Ralphie Martire! Keep the Duck!

The MUCH respected Civic Federation ( Fanfare of Trumpets Please!) wants Illinois Tax-payers to kick in more dollars that they don't have to pay for what Ralphie Martire* demanded and got from 2004 on!

Hey, The Sun Times said so!

That same tax increase has been advocated since 2004 by another civic watchdog group, the Center for Tax and Budget Accountability.

Allow us to soften the sticker shock of such a tax increase by putting it in context:

Ralph Martire takes money from people who earn salaries and provides cash, goods and services to people who do not.

In 2004. Ralph Martire, as he has done so all of his career, poached income from the Illinois Taxpayers, with the say-so and go-ahead of Illinois Progressives like his Chinaman Dawn Clark Netsch.

Akin to shooting a duck that lands on a farmer's land:

Ralph Martire shoots a duck out in the country - Kankakee,or Papineau, Illinois let's say. As he's retrieving it, a farmer walks up and stops him, claiming that since the duck is on his farm, it technically belongs to him - like his income. After minutes of arguing, the farmer proposes they settle the matter "country style."

"What's country style?" asks the city boy Ralphie.

"Out here in the country," the farmer says, "when two fellers have a dispute, one feller kicks the other one in the balls as hard as he can. Then that feller, why, he kicks the first one as hard as he can. And so forth. Last man standin' wins the dispute."

Warily the Tax Hawker Ralph Martire agrees and prepares himself. The farmer hauls off and kicks Ralph a good 'un in the groin with all his might. With now three Adam's Apples in his gullet Ralph Maartire falls to the ground in the most intense pain he's ever felt, crying like a baby and coughing up blood. Finally he staggers to his feet and says, "All right, n-now it's–it's m-my turn."

The farmer grins. "Aw, hell, you win. Keep the duck."

When every wage earner and tax-payer in Illinois gets to line up and go Country Style on Ralph Martire and the fine folks of the Civic Federation, a Doomsday Tax Increase will be just jake with me.


* January 1, 2001
Ralph Martire is executive director of the Center for Tax and Budget Accountability ( "CTBA"). He also serves as a regular columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times, the State Journal-Register and The Herald News on issues involving government accountability, tax, fiscal and budget policies. Ralph served on the budget advisory board to Governor Rod Blagojevich's transition team, where he acted as chairperson of the state revenue subcommittee. Ralph was the principal author of a study CTBA produced that identified revenue enhancement proposals to address the 2002 fiscal crises in the state of Illinois. Five of the proposals identified in that study ultimately became law. Ralph also was a key member of the research team that produced the groundbreaking "State of Working Illinois" report, which detailed industry, employment, wage and benefit trends in Illinois over the last 15 years. A joint project of CTBA and Northern Illinois University, the State of Working Illinois has been featured in over 150 media (print and broadcast) placements nationwide.
Ralph was the recipient of the 2004 Ben C. Hubbard Leadership Award, presented annually by Illinois State University to an individual whose leadership has significantly benefited education in Illinois.

Christopher Buckley Wiggles and Giggles - Never Bring a Silver Spoon to a Baling Hook Brawl with Long Shoremen

Si tacuisses, philosophus manisses Boethius

Christopher Buckley, America's Bertie Wooster and parallel universe Kennedy Kid, took his Highland walking stick to the backs of American Helots and overweight Patriot re-enactors for redefining his Old Man's Conservative Order of Battle.

Novelist, wit, gad-about, and androgynous political cut-and-paste-er Chris Buckley, who helped elect President Obama in 2008 and had gone to ground since then, is back.

Hip! Huzzah.

Buckley like Kennedy is an American Brand name like Hilton or Kardashian.

Chris Buckley sports natty Anglophile habiliments in town in a custom pinstriped peak-lapelled single-breasted suit, pocket square, fawn waistcoat, watch fob, and homburg hat and in the fens Barbour Classic Beaufort Jacket, knee-high hose over moleskin breeks Dunmoor fleece waiscoat, Sutherland tweed driving cap and lined Capeskin gloves - marvelous. Accessoried with language as well, Buckley gives out against his blood kin and the Official Image of White House Opposition - fat, racist rustic ruffians who detest the President because of the color of skin:

One might then logically ask, wouldn’t it have been simpler, and more honest, to issue a J’Accuse Obama! instead of a windy yadda-yadda about first principles and why are liberals wiping their arses with the Constitution?
I have some thoughts about the growls and yips emanating from the podium and—ahem—Teleprompters at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel, where CPAC is holding its auto-da-fé, but in the tradition of Sharonesque brevity, why don’t we leave it there until tomorrow.

One might, but President Obama had plenty of help leading the Nation to this economic and spiritual nadir, Young Buckley - You, Wee Davey Brooks, Dame May Peggy Noonan, Mike Murphy, Kathy Parker and other youthful conservatives all took the MSNBC coin.

Tah!

Dick Simpson and Gang Trot Out Corruption Stage for Dave Orr

What a phony piece of garbage this report happens to be.

This is nothing more than a swell BGA/Progressive/Media/UIC dung-heap upon which Cook County Clerk David Orr intends to crow his Mayoral Platform of Reform.

Daley will hand Dave his mustache months before Dave asks the 19th Ward, 11th Ward, 18th Ward, 14th Ward and 47th Ward to send some helpers to get him some signatures.

However, the Media Howler Monkeys will paste up some serious nonsense for the dim-bulb soul patchers.

Slap it on thick, Girls!

The UIC (a real hallmark of 'distinguished fugitives') and the BGA (Andy Shaw's Golden Parachute) study is a mere Google search of convictions that deftly avoids the indictments, trials and conviction IVI-IPO sanctioned crooks who went to the Iron Hotel for Reform Looting sprees.

Nice try there, Cupcakes.

Andy Shaw's BGA and Professor Dick Simpson presented a nice thirty-three page study ( The Idiot's Guide to Chicago Crooks -not Our Progressive Crooks, but Regular Democratic Crooks) that is merely a litany of Cook County convictions.

The bottom line is that only Dave Orr ( former Mayor of Chicago who did not lift a finger while Burge was a Cop)is to be trusted, because he brought in the Hugo Chavez manufactured voting machines.

Give it a thumb-through. It is as informative and valuable as the palm cards that Todd Stroger bought in January.

Click my post title for the breathless NBC ( the clowns who pushed out Steve Rhodes when he refused to tweak his take on corruption the Tribune Managing Party Animal - in the Chicago Media) link and then click on the BGA pdf link.

The Corruption Cesspool is the Media's wallow as well Dick and Andy.

BTW - Dave Orr - will stay Clerk. He's got no where else to go.

President Obama's Saturday Address

Good morning, and thank you for joining me. Many of you in this room are my friends. Many of you in this room know me. Many of you have cheered for me or you’ve worked with me or you’ve supported me.

Now every one of you has good reason to be critical of me. I want to say to each of you, simply and directly, I am deeply sorry for my irresponsible and selfish behavior I engaged in.

. . .( pause) I am also aware of the pain my behavior has caused to those of you in this room. I have let you down, and I have let down my fans. For many of you, especially my friends, my behavior has been a personal disappointment. To those of you who work for me, I have let you down personally and professionally. My behavior has caused considerable worry to my business partners. . . (pause -Manly Stare) . . But still, I know I have bitterly disappointed all of you. I have made you question who I am and how I could have done the things I did. I am embarrassed that I have put you in this position. . . .( Pause -Winsome smile) . . . I’ve had a lot of time to think about what I’ve done. My failures have made me look at myself in a way I never wanted to before. It’s now up to me to make amends, and that starts by never repeating the mistakes I’ve made. It’s up to me to start living a life of integrity. . . .( pause -Heroic toss of the Head) . . . I have a lot of work to do, and I intend to dedicate myself to doing it. Part of following this path for me is Buddhism, the Dalai was here Thursday. . .nice guy . . . Buddhism teaches that a craving for things outside ourselves causes an unhappy and pointless search for security. It teaches me to stop following every impulse and to learn restraint. Obviously I lost track of what I was taught. The Dalai was here you know.

As I move forward, I will continue to receive help because I’ve learned that’s how people really do change. Starting tomorrow, . . . maybe not . . .

Finally, there are many people in this room, and there are many people at home who believed in me. Today I want to ask for your help. I ask you to find room in your heart to one day believe in me again.

Thank you. Gibbs, is this thing on?

Most of the text of this fictional address and more can be read by clicking on my post title. God, I love to cut and paste! I gotta stop eating the stuff . . .playing hell on my old teeth.

Tiger's Sorry -Big Deal. The Guys of Affordable Group Services are the Real Heroes !

