The Cobbler

"If the accused could speak he could a tale unfold -- one of the strangest ..." James Joyce

Now, my father was hung for sheep stealing
My mother was burned for a witch
My sister's a dandy house-keeper
And I'm a mechanical switch

It's forty long years I have traveled
All by the contents of me pack
Me hammers, me awls and me pinchers

I carry them all on me back

Tommy Makem


When Teddy Sullivan died in May , his boy, Mossie, went through his boxes of treasures. Teddy kept letters 'from home' in Castleisland County Kerry.

Teddy came to the States and settled in Chicago in 1960. Me met Meg Joyce from Galway at a dance at Cannon Hall of the Hibernians on Halsted, courted and married the girl. Teddy had a good job working at the Audi Home, first as a boiler fireman and then as a Stationary Engineer. He and Meg moved out of their small apartment across from Sherman Park on Garfield Blvd when the girl was expecting Mossie. The Sullivans now lived in St. Ethelreda Parish in a two flat at 85th and Wolcott. It was there that the Sullivans of Chicago took shape.

However distant and cold about Ireland in his musings, Teddy kept close touch with those 'back home.' Teddy treasured his roots and never wanted to return to them. Teddy kept tickets from the small Kerry movie house where he saw The Searchers in Ireland. Among these trinkets, Mossie found a ticket-stub for a pair of dress shoes that had been paid ( £ 1,three shillings, eight pence) for but never been picked, before Teddy emigrated to Chicago. Today that would be about £ 17 Irish Pounds -very dear, or expensive as Hell!

Teddy and the late Meg Joyce-Sullivan never returned home to Ireland.

Mossie tucked the ticket into his wallet and with his young family went 'home' in July 2011 - it was Mossie's first trip back to Ireland.

The Sullivans enjoyed their time in Galway and county Clare took the Tarbert Ferry across the Shannon River and drove over and down the far-famed Kerry Mountains and into Castleisland County Kerry.

Mossie's wife Kerry and the three little girls shopped the second widest street in Ireland and enjoyed ice cream with a generous spike of Flake Chocolate, while Mossie searched out Old Dan Brosnan's Cobbler Shop out near the new market pens.

He found and entered the Georgian shop with a charming ring of the tiny bell above the door. Dan Brosnan's is a tight dusty and leathey space filled with brogans, boots, loafers and four generations of ladies boots, pumps and sandals. This was a history of Twentieth Century footwear.

Out of the back room shuffled a tiny man in his 90's interrupted of the next bite of his Noon Tea who wiped a bit of Chef's Sauce from the corner of his gray whiskered mouth with a "God Bless, Yank."

"Hello, are you Dan Brosnan?'

" I am, so."

"My father was from here."

" What Yank never tells me the same?"

" He left here in 1960 . . ."

" A Castleisland Engineer from Chicago, so!"

"Yes, sir he was."

" He's gone on, then."

"Last May."

" God be good to him."

"His name was Teddy Sullivan and he . . ."

" Mick the Dairyman's boy and brother to Dec, Turney, and Sarsfield who all went to Canada."

" You have a remarkable memory, Mr. Brosnan."


" I do so. How else can a man make a living in this vale of tears."

Mossie dug the yellowed cardboard ticket-stub marked S-786.

" In fact, I found a receipt ticket for a pair of dress shoes that my Dad had made in 1960 and paid in full £ 1,three shillings, eight pence."

The ancient cobbler shuffled to his shop counter's files and pulled the partner of the emigrant ticket seperated by force of his powerful fingers and fifty years and joined at this moment in geneological magic. Dan Bosnan smiled broadly.

" They'll be ready Thursday, Yank."

Today is U.S. Day of Rage and I Could Not Be Happier!

There's bright golden haze on meadow!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Submitted by Michael Santo on 2011-09-17


September 17 has been targeted as a U.S. "Day of Rage," leveraging the Arab protests using the same name that took place in the Spring, this year, but in what's planned to be a set of peaceful protests against corperatism (Sic 'corporatism?" n'cest pas?) and corporate money in politics across the nation.

