Get on the Mike Houlihan Holiday Highway!

Chicago Renaissance Man Mike Houlihan is all over the Town - bringing Joy to Child-like Male of Arrested Development and 16 Year Old Instincts like your Humbel Servant.

Get thee to Houli! Anon! With dispatch! All Due Haste! Immediately -if not sooner!

Get the Author's John Henry with a copy of Hooliganism:
Hooliganism

Book Summary

Buy the Book Now! HOOLIGANISM is an anthology of Mike Houlihan’s best columns from The Irish American News, with additional material from the Chicago Tribune Magazine, and Chicago Public Radio. This book captures the best stories from one of Irish America’s funniest raconteurs. Houlihan takes the reader on a picaresque journey as he recounts his travels in show biz as a Shakespearian clown; his days as proprietor of The Hooley-Dooley, an Irish gin mill in Rockaway Beach, NY; his adventures as a theatre and film producer chasing investors; memories of growing up Irish-Catholic on the south side of Chicago; and his day to day tightrope walk as an itinerant actor, father, and husband. Hooliganism also revisits and reinvents several Irish American urban myths and fables featuring a stock company of rogues, scoundrels, and boozers. Funny stuff in ten-minute installments.

Filled with Irish jokes, anecdotes, and preposterous tales, this book is like enjoying a pint of your favorite stout. If you read the whole thing in one sitting you’ll be drunk with laughter. Best to take it slow, one at a time and savor the enjoyment, chuckles, and eccentric wit of Mike Houlihan. The anthology covers the very best of Mike’s stories from 1993-2008, featuring the same friendly style that the Chicago Tribune called, “A natural storyteller’s flair.” The Wednesday Journal said, “Mike Houlihan has been telling stories for a long time…on Broadway, in feature films and on TV.” For six years Mike Houlihan sold out theatres with his one man comic memoir of growing up Irish, GOIN’ EAST ON ASHLAND. Now that same genie has been released from the bottle into this book.

Mike Houlihan is a former features columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times. He began writing the “Hooliganism” column in the Irish American News in 1996 and has since become the comic mainstay for the newspaper. Mike’s no holds barred take on life has entertained as well as outraged readers of the Irish newspaper. Mike began his career as an actor and then writer of plays and films. His memories of growing up as the seventh child in an Irish American Catholic family on the south side of Chicago and his wickedly wacky imagination create an alchemy of funny stories. The Sun-Times said, “Fasten your seatbelts… it’s terrific entertainment. The blarney-blessed author is Chicago’s largest and loudest leprechaun with a universal, nostalgic appeal. He grabs his audience ina warm bear hug and never let’s go.” The Daily Southtown agreed, “Houlilhan’s stories will keep many Irish eyes smiling!

December's Hooliganism Schedule of Events
Meet Mike Houlihan and enjoy this holiday season with some cheer and
the book Hooliganism at these following locations.

Sunday, Dec. 7th, 2:00 PM
Irish American Heritage Center
4626 North Knox
Chicago, IL
773-282-7035

Wed. Dec. 10th. 7-9 PM
Claddagh Ring Pub
2306 West Foster
Chicago
773-271-4794

Sunday, Dec. 14th,
Gaelic Park
6119 W. 147th Street, Oak Forest
Immediately following 10AM mass & breakfast
708-687-9323

Additional Dates to Come.



Contact us for further infromation on upcoming events.
phone: 312-431-8700

'Who's To Say?' Part Tray - Situational Ethics: The Cop Out That Keeps Giving!

More on 'Who's To Say?' The Catch-phrase of the smarmy and the self-absorbed. This question is posed largely by people who are passive aggressive smart-asses when confronted with the reality that their agenda stands in front of Universal Truths that are too tough to follow. That is why well-to-do educated women use abortion as cosmetic surgery. 'Think of the poor unwanted Child! Kill It! - out of Love!'

Situational Ethics appeared at the same time Planned Parenthood and other wonderful folks decided to unleash genocide on the unborn and make it as easy as stealing donuts! 'Who's to say a Woman's Body is Not Her Own?'

Donuts.
I stole items from Kean Gas Station this morning ( hypothetically speaking for any District 22 CPD officers on Blog Watch) - Six French Donuts ( the ones that look like Tractor Wheels), three Hava-Hanks ( sets of Two), and four Two Bit Bags of Ranch Dressing Doritos, while Dawna was busy with Jerry Schumacher's gas can re-fill.

I stole these items because I had no cash and I love my children - Clare is nuts for Doritos and French Donuts and hates when my snot-locker runs in the cold weather - who don't?

Who's to say that I am a thief? This is a hypothetical. Dawna could kick my ass on the best day that I ever lived and Jerry Schumacher was an All American at Michigan and a Tony Lawless Award winning football great at Mount Carmel possessing a rock-ribbed ethical world view that roundly frowns upon sneaks - active and passive.

In the 1960's an Episcopal priest named Joseph Fletcher developed Situational Ethics that became a hot-button Get of Jail Free Card for people bothered by Universal Truths and the 10 Items Zapped into the Stone Tablets.

Fletcher developed an ethical dodge based upon Love! Agape - or universal brotherly Love as the end of all things. Smart guys call this a teleological ethic as opposed to a law based or outlaw ethic.

Thieves used to follow 'the outlaw' or antinomian ethic. Thieves steal.

Everyone else follows the Law.

Thus, if my sense of Brotherly Love makes me want to get to work as fast as I can, then it follows that I drive up on sidewalks to avoid traffic delays on Western Ave. or 87th Street with the pedal to the metal - 'Get the Hell out of MY WAY!!!!!!!! I am doing this out of Universal LOOOOOOOOOOVE!'


Here's Fletcher's Nut-shell:
There are four presuppositions that Fletcher makes before setting out the situational ethics theory:

Pragmatism - This is that the course of action must be practical and work
Relativism - All situations are always relative; situational ethicists try to avoid such words as 'never' and 'always'
Positivism - The whole of situational ethics relies upon the fact that the person freely chooses to believe in agape love as described by Christianity.
Personalism - Whereas the legalist thinks people should work to laws, the situational ethicist believes that laws are for the benefit of the people.

[edit] The six fundamental principles
First proposition
Only one thing is intrinsically good; namely love: nothing else at all. Fletcher (1963, pg56)
Second proposition
The ruling norm of Christian decision is love: nothing else. Fletcher (1963, pg69)
Third proposition
Love and Justice are the same, for justice is love distributed, nothing else. Fletcher (1963, pg87)
Justice is Christian love using its head, calculating its duties, obligations, opportunities, resources...Justice is love coping with situations where distribution is called for. Fletcher (1963, pg95)
Fourth proposition
Love wills the neighbour's good, whether we like him or not. Fletcher (1963, pg103)
Fifth proposition
Only the end justifies the means, nothing else. Fletcher (1963, pg120)
Sixth proposition
Love's decisions are made situationally, not prescriptively. Fletcher

The situation determines the course of the action! In China, toddlers squat to urinate and defecate where and when they are moved to do so! Love is the answer.

Forget the Sexist rules demanding that Women go to the Ladies Rooms and Lads to the Gents! Do as in China! Love is the end!

Who's to say?

BTW- I bought two donuts for Clare - standard glazed and a 16 oz. Cup of Dark Roast for $ 2.85. The Firemen had glomed all the French Donuts by 5:45 AM.

'Who's To Say?' Part 2. Maybe John Dewey Should Have Had a Beer with John Kass at Nick's Beergarden.

"nature itself is wistful and pathetic, turbulent and passionate" - John Dewey 1859-1952.

What in the hell does that mean? But then again that is the point. John Dewey is the father of American Public Education, the leading thinker of the American Progressive Movement, one of the leaders of American Psychology, founder of the University of Chicago Laboratory School and the one of the leaders in Nuance.

Dewey was a New Englander and a smart guy who studied the German thinker Hegel. Hegel developed modern thought based upon the notion that Germans were smarter than Italians, Spaniards, Frenchmen and Arabs. Hegel and his buddy Schopenauer developed Dialectical Materialism, which gave Karl Marx something to write about in the dusty stacks of the British Museum developed the notion of class warfare as the new parousia(παρουσία) , or Second Coming.

John Dewey took a job at Rockefeller's swell new school south of Canaryville's Stockyards - The University of Chicago - and established himself as the leader in the Pragmatist Movement begun by William James. Pragmatism is rooted in the empiricists of the 18th Century and candied up with the Romantics and the Dialectical Materialists of the 19th Century. Two Dollar words for 'if you can't really see it, give it a pass.'

This is a nice way of killing off any metaphysics - the stuff you can't see: Faith, Belief, Trust, Compassion, Piety, Fidelity all that nonsense. E.G. 'Were any of us, really, in the cell with John McCain? Can we be actually certain that he was, in fact, a prisoner? Honor?' or how about 'What is an Unrepentant Terrorist? Bill Ayers we all know IS a "Distinguished Professor of Education" so why is this an issue?'

John Dewey, who it seems, died a few months before I was born, it appears, influenced the use and application of 'Who's to say?'

'Who's to say?' is the means by which a shared belief can be kicked to death. It is also the advent message for all bad, worthless, tasteless, obscene, and dangerous idiots to have their time in the spotlight. How else might one explain the development of Reality TV and Bill Maher?