But with man it is wholly different. He possesses, on the one hand, the full perfection of the animal being, and hence enjoys at least as much as the rest of the animal kind, the fruition of things material. But animal nature, however perfect, is far from representing the human being in its completeness, and is in truth but humanity's humble handmaid, made to serve and to obey. It is the mind, or reason, which is the predominant element in us who are human creatures; it is this which renders a human being human, and distinguishes him essentially from the brute. And on this very account - that man alone among the animal creation is endowed with reason - it must be within his right to possess things not merely for temporary and momentary use, as other living things do, but to have and to hold them in stable and permanent possession; he must have not only things that perish in the use, but those also which, though they have been reduced into use, continue for further use in after time.

Pope Leo XIII - Rerum Novarum


Affordable Group Services is an alcohol/drug rehabilitation program that shows addicts the 'way to go home' - through learning a skilled trade.

This Hazel Crest based addiction recovery/vocational skills training operation run by John Dunleavy is below-the-radar Cinderella Story.

Men who have beaten themselves to the canvas can find a way back onto their feet in into the fight of their life - recovery from alcohol and drug addiction and a return to dignity.

The Southtown Star's Carole Sharwarko writes a story that throws Ring Lardner and Damon Runyon into the cheaps seats. Front Pages are devoted to Tiger Woods and his apolopalooza yesterday - who shives a git?!

Read Carole Sharwarko's saga of John Dunleavy and the heroes of Affordable Group Services! Click my post title for this powerful story!Writer Carole Sharwarko is a Hero!

Here's a taste:

Sometimes an idea is so simple and perfect, you can't imagine why no one's thought of it before. But even the best idea needs a champion, a walking embodiment of its potential.
At Affordable Group Services, every man who stays out of the bottle and off the pipe is that champion. Each man who chooses an honest day's work over a life choked by addiction personifies a concept conceived in 2003.

What's Lacking? Any Sense of Transcendence

Here's a fabulous Lord Elton and his catamite at some huge event.

This morning, I heard that Elton John proclaims that Jesus is Gay. Last year Jesus was a Community Activist. Before that, Jesus was an Anti-Semite.

"I think Jesus was a compassionate, super-intelligent gay man who understood human problems. On the cross, he forgave the people who crucified him. Jesus wanted us to be loving and forgiving. I don't know what makes people so cruel. Try being a gay woman in the Middle East -- you're as good as dead."

Faaaaaabbbulous! and just in time for Oscar Buzz, Lord Elton!

I always thought He ( Joshua Bar Joseph - The Christ) was a Jewish Carpenter's Apprentice . . .Well Goodbye Yellowbrick Road!
For talk radio I listen to WLS AM/NPR ( for laughs)/Relevant Radio - for news, weather and information. Relevant Radio is Catholic Radio - ( 950 AM) until about 6PM when it becomes Avenue 950 ( Home to the wonderful Skinny and Houli Show which gave Chicago its voice back) with great jazz - Classic Cool!

Don and Roma punctuate every syllable with Healthy Trinity. NPR low-talks news about mistreated Muslims in London who wanted to fight police torture with fertilizer and blasting caps - diversity rocks the Casbah! Relevant Radio presents the news and more - we get great aphorisms beyond Ridley Scott's Gladiator!

What we do in life echoes in eternity. Awesome, Maximus.

On Relevant Radio at drive-time is Father Larry Richards, a stiff collar out of Pittsburgh, PA. He has a great sense of humor. On one show I heard a guest talk about how Pro Lifers are making impacts on young people because they address not only the immediate fears and anxieties of an unwed teen mother-to-be ( school, career hopes, friends, family expectations) as well as the transcendent implications of killing a child. Great stuff.

Lord Elton and his catamite have more substantial porgies in the hot oil.

American Media took the Death of God in 1960's seriously and nailed the Old Guy's Cultural Coffin shut tight. The transcendent - that which reminds us that we are not alone and responsible for what we do every moment is what is lacking in what passes for American culture - this want in our spiritual diet gave us Hope and Change over Courage and Commitment; Graphic Novels (Comic Books) over The Great Books; Jersey Shore over Death of Salesman; Avatar over Best Years of Our Lives; SEIU over American Labor Movement; Abortion and Gay Marriage over the American Family; Carbon Footprint Policing over Mankind.

The Alternative Lifestyle is the norm. Jimmy Kimmell is Alastair Cooke. John Stewart is Walter Cronkite. Keith Olbermann is Oil Can Harry and Rachel Maddow is Ward Bond. Our Media and our public education system and our university group thought have taken the Hegelianism of dopey John Dewey closed the door on Yaweh, Allah, or God. No one told them to shut up, read something or do some hard work.

Relevant Radio is one way to get some transcendence back into our diets. It is Catholic Radio and catholic means universal. I listen to Klezmer music, read Issac B. Singer and still put Mayo on a Bacon Sandwich - give it a try.


Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–89).

Pied Beauty 1918.

GLORY be to God for dappled things—
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough; 5
And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change: 10
Praise him.

Polish Catfish Are in Illinois Waters!!!!! Save the Asian Carp - Lock the Dams and Damn the Locks!

Silurus glanis - (Polish - Sum Pospolity) It stands to reason that Polish Catfish are in Illinois Waters - Polish Flag Vessels Sail into Calumet Harbor and - given the Eco Fascists squirming about the Asian Carp - Polish Catfish lurk in Illinois waters. Wait until the GLBT Water Task Force announces these finds -

Latvian Clams
Irish Eel
Pisan Pike
Beluga Bullheads
Belorussian Redears
Swiss Snail-darters
Carpathian Snallies
Greenland Gars
Albigensian Heresies
Fully Kreusaned Flyfishers
Jaegermesiter Saugers

I'm wetting my britches already!!!!

Gee, let's just follow the easy instructions found in the media by helpful glue-sniffers and amyl nitrate wafting activists:

Don't Flush! That's Selfish! Save and Save Your Waist and the Planet!If all Illinois residents would just poop in our handy Blue Barrels placed under their porches and replenished with freshwater from under their gutter downspouts( outside) and extras in their showers ( Inside -Low Flow Heads Only) we would be helping rid this planet of its greatest enemy -Man. Dinah Shure -Huffington Post

Lord , Lord, Lordy, Lord, Lord Catfish a'coming! We are doomed! Again.

The European Catfish is the worlds largest catfish. They are (is)indigenous to continental Europe east of the river Rhine, and are found as far north as Norway. They are voracious carnivores, mainly nocturnal, and given to hiding in dark places under banks and overhanging roots. These monster fish are believed to be able to live for over 100 years, and can grow to enormous sizes. During 2004 several catfish weighing in excess of 60 kilos have been caught in Polish waters.
The Wels catfish is easily distinguished from other catfish by its broad head, truncate caudal fin, mottled coloration and immense size. See a picture of a truely monsterous catfish here.

Catfish feed on live fish, frogs or virtually anything they can swallow that crosses their path! With some patience they can be taught to eat strips of raw meat from your hand. Catfish taste great and have a taste similar to eel. Here are some of our favourite catfish recipes*.

We are happy to offer free advice on the best locations in the west of Poland for MONSTER European Catfish, e.g. the river Obra Legend!

http://polishpoland.com/catfish.htm


*

Battered Beer Catfish

3 lb. catfish
¼ cup cornmeal
¼ cup flour
2 eggs, beaten
1 12-ounce beer
¼ cup minced onion
3 cups vegetable oil
salt and pepper to taste

In a medium mixing bowl blend flour, cornmeal, salt, and pepper together. In a separate medium mixing bowl beat egg well, add beer and minced onions, mix well.
Cut the catfish into 2 inch cubes or strips. Heat the vegetable oil. Roll the catfish into the flour mixture, then dip into the beer-egg mixture, then back into the flour mixture. Place flour and dipped catfish into the deep-fry, cook until golden brown.



Mustard catfish

Hot mustard
Tabasco sauce
minced garlic
salt
black pepper
2 pounds catfish fillets
cornmeal
olive oil

Combine seasonings in plastic storage bag, shaking to form mixture. Add fillets and marinate for up to 4 hours. Drain fillets, dredge in cornmeal and deep fry in fish fryer or pan fry in frying pan until golden brown.

Illinois Politcal Pundits Custis and Thurl Keep It Simple . . .

Hat Tip to Max Weismann.


Custis:"Limut Awl politishuns to twew turms:
Wan in Off-uss. . . "

Thurl: ". . . N'Wan in prisun:Illenoy awlreddy duz this, 'N ut seemz tah bee workin' fur thum. . . . Dawg!"

Custis: " That's no Dawg. That's My Hawg."

Thurl: " I uz talking to the Hawg."

Free George Ryan!

Governor George Ryan was convicted. He was sentenced to six and one half years in a Federal Prison ( first in Oxford, WI and since then Terra Haute, IN), he has been stripped of his pensions and is nearly destitute.

