That's the word on the street, from the time Plato tossed away the stylus and tablets, Lads.  Essay exams are the only true test of what a man - a fuul-grown, Hoochie-Coochie Mayne - really knows," I answered to the best of my wont.

That was three weeks ago. In that time, I taught a Unit on Poverty for the Social Justice Classes, Second Semester of Theology 3.  This Unit looked at poverty, " the experience of living without the basic needs for existence, necessary for a full and dignified life." Having taken the teachings of Rerum Novarum by Pope XIII as the advent of Catholic Social Justice, we looked at poverty at the financial, intellectual, emotional and spiritual life of persons marginalized and trapped in the seemingly endless cycle of poverty, through a study of Robert Thompson, one of two Liverpool ten year olds who murdered toddler James Bulger in 1993.  


We applied Abraham Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs to this study and contrasted Thompson to Manchester slum dweller Anthony Burgess who became the 21st Century's most prolific novelist and composer.

I presented the gents four thought problems early this week for yesterday's Blue Book Exam.

By the way - each examinee was required to purchase a Blue Book booklet @ $.50 per. and bring along a blue or black ink pen.  Needless, to say, these are adolescent males and increased volume, salty sobriquets and excruciating repetitions of command by this examinant improved the odds for success.

Today, I am up to my fleshy jowls in Blue Books this post First Friday weekend in February and I must say that I am singularly delighted by the  waves of  smart, exact and carefully crafted sententiae offered by my heroes.

The grades are very high and, with very few exceptions, worthy of public display.


This was their first Big Boy Blue Book exam and they passed with flying colors.  There is red ink all over the pages of each Blue Book, to be sure but it is Mission Accomplished!

Students will rise the challenge, when challenged.  Today one of our Regional Crusader wrestlers will stand in 1st Place, but also sport a 95% on his Blue Book Exam.

" Coach, I smoked this test!"

" That was not a test Young Will! That was a Blue Book Exam. You got your big boy pants on, Son!"

" Whatever."

 Ah, I do love teaching, so

"To cut the matter short, Ratcliffe, you have been a most notorious thief,"  Sorry, I was thinking about Heart of Midlothian.  Lord, but I doooo drift some.

David Brooks: The Beltway Lickspittle's Censorious Sillinesss

   

Many Republican members of Congress have made a Faustian bargain with Donald Trump. They don’t particularly admire him as a man, they don’t trust him as an administrator, they don’t agree with him on major issues, but they respect the grip he has on their voters, they hope he’ll sign their legislation and they certainly don’t want to be seen siding with the inflamed progressives or the hyperventilating media. (emphasis my own)  David Brooks  New York Times

Burn your books, GOP!  Davie Brooks is on the playground and he is not a happy boy. Watch out, now! Lookee Here! 

He's goin' all allusion, Gangstah, on They Ass! Dave, Goethe, or Kit Marlow?

This inconsequential blatherer who spent the last eight years fawning over President Obama's pants creases and parsing nonsense on PBS is now Cato the Censor in short pants.

A faux-conservative voice on PBS, ABC, MSNBC and ink spiller for the great American Progressive rags, New York Times /Washington Post, Brooks has made a career of mewling his way into the creases of Washinton D.C. britches and toils fawningly to curry more favor among the Jonathan Alters, E.J. Dionnes, Katerina Vanden Heuvels, and Ben Smiths as an authentic voice of the opposition.

Tokyo Rose was more convincing as a friend to our boys on Corregidor, Dave.

This lick-spittle phony is a lefty cheerleader.

. . .  it’s becoming increasingly clear that the aroma of bigotry infuses the whole operation, and anybody who aligns too closely will end up sharing in the stench.
The administration could have simply tightened up the refugee review process and capped the refugee intake at 50,000, but instead went out of its way to insult Islam. The administration could have simply tightened up immigration procedures, but Trump went out of his way to pick a fight with all of Mexico.

Dave, the more you sissy-britches and metro-sexually emotional weepers paint Trump as a two-dimensional villain, the more normal people who pay little attention to a man's pant creases will  tire of your piping.