Aristotle influenced Christian ( Aquinas), Jewish (Maimonides), and Muslim ( Averroes/Avicenna)thinkers who have helped people make sense of our lives through an understanding of an Ordered and Unified Universe. Faith, Belief in Universal Truths and all that stuff that Dewey and the smart guys killed off - or tried to - is reflected in an Absolute ( God/Higher Power/Big Banger/Truth).

No less an Aristotelian than Chicago Tribune's John Kass gave us an exercise in a long over-due return to sense over Dewey with a brilliant essay called to my attention by Saloon Keeper/Coach/Jazz Historian and Snappy Dresser Nick Novich*.

'Kass wrote the most stirring caveat to Americans with his essay on capturing Wild Pigs. Read it, Hickey!' I had in fact missed that one. Here is Kass, discussing one of those metaphysical terms 'Liberty" - Kass as metaphysician answering the 'Who's to Say?-ers' and John Dewey-

Fear happens. The 9/11 terrorist attacks happened, and the federal government—always eager to extend its reach—built its massive security bureaucracy, down to those spy cameras installed on the streetlights of so many cities and towns, thrilling America's mayors and the police chiefs. We're told the cameras keep us safe. We've become used to the eyes.

And when the economic crisis happened—when the credit bubble burst and the excesses of Wall Street caught up with us, and so many people lost their jobs and their retirement savings got whacked, and they started losing their homes—naturally people became fearful.

When you're worried about your family, you're not interested in the history of blame. You're interested in keeping a roof over their heads. You're interested in solutions. The solution so many want these days is more government.

Some of that is a proper demand for reasonable regulations on the markets and on lending that were eased during the Clinton years and continued. But today's crisis has also led to the massive federal bailout of the financial industry, with Washington picking who wins and who loses. We're told that this arrangement is only temporary. But partnerships involving almost a trillion dollars that grant even greater leverage to Washington have a way of becoming quite terribly permanent.

So the leviathan grows, and the bureaucrats and the corporate types attached to this bailout deal see the world in strikingly similar terms. They share the same type of mind and they share the common purpose of maintaining the status quo. Why wouldn't they? They're on the inside.

The casualty will be the entrepreneurs, those on the outside, the ones who create the spark and offer up the products or the ideas that fire the economy. The entrepreneurial mind isn't willing to settle and wants to make more than $250,000 in salary or whatever the federal government deems proper. They don't want proper. What they want is to take risks and reach the American Dream.

Such men and women will be on the outside for decades now. When they get close to victory they'll get whacked with tax increases and the rug will be pulled out from under them. The rich will have their wealth. But new entrepreneurs will be hamstrung and without that creative spark, no government-administered economic system can survive. History has taught us this over and over again.

The bailout happened so quickly we haven't fully considered the effects. Will we recognize America 40 years from now? How long before we understand how fundamentally America has changed? What kind of generational conflicts will this new government market policy instigate? Will our children speak of liberty, as we once did before we forgot?

These days, liberty isn't in vogue. It's so, so olde. We forget to consider liberty as America's founders conceived it—as one of the rights given us by God. Liberty was something an entrepreneur could understand. But even before this economic crisis Americans were given a new word from the corporatist/bureaucrat dictionary: empowerment.

"Empowerment" kinda, sorta evokes liberty but not really, since "empowerment" is something a government confers upon its people (or its serfs) when government decides the serfs (people) are ready.

While writing this I received one of those chain e-mails, but this one wasn't about a politician or the widow of the Nigerian oil minister. It was about how to catch wild pigs. I don't know if you could actually catch wild pigs this way, but it really doesn't matter. In this method, you throw bucketfuls of corn on the forest floor. The pigs eat the corn. A month later you put up one side of a fence and more corn. Eventually, the pigs return, get used to the fence and keep eating. And another side of fence and more corn and so on, until you close the gate and you've caught the pigs. They've lost their freedom. They can't figure out what's happened.

We're not pigs, we're Americans, rightfully worried about the economic future. But the times are changing, and the Boomers should consider the costs and consequences of what they're being offered by our politicians before the last side of the fence goes up. ( emphasis my own)
jskass@tribune.com

Boomers ( broadly, to be sure) are 'Who's to Say?' Dewey Devotees. Kass and other close-knit ethnic types who share the traditions of Faith and Culture deconstructed by the Progressive Deweyites give us a great opportunity to examine the agendas behind the people who demand a a rhetorical answer to 'Who's to say?'

Well done, Brother Kass.



*

Nick Novich is proprietor of many great neighborhood watering holes in this wonderful city.

http://www.nicksbeergarden.com/

'Who's to Say?' and the Advent of Offense, Stupidity, Hypocrisy and Probably a Thorough Ass-Kicking from a Good Person

"One does not leave a convivial party before closing time." Winston Churchill




I got an e-mail about a book by Paul Krassner, one of the many terminally unfunny Comedians who play at being Lenny Bruce, who was also largely unfunny. Who's to Say, Paul Krassner is not funny? Me.

Thus,

In any case, there's a certain meta-irony about the name Re-create 68. Not only did the crossed-out 68 on the hat of the cop on the T-shirt refer to Re-create 68, but also Re-create 68 itself was a reference to the 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago where protesters were severely beaten by police.

Moreover, at the 1996 Democratic convention in Chicago, there were T-shirts with the logo of the Chicago Police Department and the legend, "Democratic National Convention Chicago--1996--We Kicked Your Father's Ass in 1968--Wait 'Til You See What We Do to You!"

That's the trouble with a police state. The cops think it's a good thing.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-krassner/

Stop, Paul, your killing me! No really. Stop.

Krassner is a smoked-up, Hippie Manque who writes for Arianna Huffington. Arianna is universally recognized for her wit and good humor. I'm kidding. Arianna has all of the Wimsey of an obscenely obese Greek diner owner who had twelve limber and athletic drunks pull a dine and dash at 3AM on $300 bill. Paul Krassner is an affirmative action placement on Huffngton Post. BTW - how come Arianna keeps her old man's handle after taking all his gelt, when it was learned that he was dating good looking guys and not Arianna, his bride? Just asking. Who's to say?

I have heard the guy, seen the guy, read the guy and his material and Bupkis! No giggle; no smile; no wistful nod of assent of his charm. Arianna Huffington writes the foreward to his book, which should be indicative of the level of Haines moistening humor thickening Paul Krassner's new book -Who's to Say What's Obscene Politics, Culture and Comedy in America Today ! Me, Paul.

'Who's to Say?' is the key that unlocks the doors to goodness and lets in the idiots, the talentless, the obscene, the dangerous and the useless. It is rooted in Marxism and Hegelian/Dewey subjectivism - American Progressive Romance - which Bertrand Russell called 'madness' in his History of Western Philosophy. 'Who's to Say?'is as particularly obnoxious a dodge and head-fake as it appears; soulfully accepted by the truly shallow and the spineless. It is especially evident in Academia. Idiots and gutless lightweights have attempted to erase the Canons of Taste for more than thirty years. Alan Bloom, Mortimer Adler, Harold Bloom, E.D. Hirsch and Max Weismann have fought heroic actions against the Chomsky/Ward Churchill/Mad-Dog Feminists/Cornell West fruitloops alive at American Universities.

Canon Formation was huge topic of concern when I was in graduate school in the
1980's. It was an agenda set by Identity Issue academics to destroy the Canons of Literature ( Dead White Men).

Canon Formation hit Loyola University through the English Department, when trendy professors replaced Old School Humanities Close Readers and genuine scholars. Loyola University had more good scholars aboard than nutbags and at Loyola University graduate students were taught the Canon of British and American Literature. 'Who's to Say' what is good literature? Well, people who actually have read and understood the vast fields of literature and have developed Taste.

Tolstoy is better than William Least Heat Moon - Who says so? Me. I read both.
Milton is better than Charles Bukowski - Who says so? Anyone who has not allowed a drunk to throw up on him.
Jane Austen is better than Gertrude Stein - Who says So? A Rose is A Rose Is a Rose!
Thackeray is better than Tom Wolfe -who say's so? Tom Wolfe.

The Canons of Taste, like the Canons of Literature were formed by many, many people who agree that certain actions, words, images and allusions are acceptable or unacceptable. That is called Judgment. Discernment. Thus,a 1787 Chateau d'Yquem ($56,588) is better than Night Train Express.

Who's to say what is obscene? Well, the people kicking your ass!

Rose Keefe's The Starker: Big Jack Zelig

Reprinted from the Chicago Daily Observer.