Well, shucks and dog my cats! The breeze is so busy it don't miss a tree,
And an ol' Weepin' Willer is laughin' at me. I got me a 20 oz. cup of rich and dark Kean Coffee, the Purdue v. S.E. Missouri Game, a pot of two day old jambalaya, Eddy's Lime Fruit Bars, and my gal! Oh, what a beautiful Rage Day!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm fixin' to sing along with Gordon McRae! Everybody!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Joel Kotkin Unmasks the Power Behind the Throne - "Gentry Progressives"

Demographer and journalist Joel Kotkin has studied Americans with a very clear and unjaundiced jeweler's eye for decades. He has studied and identified the power shifts in post-industrial America and long ago predicted the collapse of State economies under weight of policy programs, pensions and wages paid out to policy wizards shilling for agenda PACS, like Acorn, Planned Parenthood, Alien Rights, and Gay Marriage advocates, as well as public service unions especially SEIU.

Every pothole in Illinois and California was predicted by Joel Kotkin long before President Obama took office.

President Obama campaigned as a 'different sort of Democrat' and he surely is that - he is America's first Gentry President, according Kotkin.

This morning in Politico Joel Kotkin unmasks the Gentry Progressive - the wolf in Democrat clothing.

To be sure, Obama’s ground game relied on organized labor, particularly public-sector unions, African-Americans, Latinos and progressive activists. But these groups have not emerged stronger from his three years in office.

Instead, the major winners of the Obama years have been the big nonprofits, venture capitalists and, most obviously, the financial aristocracy. These have all benefited from the Ben Bernanke-Timothy Geithner — previously the Bernanke-Henry Paulson — policy of cheap money and near zero-interest rates, which have depressed the savings of the middle classes but served as a major boon to Wall Street. This has benefited mostly the wealthiest 1 percent, which owns some 40 percent of equities and 60 percent of financial securities.

This Wall Street-first approach makes Reaganite “trickle down” look like a populist torrent. Glimmers of reality are beginning to dawn on more perceptive progressive analysts, like Kevin Drum of Mother Jones, who accuses the Democrats under Obama of abandoning “the middle class in favor of the rich.” The Democrats, grouses the reliably partisan but perceptive Harold Meyerson, should be known as “Bankers R Us.”

Reaction from Tea Party libertarians, Old Timey Democrats like meself, and even the tasseled loafer GOP saw Marxists in the woodpile. They're there, in some small way, but largely the Gentry is all about Lakeview Greystone Urban Power elites: the degree stamped, well-off, childless, venal and secular power-network players. They get into Democratic politics via the backdoor -appointments for favors to come. They are lawyers, connected -professional bankers, fund managers, and agents of every venue that rakes in nickels.

Kotkin presents the power behind the 'mount, shine, evaporate and fall' of the Obama moment in the sun:

To be sure, some parts of the old progressive coalition, such as African-Americans, whose prospects have declined markedly under Obama, will most likely remain loyal to the president. Many other working- and middle-class voters, including Latinos and young people, groups particularly hard hit, may not be ready to bolt en masse for the GOP. But their lessened enthusiasm to participate in either the campaign or to vote could threaten the White House next year.

These developments, as Marxists might put it, reflect the fundamental contradictions of gentry liberalism. Essentially, gentry liberalism reflects the coalescing interests among the financial, technological and academic upper strata. For these people, the Great Recession was brief and ended long ago. All depend heavily on high stock prices to maintain their wealth. Their interest in the overall U.S. economy — particularly the Main Street grass roots — has become ever more tenuous with their increasing ability to shift assets to East Asia and other developing country hot spots.

These prerogatives have been neatly protected under Obama. In the past, administrations let corporate scofflaws, like the savings and loan companies, collapse. Some were sent to jail. . . .
This may have also been good news for Manhattan and San Francisco real estate and luxury retail — Tiffany profits were up 25 percent in the past quarter. Silicon Valley venture capitalists, in particular, have been lavished with access to cheap government loans and incentives — as demonstrated by the recent revelations about solar manufacturer Solyndra — to promote their attempted expansion into the ballyhooed “green economy.”

The essential problem of gentryism, however, is that it fails to address the fundamental economic needs of the vast majority. It is also tied to policy prescriptions that either fail to spur broad-based growth or, in some cases, hinder it.