George Ryan was convicted by Federal Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald with the testimonies of political rats like Scott Fawell, Larry Warner, Roger Stanley -" The Hog*" and others.

George Ryan's trial was a kangaroo court played in the media like no other - George Ryan never went on Survivor, nor did Lura Lynn Ryan publicly disgrace herself - you know eat bugs for a TV fee. Carol Marin tried to do that. Judge Pallmayer? You can have her.

I never voted for George Ryan. I was heart-broken by the death of Willis Children, who died due a Secretary of State - pay-to-play political ploy that George Ryan inherited from Illinois Secretary of State/Governor Jim Edgar, but Edgar . . .?

Here is Prosecutor Fitzgerald - whose work on the Blagojevich Looting almost guarantees that Loopy Narcissist will never spend a holiday at Club Fed; Fitz pulled the trigger on Blago, when it appeared that it might interfere with President Obama's Innauguration - it did. Fitzy needed to rework Blago's indictment, because the Supreme Court will overturn the ruling on which George Ryan was convicted - Here's Fitzy!

"Ryan is charged with betraying the citizens of Illinois for over a decade on state business, both large and small. By giving friends free rein over state employees and state business to make profits-and by steering those profits to his friends and, at times, his family-defendant Ryan sold his office." Did he?
I followed the case. Ryan was convicted in the Media.

George Ryan was convicted because the Media and his political enemies and too many of his friends wanted him convicted. The Judge behaved accordingly it seems to me.
It was rigged deal with Real Rats( noted above) doing the knotting.

Free George Ryan!

*

Judge lets 'The Hog' go to Costa Rica to visit his son

Chicago Sun-Times | August 29, 2003 | Steve Warmbir | Copyright (c) 2009 Chicago Sun-Times, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through ProQuest Information and Learning Company, Ann Arbor, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to ProQuest Information and Learning Company. (Hide copyright information) Copyright

The Hog gets to go to Costa Rica.

A federal judge Thursday granted a request by Roger "The Hog" Stanley, a significant player in the corruption under former Gov. George Ryan, to travel to Costa Rica for a week to see his 2-year- old son and try to get the boy a passport so he can visit this country.

Stanley was "ecstatic" with the ruling, his prominent attorney, Michael Ettinger, said.

Stanley, who is getting divorced from his wife in the United States, has the boy from a relationship with another woman living in Costa Rica.

Federal prosecutors "were not crazy"…

Heart warming.

Ash Wednesday - My thoughts turn to The Fox and Pheasant Pub in Chelsea, London

It is Ash Wednesday, I went to Mass this Morning at St. Cajetan's Parish in my neighborhood. I will get ashes in St. Anne, IL where Mrs. Marietta Frogge is being waked.

Death - Memento Mori. Got it. A woman just called and said, "I heard Leo is closing in June." No, Ma'am - not now; not as long as a Lion breathes.

The Lion's breath called to mind the absolutely most lively and soul lifting place on earth. The Fox and Pheasant Pub in Chelsea or London.

Last, chin-waged with worthies there in 1998 in the company of Master Conor Hickey (eight years of age); Mistress Nora Hickey (thirteen) and Patrick Mulligan, BA ( Notre Dame), MA ( U of V), late-of-La Lumiere School.

The Fox and Pheasant was home pub of a retired British Army Colonel who took to Master Conor and daft wagered ( Lord, Yank, you've taken me for another Chocolat Flake! Astounding good luck!)with the Hoosier-born lad ( he said "Dang" quite often in those days)over Lance Armstrong's prospect in the Tour'dFrance.

We chatted with the owners of the Chelsea Football Club*; sundry tradesmen; charming Sloan Rangers and America loving Brits.

The draft (draught) beers came from the now closed Bishops Brewery of Broughton.

All things pass. Memento Mori and remember your change, Yank!

Hidden away in Billing Road, off Fulham Road, you'll find the Fox & Pheasant in this tranquil mews. The theme continues inside with no games machines or music.

There are two bars, both relatively untouched, with low ceilings, pine flooring, painted beams and half panelled walls. The lounge is marginally more comfy. The furnishings are simple; wooden pews and small round tables, the exceptions being a carved fireplace and some very unusual splay-legged chairs.

The bar servery area is classic, with small glass panelled screens forming a booth. A tiny hatch faces the entrance, once used for 'off sales'. The beers are well kept and the service attentive and friendly.

In the mid 19th century, two small cottages were knocked through to create this delightful pub. Then, this area would have been on the edge of the countryside, but although its name implies a country connection, until a few decades ago, it was called the Bedford Arms.

Facilities include a dart board and a nice garden area at the rear which allows children until 5 o'clock. It's adjacent to Chelsea's Football Ground so if you don't like crowds avoid match days.

paulk, 2008-09-26

*http://www.chelseafc.com/page/Splash

God Welcomes Home Marietta Frogge - Martinton, Illinois

Calvin Frogge was a WWII Naval Aviator and after the War he wooed Marietta McCue - Marietta took to Calvin's wooing. These two young Martinton, Illinois kids married and raised two boys on a small farm in Iroquois County, Illinois.

Calvin raised acres of popcorn for Popeye Brand Popcorn and worked as a machinist. Marietta raised the boys, took the piglets into the home in winter, worked the fields, detasseled, cooked for, washed and fed the three men. Everyone went to Mass and everyone prayed on their knees. This was French French Catholic Illinois and only a hectare or two from the Dutch Calvinists in Wichert,IL and the Dutch could break an anvil with prayer.

Marietta and Calvin raised Jim and Tom. Jim and Tom became Catholic High School school teachers and coaches. Both Jim and Tom were standout athletes at Bishop McNamara High School in Kankakee, Illinois. Jim went on to Yale and played football with Brian Dowling and Dick Jauron and was coached by ABC Sportscaster Tim Weigel and then returned to coach and teach Physics and Chemistry at Bishop Mac. Tom went to John Carroll and taught English and coached at Bishop McNicholas High School in Cincinnati, OH.

Calvin and Marietta operated a small farm near the Indiana State line and went to dances at the Knights of Columbus and they acted like the teenagers who fell in love with one another for sixty years. This, I witnessed.

Calvin and Marietta always held hands; always hugged; there was always a tactile recognition of the power and force of the love between them. At weddings and baptisms Calvin was never more than a hand span away from his girl Marietta - Marietta McCue.

At my wedding, in the Knights of Columbus Hall in Kankakee, attended by three hundred members of my family and more than two hundred folks from Kankakee and Iroquois Counties, Calvin and Marietta were about the very last to leave and helped me and Charlie Olson and my brother Kevin load up the gifts and arrange rides for the over served.

Calvin and Marietta were devoted to one another and they were best pals.

Marietta went home to Christ on Monday night in a skilled care facility in Danforth, IL. Calvin is having a very tough time. I lost my best pal in 1998 and it is tough, but God never gives us more than we can handle. Calvin is a tough, wiry Illinois Dirt Farmer, but Calvin managed to woo Marietta McCue.

God grant Calvin Peace. Marietta, as with all women, is way ahead of you, Calvin!

Chicago Journalism - Sneering or Steering: Rich Miller Sneers at 47th Ward Working Stiffs

Sneering is one of the occupational hazards of journalism. It is also one of the most inexcusable. For no one ever sneered without intending to amuse some by hurting others.

Kevin Myers - The Irish Independent
and then here in Illinois we have snarkly little Rich Miller, Eric Zorn, & etc.

Voila!

Question of the day

Thursday, Feb 11, 2010

* Who were the biggest losers on primary day? No snark*, please, and fully explain all your answers. Thanks.

Rich Miller - The Capitol Fax Blog

Anyone over the age of twelve who employs the term snark in prose should be hand tailored into a tight fitting Pork Chop Suit and placed in an Englewood Pit Bull arena - with very high and greasy walls.

Jesus Christ Almighty! These prissy mopes probably say 'Off the Hook!' and 'It's Money!' and watch Jonas Brothers on You Tube! I tend to sneer at powerful and influential people who nevertheless need to belittle powerless and voiceless people.
I will probably go to Hell for sneering ( an eternity of NPR/Studs Terkel Ramblings & etc), but at least I do not snark.

Snark means you are too tired, wan and Oh So bored to make a snide remark and thus snark. I am vigorous! A vigorous pain in the ass, to be sure, but Vigorous! I readily sneer at powerful and fatuous Puffer Fish.


Snark is one of our Birkenstock neologisms meant to allow one to sneer at someone or thing and somehow avoid a much needed ass-kicking.

Last Thursday, Rich Miller's snark-free Capital Fax Blog asked readers and commenters to tally whom they felt to be The Biggest Losers in the Illinois Primary. This followed the previous Day's Snark Free
catalog of winners.