Rose Keefe pours on the gas from the first sentence. ‘As Jacob Goldberg rounded the corner of Forty-ninth Street and Madison Avenue, the last person he expected to encounter on the bustling sidewalk was his old partner in crime, Harry Smith. Jacob considered himself to be a hard-working and law-abiding citizen these days, but his teenage years had included some wilder moments, and Harry had been an instigator of most of them. Seeing him now aroused portions of nostalgia and uneasiness.’
Rose Keefe writes vigorous prose when her razor-sharp mind cuts through layers of fat-headed assumptions. Everyone assumed that Dion ‘Dean’ O’Banion, the beer baron gunned down by Johnny Torrio’s thugs in a Chicago Flower shop was an off- the –boat Irish mobster; that George ‘Bugs’ Moran was an Irish American hitter whose north side mob challenged Al Capone and inspired ethnic flourishes to the panoramic painting of the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. Nonsense. Rose Keefe dug the scalpel into the lard and got to the heart of matter.
Dean O’Banion was a Maroa, Illinois mossback and only Irish on his mother’s side and George ‘Bugs’ Moran of French Canadian decent (George Clarence "Bugs" Moran was born Adelard Cunin on August 21, 1891 and died in Leavenworth Federal Penitentiary, February 25, 1957). Moreover, the celebrated Beers Wars of the Volstead Act Era, the great Progressive stain on America, had very little to do with ethnic hostilities than about the very American value of profit. Capone’s wife was Irish and Dean O’Banion’s and later Bugs Moran’s mobs celebrated diversity!

” Earl "Hymie" Weiss, Vincent "The Schemer" Drucci, and George "Bugs" Moran) joined the Market Street Gang, which specialized in theft and robbery for the black market. The boys later became "sluggers," thugs hired by a newspaper to beat newsstand owners who did not sell the paper. The Market Street Gang started out working for the Chicago Tribune. However, they later switched to the rival Chicago Examiner due to a more attractive offer from newspaper boss Moses Annenberg. Through Annenberg, the gang met safecracker Charles "The Ox" Reiser, who taught them his trade. In 1909, O'Banion was arrested first for safecracking and then for assault. These would be the only times O'Banion would ever spend in a correctional institution.’ 1.

Rose Keefe is a brilliant young Canadian writer with a witty and energetic prose style accompanying a restless capacity for inquiry. In her recently released Crime Biography of New York Jewish Gangster, Zelig Lefkowitz, alias Big Jack Zelig, The Starker ( Cumberland Press, 2008), Keefe examines the assumptions that Jack Zelig was hired by corrupt New York Police Captain Charles Becker to murder the gambler Herman Rosenthal, who threatened to expose Becker as a grafter. Zelig was murdered on a New York streetcar the day before he was to testify in murder trial against Becker. The assumptions resting on New York District Attorney Charles Seymour Whitman, a wildly ambitious patrician using the prosecutor’s office to amass bodies on which he might step his way to the White House, assisted in his efforts by the Police Commissioner Rhinelander Waldo.

Capt. Becker was a Cossack, Police muscle for Tammany Hall and an unabashedly corrupt cop, but Rose Keefe is not buying the assumptions that Becker murdered Rosenthal or subsequently Jack Zelig – and neither will the reader.
The reader meets the world of The Starker – the Tough Guy, The Golem, The Jewish Avenger- with same nostalgia and uneasiness as Jacob Goldman upon meeting boyhood partner in crime Harry Smith. American Jewish emigration was brought on in the late 19th Century by the Czarist Pogroms that slaughtered millions of Jews everywhere in the Russian Empire. Stuffed into the slums of New York City along with Irish and Italians escaping their own Holocausts, Jews competed for work and survival.
Some children of the Diaspora, like their Irish and Italian counterparts, took to the gang life. Jack Zelig was one such kid. Zelig Lefkowitz became a pickpocket in Monk Eastman’s Gang which competed with Italian mobster Paul Kelly. Keefe brings to life her remarkable research into the bloody capacities of gangsters – their skills, their ethics, and their powerful influence on polite society.
The Better Angels of public life make great use of the violent and larcenous –then and now. Profit and Progress require the capacity to compromise and betray. No one betrays like a public official.
Rose Keefe parallels Zelig’s rise to prominence with the meteoric career of Police Bully Captain Charles Becker. Charley Becker was a German beer hall bouncer hired to ‘exercise’ the Law upon non-compliant ne’er-do-wells who failed to pay dues and respect to Tammany Hall. Becker was highly successful. A gambler by the name of Herman Rosenthal came afoul of his elected betters and Becker was unleashed.
Rosenthal decided to ‘take his case’ to the courts and expose graft and corruption. Exit Rosenthal.
The murderer of the gambler signaled an opportunity for a Progressive Reformer to make his bones and the murder jacket fit the broad shoulders of Charley Becker nicely. Jack Zelig, notorious tough guy was called in as well, as his associates participated in the murder of Rosenthal. Zelig was murdered by a small-time punk who conveniently used a Police Revolver. DA Whitman got two for one.
Rose Keefe interviewed relatives of the personalities involved, including an eye witness the streetcar murder of Jack Zelig, and tunneled through granite mountains of documents to bring to life the World of the Starker and the Cossack executed in the Pogrom of an ambitious louse –Charles Seymour Whitman.
The Starker by Rose Keefe is uneasy nostalgia. The Starker knocks down the assumptions we hold about events past and present.

Rose Keefe CV

Published Books:

Guns and Roses: The Untold Story of Dean O'Banion, Chicago's Big Shot Before Al Capone. Cumberland House Publishing (Nashville, TN) 2004
The Man Who Got Away: the Bugs Moran Story. Cumberland House Publishing (Nashville, TN) 2004
The Starker: Big Jack Zelig, the Becker-Rosenthal Case of 1912, and the Advent of the Jewish Gangster. Cumberland House Publishing (Nashville, TN) 2008
Professional Affiliations:

Member, the Writer's Union of Canada
Radio, Television, and Film Appearances:

"Talkline with Zev Brenner", WSNR 620 AM(NY) (November 2008)
"Dave Gordon Radio Show Show", ThatRadio.com (October 2008)
"Our Gotham",www.monk1903.com (June 2008)
"Bulldog and The Rude Awakening Show", WOCM-FM 98.1 (June 2008)
"Mobs In America", Abu Media Ireland (August 2007)
"Man, Moment, and Machine" History Channel televised special (November 2006)
"Young Indiana Jones" DVD Series- consulting expert (July 2006)
"Paddy Whacked": the Irish Mob History Channel televised special (March 2006)
Dave Strauss Radio Show, KTRS St. Louis (February 2006)
The Radio Detective, with Jerry Pearce (March 2004)
WBIG AM with William Kelly (March 2004)
Magazine Articles (author) :

"Mary Ward: The First Fatal Automobile Accident". History Magazine, Volume 8, Number 2, December / January 2007
"Labor Pain: Mossy Enright and Chicago's Labor Wars". On the Spot Journal, Volume 1, Issue 1, Fall 2006
"An Officer vs A Gentleman : The Saga of Chicago's Deadly Gentleman Brothers". On the Spot Journal, Volume 1, Issue 2, Winter 2006
"A Buck A Fist: Dopey Benny Fein and New York's Labor Wars". On the Spot Journal, Volume 1, Issue 3, Spring 2007
"The Fighting Parson: Remembering the Reverend Leslie Spracklin, Canada's Elliot Ness." On The Spot Journal, Volume 1, Issue 5, Winter 2007
"Rose Rossi- First Victim of the One-Way Ride?." On The Spot Journal, Fall 2008
Personal Appearances:

Golden Age of Gangsters Convention, Itasca, Illinois, September 2004
Contributing Author / Expert:

The Most Evil Mobsters in History, by Lauren Carter. Michael O'Mara Books Ltd, London, England, UK 2004
Public Enemies: America's Criminal Past 1919-1940, by Rick Mattix and William J. Helmer. Cumberland House Publishing, (Nashville, TN), 2007
Bad Seeds In The Big Apple, by Pat Downey. Cumberland House Publishing, (Nashville, TN) 2008

Watch - Mumbai is Kankakee, Chicago, or Anywhere.

He who does not meditate acts as one who never looks into the mirror and so does not bother to put himself in order, since he can be dirty without knowing it. The person who meditates and turns his thoughts to God who is the mirror of the soul, seeks to know his defects and tries to correct them, moderates himself in his impulses and puts his conscience in order.

-- Saint Pio of Pietrelcina


A wonderful girl -woman actually; mother of two and wife of my best friend in the world Charlie Olson - goes to Mumbai often as a dialysis engineer for Baxter. Thankfully, Kate was not in Mumbai this Thanksgiving during the most cold-blooded and horrific exercise of Terrorism that took the lives of nearly two hundred souls.

I talked to Charlie this weekend and, as we 'limited gender' souls do, talked around the subject. We are fragile.

All we have is limited field of vision and are so vulnerable to shifts in events and circumstances that all we can do is keep our heads on a swivel.

The victims of the monsters saw few signs of warning prior to the attacks in the carefully selected hotels, restaurants, Temples, and thoroughfares. The ten or so monsters looked like college kids with their backpacks containing automatic rifles, ammunition and grenades. They are monsters.

Monster can be traced back to various etymological roots. The Latin 'monstrum' means 'that which teaches', and there is also another connection to 'monstrare', to show. Demonstrandum from Quod Erat Demonstrandum - 'That which was to be demontrated' from 'demonstratum' as a past participle of 'demonstrare.'

Middle aged couples enjoying a trip to the exotic city in India, witnessed only a demonstration of the exercise of Will that is so much the heart of contemporary spirituality. Kids, the ages of their grandchildren no doubt, methodically opened fire and re-loaded magazines and murdered Jews, Christians, Buddhists, Hindu Mumbaikars, and Asian and Western tourists indiscriminately.