For one thing, by concentrating wealth at the top, the gentry approach has depressed entrepreneurialism among the vast middle and working classes. In contrast to past “recoveries,” the rate of new start-ups has slowed considerably. The health of existing small business remains feeble, notes the National Federation of Independent Business.

Other initiatives have slowed potential growth, particularly the threat of new draconian environmental regulations. Fossil-fuel development, for example, represents one of the best opportunities for new, high-wage employment for blue- and white-collar workers. In contrast, the massive expenditures of public money on “green jobs” has turned out to be less than effective in creating blue-collar employment.

Joel Kotkin was writing long before Obamas Gentry grabbed power. It is refreshing that people are now reading this prescient man. Click my post title for so much more.

Sorry, Mr. President; My Calendar is Jammed With Open Dates and Ward Bond Month May Be on TCM

I just opened this warm e-mail from President Barack Obama

Friend --

I'm writing to invite you to dinner.

If that sounds familiar, it's because we've done this before.
I've asked the campaign to organize small, five-person dinners
with supporters like you as a regular thing.

These dinners are important to me. Not just because they help
me stay connected to supporters like you who are doing the hard
work of building this campaign, but because they set us apart.

No matter what our opponents do over the next 14 months, we
have chosen to put people at the heart of our campaign -- and
we're focused on building it one grassroots donation at a time.

I'm asking you to make one today.

Will you donate $40 or more today to be automatically entered
for a chance to join me for dinner?

http://my.democrats.org/Dinner1

I read a few letters every day from the many that come to the
White House. Those personal connections with the people who
put me here drive me and remind me why I set out to do this job
in the first place.

Our focus on everyday Americans and their stories has always
made our organization more than just a political campaign.

From the very beginning, we've set out to practice a different kind
of politics -- proving that we don't need checks from Washington
lobbyists or unlimited special-interest money to win an election.

That's why I'm asking you to step up and donate today. When you
do, you'll be automatically entered to win a place at dinner:http://my.democrats.org/Dinner1

Maybe I'll get to thank you in person.Barack

Well, I am flattered, Mr. President, but must decline. My calendar is filled with open dates, but I would not wish to pencil in a square in the expectation that my two Jacksons would secure a dinner date before 2012. You see, if I sent in the two double-sawbucks and let's say I was chosen, the date might fall in a month determined by Turner Classic Movies as Ward Bond Month.

That would put me in the awkward position of declining the opportunity to break bread with our 44th President. Ward Bond trumps dinner with you Sir, I am very sorry to say. Though I am sure that the tucker and vittles would be something else, Man does not live upon bread alone - Ward Bond is another matter.

You have a reputation for soaring rhetoric, Sir, but I do not think you can match this pitch -



Good luck getting $ 40.00. The possibility of a month of 224 Ward Bond movies and features on TCM eclipses any possible time with you, Mr. President.

Sincerely,

Pat Hickey

Vietnam Statistics from the Wall - Michael Moriarty Forwarded This On The Other Greatest Generation

A Vietnam Marine, Bill Pfeifer sent this to Michael Moriarty and Michael sent this along to me.

Tom Brokaw should take a look at another Greatest Generation.

Interesting Veterans Statistics off the Vietnam Memorial Wall

"Carved on these walls is the story of America , of a continuing quest to preserve both Democracy and decency, and to protect a national treasure that we call the American dream." ~President George Bush

SOMETHING to think about - Most of the surviving Parents are now Deceased.

There are 58,267 names now listed on that polished black wall, including those added in 2010.

The names are arranged in the order in which they were taken from us by date and within each date the names are alphabetized. It is hard to believe it is 36 years since the last casualties.

Beginning at the apex on panel 1E and going out to the end of the East wall, appearing to recede into the earth (numbered 70E - May 25, 1968), then resuming at the end of the West wall, as the wall emerges from the earth (numbered 70W - continuing May 25, 1968) and ending with a date

in 1975. Thus the war's beginning and end meet. The war is complete, coming full circle, yet broken by the earth that bounds the angle's open side and contained within the earth itself.