Snarkless Rich Miller tallied his own losers to include this

- Rich Miller - Thursday, Feb 11, 10 @ 11:19 am:
. . . 47th Ward Regular Democratic Organization: The hacks can’t hack it no more. In fact, they haven’t been able to hack it for years. Ann Williams was the final nail in their pathetic coffin.

Snark, snark, snark (cough) and snark Again!

Euphues - the Anatomy Wit in Illinois needs a proctologist!

I was directed to the Miller Snark-ology by a 47th Ward Regular Democratic worker. This is a guy who takes a day off of work . . .actually many days . . .to gather valid signatures for candidates ( very often Progressive meatheads for whom no one would do a thing, but politics being about addition & etc.), stuff door fixtures and mailboxes, hang posters, put together, deliver and post political signs and speak well of candidates though saying that "Yes, Julie Hamos and Jan Schakowsky did ,in fact, resemble Margaret Sanger on them old gold coins, might have brought up his morning's Red Bull.

I like Ward and Precinct workers. I do not care for Snarking Loudmouths and Quicksilver Bigshots. . . .it's just me.

You see, Ann Williams ( of whom Miller and SEIU/Progressives wildly approve) defeated Dan Farley ( a sound and good man). Hence, the Miller Snarkless, mind you, sneer.

Capitol Fax Blog is the Illinois Must Read!!!! . . . I don't. I gave it a pass a few years ago when it seemed to me SEIU and other paying entities wanted more bang for their bucks and posts were edited accordingly.

I do know, without Rich Miller's assistance, that Alderman Gene Schulter runs a Ward Organization that is Service Oriented - Schulter gets elected and elected and elected and elected. He never seems to want for volunteers and help from many,many, many people. Not only John Fritchey would be no where near where he believes himself to be without the Hacks that can't Hack it, but many other Really BLUE - Ain't She Great Democrats who could not find a Chinaman on 22nd Street.

Rich Miller is a snark - Big Snarker; V.I.P. Way Important Snarker. The Hacks are little insignificant and hard working people who get other people elected. The Hacks just might go a Hunting for the Snark. That'd make some great reading.

*Snark -Combination of "snide" and "remark". Sarcastic comment(s).
Also snarky (adj.) and snarkily (adv.)

Bob Whitfield - Chicago Historian Credits Both Mayor Daleys with Chicago's Glorious Architecture

Mayor Richard M. Daley is hammered by everyone: the Media that licks his hand and then bites the fingers that feed and sustain it; the public employees who work for the City and Mayor; Rainbow of Coalitions that Mayor Daley tries to appease and please; the hacks on the outs and hacks who can never really get in in; the over taxed residents and the guys who begin their drinking day at the earliest possible opening hour.

Mayor Richard M. Daley can't get a kind word that lasts longer than a snow flake on a hot griddle - or a perfunctory "thank you" for a favor granted.

I never had a public job - thank God. I vote and I talk to people who actually vote.

One gentleman with whom I have exchanged thoughts on the Chicago public scene is a southern gentleman and Chicago resident since the mid 1970's - lawyer and architectural historian Robert Whitfield.

Mr. Whitfield is remarkable for his thick resume and experiences as a Citizen of the World - grew up in New Orleans, lived in Paris, London, and New York, but holds Chicago as the greatest City of the Planet.

Chicago is a cultural composite of the best that Europe has to offer, New York apes, and the lesser cities Xerox. Mr. Whitfield attributes this greatness in large part to the architectural glories and the two Chicago mayors who made this possible - Richard J. Daley and his son Richard M. Daley.

Mr. Whitfield has developed a manuscript that cites the two Chicago Schools of Building Design - the one marked by Burnham/Sullivan/Root and the other by Mies Van der Rhoe/Lohan/Murphy & Jahn -culminating in the magnificent Millenium Park.

Mr. Whitfield has met some political opposition from "locked in" architects with great power in getting his manuscript taken to the next level. Hey, this is Chicago! Politics is everywhere - getting your kid onto a T-Ball Team (". . . see Mr. Crotty up at McGuffigan Park") to getting your wife placed away from the kitchen door in a restaurant. If you are Lois Weisberg, no reservations needed. If you have to be the Widow Gert Schatzmann from McKinley Park and Old St. Maurice's over by Archer, we shall see. Oh, so sorry. Gert is S.O.L. - seated out in the lobby ( and you thought I'd make some low-minded, south side gutter-snipe vulgarity).

Mayor Richard M. Daley could use a genuine thank you from a real Chicago Booster - Bob Whitfield. Maybe some one who rides the same elevator up to Five could pass this on.

Pass this on to His Honor.

Click my post title for a few of Bob Whitfield's Favorite Buildings and Loop Streetscapes.

My favorite view of Chicago is the inner drive south bound - at night - coming up on the Field Museum. Glorious City!

There is no single volume history of the First Chicago School of Architecture in the 19th century and the Second Chicago School in the 20th century. Consequently, there is very little public understanding of the powerful continuity between the pragmatic American modern architecture in the 19th century produced in Chicago and the modern architecture produced in Chicago by Mies van der Rohe and the Second Chicago School in the 20th century. Furthermore, I am unaware of any publication which emphasizes the importance of the contribution made by Richard J. Daley and his son as powerful patrons of Chicago architecture in the 20th century. In my opinion, it is very important that the historic record of modern architecture and the city of Chicago be corrected in regard to both of these matters.

Robert Whitfield 2010

Andy Thayer and Why Chicago's Media Refuses to Connect the Dots: Gays Disrupt Catholic Mass and that is Okay - even Heart Warming

Gay Activists who disrupt a Sunday Mass make a heart-warming story for the Chicago Tribune. Only last week, Chicago Tribune Religion ( 'Spiritual but not all that Rules Stuff') Columnist Manya Brachear smeared the Catholic Campaign "Catholics Come Home." Ms. Brachear took an opportunity to portray the Catholic Faith as an oppressive mind set - divorce is not taken lightly in the Church and, for Manya, well, that's just mean.


Manya Brachear would probably not find this incident and point of view particularly mean:

. . . 100 men and women who had gathered outside the cathedral Sunday morning to protest the Catholic Church's opposition to gay marriage and other stances that they see as unjust to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.
The protesters waved rainbow flags and shouted slogans like, "Hey, hey, ho, ho, homophobia has got to go!" and, "Holy Name, holy shame!"

It wasn't the first time gay-rights activists have protested on Valentine's Day as a chance to champion equal rights and target the Catholic Church.

Last year, the Gay Liberation Network helped organize a march from the city building in which marriage licenses are issued to Holy Name to show support for gay marriage, said Andy Thayer, the group's co-founder.

"We want to drag the church's bigotry out of the closet," said Thayer*, 49.

Now, that is a non-sequitur for the ages Andy! If the famous bigotry is so evident it must therefore be out of the closet - Everyone knows, Fabulous! Then, how is your protest making the Evident Bigotry public?

Black Churches tend to be pretty up-front about Homosexuals and Homosexuals are not welcome it seems to me. A real head scratcher that one. Andy are Gays/Lesbian/Bisexuals and Transsexuals AFRO-phobic? Hmmmm?

Andy Thayer - please, take your crusade to some Chicago's firebrand African American* Churches and avoid the sting of the charge of Racism in the GLBT Community. Why exclude Black Churches from your civil disobedience?

The Chicago Tribune will never ask those questions - cowards parse and obfuscate.


Here's why. Black Churches are off limits to Progressives. So are Muslims. So are Jews. Catholics are open to hostility in the Emersonian/Thorouean/Progressive Movement. "Hey, hey! Ho, Ho, Homo Bigots Gotta Go!"

Yesterday, Andy Thayer, who works for Lawsuit Lotto Lawyer Jon Loevy - who makes millions of dollars by suing the Chicago Police whenever an arrest ne'er-do-well drops an eye-lash, led a screamingly shrill group of Gay/Lesbian/Bisexual/and Transsexual ( GLBT)Activists to the steps of Holy Name Cathedral, It was St. Valentine's Day and what better way to tell the same-gender bedmate in one's life that your impulses are activism than howling at Catholics.

Gays are not allowed to marry in the Catholic Church.

Capitalists are not welcome in the Communist Party of America.

However, Andy Thayer is not only a GLBT Activist, but a stout anti-Police Brutality Activist and a shrill Anti-War Activist. Andy Thayer is there.

The Chicago Tribune makes the planned and co-ordinated assault on American Catholics' Freedom to Worship seem like a spontaneous grassroots event. No Dots are ever connected when a story is meant to present Progressive Agenda tale.

Simple blokes like myself read the newspapers and watch the news and we seem to recognize the network of involvement by Chicago's very few Andy Thayers. Google an Andy Thayer and then count up his press coverage. Errol Flynn on a bender never got such coverage. One must ask . . . oh, one must, because Andy Thayer does not conduct zesty and loud protests at Black Churches on West and South Sides -opting for the Gold Coast insularity and PC protection at Holy Name Cathedral, Could it be that Andy Thayer is coward and hypocrite as well as a celebrated activists of all agendas?