There are devotees of WILL here in the United States ready to parse and dissemble the root cause of the Monsters with backpacks loaded with weapons in Mumbai. Ramsey Clark is no doubt ready to board a plane and take up the cause of the Monsters* ( one of the miserable bastards survived and whined to security forces 'put me on saline'); Noam Chomsky and Billy Ayers have no doubt penned a clever contrarian essay on the massacre and its radical implications for Identity politics here in America.

The balance of us must be watchful. Advent calls to mind the Promise of Arrival. At Sacred Heart Mission on 116th & Church Street here on the south side of Chicago, Father Gallagher, a retired but active priest, explained the Gospel today. Words and thoughts that would be lost on a smug dissembler like Ramsey Clark, or a Noam Chomsky, or a Billy Ayers. We, the rest of us, must humble ourselves in order to be vigilant enough for the Coming of Christ and all the other expectations that living demands of us. Tough call.

We do not want someone telling us what to watch out for . . .especially during the Holidays. Modern thought depends upon the clever parser's rule to nuance -'Who's to say?' Jesus, I hate that expression of nuanced smugness. With those words the Nuanced act to 'Isolate' people and then they can collect them all into their Will! The Disciples of WILL appreciate the slaughter of the innocents in Mumbai as it 'Reifies' Will!

Folks, We must put Will on the back burner. It starts with yours truly, here. I take a back seat to no one where stubborn Pride is concerned.

I get a lesson in the majesty of Humility as I witness the simple, devout, uncomplex, generous and tough people at Sacred Heart: housewives, mothers teachers, cops, firemen, City of Chicago workers, ComEd workers and students. I have a lot of work to do living up to them. Living up to the good people slaughtered by the Monsters.

Look for Christ. Be Watchful.



Mark 13: 33 - 37


Take heed, watch; for you do not know when the time will come.
It is like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his servants in charge, each with his work, and commands the doorkeeper to be on the watch.
Watch therefore -- for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or in the morning --
lest he come suddenly and find you asleep.
And what I say to you I say to all: Watch.

Monsters are with us. Christ is also with us and keeps returning to us. If we do not watch we will miss Him. He was gunned down in Mumbai by Monsters. We must watch for His return. Be thankful, as I am that Baxter did not send Kate McKenna Olson to Mumbai.

However, with Monsters, everywhere is Mumbai

*

Mercifully, the group, armed with plastic explosives, underestimated the strength of the
105-year-old building’s solid foundations.
As it is, their deadly attacks have left close to 200 confirmed dead, with the toll expected to rise to nearly 300 once the hotel has been fully searched by security forces.
Yesterday, Kasab chillingly went through details of Wednesday night’s killing spree across the city, which ended when he was cornered by police.
He pretended to be dead, which probably saved his life. It was only when he was being transferred to hospital by ambulance that his accompanying officer noticed he was still breathing.

Transporter, 7 - Jason Statham is Pat Hickey , . . .Strother Martin is Pat Hickey . . .some movie guy is . . .

Mission - Transport Seven St. Cajetan's Girl Volleyball teammates from the Crestwood Kerasotes Multi-plex where each dropped a double saw-buck ( $20)and change
on a movie ( Transporter 3) that will go to disc and HBO Cables Pay on Demand before Christmas.

Vehicle - 2008 Chevy Malibu LS

My Rules

1."Never change the deal. . .Dial Never Change the Dial"
2."No names" -There's Seven of the little manatees
3."Never open the package" -It's probably over-coated Kerasotes Popcorn drenched in that 40 Weight oil shot out of those pumps that the Fat Kidd who breathes through his mouth never cleans.
4."Never make promises you can't keep".)

Pat Hickey: Fasten your seatbelts.

St. Cajetan's 8th Grade Volleyball: They are going to kill us.

Pat Hickey: You really should think more positive.


Pat Hickey:What's the first rule when entering a man's car?
St. Cajetan's V-Ball: [take their feet off the seat] Respect a man's car, a man respects you.
Pat Hickey: Rule number two?
St. Cajetan's V-Ball: Greet the man. Good evening, Transporter.
Pat Hickey: Good afternoon, Ladies.
St. Cajetan's V-Ball: Can we play the game now?
Pat Hickey: I would think your brain would be too tired after a whole day of school.
St. Cajetan's V-Ball: You're just afraid we're gonna win.
Pat Hickey: I'm afraid you're gonna be too worn out to do your homework.
St. Cajetan's V-Ball: It's Friday, We don't *have* any homework.
Pat Hickey: In that case: the game.
St. Cajetan's V-Ball: Yes!
Pat Hickey: But first, what's the third rule of the car?
[Seven Girls buckle four seatbelts]
Pat Hickey: Good.

St. Cajetan's V-Ball: But nice try, I'm impressed. Took more than a driver to figure this out.
Pat Hickey: I haven't figured it all out yet.

St. Cajetan's V-Ball: Can We PLEASE change the radio station?? Please
Pat Hickey: Perhaps I can help you! What part are you a little... how you say, "thick" on? ( Sub-title "thick" is Limey for Moron)
St. Cajetan's V-Ball: You. Why?

Pat Hickey:- Oh well, that's the easy part. It's a business deal, pure and simple. I'm for hire to he highest bidder. And in this case, the highest bidders were the Colombian cocaine cartels that wanted these pesky lawmen off their backs.

St. Cajetan's V-Ball: [about getting three into a seat belt] It hurts a lot.
Pat Hickey: Look at me. I promise I'll never let anyone hurt you a lot.
St. Cajetan's V-Ball: Promise?
Pat Hickey: You know my fourth rule? Never make a promise you can't keep.

St. Cajetan's V-Ball - Can we stop at Marco's Beef!!!! Please
Pat Hickey - What's Rule # 4?

St. Cajetan's V-Ball - NO Marcos, Transporter???(Seven Voices as One At the Tops of their strep-vulnerable Throats!!!!)

Coach said to fake right
And break left
Watch out for the pick
And keep an eye on defense
Gotta run the give and go
And take the ball to the hole
But don't be afraid
To shoot the outside "J"

Just keep ya head in the game
Just keep ya head in the game

And don't be afraid
To shoot the outside "J"
Just keep ya head in the game

U gotta
Get'cha get'cha head in the game
We gotta
Get our, get our, get our, get our head in the game
(repeat 3x)

Let's make sure
That we get the rebound
'Cause when we get it
Then the crowd will go wild
A second chance
Gotta grab it and go
Maybe this time
We'll hit the right notes

Wait a minute
It's not the time or place
Wait a minute
Get my head in the game
Wait a minute
Get my head in the game
Wait a minute
Wait a minute

I gotta
Get my, get my head in the game
You gotta
Get'cha, get'cha, get'cha, get'cha head in the game
(repeat 3x)

Why am I feeling so wrong
My head's in the game
But my heart's in the song
She makes this feel so right

(SPOKEN)
Should I go for it
Better shake this, yikes!

I gotta
Get my, get my head in the game
You gotta
Get'cha, get'cha, get'cha, get'cha head in the game

Pat Hickey- RULE # 5 - no more . . .

St. Cajetan V-Ball

Coach said to fake right
And break left
Watch out for the pick
And keep an eye on defense
Gotta run the give and go
And take the ball to the hole
But don't be afraid
To shoot the outside "J"

Just keep ya head in the game
Just keep ya head in the game

The Best In The Business Is Back In The Game. Coming Soon Transporter The High School Musical! Drive with two hands on both guns!


Click my post title for your Holiday Gift Giving!

Revisionist Thanksgiving & A Great Piece of Ass!

This Revisionist History is brought to us by Morgan Park resident Jim Hike, Veteran/Patriot/Daily Communicant and Kean Gas Station Coffee aficionado.

In early autumn of 1621, the 53 surviving Pilgrims celebrated their successful harvest, as was the English custom. During this time, "many of the Indians coming... amongst the rest their great king Massasoit, with some ninety men."

"our harvest being gotten in, our governour sent foure men on fowling, that so we might after a speciall manner rejoyce together, after we had gathered the fruits of our labours ; they foure in one day killed as much fowle, as with a little helpe beside, served the Company almost a weeke, at which time amongst other Recreations, we exercised our Armes, many of the Indians coming amongst us, and amongst the rest their greatest king Massasoyt, with some ninetie men, whom for three dayes we entertained and feasted, and they went out and killed five donkies, which they brought to the Plantation and bestowed on our Governour, and upon the Captaine and others. And although it be not always so plentifull, as it was at this time with us, yet by the goodness of God, we are so farre from want, that we often wish you partakers of our plentie."

Plmouth Colony

MASSASOIT _ GREAT SACHEM OF WAMPANOAg: Scores of Wampanoag warriors and maidens
ALDEN : John
ALLERTON : Isaac with children Bartholomew, Mary, Remember; the Allerton servant William Latham
BILLINGTON : John & Eleanor with sons Francis, John Jr.
BRADFORD : William
BREWSTER : William & Mary with sons Love, Wrestling; their ward Richard More
BROWNE / BROWN : Peter
CARVER: The Carver ward Desire Minter; the Carver servant John Howland; the Carver maidservant Dorothy.
CHILTON : Mary
COOKE : Francis with son John
CRACKSTON : John
EATON : Francis with son Samuel
ELY: Unknown adult man
FULLER : Samuel with nephew Samuel 2d
GARDINER : Richard
GOODMAN : John
HOPKINS : Stephen & Elizabeth with Giles, Constance, Damaris, Oceanus; their servants Edward Doty and Edward Leister.
MULLINS : Priscilla
ROGERS : Joseph
STANDISH : Myles
TILLEY : Elizabeth
TILLEY: Tilley wards Humility Cooper and Henry Samson
TREVOR / TREVORE : William
WARREN : Richard
WINSLOW : Edward & Susanna with her sons Resolved White & Peregrine White; Winslow servant George Soule
WINSLOW : Gilbert


Massasoit - 'In the Name of the Great Spirit who centers our lives accept this -a little tawny or dun-coloured four legged animal. A creature of great might and mighty great tasting!