The first known casualty was Richard B. Fitzgibbon, of North Weymouth , Mass. Listed by the U.S. Department of Defense as having been killed on June 8, 1956. His name is listed on the Wall with that of his son, Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Richard B. Fitzgibbon III, who was killed on Sept. 7, 1965.

There are three sets of fathers and sons on the Wall.
39,996 on the Wall were just 22 or younger.
8,283 were just 19 years old.
The largest age group, 33,103 were 18 years old.
12 soldiers on the Wall were 17 years old
5 soldiers on the Wall were 16 years old.
One soldier, PFC Dan Bullock was 15 years old.

997 soldiers were killed on their first day in Vietnam .
1,448 soldiers were killed on their last day in Vietnam .

31 sets of brothers are on the Wall.
Thirty one sets of parents lost two of their sons.
54 soldiers on attended Thomas Edison High School in Philadelphia . I wonder why so many from one school.
8 Women are on the Wall. Nursing the wounded.
244 soldiers were awarded the Medal of Honor during the Vietnam War; 153 of them are on the Wall.

Beallsville, Ohio with a population of 475 lost 6 of her sons.
West Virginia had the highest casualty rate percapita in the nation. There are 711 West Virginians on the Wall.

The Marines of Morenci - They led some of the scrappiest high school football and basketball teams that the little Arizona copper town of Morenci (pop. 5,058) had ever known and cheered. They enjoyed roaring beer busts. In quieter moments, they rode horses along the Coronado Trail, stalked deer in the Apache National Forest . And in the patriotic camaraderie typical of Morenci's mining families, the nine graduates of Morenci High enlisted as a group in the Marine Corps. Their service began on Independence Day, 1966. Only 3 returned home.

The Buddies of Midvale - LeRoy Tafoya, Jimmy Martinez, Tom Gonzales were all boyhood friends and lived on three consecutive streets in Midvale, Utah on Fifth, Sixth and Seventh avenues. They lived only a few yards apart. They played ball at the adjacent sandlot ball field. And they all went to Vietnam . In a span of 16 dark days in late 1967, all three would be killed. LeRoy was killed on Wednesday, Nov. 22, the fourth anniversary of John F. Kennedy's assassination. Jimmy died less than 24 hours later on Thanksgiving Day. Tom was shot dead assaulting the enemy on Dec. 7, Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day.

The most casualty deaths for a single day was on January 31, 1968 ~ 245 deaths.
The most casualty deaths for a single month was May 1968 - 2,415 casualties were incurred.

For most Americans who read this they will only see the numbers that the Vietnam War created. To those of us who survived the war, and to the families of those who did not, we see the faces, we feel the pain that these numbers created. We are, until we too pass away, haunted with these numbers, because they were our friends, fathers, husbands, wives, sons and daughters. There are no noble wars, just noble warriors. (emphasis my own)

Please pass this on to those who served during this time, and those who DO Care.

Not as lean; not as mean; but still a MARINE

Antonement - NY District Goes GOP - Rev. Al Goes on MSNBC - Makes Sense?

"I'll never get the majority of Jewish votes. It's only because I have a moral center." Rev. Al Sharpton 2001.

Maybe it's me, but I think that the only center Rev. Al worries about is the Carmelo goodness of a Dove nugget, or the core of his "Non-Profit" Empire. (Aside) " Everything cool with IRS, since Bush left out, Rev.?"

Here's the tempest in the borscht bowl

Weprin became embroiled in New York-centric disputes over Israel and gay marriage, which cost him some support among Jewish voters.

Orthodox Jews, who tend to be conservative on social issues, expressed anger over Weprin’s vote in the Assembly to legalize gay marriage. In July, New York became one of six states to recognize same-sex nuptials.

The same folks who defend the Unborn, defend Marriage and defend Israel. Must be something to that Trinity.