Now, go play.

Gee, Valerie Jarrett Ran the Presidency for Eight Years and the New York Times Said Nothing

Love this snap!

For eight years, President Obama basked in the glow of the artificial light created by his Team of Brand Obama craftsmen and directed the affairs of the nation at the behest of Valerie Jarrett the de facto Chief Executive from January 2009-January 20, 2017.

President Obama parted with high poll numbers, no sense of obligation and a Presidential Library next door to Tiger Woods' Jackson Park Golf Mecca. The New York Times praised the commands of Valerie Jarrett:

WASHINGTON — President Obama was in a bind, and his chief of staff could not figure out how he had ended up there.
Leaders of the Roman Catholic Church were up in arms last fall over a proposal to require employers to provide health insurance that covered birth control. But caving in to the church’s demands for a broad exemption in the name of religious liberty would pit the president against a crucial constituency, women’s groups, who saw the coverage as basic preventive care.
Worried about the political and legal implications, the chief of staff, William M. Daley, reached out to the proposal’s author, Kathleen Sebelius, the health and human services secretary. How, he wondered, had the White House been put in this situation with so little presidential input? “You are way out there on a limb on this,” he recalls telling her.
“It was then made clear to me that, no, there were senior White House officials who had been involved and supported this,” said Mr. Daley, who left his post early this year.

What he did not realize was that while he was trying to put out what he considered a fire, the person fanning the flames was sitting just one flight up from him: Valerie Jarrett, the Obamas’ first friend, the proposal’s chief patron and a tenacious White House operator who would ultimately outmaneuver not only Mr. Daley but also the vice president in her effort to include the broadest possible contraception coverage in the administration’s health care overhaul.

A Chicagoan who helped Mr. Obama navigate his rise through that city’s aggressive politics, Ms. Jarrett came to Washington with no national experience. But her unmatched access to the Obamas has made her a driving force in some of the most significant domestic policy decisions of the president’s first term, her persuasive power only amplified by Mr. Obama’s insular management style.

From the first, her official job has been somewhat vague. But nearly four years on, with Mr. Obama poised to accept his party’s renomination this week, her standing is clear, to her many admirers and detractors alike. “She is the single most influential person in the Obama White House,” said one former senior White House official, who like many would speak candidly only on condition of anonymity.

“She’s there to try to promote what she understands to be what the president wants,” the former aide said. “Ultimately the president makes his own decisions. The question that is hard to get inside of, the black box, is whether she is really influencing him or merely executing decisions he’s made. That’s like asking, ‘Is the light on in the refrigerator when the door is closed?’ ”

Gee, only today the New York Times, beefed about Steve Bannon doing exactl;y what Frau Jarrett had done for eight years of thigh-tingling Obama-licious policy.

 Plenty of presidents have had prominent political advisers, and some of those advisers have been suspected of quietly setting policy behind the scenes (recall Karl Rove or, if your memory stretches back far enough, Dick Morris). But we’ve never witnessed a political aide move as brazenly to consolidate power as Stephen Bannon — nor have we seen one do quite so much damage so quickly to his putative boss’s popular standing or pretenses of competence.
Mr. Bannon supercharged Breitbart News as a platform for inciting the alt-right, did the same with the Trump campaign and is now repeating the act with the Trump White House itself. That was perhaps to be expected, though the speed with which President Trump has moved to alienate Mexicans (by declaring they would pay for a border wall), Jews (by disregarding their unique experience of the Holocaust) and Muslims (the ban) has been impressive. Mr. Trump never showed much inclination to reach beyond the minority base of voters that delivered his Electoral College victory, and Mr. Bannon, whose fingerprints were on each of those initiatives, is helping make sure he doesn’t.
But a new executive order, politicizing the process for national security decisions, suggests Mr. Bannon is positioning himself not merely as a Svengali but as the de facto president.

Yeah, what are you gonna do?

Me?  Steve Bannon is not a slum Lord; nor is he friendly with the mullahs in Tehran.

Not bothered. 

Two Faced Illinois Government Always Has the Same Expression

Clenched teeth, bitten Botox and Vapid Eyes!

