Human Care - It is a Filipino Thing Rooted in Faith

ORLAND PARK, IL -- An Orland Park nurse and a Chicago doctor were among seven passengers killed this weekend in the Philippines, when their tour van crashed into a tree while on a medical mission trip to help people in remote areas of the country. Aurora M. Gagni, a nurse from Orland Park, and Nunilo Rubio Sr., an well-known endocrinologist from Chicago, died in the crash, according to local news reports. The 24-year-old driver of the bus reportedly told police that he had fallen asleep at the wheel. The Patch

"Hey, Shit-for-Brains, get that little Filipino nurse for me. The other one hurts me. Got hands like a damn Hun. Hell, she is a Hun!" - the late Oliver Duval -Born: July 14, 1899; Died: June 1, 1990 Herscher, IL

My wife Mary's grandfather and I were pals.  He was one tough old bird, WWI AEF veteran, mean as a bag of snakes Frenchman from Kankakee County.  He was tall,  wiry and witty.  Had Indian cheekbones and delighted in scaring goofs, pests, priests, half-wits and blowhards.  You had to return his barbs to get his respect.  I was the above-mentioned sobriquet.

However, kindness, professionalism and unadulterated sweetness trumped everything with Oliver. When he was finally relegated to a nursing home in 1989, like most of America's elderly, was treated to modest care from every American care-giver but Filipino-Americans and recent immigrants.

Today, I read about the Orland Park couple who died in crash, upon their return home on a  medical mission and recalled all of the nurses, doctors and technicians who treated my dying wife with such tenderness and generous skills.

People from the Philippines seem as fitted to the medical and care professions as Austrians to Alpine Sports.  They are most suited to the vocations that palliate physical pain and salve suffering.  So I looked up a Stanford University study on this topic and found that Filipino cultural values tend to make them extraordinary care-givers. Especially to the elderly.

My mother has spent many months in rehab at age 9. . . I won't go there.  And how she is treated is of paramount concern to her children and grandchildren.

I remark on this because several of her care-givers are from the Philippines. The Stanford study on Filipino elders explains a great deal.

Smooth interpersonal relationships are a major component of the Filipino core value kapwa, defined as “shared identity, interacting on an equal basis with a fellow human being.” It is expressed as sensitivity and regard for others, respect and concern, helping out, understanding and making up for others’ limitations, rapport and acceptance, and comradeship (Agoncillo & Guerrero, 1987; Enriquez, 1994). Traditional psychosocial interactions or pakikipagkapwa occur in the external domain or ibang tao and the internal domain or hindi ibang tao. Levels of relationships in the first domain consist of: civility (pakikitungo), mixing (pakikisalamuha), joining/participating (pakikilahok), and adjusting (pakikisama). The second domain includes: mutual trust/rapport (pakikipagpalagayan ng loob), getting involved (pakikisangkot), and oneness, full trust (pakiisa) (Enriquez, 1994; PePua, 1990). . . . Many contemporary Filipino American families continue to function in a complex process of a natural support system of reciprocity within interdependent/dependent relationships based on extended family membership, group harmony and loyalty, respect for elders and authority, and kinship that goes beyond strong biological connections (McBride & Parreno, 1996; Miranda, McBride, & Anderson, 2000; Superio, 1993; Tompar-Tiu and Sustento-Seneriches, 1995). In a study of filial responsibility, young first and second generation Filipino Americans and older adults strongly agree that children should be taught to care for elders and take care of aging parents (Superio, 1993). . . . 

And most telling is this very 'unscientific' application of care

A consistent theme in health and caregiving studies on Filipino Americans is the importance of prayer, church affiliation, spiritual fellowship, and spiritual counseling. Studies have shown that having the capacity to practice one’s faith can be a measure of wellness (Valencia-Go, 1989). Using prayer and spiritual counseling can be a part of a treatment plan with assistance from a traditional healer or a clergy (Tompar-Tiu & Sustento-Seneriches, 1995). Some elders and their families consider physical or emotional pain as a challenge to one’s spirituality (Grudzen, McBride, & Thom, 2000). These findings are important indicators that a segment of Filipino American elders and their families incorporate and value a spiritual dimension in their daily life.

 No wonder so many natives of the Philippines are caregivers - they have a faith-system as a foundation . . ." first and second generation Filipino Americans and older adults strongly agree that children should be taught to care for elders and take care of aging parents."  How many of us do the same?

Thank God for these wonderful people.

Only Way to Stop Giving Pritzker the Governor is The Skinny Blonde

Six Dems and only one allowable pick: not the Kennedy, not the Doc, not the Ganger-banger Alumnus, not the Progressive Boy Toy and not Pension Heavy Dude from Marine, IL.