Non-practicing secular Jews, like secular Catholic lefties, and the Progressive Protestant main-line Churches ( Reformed Methodist, United Church of Christ & etc.) are the cultural base of the Democratic Party at the National Level ( the DNC). They love in this order

1. Abortion

2. Racial Ethnic and Sex Segmentation (Arabic, African, Pacific Islander, Inuit, Caledonian, Alsatian, Homosexual, Heterosexual, Pan-Sexual and Sexual Neutral)

3. ACLU vision of Justice

4. Black Anger

5. Government Economics

6. Anti-military everything

7. Hegelian Secular Education

8. Eradication of History, Literature and Culture

Everything else is an adjunct.

Yesterday, DNC memes pre-empted the victory of Bob Turner over Democrat Welprin in the special election for pecker-obsessed Anthony Weiner's (MSNBC NY) Congressional seat with a stamp of the foot that this was not harbinger of One and Out for President Obama it was just religious Jew acting out.

This from David Weigel of The Slate:

Earlier today I talked to Brian Brown, the president of the National Organization for Marriage, about that group's effort in the district. They sent out 70,000 pieces of mail in a race that may only have 30,000 voters.
"I don't think anyone familiar with this district believes that Orthodox Jewish voters are turning on Weprin because of Israel," said Brown. "The real reason is Weprin's support for same sex marriage, especially the use of his Orthodox faith to justify it."

Here is the point of view of DNC icon Henry 'The Wingman' Waxman ( General Electric, CA)

“I think Jewish voters will be Democratic and be for Obama in 2012, especially if you get a Republican candidate like [Texas] Gov. [Rick] Perry,” he said. “But there’s no question the Jewish community is much more bipartisan than it has been in previous years. There are Jews who are trending toward the Republican Party, some of it because of their misunderstanding of Obama’s policies in the Middle East, and some of it, quite frankly, for economic reasons. They feel they want to protect their wealth, which is why a lot of well-off voters vote for Republicans.”

The Hill

Henry Waxman according to his biography is Jewish. Waxman is Jewish in the same way that Dick Durbin, the Young Kennedys (post RFK variety), Georgetown University, University of Notre Dame, Richie Daley, and Kathy Sebelius are Catholic - when it is time to court the Knights of Columbus. Durbin, Daley, The Young Kennedys,Georgetown University, University of Notre Dame, Richie Daley and Kathy Sebelius owe much more to Planned Parenhood, SEIU, ACLU, and the Gay Liberation Network than they do to Holy Mother Church.

Religious Jews, most Black Congregations, Evangelicals and Catholics remain fiercely opposed to Abortion and Homosexual Marriage. Rev. Al Sharpton & the very eclipsed Rev. Jesse Jackson, notwithstanding, represent GE, the ACLU,SEIU, Planned Parenthood, and DNC more than they do African American Americans. GE pushed Rev. Al onto MSNBC after tossing out a fat Young Turk.

Jews, Catholics and Christians understand Atonement. Atonement is the root of Judaisim and therefore the foundation of Christianity. Atonement means much more than saying "I'm sorry for calling Jews money grubbing diamond merchants and Catholics Homophobic Pedophile Loving Drunks and Evangelical Christians Snake-handling Hillbillies. Really. If it means losing power, I am truly sorry."

Atonement means return in Hebrew. Some Catholics like to think of atonement as akin to returning old pop bottles for the deposit. Genuine Catholic spin on atonement goes much deeper than mere reconciliation. Sorry don't cut it. Like the Jews we must 'return' to Christ -not as we'd like HIM to be - an affable moral relativist -'Hey, who's to say, Hickey? You meant to be a good man - charitable, devout, honest, faithful, sincere - here's your participation medal - come on in!'

Nope, Atonement goes far beyond taking a pew. The voters in the New York District offered Democrats a lesson in atonement.

If you want "It's All Good!" turn on Rev. Al and Keep it Rea'!"

The Captain's Pre-Reminiscence: The Brain Mutinies

"Pass this Bill!"

I know that folks sometimes think they've used up the benefit of the doubt but I'm an eternal optimist,I believe if you just stay at it long enough, after they've exhausted all the other options, folks do the right thing."

President Obama

This is the captain speaking. Some misguided sailors on this ship still think they can pull a fast one on me. Well, they're very much mistaken. Since you've taken this course, the innocent will be punished with the guilty.. . . I will not be made a fool of! Do you hear me?