The Face of Illinois government at the local, County, State and Federal level.  Here sit U.S. Senator Dick Durbin and  Rep. Jan Schakowsky, a duo capable of emitting a sound, but absolutely no sense.

Durbin cheered on protests as O’Hare International Airport and airports across the country and said Trump’s statements that Christian refugees would be prioritized over people of other religions flies in the face of who we are as Americans.

“To make religion a standard for accepting people to this country is totally inconsistent with our Constitution,” Durbin said. “When you take seven countries that are overwhelmingly Muslim populations and you add to it a statement from President Trump that we’ve got to show favoritism to bringing in Christians, he has injected religion into this. That is unfortunate and un-American.”

Any Dora the Explorer graduate knows that our world is really, really, really dangerous and chock full of Isis(l) terrorists who live no where near Rolling Prairie, Indiana, but demand a Caliphate ( that's a Government run out interpretations from the Qurran) right there, as well as in the Levant and points east.

Dick Durbin knows what others tell him.  Jan Schakowsky has things explained to her as well.

.@janschakowsky begins remarks with "Welcome to the resistance!"
6:26 PM - 29 Jan 2017

The Resistance used a capital R, Jan.  It was also known as Lesni. You see the Poles laid the tracks for people to fight geniune totalitarians, but when Hitler was finished with them thanks to Joe Stalin's long wait outside of Warsaw, the Reds polished off the last vestiges of democrarcy in the sad land for forty years.
Man where is an Ed Schultz when you need one?

Donald Trump is Orange.  He seems obnoxious, boorish to the point of being a lout, but that is only from the television.  So, far things are taking shape and clowns are protesting quicker than Johnny Strabler.  Man where is an Ed Schultz when you need one?

Durbin and Weepy Chuck Schumer play to camera's, because the camera's hate the Orange One.

I get it.

What I do not understand is how Illinois, a State that has the nicest people, the best county fairs, the prettiest gals, the toughest wrestlers and the prettiest strip mines in the nation manages to elect and re-elect, the most two-faced, slack-jawed, drooling, mealy-mouthed, kelptomanical collection of fawning bootlicking functionaries in America.

Chicago Values vs. Catholic's of Catholic Chicago

Ride the Dan Ryan into the Loop.  Look in either direction and notice the spires of scores of Catholic churches.  Take a trip up Milwaukee Avenue from Ogden on and you notice the store front hip dwarfed by the magnificence of the Polish Churches built with the pennies  of the real dreamers during the 20th Century.  Chicago is a Catholic city.  A Jewish billionaire and prominent civic minded philanthropist told me, "without the Catholic Church, Chicago would be a one-horse town and a blight on the lake."  I returned the compliment. Without large hearted Jewish givers, many Catholic schools would have closed long ago.

You would never know that to look at either Chicago newspaper. Both editorial boards detested the late Francis Cardinal George, because he stood with iron will for his faith.  Both boards seem to have adopted Blase Cardinal Cupich as a nodding media pet.

Today, neither paper on-line offers any coverage of the March on Washington by Pro Life Americans.

Yesterday, after morning Mass, I noticed bus loads of kids loading up at St. John Fisher Parish.  I know Mother McAuley has a tradition of young women marching in January for the Unborn.

Bruce Dold busies his little self slamming Trump, excoriating Chicago cops, and offering tips for LGBTQ parents -scores of them. No mention of the legion of Chicago Catholics, Lutherans, Evangelicals, Jews and Muslims marching for the unborn.

The Sun Times slams Trump, excoriates cops and continues its mission to get Chief Keef lit up.

Chicago Values are for some real creeps.

Well, off to Providence High School of some Catholic League wrestling.

Mary Tyler Moore in My 'Frunchroom. ?' I Wish(ed).

Any guy my age ( 64 and change) had his sexual wake-up call at age 10, or 11 when Mary Tyler Moore bunked in with Dick Van Dyke in New Rochelle, New York.

As Laurie Petrie, who danced around the furniture in the living room like a ballerina wearing tight knit capris and intelligently tuck sweaters, Mary Tyler Moore was much more than someone's Mom.