Gotta ask, because Meg Twohmey of Chicago Tribune sure as Hell did not .

Black Churches and their worshippers are militant and devout. Knowing many Black Ministers and their congregants the way I do, I believe that Andy Thayer's organized hypocrisy and closet bigotry ( seems like Andy the GLBT Activists hate Black People) are taking the coward's way out in avoiding 'equal opportunity' protests. Perhaps not.

Andy Thayer goes big target Catholic Church, because Catholics rarely ever push back.
When we do the parsing and obfuscation begins -"Well, How Can Deny Two Lovers the Right to Marry?"

Well, Jasper, hetero sexual ( breeders) who do not seem suited can also be denied the Sacrament of Marriage. They might need to marry outside of the Church while their passions dampen on the way civil disunion - divorce. My editor over at Chicago Daily Observer reminded me of great quote from a Cdobs article that ran last year.

Several Months ago, a Catholic monk wrote a fine piece in the Chicago Daily Observer.
In reaction the New York Times - the Progressive Anti-Catholic Flagship - that could not avoid giving some Trappist Monks a slap in what should have been a 'feel good' story. Brother Stephen wrote

In the progressive intellectual frame, there are only three kinds of Catholics: Unaccountable powerful men (who are quite probably libidinous, and nefarious), ignorant and oppressed masses (preferably with colorful customs and heart-warming aspirations for self betterment), and unexpectedly intelligent and altruistic people who are credits to the race (or to the religion, as it might be). The best we could hope for was a credit to our race story, which is largely what we got.

The Chicago print and electronic media is dominated by a Progressive mind-set that wants to obliterate the fact that Chicago remains a Catholic City Culture. Pounding out Catholic pimp-slap stories like Manya Brachear's or presenting GBBT assaults on worshippers as merely the extension of Emersonian Americanism is means by which Progressive Agenda Victim addicted Editorial Boards reach out to less insightful brothers and sisters.

In response to the smears by Andy Thayer's loudmouths, Archdiocese of Chicago Spokesperson Colleen Dolan gave a rock solid answer to the assault squad of GLBN and Andy Thayer that will have Bruce Dold and his pious band of Progressive Star Chamber Editors rolling their piggy little eyes, "They may not like it, but it's the teaching of the church that marriage is between one man and one woman," Dolan said. "Those of us in the church don't get to choose what the teachings are." ( Megan Twohey Chicago Tribune)


The Church Militant needs to get so.

* from Democratic Underground:


black pastors are speaking out against gays
A growing number of black pastors are speaking out against gays, with many claiming that the "homosexual agenda" is the No. 1 problem facing black America. 4/28

Rev. Gregory Daniels
The Rev. Gregory Daniels says if he 'chose' not to be gay, so can others. And they should, he adds, because homosexuality is destroying black America.
Read More

Face Right
Black Religious Opposition to Gays Rising
By Brentin Mock

Bishop Eddie Long takes to the pulpit wearing a crisp, two-piece suit. Long’s been known to dress down in tight muscle shirts and leather vests when preaching, but for this sermon it's business attire. A flock of young men from his New Birth Missionary Baptist Church near Atlanta surround Long's pulpit.

"We're raising our young boys to be just like the women," he bellows to his congregation, which today numbers more than 25,000 people. "We keep telling men to get in touch with their sensitive self."

Almost 45 minutes into the sermon, captured on a videotape that is for sale in his church's bookstore, Bishop Long grows louder and angrier...........




http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x277951

Southtown Star's Steve Metsch Nails a Great Story! Rock and Roll St. Laurence High School

St. Laurence High School in Burbank, IL ( roughly 77th & Central Ave. over by State Road, what's by the Olde Barn Restaurant) is run by the Irish Christian Brothers.

A young teacher at St. Laurence*, Fine arts director Frank Loulousis, has swelled the arts program by introducing Rock and Roll.

Well done!

Southtown Star Ace Reporter and Solid Commentator Steve Metsch ( an agenda-free writer BTW) nailed a terrific report on this great story.


Here's a taste:

They rehearsed in a room with a poster reading "Live to Play Live."
That they do.
After ripping through "Werewolf," a song by Every Time I Die, Mullen discussed what the club means to him.
"I've been drumming about five years. This club definitely helped me. Playing every day, improving every day, coming back, sounding better and better.

Click my Post Title for the Full Magilla! Great Job Steve!

Go Vikings! * Colors Gold and Black and you gotta love Mitch Ryder!

Chicago Tribune's Seeker Manya Brachear - Tossing Gasoline on a Catholic Votive Candles - Thanks for your Help Seeker

Manya Brachear is the earnest imported Chicago Religion Talent for the "Not to Be Out-Stupided by the Chicago Sun Times" Chicago Tribune. With all of the remarkable Catholic, Jewish and Protestant local talent the Medill Nativists needed to go out of town to get someone to kick at people's faith. Manya is good'un.

Manya likes her religion ( 'spiritual but not really anything too confining')you know -really Richard Gere-ishly Bono-magnifico! Hip.

Kid, this is Chicago. Look around you. Every Block the big buildings with pointy towers and crosses -those are Churches - mostly Catholic. Lot's of Catholics in Chicago, Manya. There are parishes of every ethnic niche - hence the celebration of diversity is the work of our local nitwits. We enjoy Polish, Italian, Czech, Croatian, Ukranian as visitors usually. I go to Mass - on Sundays and Holy Days at Scared Heart an old French Mission with 1,2, 3rd Genration Catholic Americans. I also go to Latin Mass at St. John Cantius on Chicago & Sangamon for devotional giggles.

Polish Masses are rich and wonderful; Lithuanian the same; Italian you bet. Hit Father Gene Smith's Gaelic Mass at St. Barnabas. Attend a real old timey Tridentine Mass at St. John Cantius - pure dignity and majesty, but alas. No condoms will be distributed in keeping with the Planned Parenthood Celebration of National Condom Week.

Manya Brachear belongs to the American Culture that banishes Nativity Scenes and Celebrates the distribution of rubbers. True to her faith, doctrine and paycheck, Manya takes a story that celebrates the return of fallen faithful to the Catholic Church and saddles it with the woe and a litany of wrongs.

In order to return to the pews, Cindy Colman first must grapple with the Roman Catholic Church's failure to forgive, alienating her and her mother from the institution that generations of their family have called home.

"I think I'm still in the process," said Colman, 35 of Naperville. "I'm at that point where I'm coming back to learn more and understand the whole faith … It's true. At my core, I know that."

After fleeing an abusive husband more than 30 years ago, Colman's mother chose to raise her daughter Lutheran. Though she agreed to annul her previous marriage, the Catholic Church insisted on denying her the sacraments when her new husband declined to annul his marriage.

Colman has since agonized about the way her mother has been treated. Still, she yearns to reconcile with the church where she was baptized. She also longs to give her children the foundation she missed.

Agony goes with living. Life is tough. If it is too tough to go Home. Too bad.

Catholics welcome everyone. Every Sunday. No locks, or guards on the doors. I am sure Mrs. Colman regrets chatting with Manya. I always seem to have those regrets with some journalists. Manya is easy to spot however. Manya Brachear is a well scrubbed, wide-eyed unblinking dead-on agendanista. Her prose is the same and almost as flat and one -dimensional.

The Sun Times already listed the rant of some jerk from Riverside. Not to be outdown, Joe Medill's anti-Catholic Editorial Board pushed Manya on the Campaign Catholics Come Home .

Anyone with any brains at the Archdiocese would put Manya's calls on the long hold. You know the one -"Your Call is very important to us, Please wait on the line; your call will be answered in the order it was received; please hold on. . . ." - (bass ostinato)

In-a-gadda-da-vida, honey
Don't you know that I'm lovin' you
In-a-gadda-da-vida, baby
Don't you know that I'll always be true

Oh, won't you come with me
And take my hand
Oh, won't you come with me
And walk this land
Please take my hand

In-a-gadda-da-vida, honey
Don't you know that I'm lovin' you
In-a-gadda-da-vida, baby
Don't you know that I'll always be true

Oh, won't you come with me
And take my hand
Oh, won't you come with me
And walk this land
Please take my hand

Drum Solo -

{Lunch Break}

In-a-gadda-da-vida, honey
Don't you know that I'm lovin' you
In-a-gadda-da-vida, baby
Don't you know that I'll always be true

Oh, won't you come with me
And take my hand
Oh, won't you come with me
And walk this land
Please take my hand

Please wait your call . . .
Give the Tribune and Manya Brachear nothing. They have done plenty. Manya, try burning down a church. It would be so Progressively Activist!