Lt. Commander Phillip Francis Queeg

Huge Hat Tip to Weasel Zippers!

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

". . .I’m going to be judged by whether we have stayed focused on making sure that this economy is moving in the right direction. And like the captain of a ship in a storm, you know, when the ship is rocking and people are getting hurt, they’re not going to be happy, no matter how good the captain’s doing. Now, my hope is that when we are on the other side of it, folks will look back and say, “You know, he wasn’t a bad captain of the ship.” What I tell everybody I meet whether they voted for me or they didn’t is, “This country always gets through these storms. We always right the ship. And we will this time as well.”

Sail on, Oh, Ship of State.

My Heartfelt and Very Warm Response to Prince Turki al-Faisal on Palestinian Statehood, Saudi Arabia, and the U.S.

Sinatra treated dames better than a Saudi.
Gang, meet the Prince; Prince meet the gang! Ain't he just the cat's nuts?

Dear Prince Turki-al Faisal,

I was delighted to read your demand that we, as a nation, must abandon our only ally in the Middle East, Israel, by not doing a veto on the Palastinian Statehood nonsense.

You are a howl, Son!

The New York Times is the only place to have lodged such a comically ludicrous string of words, there, Prince. With writers like Tom Friedman and Paul Krugman the New York Times trumps The Onion.

You opening imperative sentence made me wet my britches, Turki! "The United States must support the Palestinian bid for statehood at the United Nations this month or risk losing the little credibility it has in the Arab world,"

Allah's Underwear, that kills me! ' Or risk losing the little credibility it has in the Arab world' - like the time you and Dad and the Bros of the House of Faisal - The Beverly Hillbillies of the Globe - whined like bitches in 1991 when Saddam crossed into Kuwait?

You had me at the Title -Veto a State, Lose an Ally Neither! There is not now, nor ever was a State of Palestine and you clowns are merely oily extortionists. But, you know that.

Every time I hit the pump at Kean I think of you, your Dad, your Bros and Islamic Fascism - you guys spell it Wahhabism - that you export in order along with petro chemicals to keep your poor from cutting your collective throats. No wonder you Faisal boys are so . . . energetic. They'll get around to it in time, I suppose.

This one was a tasty nugget -

Moreover, Saudi Arabia would no longer be able to cooperate with America in the same way it historically has. With most of the Arab world in upheaval, the “special relationship” between Saudi Arabia and the United States would increasingly be seen as toxic by the vast majority of Arabs and Muslims, who demand justice for the Palestinian people.

What exactly has been the benefit of knowing you clowns, anyway? Since Lawrence of Arabia your family has done less for its people than the Kennedy Clan has done for America, besides scandals and hot-air. Israel is productive, fertile, democratic and welcomes people. Saudi Arabia is a place one 'has to' go to - a desert ruled by dame beating tyrants.

Your conclusion is equal to your opening, Prince -

Although Saudi Arabia is willing and able to chart a new and divergent course if America fails to act justly with regard to Palestine, the Middle East would be far better served by continuing cooperation and good will between these longstanding allies.

American support for Palestinian statehood is therefore crucial, and a veto will have profound negative consequences. In addition to causing substantial damage to American-Saudi relations and provoking uproar among Muslims worldwide, the United States would further undermine its relations with the Muslim world, empower Iran and threaten regional stability. Let us hope that the United States chooses the path of justice and peace.

Nothing says humor than time-honored homage to the drunken, crack-takin' Methhead Mother-in-Law imitation.

Nothing gets an American's heart warmed like a threat from a third-rate punk, either -Get the $%^& outta here, before I gives you a crack.. Funny stuff.

You must have gone to Georgetown. They gave Clinton a sheepskin too.

Anyway Prince, thanks for the giggles. President Obama has Samantha Powers pissing in his ear and you may get your demands. Failure to veto this stupid and hateful crap document at the U.N. would put the final nail in his Administration's coffin.

Hey, have a great Arab Spring!

My Best to Al the Faisals at home or strip clubs here in the States.

We Band of Mothers Blog - Real Women for Real Men!

Really sexy and self-assured women shovel and know 'house-shorts.'