Nope, the only Democrat that 'sane, pot-smart, never-Trumping, Rahm-friendly and comfortable P-Hat voters' may cast a ballot for is Michigan Avenue Fats - J.B. Pritzker the Trump-thumping billionaire who is more of a Regular Joe and than Old Bruce, in the same way that Charlie Foster Kane was no Boss Gettys.

Mark Brown pooh-poohed the five ( as too many to debate Carol Marin) , only weeks after he took a huge, hairy dump on Chris Kennedy's chances  with his ambush piece; now, along with the always dependable Eric Zorn, charge Chris Kennedy with being a Rauner cheerleader.  The oligarchs have bull-dozed  an extra wide path to the Governor's door for J.B. Pritzker.   They'll adjust the that door in due time.

Nope, if a voter wants Rauner gone and knows that Pritzker will only double -down on Illinois miseries, the only choice, short of a cast-away protest vote,  is to take a ballot for Jeanne Ives and make damn sure it registers.



Yep, the skinny blonde girl for Governor.   Unless, of course, you are quite happy with way things are now.  And what is that gump staring at?

Sympathy for the Devil - G. Flint Taylor

Just as every cop is a criminalAnd all the sinners saintsAs heads is tailsJust call me Lucifer'Cause I'm in need of some restraint - Sympathy for the Devil 1968

1968 - Jon Burge was an MP in Vitenam and G. Flint Taylor was the mouth-piece for the Black Panthers.  I was a junior at Little Flower High School.

2018 - Jon Burge is out of jail for perjury, but has never been chraged or convicted of torture.  G. Flint Taylor is a millionaire.  I teach high school social justice. 

Last week, G. Flint Taylor made another run at getting cop-killer Jackie Wilson out of prison - Taylor wants Wilson re-tried in the comfortable atmosphere created by Taylor and other lawyers getting rich in the Wrongful Everything to Do With Justice Industry, as well as the generations of lazy, or agenda addicted members of the Chicago Media.

This atmosphere is a Gordian-knot compostiion of doctrines ( all police departmenst are fundmentally racist; police use torture gratuitously; Jon Burge used Vietnam era torture devices, as well as garden variety brutality to harm only African Americans in Chicago; Ellected officials care only about elections and will go along with anything; Justice must be tried in the court of public opinion; train journalism students to become active agents in the Wrongful Induistry; accept no inquiry; be patient) that over the last forty years has made Chicago a Thug Comfort Zone.

Thanks to G. Flint Taylor's mythopoeic mastery of the media in Chicago, the leftist philanthropic culture, the cowardly mayors and aldermen, and the elimination of historical truths in public education police officers wear body cameras, unless detailed to Rahm Emanuel's home, get charged with anything that might make a mistake look like racism, second guess any and all use of force tactics, while career criminals and savage thugs know that the race card is a get-out-of-jail free card acceptable at The Peoples Law Office, City Hall, Medill Law and Journalism, The Bluhm Centers, Cook County Building, WTTW, The Tribune, The Sun Times and lovingly, The Chicago Reader. 

G. Flint Taylor has influenced more generations to go along with his myths and pleadings and longer than Hitler, Stalin, Mao, or Uncle Ho could ever dreamt  and all through the media. He was the mouth-piece for the Black Panthers, tried to Free Mumia, helped sanitize Bernardine Dorhn and her cartoonish old man, Bill Ayers, and dangled 501(c) 3 millions from the Ivory Towers of University of Chicago and Northwestern University before the grasping hands of lawyers and felons as well as millions of tax-payer dollars as well.

G. Flint Taylor needed no beer hall putsch, or Little Red Book; rather, selective memory, intellectual weakness, judge shopping and time itself, has poured the blood into Taylor's cement mix.

Since 1968, the year His Satanic Majesty provided us with some sympathy and taste, G. Flint Taylor's rock-samba of American imperialism brutality has played at ear shattering levels in print and in the Dirksen Federal Center.

Taylor and Jeffery Haas, co-founder of Peoples Law Office, formed their Marxist band of legal goblins on south Dearborn ( later on Milwaukee Avenue) with money from the World Council of Churches' American branch The National Council of Churches. This is from the dubious pen of the late Robert McClory:

The logical question, of course, is how and why Haas and Taylor keep fighting. It is understandable that the survivors of the Panther affair and the relatives of Hampton and Clark would like a measure of vengeance (and some cash) for what they have always perceived as a cold-blooded execution. But those friends and relatives are not independently wealthy, and they have contributed virtually nothing of their personal assets to the cost of prosecution, raised small amounts through benefits and fun raisers. The National Council of Churches made a donation. 

Personal sacrifices to the greater good?  Rent in Lakeview, where both lived according to McClory, whose sole purpose in life was create urban legends out of leftists, was always high, even in the 1970's.  The Burge Mythology is now taught as a scoial science in Chicago Public Schools.