Catalyst Leftist/Progress SEIU/We Got Jitu/How About You? - Tha Soviet Jugganot on Rev. Sen. Meeks by Coalitions Against School Reform!

Progress Illinois Illinois SEIU's Nepotism Workshop for Children of Radicals jumped on Rev./Sen. Meeks.

Senator James Meeks wants Chicago Public Schools to Reform - that means breaking up the power of soviets - LSCs - developed by 1960's radicals Billy Ayers, Linda Lenz, Marilyn Katz, and Mike Klonsky.

SEIU is lead by radical Marxists Andy Stern and Anna Burger. Here in Illinois, SEIU established Progress Illinois for radical Jaimie Kalven's son Josh. It is a clearing house/comic book for radical leftists and spoon feeds Rich Miller's Capital Fax Blog.

Catalyst was published and edited by Linda Lenz, but she took some heat during Obama Campaign for President due to his long association with Billy Ayers, whose career in education was padded by his Daddy Thomas Ayers who ran ComEd.

And you thought Old Timey Ward politics had Nepotism? Hold the phone Gertrude no one packs the job like a Commie!

Well, Catalyst, WBEZ and Progress Illinois are heaping the hate on Senator James Meeks and trotted ot Jitu Brown!

The Medill Radicals heaped praise on this fine gentleman-community activist-educational operative last year.

He was told he was a “giant among men.”

Jitu Brown takes that title very seriously.

“My understanding of it is that it’s the type of man I struggle to be,” he explained of his Swahili first name.

The 42-year-old education outreach coordinator for the Kenwood Oakland Community Organization in Chicago received that name over 10 years ago. He was being recognized at an assembly of social activists at Malcolm X College during Kwanzaa. He may have been Aaron before, but he has been Jitu ever since.

“Having a name and trying to be a community change agent, I’m always reflecting on how I carried out my business today,” he said. “I’m much better than I would have been.”

Jitu Brown, ‘giant’ in the community, emissary of change.

Influential Chicago rapper, Jitu tha Jugganot.

“It was hip-hop that was the bridge to bring me here,” he said from a table at the organization on East 43rd Street. “It was this place that helped me develop the perspective to see what music can do.”

What it does, he said, is “connect people that have historically been disconnected.” It gives a sense of place and purpose. It creates awareness.

“Most of all,” he said, “I want to see a wave of young people that really believe in controlling what they produce.”

Brown, an affable, goateed man of substantial stature, learned that at an early age. He and a high school buddy formed the rap group in their South Side neighborhood of Rosemoor that would later become known as Ten Tray. It was the 80s and a teenage Brown had been waffling about what direction he wanted to take his life. There was the Nation of Islam, he said. There was following Fred Hampton, Jr. There was the church.

And then there was rapping.

“We were getting politicized by this music that society expects to be just entertainment,” he said of his early influences, such as KRS-One and Public Enemy. “For me, I just wanted to do something.”

That something started out as rhyme battles in his high school cafeteria, then to competitions drawing larger crowds. In 1991 Ten Tray signed a deal with Smash Polygram Records, which Brown contends was one of the first major label deals coming out of Chicago.

For a short while, Ten Tray lived the dream. They had a video that was on a decent rotation on Yo! MTV Raps and BET, they sold nearly 90,000 units, and they established a solid fan base here in Chicago and on the West Coast.

Yet they barely made any money.

“Our attorney said it was a good deal for a first time artist,” he remembered. “Looking at it in retrospect, we were just a couple of young cats getting taken advantage of.”

Brown had become jaded by the industry but not the message. After Ten Tray’s first album came and went, he took some time off from music and decided to volunteer. A couple of chance encounters led him to the Kenwood Oakland Community Organization. He was with the outreach group for five years before signing on as an employee. Twelve years later, as the education organizer, he visits schools, meetings and events, teaching families to use their voices to have a say in how their children are educated.

His work has galvanized groups to prevent school closings, take control of underperforming curriculums and, as he puts it, beat the system.

“People who are trained to lose are saying, ‘we can do this,’” he said.

Music evolved into a vehicle for Brown to further his work. In the song “Stand Up” from his 2007 self-released album “Necessary Ingredients,” Brown blasts systemic problems in his community through his clever baritone bombast:

“Here’s a remedy /

Don’t run from the ‘hood /

Develop the institutions ‘til they doing some good.”

The difference is that Brown is not only saying, he’s doing.

“He’s really an inspiration to people in the neighborhood,” said Jay Travis, the executive director of the Kenwood Oakland Community Organization. “His message has always been one of empowerment and positivity.”

This is what Brown hopes the kids he encounters at work and through his youth music education program, Independents Day, understand – be different, be creative and own your craft.

“Since I met him, he was a positive brother,” said D.A. Smart, an emcee, friend and co-host of the Independents Day workshops. “He loves his people. He always wants to see them be better and do better.”

“He’s such a force in Chicago,” he added.

Brown, a force, a giant, a leader in the community, says he still struggles to live up to his name.

“I’m doing the right thing,” he said before settling into his office cubicle and gearing up for a day of work. “Plant the seeds, and they’ll sprout

Hokey Smokes! "Plant Seeds . . .Hmmmmmm . . . and they'll Sprout?" Now, that is some radical poetry! Honor Bright? They'll sprout. How about get rid of radical leftist nonsense and Schools will Reform with Vouchers and Real Choice? Jitu? Come on Big Guy! You know!

Well, Kids, Jitu don't like Rev. Meeks or his plan to kill LSCs. Next Jitu and WBEZ and Progress Illinois and Catalyst and WTTW will whip out the Uncle James Card! Click my post title Jaimie Kalven's boy Josh is really tuning up the Red Chorus!
They have JITU/Medill/WBEZ/WTTW/SEIU//Chicago Tribune Editorial Board/Sun Times Editorial Board and Every dim-bulb in Birkenstocks and Socks

And all we have are the facts that Chicago Public Schools stink on ice and suck millions of dollars out of the middle classes and kids do not learn and kids are dying by the score every couple of weeks!

Sun Times Attack Sen. Meeks, School Reform in Defense of Local Councils - local soviets wedging open the the doors of control.

A study by the Consortium on Chicago School Research found that the majority of LSCs appear to function well, noting that most do their work responsibly and draw in new resources for their schools.

Chicago Sun Times 02/12/10

Oh, by the way -

In 1991, (Mike) Klonsky co-founded the Small Schools Workshop in Chicago with Bill Ayers.

The Workshop was given at least $175,000 by Chicago’s Annenberg Challenge. This organisation was chaired by Barack Obama, who had been recruited for the job by a group which included Bill Ayers.

They wanted to build Public School soviets - you know grassroots*?

Uh Huh, it appears that the Sun Times is dead wrong again and consistently.

Supporters of this (LSCs) major reform argued that
creating Local School Councils (one of
several major changes brought about by
the Chicago School Reform Act) would
help catalyze substantial improvements in
the quality of Chicago public education

http://www.designsforchange.org/pdfs/LSC_rpt_final.pdfThat was in 1988. How'd that work out?

In 1995, the state legislature modified the
Reform Act to give Chicago’s mayor more
control over Chicago’s Central Board and
central administration as well as the power
to intervene in failing schools. National
publications like Newsweek have asserted
that Chicago’s mayor was given “near total
power over the schools” by the 1995
legislative changes.7 This assertion is
untrue. The basic powers of Chicago’s
Local School Councils have remained
intact to the present, and Chicago
remains the most decentralized big city
school system in the nation.

Uh Huh and that was 1995. How'd that work out? Reverend Meeks responded -

“If you want to go back to prior to 1995, then go back. I will never go back. This school system has changed and is getting better. I don’t care what anyone says.

One of the central changes made by the
1988 law was to establish an elected Local
School Council at each Chicago public

Our Local School Councils were the funded experiment by Bill "The Terrorsist" Ayers, Mike Klonsky and their confederates. Our President Barack Obama, then a young community actiovist lawyer seeking the Progressive imprimatur on his political aspirations served on the three 501(c)3 boards that funded the soviet/grassroots Local School Council Control apparatus that destroyed public schools in Chicago, backrupted Illinois taxpayers and pull thestrings on the Chicago Teachers Unions.


school (except for a few special schools).
Each LSC consists of:
1. Six parent representatives, elected by
parents and community residents.
2. Two community representatives, elected
by parents and community residents.
3. Two teachers, elected by the school staff.
4. The school’s principal.
5. A student elected by students (in the
high schools).
Unique among U.S. cities, Chicago’s LSCs
were given strong powers, including
powers in the following areas:

1. Principal Selection and Evaluation.
LSCs appoint the school’s principal
to a four-year contract and rehire or
replace the principal at the end of this
contract period. And they supervise and
evaluate the principal on an ongoing
basis.
2. School Improvement Planning.
LSCs set priorities for their school’s
improvement through helping develop
and approve an annual school improvement
plan. These plans must focus on
achieving student learning standards set
by the state.
3. School-Based Budget. LSCs help
develop and approve a school budget,
with major control over an average of
$500,000 per year in flexible funds from
the state.