We Band of Mothers is a blog written by Marianne the wife of a Chicago Fireman. This is a Woman!

Marianne
Chicago, mom@webandofmothers.com
Once upon a time, I was a single gal, living in Lincoln Park, and judging all the women pushing around double strollers with Cheerios in their hair. I now have 3 sons, no paying job, and boogars wiped on every article of clothing I own. Help me.

Forget the selfish and self-absorbed hags of Sex in the City; they never did much for my inner lesbian. I like real women. I love real women! The author of We Band of Mothers provides an accurate picture of what it means to be a Real woman.

One of my favorite features of this brilliant blog is "Funny Things My Husband Says"
e.g. -Funny Things My Husband Says

I figure I should probably give a page over to some of the funny things that come out of my husband's mouth that could probably make up an entire blog (except he doesn't know how to type and can barely turn on the computer). I will continue to add to these as I remember things or as new material comes in. Friends and family are welcome to submit any of their favorite Joe-isms to mom@webandofmothers.com:


NEW! C'mon lady! (in the car at the ATM machine behind a particularly slow patron). It's not like you got to program the f*ckin' thing!

Why the f*ck is there braille on the toll booth? (driving to our friend's house up north)

A$$holes are a test from God. If you can get through life without killing one, you go to heaven.

An affair? (a suggestion I made during one of my paranoid-laced pregnancies). You think I'm having an AFFAIR? Like I need two of you in my life?

Every woman is crazy. It's just knowing full well how much crazy you can marry.

Tell the DJ (from our wedding) that if he plays one Rush song, he's not getting paid and I'm punching him in the face.

The only reason your friends think I'm grumpy is because you tell them I'm grumpy. I'm happy, goddammit.

This south side, St. Baranbas Parish bride of one lucky lad, exudes intelligence, warmth, and fierce indepedndence. That is sexy. The Prada and botox'd trout mouths who strut up and down North Michigan Ave. are sad things indeed. They seem so unhappy and uncomfortable in the skin God gave them.

Get a load of these babes! Pleasure yourselves in the world of Real Women.

Monday, September 12, 2011Sex & the City for the Target Crowd
It had been a long week. The school stuff. The bus stuff. The 10-year anniversary. So I did the only thing I could think of when Joe headed off to the firehouse Sunday morning: I got a sitter and called the girls: Atheist-Friend and BFF (I'm still working on a better blog moniker for her).

It was time for breather. Or a bender. I wasn't picky.


We decided on Champp's sports bar because (1) Atheist-Friend likes the salads there, (2) I like the Bears, and (3) BFF likes a good Long Island Iced Tea. A few beers and a 4-shot of Ibuprofen to kill my migraine did just the trick to ready me for our day ahead.

After lunch, we hit a litany of stores. Perhaps there are husbands out there who believe these shopping excursions are completely selfish in nature and designed to feed an insatiable desire for over-priced shoes. I am going to blow the lid off that stereotype right now. If anyone is interested in the truth behind the non-glamorous purchases middle-aged women make, keep reading:


Atheist-Friend

"House shorts" (Atheist-Friend told us she needed a pair for cleaning the house. We couldn't quite figure out what she was talking about until she showed us a pair. Apparently, they are just soft, comfy shorts that are way too inappropriate for a 40 year-old woman to wear in public. So they are relegated to in-house use only, hence the name.
Squash for some very odd macaroni and cheese recipe that Atheist-Friend found
A pack of Cottenelle wipes
A vat of pretzel pub mix for hubby
Clothes for daughter

BFF

A book on the mortuary arts
A pack of Swedish Fish (that I ate most of)

Me

House Shorts (because now I was just curious)



Jeans for Danny
The Jaycee Duggar biography
A new back-up hair dryer (the old back-up is out of play because our current hair dryer fizzled out today)
Rice Krispie Treats for the kids' lunches

There is so much more at this treasure trove of sexy feminity!

Click my post title for We Band of Mothers! God bless you,Marianne!

I Remember 9/12/2001 - Empty Skies

New Jersey's brilliant Empty Skies Memorial to 9/11


I live under the flight path of planes landing at Midway Airport. Planes approaching Chicago's municipal airport from the south east angle their way over my raised ranch on Rockwell. I believe that my home is a transportation hub. Twenty feet from my front window CSW coal cars and freight rumble and shake the foundation, but lull me and the kids to a gentle sleep.