 In fact, her kid on the show was someone, every gent in my circle of pals and other habitues of alleys leading to 79th St, thought Richie Petrie needed "a poke in the chops," to quote the sage and older Maury Lanigan. Richie had Victim written all over him.

No way, we knew,  he was the legit off-spring of Laura Petrie and, besides, Dick Van Dyke wore PJs and sacked out in a twin bed. Something seriously wrong with that guy.

Mary Tyler Moore was evidently not off-limits.

Ergo, toxic male-hood rose like the fabled flaming Phoenix in legions of lads my age.

Fathers Fitzgerald, Wormser, Cusack, Gerrity and Ruby heard imaginary sins against the '6th Amendment' in the confessional boxes of Little Flower Church from the Kennedy Presidency long into arrival of Jimmy Carter with the re-runs, from every toxic masculine soprano between 6th and 8th grades, thanks toi Mary Tyler Moore.

She was the total package; smart, fun, combative and sexy.

What more could a lad want.



Christ welcome home a gorgeous lady.

President Trump - Write This Quote Everyday and Remember It.

 

I am an invisible man.... I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids—and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see...
Ralph Ellison (b. 1914), U.S. author. The narrator, in Invisible Man, prologue (1952).

Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison is the greatest American novel. No other work of prose fiction speaks to the soul of this great nation than this book, written by an African American and scorned by African American activists, because he refused the term.

Ralph Ellison captured the urban, rural, white, black and brown hues as discretionary camouflage for the root humanity in every man.

James Baldwin, Amiri Baraka (Leroi Jones) joined the white liberal literary establishment in vilifying a black man who preferred the term Negro and demanded to be treated as an artist, a craftsman and human being rather than a celebrity with a big mouth.

If the Negro, or any other writer, is going to do what is expected of him, he's lost the battle before he takes the field. I suspect that all the agony that goes into writing is borne precisely because the writer longs for acceptance--but it must be acceptance on his own terms. Perhaps, though, this thing cuts both ways: the Negro novelist draws his blackness too tightly around him when he sits down to write--that's what the antiprotest critics believe--but perhaps the white reader draws his whiteness around himself when he sits down to read. He doesn't want to identify himself with Negro characters in terms of our immediate racial and social situation, though on the deeper human level identification can become compelling when the situation is revealed artistically. The white reader doesn't want to get too close, not even in an imaginary recreation of society. Negro writers have felt this, and it has led to much of our failure.  

Too many books by Negro writers are addressed to a white audience. By doing this the authors run the risk of limiting themselves to the audience's presumptions of what a Negro is or should be; the tendency is to become involved in polemics, to plead the Negro's humanity. You know, many white people question that humanity, but I don't think that Negroes can afford to indulge in such a false issue. For us, the question should be, what are the specific forms of that humanity, and what in our background is worth preserving or abandoning.  The Paris Review

Ellison knew he was more than a demographic, a victim, a celebrity, a mouth piece. He was a man in full.  Invisible Men, the cop the teacher, the guy ( Dennis) selling the Sun Times at 79th & The Dan Ryan every day in any weather, the EMT who shows up and saves Granny, the guy at Wells Fargo saving your mortgage from disaster and the check out lady at Jewel who places your groceries in Heavy re-usable bag because you forgot yours are the same.

Donald Trump says he is for the Invisible Man - all of us.

Let's pray someone gives him Invisible Man, in some form, or at least the quote above,

The news media will Mau-mau Trump even if he turns ink into gold and go the way of James Baldwin, Leroi Jones and the white liberal ruling classes who are clamoring to end our democracy.

President Trump, I know you can not hear me, nor read me, but write the above quote every day - writing it makes you remember it.

If President Trump remembers Ellison's quote and his campaign mantra, America will become great.

What's New? Pussyhat! Woe, woe, woe, woe woe.

Woe is me. I can not see the vaginal equivalent of Ms. Ashely. Judd that is. Not Maguire.

Must comment.  Must opine. People offended by the term term Pussy, much less the tactile engagement of said organ, now, sport woolen hats termed same?