Uh Huh, continuing and how'd that work out?

Here is where Local School Councils began:

The Community Renewal Society (CRS) describes itself as a “progressive, faith-based organization that works to eliminate race and class barriers.” Rev. Calvin S. Morris (left) is the executive director. CRS publishes both the Chicago Reporter and The Catalyst, in which the above announcement was run.

At the 48th Annual Eugene V. Debs – Norman Thomas – Michael Harrington Dinner, Morris was a Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) Chicago honoree (h/t Trevor Loudon):

Rev. Dr. Calvin Morris was the Executive Director of the Community Renewal Society, a civil rights organization with roots going back to the 19th Century in Chicago, and was a co-chair of Chicago Jobs with Justice, a Labor-Community organization active in supporting the organization of low-wage workers and in support of peace.

The Catalyst was founded by its current publisher, Linda Lenz.

According to her Alliance for Excellent Education profile:

Linda Lenz is the founder and publisher of Catalyst Chicago, a monthly news magazine that covers the progress, problems and politics of school reform in Chicago. She is also the publisher of the sister publication, Catalyst Cleveland. Catalyst is a publication of the Community Renewal Society, a nonprofit founded in 1882 that fights for racial and economic justice. …

Before launching Catalyst in 1990, Ms. Lenz was the education writer for the Chicago Sun-Times and before that an editorial writer for the Chicago Daily News. Following graduation from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, she was a political writer and columnist for the Pioneer Press, North Shore.

On August 30, 2008, former Chicago Sun-Times reporter Lenz dutifully penned an apologetic published in the Sun-Times on the Bill Ayers-Obama relationship. Lenz dismissed any connection between Ayers’ years with the Weather Underground and his more recent school reform enterprise, the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, and the shared relationship with Barack Obama, who was CAC’s first executive director. Lenz writes


In other words, Obama does, indeed, know Bill Ayers as more than just a guy from the neighborhood. So do a host of civic leaders in Chicago.

On his Small Talk blog, Mike Klonsky praised Lenz’s effort, commenting “Chicago Catalyst’s Linda Lenz … gives us the real story on Obama and Bill Ayers and the Chicago Annenberg Challenge.” It should also be noted Klonsky’s Small Schools Workshop is “named as a major Chicago Annenberg Challenge beneficiary,” as he and Bill Ayers “[picked] up a bundle — $175,000 –– for ’small school workshops.’”

By the way, Lenz is also a low dollar donor for Obama’s presidential campaign, contributing only $1000 in 2008.

More Obama/Ayers/Klonsky connections

Following Lenz’s August 2008 article, RBO wrote in a since-deleted article that the Obama/Ayers/Klonsky connections continue:

Chicago Catalyst’s largest funder is The Joyce Foundation, upon whose board Obama served for eight years, beginning in 1994, during which time, in 1995, Anne Hallett of the Cross City Campaign for Urban School Reform, William Ayers of the University of Illinois at Chicago, and Warren Chapman of the Joyce Foundation proposed the Chicago Annenberg Challenge.


Mike Klonsky is a former member of Lenz’s Catalyst Chicago editorial board, as is John Ayers, Bill Ayers’ brother.

Thomas G. Ayers (more here), Bill Ayers’ father, was a contributor to the Community Renewal Society, as are: Bettylu Saltzman, whom we learned recently, has been an Obama supporter since at least his run for the Illinois legislature; Obama bundler John Rogers (and an Exelon director), through his Ariel Mutual Fund (more here); Sidley Austin, the law firm which employed both Barack and Michelle Obama and Bill Ayers’ wife, Bernadine Dohrn; Mike and Susan Klonsky; and Trinity United Church of Christ, Obama’s church until recently tossed under the Obama bus. In fact, funders for the 2005-2006 cycle reads like a who’s who list of Obama campaign funders dating from his earliest fund-raising days.
In that same article, RBO included the following video from May 2006 in which Lenz acts as moderator at the National Louis University forum on No Child Left Behind, in which Bill Ayers participated.

The geniuses at the Sun Times site the 1997 finding of the University of Chicago data padding study, yet argue that LSCs must remain. They go further demanding that the Illinois Legislature SPEND MORE to support LSCs of a Trainwreck of a Public School System. Catalyst is the mouthpiece of the radical leftists who dreamed up the school soviets- like Progress Illinois is the SEIU organ. They collectively and cordially hated Paul Vallas who attempted to bring real reform. He knew a soviet operation when he saw one. Kay Lenz and her surrogates hounded Paul Vallas, or rather Mayor Daley, who is not a huge reader it seems to me. These Radicals hate Charter Schools. They hate Vouchers and now they are building up the hate for Sen./Rev. James Meeks. They hate cordially and enthusiastically - nothing personal.

The Legislature should dismiss this bill and focus on efforts that might actually improve the Chicago Public Schools.

The Legislature should and will support this bill and focus on Vouchers and will help Chicago Public Schools.

As long as the Media and the Chicago Sun Times in particular gets its sole nurishment from radical leftists and lawsuit addicted lawyers, it will continue its path to irrelvance.

Supporting Local School Councils and fighting Vouchers? Not so hot, but the Chicago Sun Times is Okay with it. Radical. Radically stupid.


*

Originally, the soviets were a grassroots effort to practice direct democracy. Russian Marxists made them a medium for organizing against the state, and between the February and October Revolutions, the Petrograd Soviet was a powerful force. The slogan "All power to the soviets!" (Vsya vlast sovyetam!; Вся власть советам!) was used by the Bolsheviks to oppose the Provisional Government led by Kerensky.

Based on the Bolshevik's view of the state, the word soviet extended its meaning to any supreme body that obtained the authority of a group of soviets. In this sense, soviets turned into a hierarchical structure - Communist government bodies at local level and republic level[note 1] were called "soviets", and at the top of the hierarchy, the Congress of Soviets was the nominal core of the Union government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), officially formed in December 1922. However, the Communist Party officially played the "leading role" in society by that time; the soviets were in practice subordinate to it.

Later, in the USSR, local governmental bodies were named "soviet" (sovet: "council") with the adjective indicating of the administrative level, customarily abbreviated : gorsovet (gorodskoy sovet: city council), raysovet/raisovet (rayonny sovet: raion council), selsovet: rural council, possovet (poselkovy sovet: settlement council).

The term also came to be used outside the Soviet Union by some Marxist-Leninist movements, for example, the Communist Party of China's efforts in the "Chinese Soviet Republic" immediately prior to the Long March.

The New York Times?MSNBC Global Extreme Weather Snow-Cone Machine!

And I thought that Global Warming was just a hoax - perpetuated by investors and companies poised to make a gazillion Euros on Green Technologies - Like GE which owns MSNBC-The Tool Shed.

The Tool Shed has a new "bore-a-hole- through-me" Clown under its Big Top -Dylan Ratigan. Nice Gen X Handle there - Dylan. Thomas, or Bob it is way cool. Globally Cool - like the Extreme Weather!

America's former VP and chameleon/Lon Chaney Al Gore ( he's a lard-ass; he's taken off the weight; he's a lard-ass with beard; the beard goes & etc) who preceded President Obama in icy Oslo, is getting a trimming from little kids and village nit-wits and defended by MSNBC Tools and village nit wits over the specious Global Warming ( now Global Extreme Weather) due to the tons of snow fallind on America.

Jeff Masters, a meteorologist who writes on the Weather Underground blog, said that the recent snows do not, by themselves, demonstrate anything about the long-term trajectory of the planet. Climate is, by definition, a measure of decades and centuries, not months or years.

But Dr. Masters also said that government and academic studies had consistently predicted an increasing frequency of just these kinds of record-setting storms, because warmer air carries more moisture.

“Of course,” he wrote on his blog Wednesday as new snows produced white-out conditions in much of the Eastern half of the country, “both climate-change contrarians and climate-change scientists agree that no single weather event can be blamed on climate change.

“However,” he continued, “one can ‘load the dice’ in favor of events that used to be rare — or unheard of — if the climate is changing to a new state.”

A federal government report issued last year, intended to be the authoritative statement of known climate trends in the United States, pointed to the likelihood of more frequent snowstorms in the Northeast and less frequent snow in the South and Southeast as a result of long-term temperature and precipitation patterns. The Climate Impacts report, from the multiagency United States Global Change Research Program, also projected more intense drought in the Southwest and more powerful Gulf Coast hurricanes because of warming.

In other words, if the government scientists are correct, look for more snow

.