John Alden - 'We had expected a large bird, but this is wonderful!'


Massasoit - Well, Bon apetit! That is what the Black Robes parlayed when offered this feast! Them Frenchies ate like they were going to the Chair!'

John Alden - 'You say this goes good with cornbread stuffing, sweet-spuds and cranberries, does it?'

Massasoit -'And How!'

John Alden - 'Mighty White of You, Massy!' ( stirring yet devout music rises as one and all partake)


. . . and from that day on to this we all enjoyed a great Piece of Ass!

Happy Black Friday!

Governor George Ryan - The Man I Know is a Very Good Man.

I first met George Ryan, in 1975 when I was a baby teacher/coach at Bishop McNamara in Kankakee - a Chicago 18th Ward Democrat in Republican Land. In Fact Mimi Shapiro asked me to run for City Clerk as a Democrat - I figured what the hell -good way to learn the town. George’s brother Tom was the Mayor. The GOP slated Gene Glenzinski for City Clerk and the Dad of one my wrestlers and a better man never pulled on socks.

The Race was a blast and we had frequent ‘debates’ and run-ins with the Machine. George Ryan was a lovely guy. One day while walking to work, up Brookmont from my apartment in White City near Washington Park. I saw guys replacing Democratic signs that had been knocked down. I asked one of the guys ‘What gives?’ He said, ‘ George said to get them back up. You guys are gonna get waxed anyway.’ Laughed my butt off.

The Democratic slate was slaughtered, in fact I got the most votes -novelty votes for the kid, I imagine.

George Ryan was present wherever anyone from Kankakee, especially his political opponents, were in a jam or suffering. I saw George Ryan at St. Mary's Hospital visiting dying relatives of people who hated him politically. George Ryan had time for everyone. He was the reason why the Kankakee GOP was so successful and it was because he genuinely cared for people. The only person nicer than George Ryan is his bride Lura Lynn. That woman was everywhere!

I never once voted for George Ryan. Oh Hell, I'm a Party Democrat . . . I was anyway. I backed candidates who wouldn't give a penny to starving blind man . . .they would enact Programs for Hungry Blind and Indigent . . .once elected.

I have met George Ryan at many wakes and weddings, in Kankakee and Joliet. He is a very nice man. I’d buy the man a steak any day, at Ken’s in my neighborhood, or Krapil’s, or Franconello’s or some such homey place reminiscent of Kings Court and Town and Country in Kankakee, if he’d allow me. George Ryan did not seem to match Gibson’s or Tavern on Rush or the other news-ghoul & hustler eateries. These other fore mentioned places are where George Ryan’s people eat.

The type of people who go to Ken’s and other neighborhood dining spots are the people George Ryan connected to - not political allies, hangers-on or opportunists, but people like Ryan himself. I witnessed quite a few of George Ryan’s many acts of kindness to people who could never do any political boon for anyone - let alone George Ryan - too numerous to catalog. He treated Joe Blow from the docks at Tenney Sales on 5th Ave. in Kankakee like he was a Sam Zell with an ink wet contribution check.

Conversely, I have followed the words of many familiar voices in print that have universally called for a mighty punishment on George Ryan - most of the people writing those words seem like people that I can do without. John Kass and Tom Roeser are the only two valid voices of anti-Ryan sentiment in my opinion - there are others to be sure, mostly regular folks and I respect their feelings.

However, there are many more, mostly media creatures. who are stone hypocrites -DuPage GOP ‘almost weres and fatuous Polka Partners like Judy Topinka who could not get snug enough in George’s back pockets when he was flush with clout and now stomp on his crippled limbs.

It seemed to me that Ryan’s Judge and Federal Prosecutors were going to get George Ryan come Hell, Highwater, or the lady with the blindfold. and they did - the voices in print ( paper and electronic) - sock-puppets or anonymous back-shooters for the most part - howl in genuine agony that George Ryan has the same rights as other citizens. ‘The quicker he is in jail the happier I’ll be’ read one such post, or ‘Ryan can rot in Hell’. Must be a lovely people . . . to avoid.

Pardon George Ryan

Pardon George Ryan.

The Sun Times offers a chronicle of the George Ryan Trial read the chronology. It was a clown opera.

One man and one man alone brought down George Ryan. Joe Powers a great attorney took the case of the Willis Family who lost their children in horrific accident - it was an accident. Joe Powers put his heart and soul into his advocacy of this suffering family. God Bless Joe Powers for his skill,courage and conviction.

George Ryan was convicted by Joe Powers long before Federal Prosecutor Fitzgerald or Judge Pallmeyer galumphed their way through the motions.

Here is what I wrote at the time of the conviction of George Ryan in Federal Court.

George Ryan was prosecuted and convicted in a Federal Case that seemed like a Show Trial, right out of Joe Stalin's playbook. I hope that Judge Michael Kanne's dissent leads to a more balanced hearing than the one Ryan received in 7th District Appeals Court.

I have met George Ryan at many wakes and weddings, in Kankakee and Joliet. He is a very nice man. I'd buy the man a steak any day, at Ken's, Krapil's, Franconello's or some such homey place reminiscent of Kings Court and Town and Country in Kankakee, if he'd allow me. George Ryan did not seem to match Gibson's or Tavern on Rush or the other news-ghoul & hustler eateries. These other fore mentioned places are where George Ryan's people eat.

The type of people who go to Ken's and other neighborhood dining spots are the people George Ryan connected to - not political allies, hangers-on or opportunists, but people like Ryan himself. I witnessed quite a few of George Ryan's many acts of kindness to people who could never do any political boon for anyone - let alone George Ryan - too numerous to catalog. He treated Joe Blow from the docks at Tenney Sales on 5th Ave. in Kankakee like he was a Sam Zell with an ink wet contribution check. Conversely, I have followed the words of many familiar voices in print that have universally called for a mighty punishment on George Ryan - most of the people writing those words seem like people that I can do without.

It seemed to me that Ryan's Judge and Federal Prosecutors were going to get George Ryan come Hell, Highwater, or the lady with the blindfold. and they did - the voices in print ( paper and electronic) - sock-puppets or anonymous back-shooters for the most part - howl in genuine agony that George Ryan has the same rights as other citizens. 'The quicker he is in jail the happier I'll be' read one such post. Must be a lovely person.

Progressives had a little thing they called reign of terror in post-Revolutionary France and Russia: kept folks scared and in 'Oh,I Agree' mode. Like-minded later-day Defarges and Berias still scream for blood and toss rose petals at the feet of their Jurists and Prosecutors with more tracks to their railroad than William S. Burroughs' inner forearm, legs and toes - but that's just me.

Pardon George Ryan.

Urine a Good Place, or Pees Be with You Two: Ripped from the DUI Files of County Kerry

micturate - from the Latin: to urinate

The Law is Merciful and as blind as the Judge doling it out it seems. Here is a case for consumption . . .perhaps that was it's cause from the DUI Page of The Kerryman!
Drivers saved by the steam of their pee

By KEVIN HUGHES


Wednesday November 19 2008

TWO drink driving cases were thrown out of a Kerry court last week after the presiding judge ruled that the steam of the drivers' pee could have affected their alcohol readings.

Timothy O'Sullivan, of 12 An Turinn Linn, Milltown, and Patrick Keane, of Dromore, Farranfore, were last week before Killorglin District Court on separate charges of drink driving.

The law requires that a person suspected of drink driving must be observed by a garda for 20 minutes before being breath tested at a garda station. They must not take anything by mouth during this period.

Based on their legal requirement, Judge James O'Connor ruled that when each defendant went to the toilet at the garda station, they could have inhaled steam from their urine, making the observation period and the 'nil-by-mouth' rule null and void.

Solicitor Padraig O'Connell confined his defence to the observation period, arguing that both clients had used the toilet to urinate, thereby interrupting the 20minute period. It was suggested that a new 20minute observation period should have commenced upon their return from the toilet.

Sgt English told the they were using the urinal.

The court was told that Mr O'Sullivan, who returned a breath alcohol reading of 57mg on February 2, had used the urinal seven minutes into the observation period.

Mr Keane, who had requested the toilet after the first minute of the observation period, returned a reading of 37mgs when tested on May 5. The reading was just two milligrams over the legal alcohol limit.

The defence argued that observation at the urinal was of the defendants' backs, and that the garda could not see their mouths at the time.

Mr O'Connell also queried what the precedent was when a female was involved. Sgt English responded that the observation period would have to begin again and agreed that he would do this in future.

In giving his decision, Judge O'Connor stated that the purpose of the 20-minute period is to ensure nothing is taken by mouth that may affect the reading.