Jon Burge was convicted of perjury after years of media bear-baiting and legal legerdemain.

G. Flint Taylor and legions of other fatuous opportunists have made fortunes by playing media, do-gooders and generations of young people completely unaquainted with the facts of the murders, arrests, convictions and subsequent judge shopping by Peoples Law Office, MacArthur Center for Justice, Loevy & Loevy.

There has been absolutely no proof of torture – hundreds of allegations and millions of dollars in payouts -but not one win in G.Flint Taylor’s column.

Jon Burge was trapped in a legal maze created by time, judge shopping, media complicity and collective memory loss.

When torture appears, deal with it. That has yet to be proven. Truth is not something “We Can All Agree Upon.” That is John Dewey.

What strikes me is the money trail of WCC and the NCC that leads directly to the KGB - the former Soviet secret police.  No journalist in Chicago wants a Pulitzer denied due such an inquiry.

Instead, Taylor poisons the landscape with pieces like his recent In These Times article:

In Chicago, the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP), a longtime supporter of racist police torturer Jon Burge, is now seeking to circumvent court orders that preserve and make public the police misconduct files of repeater cops such as Burge, by seeking to enforce a police contract provision that calls for the destruction of the files after seven years.  And in a show of solidarity with the killer of Michael Brown, Chicago’s FOP is soliciting contributions to the Darren Wilson defense fund on its website.
Such reactionary actions by police unions are not new, but are a fundamental component of their history, particularly since they came to prominence in the wake of the civil rights movement. These organizations have played a powerful role in defending the police, no matter how outrageous and racist their actions, and in resisting all manner of police reforms.

As a high school teacher and citizen of Chicago, I demand that the so-called watch-dogs ask G. Flint Taylor some thoughtful, tough and compelling questions. Until something like that happens, G. Flint Taylor  will bully judges like Hooks into releasing murdering thugs like Jackie Wilson.

• What is your connection to the bombings in Oakland committed by Dohrn and the Weather Underground?
• Who ordred the murder of CPD officers Gilhooley and Rappaport* in November 1969?
• Why is Judge Gettleson always your go-to-guy?
• Where is Frank Sirtoff?  Tell us all about him?
• Who paid John Conroy?
• Have you ever been to Russia?
• How did you land Judge Hooks for your Jackie Wilson gambit?
• Why do you hate black people who are not felons?
• Why do you owe Gator Bradley money?

These might be a simple begining of the media having much less sympathy for Chicago's devil.  

Who,who, who, whoooo!

*Patrolman John Gilhooly and Patrolman Frank Rappaport

Chicago Police Department
November 13, 1969

Officer John J. Gilhooly and Officer Frank G. Rappaport were ambushed by a member of the radical group Black Panthers on a false call of a “man with a gun”.

As the officers entered a gangway between two buildings the man opened fire with a shotgun from a porch below, striking Officer Rappaport in the chest and Officer Gilhooly in the face and neck. The suspect then shot Officer Rappaport again as he lay on the ground, killing him.

Gilhooly was survived by his father, brother and sister.

Patrolman Gilhooly

Patrolman Rappaport

A Poem From Castleisland, County Kerry - A Horse Barber?

Pound Road
There was a place in dear Castleisland,
Pound Road it was its name,
It housed the finest people,
Kind and caring just the same.
There were Murphys, Sullivans and Brosnans, Berminghams and Morans too,
Danahars, Conways and Buckleys and McCarthy to mend your shoe.
There were Dennehys, Griffins and Savages and Prendivilles - who are our kin,
We'll not forget those people for that would be a sin.
There were carpenters, and undertakers, cobblers and a bell-man too,
Fishmongers and horse barbers - none were idle I assure you.
Times were tough back in the 40s to make a bob or two,
No bother to these people - they were smarter that (sic) me and you.
One day there came a letter, their little homes would have to go,
They'd be moved to better houses - away from heil and snow.
But their way of life had ended, 'twas the end of an era you see,
They had to leave their little cottages - where they never used a key.
In my home I hung a calendar with their names and history,
I smile and think about them when recession blares from TV,
Those folks survived in harder times but their hearts and minds were free,
They lived each day as best they could with a chat and a mug of tea.
When in your cosy beds at night, will you say a little prayer,
For all who've gone before us, in whose footsteps we will dare,
Their simplicity and their courage an inspiration to us all.
We think of our relations, bould Tom and Sonny Bawn. from The Kerryman

This offering might not pass the poetry finger test , but County Kerry has the most (37) GA football titles and Castleisland is once again the widest street next to O'Connell Street in Ireland. Dactyls and spondees and rhetorical flourishings aside, the vocation of the horse barber grabbed me.




County Kerry, ladies and gents!  And you wonder how I got this way.