Avec! Dylan Ratigan! Me and the kids are loading our Snow Cone Machine up with Kingsford Charcoal, Dylan!

With all this flawed logic floating around, MSNBC's Dylan Ratigan took it upon himself to knock down these unsubstantiated claims, specifically referring to a Virginia GOP political ad.

"Here's the problem," Ratigan said. "These 'Snowpocalypses' that have been going through D.C. and other weather events are precisely what climate scientists have been predicting, fearing, and anticipating because of global warming ... In fact you could argue these storms are not evidence of a lack of global warming, but evidence of global warming."

Dylan you genius! You mean to say that I was shoveling coal all week?????

Kevin Myers on Haiti, Free Speech and Our PC Addiction to BS

In Chapter Ten of Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises Jake and Bill joke on Irony and Pity - 'they are all the rage back home.'

Jake and Bill, two WWI Veteran Expatriate members of the generacion perdite wax comical on the hypocricies they left behind: "Oh, Give them Irony and Give them Pity. Oh, give them Irony. ... Just a little irony. Just a little pity . . ."

Kevin Myers of the Irish Independant, a true disciple of Flann O'Brien's cant free journalism, indicts the fashionably fatuous with regard to Haiti, PC, Free Speech and BS.

You can say we have free speech -- but we haven't. Example: I can say Americans are loud, boorish, lazy and insensitive morons, and that's fine. If I say the same about Nigerians, I am in jail.

Look, you cry, he's at it again! He starts off quite innocently on Haiti, and look where's finished up!

Quite. I agree. You are looking nervously at the door. I am making you uncomfortable. You wish to leave. I quite understand.

This guy, Kevin Myers, should be required high school/college prep reading in every language and taught cross-curricularly.

Illinois Lieutenant Governor - The Appendix in Illinois Body Politic - Feed it to the Pigs

Don Wade and Roma were straining to equate the only adult in Springfield, Speaker Mike Madigan, to Don Corleone.

Don Corleone was way too chatty to be even remotely considered as a parallel caricature.

Rather, Bricktop, the quietly intimidating London crime boss, and a redhead to boot, would be my choice cinema avatar.

Bricktop asks only rhetorical questions:

'Arold: I think you've let him get away with enough already, Guv'nor.

Brick Top: It'll get you in a lot of trouble thinking, 'Arold. If I were you, I wouldn't do too much of it.

Likewise: He never threatened - he prophesied:

Brick Top: You're on thin f#$king ice my pedigree chums, and I shall be under it when it breaks. Now, f#$k off.

Bricktop:Do you know what "nemesis" means? A righteous infliction of retribution manifested by an appropriate agent. Personified in this case by an 'orrible #$%^... me.

The character Bricktop rid himself and this vale of tears of cumbersome baggage, louts, cheats, transgressors and superfluous appendages -not unlike Scott Lee Cohen or the Office of Illinois Lieutenant Governor -by feeding them to pigs.

Speaker Madigan launched Scott Lee Cohen and intends to do the same to the Office of Lieutenant Governor as well.

Shortly after his primary victory, stories emerged about a 2005 arrest for holding a knife to his girlfriend's throat. Those charges were later dropped. But next came allegations of steroid abuse and other claims of physical violence from divorce records.

Although he initially balked at giving up the nomination, he acquiesced after talking to Madigan, the influential chairman of the Illinois Democratic Party, who said he warned Cohen the personal scrutiny he was undergoing would get worse.

Cohen was an unknown until he spent $2 million of his own money to secure the nomination. His candidacy has again prompted questions of whether the lieutenant governor's office is needed.

Daily Herald, or 'erald.

Just like the character Bricktop in the fine film Snatch -

"You're always gonna have problems lifting a body in one piece. Apparently the best thing to do is cut up a corpse into six pieces and pile it all together."

and then -"And when you got your six pieces, you gotta get rid of them, because it's no good leaving it in the deep freeze for your mum to discover, now is it? Then I hear the best thing to do is feed them to pigs. You got to starve the pigs for a few days, then the sight of a chopped-up body will look like curry to a pisshead. You gotta shave the heads of your victims, and pull the teeth out for the sake of the piggies' digestion. You could do this afterwards, of course, but you don't want to go sievin' through pig shit, now do you? They will go through bone like butter. You need at least sixteen pigs to finish the job in one sitting, so be wary of any man who keeps a pig farm. They will go through a body that weighs 200 pounds in about eight minutes. That means that a single pig can consume two pounds of uncooked flesh every minute. Hence the expression, "as greedy as a pig."

Speaker Madigan is no Vito Corleone.

Bricktop, sadly, meets his demise at the close of the film. Sadly, because he is truly the only character in the film with any smattering of genuine character, intelligence and forethought - he is a vicious 'orrible #$%^, but one must be in crime. Politics is no crime; there's no crime in politics!

There are criminals - Larry Bloom, Bob Creamer, Stuart Levine, Tony Rezko, Cliff Kelley, to name but a few - in political life. However, 'as greedy as a pig' should not stamp all in elected office. Speaker Mike Madigan is the only elected political leader in Illinois politics with any character, intelligence, and forethought.

Feed the Office of Lieutenant Governor to pigs Mr. Speaker!

Illinois Justice Anne Burke -Tonight's Guest on the Skinny and Houli Show!

The Chatter is Classic Chicago and the focus continues to be on Chicagoans Who Do for Others. Tonight, Skinny Sheahan and Mike Houlihan welcome the founder of the Chicago Special Olymnpics, Ald. Eddie Burke's Better Half - Illinois Supreme Court Justice Anne Burke. Mrs. Justice, I hope Houli leaves a smidgen of the Corned Beef from Lissie McNeill's Pub* - the damn sammiches where the size of Houli's noggin, but their January 27th Guest - a sweet-natured and sensitive guy - got bugger all. Watch you fingers, Mrs. Burke, if you get any grease or mustard on them Mein Host might think their Chicken Fingers.

Our Guest tonight is Special Olympics Founder and Supreme Court Justice Anne Burke!
She's done plenty of "good in 'da hood!"
Tune in this Wed. Night, 6-8PM. 950 AM
Call-in during the show, light up our phone lines-312-329-0950.

Skinny & Houli Show "a smash" on Avenue 950 WNTD AM

Avenue 950 Timeless Cool, a product of Sovereign City Radio Services, rolled out their much anticipated program, The Skinny & Houli Show, on Wednesday January 20th and "Voila", it's the hottest show on Chicago Radio.

James "Skinny" Sheahan, former Director of the Mayor's Office of Special Events and Mike "Houli" Houlihan, columnist for the Irish American News and former features columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times, introduce listeners to the quirky characters and stories that give our city its unique charm.

This two hour, freewheeling talk radio dialogue features two of Chicago's most irrepressible personalities, discussing what's happening in the city each week. The hosts dissect the news, politics, sports, and entertainment scene with their trademark wit and introduce a variety of community activists and neighborhood heroes.

The Skinny & Houli Show, in partnership with Special Olympics Chicago, will feature guests who are making a positive impact on the lives of Chicagoans plus a "Special Olympics Spotlight" on an athlete, coach or volunteer for outstanding achievement.

Tune in to Avenue 950 and hear a show that will make you proud to live in Chicago

* Lizzie McNeill's Irish Pub


Irish, Bar Food, Sandwiches - if you can get one.
400 N McClurge Ct, Chicago 60611
(At E North Water St)

Phone: (312) 467-1992

Mrs. Obama, MSNBC and Mr. Creosote Battle Obesity

President Obama is tanking. More Americans are hip to just how really pompous news pundits happen to be - ask Scott Lee Cohen. Sarah Palin is still popular. Iran is near Civil War. Progressive Agenda is everything it is cracked up to be - a Ponzi Scam. Global Warming has given us the greatest National snowstorm ever! Mrs. Obama needs help getting fat kids to lay off the pop, salty snacks, and Mickey D's that their folks sate them with and has MSNBC going Flat out for Her!

MSNBC went Flat-Out for Cap 'N Trade and Single Provider Health Care for President Obama. Mrs. Obama might have done better asking the League of Elk Hunters or Emu Ranchers to lend a hand. As it is . . .MSNBC with Tamron 'Too Smart' Hall and Dave 'Fountain-mouth' Schuester and the MSNBC Tool Shed regulars.


After shoveling metric tons of the new fallen snow, I cable surfed and caught an unlimited litany of guest Fat Pros on MSNBC taking the Tac Du Jour ( Tea Party Secessionism/Sarah Palin/Chris Matthews' Racial View-Finder) on obesity is akin to Terrorism and a dose of the crabs. MSNBC is dedicated to . . .? I'm not sure.

Just replay this scene of Monty Python's Meaning of Life and even the most dedicated lard-asses might opt for the waffer thin truffle.

Bon apetite!