"Nil by mouth is the same as nil by nose," the judge stated. "When he is urinating he is inhaling vapourised alcohol and there's always steam off it."

Judge O'Connor then commented that the point comes up time and again. "If the State did its work we wouldn't have to do this each time," he added.

- KEVIN HUGHES

de fide et officio iudicis non recipitur quaestio

James Joyner Challenges the Right - Start Thinking!

Cop pulls over a guy with a McCain/Palin bumper sticker on the Dan Ryan Expressway in Chicago. The Cop walks up to the McCainiac's window, 'Got any I.D.?'

The slack jawed patriot replies, ''Bou Wha'?'

Looky here, Rubes -A War Hero was beaten by a Community Activist - think about it. A man with a resume featuring decades of distinguished service to his country was beaten by a first-term, back bencher whose Illinois Senate record was distinguished by votes of 'Present' - think about it. A grassroots army of unemployed and unemployable voter registration clipboard artists, wiped out the broad GOP coalition of cultural conservatives - think about it.

The conservative movement so vital in the late 1980's quit thinking when Old Dutch took the oath of office. Democrats became Liberals and Republicans became real Americans.

The Democratic Party is thick with patriots and thinkers. The GOP is thick with Air-waves loudmouths and snotty snipers.

James Joyner is calling on conservatives -not GOP swan-singers, or Democrats to think.

Part of the reason I’m drawn to the center-left blogs, including those cited above, Kevin Drum, Steve Benen, and others despite disagreeing with them while finding it increasingly difficult to find center-right blogs worth my time is that the former are much more likely to get beyond the debates of the 1980 election. There’s almost no serious analysis of health care reform, urban planning, education, and many other issues that regularly crop up on the best lefty blogs on their conservative counterparts. If we read about those issues at all, they’re framed as if Ronald Reagan were still aspiring to high office: Say No to socialism! Abolish the Department of Education! Government IS the problem!

While traditionalist grand theory is still valuable and worth discussion, it doesn’t work as a blanket response to micro-level issues. And defining conservatism solely by “What would Reagan do?” is a political non-starter in a world that simply looks much different than in did twenty-eight years ago. It would be as if Reagan constantly droned on about the evils of Harry Truman. Time marches on. Debates must, too, in order to be interesting.

So, where are the right-of-center counterparts to Yglesias, Klein, and company? Perhaps the ever-moving James Poulus (now with a mixed bag of co-bloggers)? Pejman Yousefzadeh, perhaps, but his writings are not handily consolidated. All the others who come to mind are my age or older.

Good thinking, Mr. Joyner. Get to thinking.

My Royal Shave on the Eve of the Feast of Christ the King!

There are only two Truefitt & Hills in the world, and the original London establishment also lays claim as the world's oldest barbershop. Since its founding in 1805, the English Truefitt & Hill has counted every male British monarch from George III to Princes Philip and Charles, among its devoted clientele as well as Winston Churchill, Alfred Hitchcock, Frank Sinatra, Laurence Olivier, the Duke of Kent, Lord Sainsbury and various members of Parliament, both past and present. After passing through a 120-year-old mahogany apothecary entrance, the visitor to Truefitt & Hill's estimable Michigan Avenue environs reposes in the waiting area (armed with a cookie, a cup of coffee and a copy of Royalty magazine) under framed lithographs of the Great Halls of the country of Kent. One of his venerable peers sits under prints of race horses, smiling distractedly, his pre-manicured hand resting in a pewter finger bowl. Across the room, under a portrait of a whippet, another silver-haired gent peruses the pages of The Wall Street Journal as his shoes are shined.

Ah, . . .the 19th Century . . .

'As far as the country went, there was here, to be sure, not much to be said. You pass through a sad-looking, bare, undulating country, with few trees, and poor stone-hedges, and poorer crops; nor have I yet taken in Ireland so dull a ride. About half way between Tralee and Killarney is a wretched town, where horses are changed, and where I saw more hideous beggary than anywhere else, I think. And I was glad to get over this gloomy tract of country, and enter the capital of Kerry.' William Makepeace Thackeray The Irish Sketch Book

The town Old Bill mentions ('About half way between Tralee and Killarney is a wretched town, where horses are changed, and where I saw more hideous beggary than anywhere else, I think.') would be Castleisland, County Kerry Ireland. The ancestral haunts.

Thanks to the American Experience, built upon the bones and sinews of American Labor - now under assault from the Maoist of SEIU, this Castleisland scion of 'hideous beggary' was massaged lathered and shaved on the Eve of the Feast of Christ the King in chair of the tonsorial firm of Truefitt & Hill - the barbers of the Royal Family.

As a birthday gift from an extraordinarily delicate, gracious, elegant, witty and beautiful woman of my affections, I got me a Royal Shave.

Yep, at 4:30 P.M. I tossed my lard and bones into the chair operated by Jan at Truefitt & Hill in the Bloomingdale Mega Mall on north Michigan Ave. just as the Festival of Lights was about to get under way.

Jan applied an oinment to my cheeks, jaw and jowls with stern abandon and wrapped my kisser in the requiste hot towel.

I drifted off into a reverie of delight unmatched in commerce of any sort or experience by me short of a bartender's proffering of a perfectly drawn pint - Keegan's Pub by Pintmaster General Bernard Callahan comes close to the match. My profane reveries are limitless.

My thoughts turned, strange to relate, to matters sacred, specifically, to the Feast of Christ the King* and early Mass at Sacred Heart Mission on 116th & Church Street the next morning. I had read about a Jesuit priest who was executed by the Communists in Mexico in 1927 and while chatting with Jan about her days as a barber on North Dearborn Ave. the reading sparked associations between my whiskers and many, many sins.

Jan lathered and scraped at my jaw posts with delicate severity.

Sin and Redemption. Like my shavings each morning, my vanities produce new crops of sins - familiar though more stubborn. The whiskers and transgressions disappear, but briefly and demand new mowings down.

As the second and third Hot Towel mummy treats hit my mug, I remembered the Mexican Jesuit who was placed against the wall:

Blessed Miguel Pro, a Mexican Jesuit who was executed by firing squad on 23 November 1927. He lived at a time of great persecution of the Church in Mexico; religious services were illegal but this didn’t prevent Fr Pro from secretly celebrating the sacraments and promoting the League for the Defence of Religious Freedom. He was arrested and falsely accused of conspiracy against the Government. As the young priest stood before the firing squad he raised his arms in the form of the cross and cried: Viva Cristo Rey! Long live Christ the King!

I sin and recover; I shave and grow stubble anew. Today's treatment was extra special. Suited for someone more worthy to be sure, but that is just another vanity of mine - Christ calls all, but only stand up guys like Father Pro go to the wall for their God. I sin and shave.

Jan's gentle but muscular ministrations with the razor awakened my dormant sensibilities about ritual and sacramental devotions necessary for leading a good life that have been numbed by my manic attentions to nonsense or business.

The Mass on Sunday attended by good and humble neighbors should have done the same thing for me -again, vanity and pride. The Feast of Christ the King would be different for me and the shame of it is that it took a thoughtful woman's gift of a trip to the Royal barber's chair to scrape some awareness through meditation.

This was one great shave!

Jan, took the scissors to my snot-locker and then took out the hay from my ears - Kerry ornaments. 'That Hickey is real Bog man - look at the tufts of hair sprouting from his ears!' Thackeray may have been appalled by my relatives in the 19th Century, but he would have genuine understanding of vanity and its play on Sin and Redemption.

Before Mass on the Feast of Christ the King I would need to shave again, but the trip to Truefitt & Hill gifted me with a better understanding of my faults and the means of shaving them down. Viva Cristo Rey!












*On 11 December 1925, towards the end of that Holy Year, Pope Pius XI instituted this liturgical celebration as a feast ranked as a Double of the First Class [1] with his encyclical Quas Primas.[2]

The title of the feast was "D. N. Jesu Christi Regis" (Our Lord Jesus Christ the King), and the date was "the last Sunday of the month of October - the Sunday, that is, which immediately precedes the Feast of All Saints".[3]




http://romanmiscellany.blogspot.com/2006/11/viva-cristo-rey.html

Quigley for Congress! Toes and Ankles Above All Else

This is the Monday of the Inflated Self! Desiree Rogers who has cashed in on her 'networking' abilities as the ex-Mrs. John Rogers at Illinois Lottey, Peoples Gas ( where she managed to offend skilled professional tradesmen and weasel her way out of a jackpot with ICC), high -profile philanthropic boards where she does not need to write a check, and mnost recently at Allstate Insurance, is going to Washington D.C. where she will dazzle as Obama White House Social Secretary. Adios!
This will be a howl!!!! Tic-Toc, Desiree!

Most telling the Uriah Heep of Illinois politics - Mike Quigley is leaping over the County Board Presidency and going for Rahmm-alama Dang Dong's Congressional Seat!

If Quigley officially enters the race, he could become the anti-Daley administration candidate if Daley does weigh in formally or informally on behalf of a candidate such as O'Connor. In the past, Quigley has clashed with the mayor over issues such as tax-increment financing.

Fifteen or more aldermen, state legislators and other elected and unelected individuals, including hotelier J.B. Pritzker and attorney Matt Devine, have mentioned their names in various stages of considering a run for the seat.