I am pretty much of a pussy, where hearing about the sanctity of the region and accepting with nodding conviction that hats representing all that area of anatomy offends is a sign of good living and moral lordosis. Standing tall for the pussy! 

No thank you.

You see, I am most uncomfortable sharing thoughts about any woman's womb and breasts.  Call me old fashioned.  Call me a gender criminal and a toxic male - guilty.

I ,for the life of me, can not make sense of feminists who desire nothing more than the continuation and strengthening of the abortion industry.

Between me old ears, I know that all identity politics merges, but in my heart, Vagina's do not Monologue, Dialogue, Trialogue, or , much less Diatribe. Cue Ashley Judd.- Ashley Judd

“Our p—ies ain’t for grabbing, Our p—ies are for our pleasure and they are for birthing new generations… of nasty women.”

I think we have more than enough nasty women; thank you.

Ovaries, vaginae, breasts are topics reserved for one gender - the one's wearing the equipment.

I could offer a Homeric catalogue of similar sobriquets, but reserve those for my bumptiously bawdy boy boon chums.

From the day that the late Brenda Vaccaro offered her unsolicited advice to mothers with teen aged daughters about the importance of plastic applicators ( "I think that's important!") in being a total woman, I have cringed when women turned a woman's body into a road map for power and romance into cringe-worthy function.

Mother of God! But, that's just me.

Hollywood bimbos ran to the front of the line of this vanguard.

Ashley Judd is a movie star, but I am completely unfamiliar with the canon of here work.

In order to understand the offense caused by toxic guys like me, and the Orange Man in the White House, Bubba Clinton, Martin Sheen's kid, Warren Beatty and Anthony Weiner, I decided to seek some scintilla of thought form the Metro sexuals at Vox. 

Vox  was begun by one of the lisping lords of journalism, founding partner of Obama's Journo-List club, and along with Chris Hayes, Don Lemon and so many other voices that sound like "Steam-escaping" to quote Mel Brooks, and is the pan-identity androgynous voice of America.

You see, my voice sounds more like a Knights of Columbus meeting and sometimes it gets lost in the competing tones.

Their ( Planned Parenthood et alii) goal, although they’re not officially pitching it as such, is to send a message about women’s rights that will provide a counterbalance to the political and personal values espoused by incoming President Donald J. Trump.

And by "women’s rights," organizers have taken care to make it clear that they mean all women of all backgrounds: The official platform the Women’s March on Washington places the demonstration in the context of not only suffragists and abolitionists but the civil right movement, the American Indian movement, and Black Lives Matter.
Just two paragraphs into the four-page document, they note that "women have intersecting identities and are therefore impacted by a multitude of social justice and human rights issues." Examples of this, including the especially urgent need for equal pay among women of color and the way they’re uniquely victimized by the criminal justice system, follow in the rest of the platform.
Sounds reasonable, right? But it’s that idea of "intersecting identities" that’s been at the core of criticism of the march, both by would-be participants and by conservative critics.

Sorry sillies, some Sallys sail solitary, like women who can not accept this nation's continued slaughter of children at the hands of Planned Parenthood and the abortion industry. Another Ashley, Ashley Maguire is a feminist who was shunned by the "intersecting identities."

As a young woman living in Washington, D.C., I could easily attend the Women’s March on Saturday if I wanted to.
Except that I am not invited, despite my unambiguous status as a member of the female sex. That’s because I am pro-life. As the organizers of the march made clear in a statement earlier this week, the Women’s March’s on Washington “platform is pro-choice” and “has been since day one.”

“We look forward to marching on behalf of individuals who share th[at] view,” they went on, and stated that the since-revoked partnership of New Wave Feminists, a secular group with pro-life values, was an “error.”

The march might as well have placed scare quotes around the word “Women’s,” or better yet, have renamed itself “The March for Abortion.” Then it would have cleared up any confusion about pretending to represent all women, when almost half of us self-identify as pro-life and would probably feel more at home at the March for Life, set to take place the following week. The March for Life is open to women of all political stripes and will include groups like Democrats for Life of America.

Yes, Ma'am.  It was a March for Abortion. Offended protesting women and metro sexual males sported knit wool Pussy Hats in a show of meaningless solidarity.

Pussy Hats.

Yep.

Woe, woe, woe,woe. That's good to know.

Social Justice, Pope Leo XIII and the Inauguaration

From each according to his ability, to each according to his need  Karl Marx

Each needs the other: capital cannot do without labour, nor labour without capital. Mutual
agreement results in the beauty of good order, while perpetual conflict necessarily produces
confusion and savage barbarity Leo XIII

The Oxford English Dictionary traces the open form compound word social justice to the year 1824

Cathoic Social Justice began in 1891 with Pope Leo XIII's encyclical Rerum Novarum.  Prior to that bandits preyed upon peasants, capitalists prey upon workers and followers of Marx preyed on Guilds and the Knights of Labor.

Catholics and many other believers from different faiths were encouraged to seek justice and treat one another with dignity.

Today the acronym SJW is a misnomer. It is now a pejorative tossed at the self-anointed prophets of divisive activism - usually on the left of things.

Yesterday, I gave my Theology III juniors a test on a unit covering Rerum Novarum and the advent of Catholic Social Justice.  The gentlemen did very well.

One problem asked that they identify Pope Leo's 'duties of workers'

• to perform conscientiously the work they have freely agreed to do

• not to damage the employer’s property or resort to violence

• not to have anything to do ‘with men of evil principles, who work upon the people with artful

promises of great results … which usually end in useless regrets and grievous loss’

I asked that they use themselves, when thinking about the workers.  These are sixteen and seventeen year old males. They get it.

Through the past American two holiday seasons,  the news media has flooded the atmosphere with wailing and gnashing of teeth, by our most familiar Social Justice Warriors of stage, screen, television and of course the public teat - our Progressive elected officials.  This torrent of anguish and dire threats about our futures incites anger and uncertainty among the angry and the uncertain.

Today is the day of the dire threats.

FRIDAY J20
Early Morning Blockade Actions:
Movement for Black Lives
Trade Justice
Climate Justice
Showing Up for Racial Justice
Labor Direct Action
The Future Is Feminist
Qockblockade Brigade: Queer Resistance on J20
Communities Under Attack Fight Back!
more to be announced
9am  Outdoor Convergence Space @ McPherson Square opens
10am Anti-Capitalist Anti-Fascist Bloc @ Logan Circle
12pm Festival of Resistance, permitted march starting @ Columbus Circle
2pm Rally at McPherson Square
SATURDAY
Preparing for the Trump Era: What Anarchists Are Doing, 5-8pm @ The Festival Center, 1640 Columbia Rd NW
SUNDAY
What’s Next After J20? DisruptJ20 Debrief & Next Steps, 6-9pm @ The Festival Center, 1640 Columbia Rd NW
Events in DC

I will teach class.  Then I will correct papers.  Later, I will try and drive to Bishop McNamara High School in Kankakee, IL and watch Brother Rice tussle on the hardwood with the Fighting Irish. Tomorrow, I will sleep until 5:30 and do chores. On Sunday, I will attend 8:30 Mass at Sacred Heart Church and then enjoy a jazz concert in Hyde Park, followed by Jimmy's Woodlawn Tap cheeseburgers and fries.

Our 45th President will take the oath of office and move into the White House.

Let's see what happens.  Then let's begin to ignore ‘. . . men(women) of evil principles, who work upon the people with artful promises of great results … which usually end in useless regrets and grievous loss.’

Old Leo got things right. 

Experience Real Jazz with The Terry Sullivan Trio in Hyde Park: Sunday January 22nd at 3PM

terry

sullivan

trio

in concert  -  fine jazz up close

Sunday, January 22, 2017, 3:00 pm

First Unitarian Church of Chicago                   

5650 S. Woodlawn Avenue, Chicago, IL

Terry SULLIVAN, vocals

Tom MUELLNER, piano

Stewart MILLER, bass

$20 per person, $15 students/seniors

Cash only, at the door only.