The Terror of Tiny Town! Gin up your news stooges Mickey! Make a show of it, Boyo!

Philly Lawyer/Journalist Honors Cops - Christine M. Flowers! Chicago Lawyers and News Hacks Sully Cops - How About a Switch, Philly?

There must be something to that idea of a parallel universe. Here in Chicago, citizens are treated to a daily litany of calumnies and charges against the very women and men who put their lives on the line to protect and serve.

The Chicago Sun Times ( and its satellite papers of STNG) and the Chicago Tribune shoo their reporters to The Center for Wrongful Convictions, the MacArthur Center for Justice and the Peoples Law Office for cookie -cutter feel good stories that uplift the hearts of people who live far,far from crime and those who commit the most heinous offenses.

The Path to the Pulitzer is assured by Trust Funded Think Tank Lawyers and 1960's Radicals with law licenses ( they actually did less harm to American society with bombs and bottles back in the day) committed to undermining any and all confidence in the Justice System.

However, in Philadelphia a lawyer and a journalist, Christine M. Flowers, has written many columns in defence of police officers and common sense. Today, Ms. Flowers offers a tribute to four police officers killed in the line of duty since May 2008 - this is Phildelphia's bloodiest year for Law Enforcement personnel since 1996.

In the City of Brotherly Love and where G. Flint Taylor screamed Free Mumia - a convicted cop killer and Boutique Bolshevik hero, Christine Flowers - did I mention that she was both a lawyer and journalist?- puts the human face on the victims of murder who happen to be Police Officers.

2008 has been the most dangerous year for Philadelphia officers since 1996, when four were killed. A prayer to Michael the Archangel, patron of police, that we don't break the record.

And even though each death is different, some brutal assassinations, others reckless accidents, the effect is the same: overwhelming grief, followed by uncontained anger.

And it's a different sort of anger from when civilians die.

Yes, it's an ugly aspect of nature that innocent children should be caught in a drug cross-fire on their way to school.

It pierces the heart when elderly women are raped in their bedrooms by teen intruders, when retired army vets are bludgeoned to death in their living rooms, when young mothers are murdered by the fathers of their babies.


IT'S A MISERABLE world in which such things not only happen but become commonplace. And Philadelphia is a part of that world.

But there's something surpassingly sad when you see men and women grouped at the entrance of a hospital, tears in their eyes for a stricken comrade. The grief that accompanies the coffin of a fallen officer is unlike any other because the occupant of that coffin met death on our behalf.

And the symbolism of a rider-less horse following close behind reminds us that - for a moment at least - the city is defenseless.

Of course, that's only a brief illusion. For every officer who falls in the line of duty there are hundreds more ready to take his or her place in the thin blue line. While no one can replace the one who has been taken, the obligation is picked up by brothers and sisters, an unbroken continuum of faith and service.

We saw it with Timothy Simpson. Stephen Liczbinski's friend took the murdered officer's handcuffs and placed them on his accused assassin's wrist when he was apprehended back in May. Simpson honored that debt. Now, tragically, he and Liczbinski are together again.

Some people complain about the attention given when an officer is slain.

Some judges think we should not elevate their deaths above "the rest of us," those without the bulletproof vests and the shields. Some citizens think that color excuses criminality, or that poverty is an explanation for antisocial behavior, or that grief is misplaced for those who willingly enter a dangerous profession.

These sentiments are heard in the streets, seen in the courtrooms, read on the letters page.

But they are wrong. Decent people understand it. The rest are irrelevant.

Four officers won't see the New Year. Four men and women have made the ultimate sacrifice for a city and a system that often seems to care more about rehabilitating criminals than honoring heroes.

And still, they keep answering the call.

No greater love. *

Christine M. Flowers is a lawyer.

Ms. Flowers writes for the Philadelphia Daily News.

In the City of Big Shoulders and Pencil-Neck Media Stooges, who get spoon fed their investigative work into 'systemic racism, brutality and corruption'sagas by the very lawyers making millions of dollars out of lawsuits against the City of Chicago, police officers are fair game and objects of continual scorn and ridicule - Neil Steinberg went so far as to smear a whole neighborhood that is home to hundreds of the men and women who protect Neil Steinberg before he gets on the Metra to his lily white suburb, as a Nazi enclave.

I'd trade a fistful of cop-hating Media stooges for one Christine M. Flowers.

Tapioca Tonght! Mike Houlihan's Movie at Gene Siskel Center: 8:00 P.M!

See Houli's Tapioca At

GENE SISKEL CENTER

164 North State Street
Chicago, Illinois 60601
Tel: 312-846-2600
MOVIE HOTLINE: 312-846-2800


Located on State Street between Randolph and Lake streets, the Film Center is approximately one block from all CTA "L" and subway lines, as well as several major bus routes.

What an SEIU member Says About Andy Stern

Above : A Pair of Real Gold plated Jackasses - MSNBC's Milky Matthews and SEIU's Stalin Wannbe Andy Stern.

Here is a comment by an SEIU rank and file member about this Media Wrapped Maoist - Stern.

As a member of SEIU for 3 decades, the idea that Stern could get a cabinet post appalls me. This is a man who took a democratic, worker-oriented union, seized power, and forgot about the rest of us. We do not even have the means to vote him out of office. He treats current members as nothing more than dues-paying cash cows for his manic organizing efforts. He would rather have a give-back contract than allow a strike that would disrupt his real goals. Employers must love him. The rank and file does not. He will not fight for you after he gets you to sing up. Hell, he doesn’t bother even explaining himself to us. When he split the American Labor Movement by pulling out of the AFL-CIO, we didn’t vote, we never even learned his reasons. His rise to power has always been about Andy, not about America’s workers.

— howdeb

George McGovern v.EFCA 'risks silencing those who would speak.' Keep Unions and America Rights Strong

George McGovern against the Employee Free Choice Act - You will not see this in Chicago Newspapers. This is a reproduction from Wall Street Journal

SEIU has smothered the Chicago Media.

As a congressman, senator and one-time Democratic nominee for the presidency, I've participated in my share of vigorous public debates over issues of great consequence. And the public has been free to accept or reject the decisions I made when they walked into a ballot booth, drew the curtain and cast their vote. I didn't always win, but I always respected the process.

Voting is an immense privilege.

That is why I am concerned about a new development that could deny this freedom to many Americans. As a longtime friend of labor unions, I must raise my voice against pending legislation I see as a disturbing and undemocratic overreach not in the interest of either management or labor.

The legislation is called the Employee Free Choice Act, and I am sad to say it runs counter to ideals that were once at the core of the labor movement. Instead of providing a voice for the unheard, EFCA risks silencing those who would speak.

The key provision of EFCA is a change in the mechanism by which unions are formed and recognized. Instead of a private election with a secret ballot overseen by an impartial federal board, union organizers would simply need to gather signatures from more than 50% of the employees in a workplace or bargaining unit, a system known as "card-check." There are many documented cases where workers have been pressured, harassed, tricked and intimidated into signing cards that have led to mandatory payment of dues.

Under EFCA, workers could lose the freedom to express their will in private, the right to make a decision without anyone peering over their shoulder, free from fear of reprisal.

There's no question that unions have done much good for this country. Their tenacious efforts have benefited millions of workers and helped build a strong middle class. They gave workers a new voice and pushed for laws that protect individuals from unfair treatment. They have been a friend to the Democratic Party, and so I oppose this legislation respectfully and with care.

To my friends supporting EFCA I say this: We cannot be a party that strips working Americans of the right to a secret-ballot election. We are the party that has always defended the rights of the working class. To fail to ensure the right to vote free of intimidation and coercion from all sides would be a betrayal of what we have always championed.

Some of the most respected Democratic members of Congress -- including Reps. Marcy Kaptur of Ohio, George Miller and Pete Stark of California, and Barney Frank of Massachusetts -- have advised that workers in developing countries such as Mexico insist on the secret ballot when voting as to whether or not their workplaces should have a union. We should have no less for employees in our country.

I worry that there has been too little discussion about EFCA's true ramifications, and I think much of the congressional support is based on a desire to give our friends among union leaders what they want. But part of being a good steward of democracy means telling our friends "no" when they press for a course that in the long run may weaken labor and disrupt a tried and trusted method for conducting honest elections.

While it is never pleasant to stand against one's party or one's friends, there are times when such actions are necessary -- as with my early and lonely opposition to the Vietnam War. I hope some of my friends in Congress will re-evaluate their support for this legislation. Because as Americans, we should strive to ensure that all of us enjoy the freedom of expression and freedom from fear that is our ideal and our right.

Mr. McGovern is a former senator from South Dakota and the 1972 Democratic presidential candidate.

Keep Illinois a Bureau of Apprenticeship Councils State - The Move is Afoot to Kill This.

In March of 2006, an effort was made to push the Media into Emil Jones and Illinois Black Caucus's corner to force the more jelly spined Illinois Legislators to move Illinois from a BAC State to a SAC State.