Information: www.firstuchicago.org/events or 708/488-1701

Presented by the CHICAGO JAZZ CARAVAN

"Hamilton" Digs Terrorists and Media Swoons. FALN Bomber of the Schubert Gets a Front Row Seat There!

Chicago-bred Rivera, leader of the FALN (Armed Forces of National Liberation), was among the 200 people granted a pardon by President Barack Obama on Tuesday. A paramilitary organization that advocated complete independence for Puerto Rico, the FALN is said to have been responsible for more than 70 bomb attacks on U.S. targets between 1974 and 1983. Heidi Wesss Chicago Sun Times

Today, lawyers at People’s Law Office serve as legal counsel in the international campaign to free Puerto Rican political prisoner Oscar López Rivera, one the longest held political prisoners in the U.S. These same attorneys have worked for decades with international movements struggling for the release of Puerto Rican independentistas, successfully achieving Presidential pardons in 1979 and 1999. More recently, People’s Law Office represented independentista Carlos Alberto Torres, achieving his release on parole in 2010, after spending thirty years in prison. Peoples Law Office

 “I’ve got a show for him in Chicago. It’ll be my honor to play Hamilton the night he goes.”   Hamilton Star and FALN Progagandist Lin-Manuel Miranda Sun Times

Any further evidence that the American News Media needs a trip to the proctologist for a serious cranial removal is completely unnecessary.

Weidy Weiss gushes over Lame Malard Barack Obama's debt to the Peoples Law Office duly paid: the commutation of an FALN Chicago homie with more than 70 bombings under his grandfatherly belt.

The FALN were G. Flint Taylor's salad days, following the Black Panther Shooting.  Not only that G. Flint Taylor the man most responsible for Chicago's Ferguson Effect and Thug Comfort Zone also was treated to the release of a GD warlord*in Obama's farewell goody-bag. However, it is Hamilton's Huzzah and the media's idiotic delight that really hits home,

"As soon as the news that Puerto Rican nationalist Oscar Lopez Rivera’s sentence was commuted reached Lin-Manuel Miranda, the “Hamilton” creator tweeted that he was “sobbing with gratitude.” And he added that, as a result, he plans to play Alexander Hamilton at a Chicago performance for Lopez Rivera.

“I wish I was with everyone in Chicago right now,” tweeted Miranda, who, as a child, spent many summers with his grandparents on Puerto Rico."

Gee, Imagine the sheer delight of Ethyl Merman when President Harry S Truman commuted the death sentences of the two Puerto Rican gunmen who attempted to kill him on November 1, 1950?

'Give'em Hell' Harry allowed these two freedom fighters to dangle for life, rather than meet Mr. Sparky.

Short memories, thin frames of reference and a daily gorging of bullshit from our American news media explain plenty.  No wonder hip-hop Hamilton is a hit.   It's the bomb!

By the way, Oscar Lopez Rivera bombed the Schubert Theatre here in Chicago, Lin.

*In other action by the president, Eric “Fat Eric” Wilson, a former “governor” in Gangster Disciples kingpin Larry Hoover’s drug empire, won a commutation. Obama reduced Wilson’s life sentence to 35 years in prison. Wilson, 47, is being held in the federal prison in downstate Pekin and is expected to get out in about 7 years.
After a high-profile federal trial in Chicago, Wilson and six other ranking members of the Gangster Disciples — and a former female Chicago Police gang-crimes officer — were convicted of engaging in a drug conspiracy. Wilson was sentenced on March 10, 1998, records show.
Hoover is currently serving a life sentence in federal prison in Colorado. But he was allegedly running a drug empire from state prison in Illinois in the early 1990s, giving Wilson and his top gang associates orders from behind bars. The key evidence at Wilson’s trial was Hoover’s own secretly recorded words from private meetings in state prison with his trusted lieutenants.
So-called governors like Wilson were responsible for large areas of Gangster Disciples territory, with hundreds of gang members reporting to them, prosecutors said. At the time, then-Cook County State’s Attorney Jack O’Malley called the group an “evil menace to our society.”