The Apprenticeship Programs for the Trades of Illinois are governed by the Bureau of Apprenticeship Councils. Emil Jones has long wanted to geld the requirements of Illinois Apprenticeship Programs. In 2005, SB1266 - Sen. Emil Jones sponsor, was introduced with a glossy press packet sent to the media and supported by City Colleges of Chicago: The Pathway to Apprenticeship: Roadblocks to Registration of Minorities and Women in Building Trade Union Apprenticeship Training Programs in Northeastern Illinois. ( click my post title for the text).

State of Illinois control over Trade Union Apprenticeship Programs was defeated, because such control would mirror the disastrous state of the State of Illinois itself. The already bloated State budget would have its 'Eatin' Pants' expanded by more bureaucracy - more jobs for the otherwise unemployable and larcenous - naturally.

The real danger lies in the killing of skilled Trades Unions. Apprenticeship Schools paid for, owned and operated by Trades Unions - like Local 597 Pipefitters: One of Largest and most impressive schools of its kind - would come under the thumb of Emil Jones- like True Men of Genius!

SEIU is blowing the smokescreen for such actions at the State Level and orchestrating the gutless Media that is 100% in SEIU's Purple Vest to shriek for support and passage of the Employee Free Choice Act. The Employee Free Choice Act is opposed by Labor Hero - Senator George McGovern, as fundamentally Stalinist and UnAmerican as it kills the Secret Ballot.

If the Employee Free Choice Act becomes Law - hold the phone! Illinois will be a State Apprenticeship Council state - Trades Unions will be become diluted, powerless and ineffective. The Bureau of Apprenticeship Councils systems maintains the integrity, safety, skills, and stewardship over apprenticeship programs. SAC systems will be as poisonously corrupt as Illinois Government.

The very labor unions - Trade Unions - 'going along' with Andy Stern and SEIU are cutting their own throats and helping the American Labor Movement Vanish.

SEIU's Class Warfare Act Hidden In Chicago Media

SEIU is a Marxist Political Action Machine posing as a Labor Union. SEIU affiliates around the country are being smashed by Andy Stern's Stalinist methods. Chicago's news media has been a paid stooge of SEIU for a long, long time.

Progress Illinois is a blog that is funded and operated by SEIU and the usual radical associates (Dr. Quentin Young M.D. And Nicholas Skala & etc.)beloved by the Chicago Tribune and the Sun Times as well as the daffy dillies at the TV stations.

Today Keith Kelleher attacks McDonalds Corporation and other corporate entities that might not need a union organized in their works, much less the Marxist Class warriors of SEIU. It is all about power politics with SEIU and nothing about improving the lives of workers - janitors stay janitors; no skill and low skill stay that way. In Today's Progress Illinois offering Kelleher talks about his rough and tumble days organizing the paper hat workers at Burger King and McDonalds as a cautionary tale to excite the imaginary gonads of Chicago's gelding journalists to support The Employee Free Choice Act - which will be the death knell of real Trades Unions.

Kelleher gets all 'chilling' about the McDonald's Thugs - they brought in shrinks, lawyers and threw a party:

As workers started building their union inside the three local franchises, top-level corporate executives watched closely. It quickly became clear that the McDonald’s Corporation would take extreme measures to prevent their low-wage, part-time workforce from coming together to demand better jobs and working conditions.

A few weeks after we began, a team of psychologists rolled in. They quickly went to work, systematically interrogating each employee in a not-so-subtle attempt to intimidate them out of joining the union.

In the weeks that followed, McDonald’s brought in a high-powered corporate law firm that filed motion after motion to delay the union election that would give these McDonald’s workers an opportunity to unite. As the lawyers buried us in depositions, motions, and labor board charges, they were purposely slowing down the election process and buying McDonald’s more time to run an anti-union campaign built on spreading fear and misinformation among its workers. 

One by one, the strongest pro-union voices in the three franchises were either demoted, forced out, or fired.


The coup de grace was a mandatory “party” hosted by McDonald’s a few nights before the scheduled election. It featured an array of celebrities -- everyone from Detroit’s number-one deejay to football star Earl Campbell -- who each explained the evils of uniting in a union. Even a costumed Ronald McDonald was on hand to bust the organizing effort, running a raffle with cash prizes for everyone. 






Brrrrrrrr. Reminds me of the Reuther Brothers getting shot and stomped by the Ford Goons, Keith.

SEIU is in direct conflict with Trades Unions - the unions who made the American Standard of Living and the American Middle Class.

Here is a story of a the disruption of a a Convention of SEIU chapters 'out of favor with Andy Stern.' This did not make the Chicago news and would not.

Leaders of the Service Employees International Union launched what appeared to be a carefully crafted plan on April 12 to disrupt parts of the Labor Notes conference, where contingents from a dissident SEIU local, a new reform caucus within SEIU, and a competing union were in attendance.

On the second day of the conference a number of SEIU staffers—some of whom had registered with false names—interrupted four workshops by heckling and attempting to shout down speakers from the California Nurses Association and its affiliate the National Nurses Organizing Committee.

SEIU and CNA have long been at odds, often in direct competition to represent the same workforce and disagreeing vehemently over single-payer health care legislation, labor-management partnerships, and neutrality agreements that allow a union to recruit members without employer opposition. Their latest skirmish was over health care workers in Ohio (see Labor Notes April 2008).

The largest, most ambitious, and ultimately violent part of the planned disruption occurred later that night at the conference banquet.

“The crowd of SEIU members and staff trying to force their way into the banquet served to confirm and emphasize the need to turn the International away from the path they’re on,” said Joe Iosbaker, a member of SEIU Local 73’s executive board who witnessed the incident. “The thunder and noise about the CNA rallies people around the International in preparation for the internal fight that’s happening [between SEIU reformers and International officials].”

BANQUET INVASION
As the banquet was beginning, 200-300 chanting SEIU members and staffers rushed through a double set of exterior hotel doors. The locked doors were opened from the inside by SEIU staffers attending the conference.

Most of the demonstrators wore the signature SEIU purple T-shirts; some carried signs denouncing the CNA. CNA’s executive director, Rose Ann DeMoro, had been scheduled since November to address the banquet on single-payer health care, although her cancellation had been announced earlier in the day.

About 15 conference volunteers and Labor Notes staff were acting as security at the banquet hall doors. When the chanting protesters entered, waving noisemakers, they and other conference attendees in the foyer of the banquet hall quickly formed a double line in front of the doors, linking arms to block the way.

A number of participants were thrown to the ground by larger SEIUers, some of whom were wearing bandanas around their faces. One protestor broke through the first line and, finding himself trapped between the two lines, flailed wildly.

Protesters continued to try to advance toward the doors, some nonviolently and others more aggressively. Inside the hall, attendees barricaded the doors with chairs to prevent entry.

Former Labor Notes office manager Dianne Feeley, a United Auto Workers retiree from American Axle, was knocked over by one protester and fell, cutting her head. She was treated at an emergency room. Several conference-goers who had their arms linked on the line received minor injuries from blows by protesters attempting to force open the banquet doors.

Hotel security and Dearborn police eventually made their presence felt. After chanting “we’ll be back,” the protesters returned to their six buses, some of which had come from Ohio.

MISLED MEMBERS
Many of the protesters were African-American members drawn from SEIU’s Michigan health care unit, Local 79. David Cohen, an international representative of the United Electrical Workers, asked some of these rank-and-file members milling around the edges of the protest why they had come.

Cohen said one responded, “They told us just to get on the bus.” Cohen added that protesters he talked to were simply told that the conference was a group of “people looking to break their union.”

The mobilization of Black members for the banquet invasion drew an angry response on April 17 from four leaders of the union’s national Black caucus, AFRAM. Two of the leaders are officers in United Healthcare Workers-West, a key local in the SEIU reform movement.

“SEIU members and their children were led into the hotel where violence erupted at the initiation of SEIU staff,” stated the leaders in a letter to their caucus president. “Why weren’t they told the truth about their presence at this conference? “Why were only African Americans and their children invited, with the exception of the SEIU staffers? Why would SEIU create an environment of hostility rather than encourage and participate in the debate over differences?”

The four noted the tragic death of Local 79 member-organizer David Smith, who collapsed outside the hotel.

STORM OF CRITICISM
Shortly after the protestors left, SEIU’s national leadership issued a press release titled, “SEIU Members Stand Up For The Future Of The Labor Movement And The Interests of All Workers.” SEIU Vice President Mary Kay Henry praised the demonstrators. Five subsequent press releases from the union’s leadership gave conflicting accounts of what happened, ultimately blaming conference-goers themselves for the violence.

The action, however, drew criticism of SEIU’s national leadership.

“There is no justification—none—for the violent attack orchestrated by SEIU at the Labor Notes conference,” said AFL-CIO President John Sweeney April 15. As the former president of SEIU, he called on a lesson from the union’s history, stating: “No union should understand the corrosive effect of violence better than SEIU, which was founded by courageous janitors in the face of employer violence in the 1920s and 1930s. I call on the leaders of SEIU to condemn what happened in Detroit.”

Canadian Auto Workers President Buzz Hargrove also called on SEIU President Andy Stern to condemn the attack, in an open letter.

Another letter was circulated by members of the SEIU reform group, SMART, who were present at the conference.

“We believe it was precisely open debate and discussion that were the target of this hostile attack,” it said.

The photos above are from that riot sparked by Andy Stern. That is also rough and tumble Paper Hat Organizer Keith Kelleher. John L. Lewis? Nah.