The train vibrations cause seepage into the basement, but we sleep good. There is always a payoff in God's plan. Above us air traffic and in front of us America's fossil fuels and freight keep the nation vital and within the Hickey's enjoy a soul soothing white noise and vibrating beds that would cost us a lung at the better economy motels.

Ten years ago there was not a plane in the sky and it remained that way for months. The day after 9/11/2010 is what I remember to be the more frightening than the surreal and distant terrors that we only witnessed on television, or via the rumor mills on the information highway.

The sight of air traffic was a comfort, much like the rocking and rumble gratis the good folks at CSX. My kids have trouble sleeping away from home, believe it or not. Likewise, the empty skies made me nervous.

On Wednesday September 12th 2011, I needed to meet with a Leo patron in the Loop. I was used to seeing 747s fly past Sears Tower, the Hancock and the Standard Oil Buildings. That morning heading north of the Dan Ryan there was none of it. I kept the radio off.

In keeping with my transportation trope, trucks were banned. The Loop was on lock-down. Ten years ago one could find parking meters throughout the Loop, but on this day Chicago Police directed drivers to parking lots and there were no trucks.

There were no planes in the sky. I accustomed to the comforting sight of air traffic and the sight of contrails in the stratosphere. Pure blue skies. Void of traffic.

America was scared, but working. I had my meeting; returned to Leo and watched the kids board the bus for football practice at the Dan Ryan Woods.

It was going to be OK and it is.

I went out on my porch this morning as a CSX coal train rumbled by Cassa Hickey southbound and a fat Southwest Airlines plane stffed with travelers angled over my house. I went back inside and decided to write about this and then I will go to Leo High School, like I did ten years ago and later drive to the Loop. I am comforted.

Mark Madsen and Chicago's Jazz Soul - Ubi Sunt

Chicago used to be a great town for jazz. Politics and policy in Chicago chased great music out to the suburbs and odd enforcements and ordinances all but closed jazz venues for the sake of revenues and cash cows.

Great talents at the top of their game saw the departure of people like Jim "Skinny" Sheahan from the Mayor's Office of Special Events, and replaced by a cultural czarina who turned Chicago's stages from likes of Judy Roberts, Rich Daniels, Victor Parra and Mark Madsen to whirling Turkish Dance troupes wearing what looked like giant chefs hats and Ethiopian thumb pianists accompanied by gourd beaters. Jazz Venues closed quicker than a politician lies and hotels became the sole harbors for what passes for jazz.

Chicago Jazz musicians now scratch out some dollars in a town that once provided a living.

Last night at the Chambers in Niles, one such suburban jazz haven, featured not only the fabulous jazz guitarist/vocalist Frank D'Rone, but also a few of Chicago's best jazz artists Bassist John Bany, drummer Charles Braugham.and pianist/accordionist Don Stille. Frank D'Rone shared his show with his fellow artists for the second half of his show he and D'rone and the Chambers trio were joined by a brilliant flute master, a trumpeter and a harmonica rendition of Ruby.

Frank D'Rone is a gracious master of his art.

Vocalist the lovely Miss Terry Sullivan wowed the crowd with Lover Man. In an up-tempo trading of fours with the trio and featuring the great Frank D'Rone on guitar with masterful chops that eased back to Terry Sullivan.



The great Mark Madsen owned the house with a rendition of I'll Remember April. The poignancy of the loss of jazz due to decades of political booster cronyism in Chicago was reflected in Mark Madsen' phrasing and textured baritone that raised the spirit of Joe Williams himself. This one performance in a night of great presentations was like finding a diamond in a pile of gold coins.

Here is Mark Madsen with Rich Daniels and the Chicago City Lights orchestra performing for the McDonald's McVeterans Fund in 2008.



We lost much more than parking meters. Chicago sold our musical souls these last few decades.

This lovely day will lengthen into evening, we'll sigh goodbye to all we ever had.
Alone where we have walked together, I'll remember April and be glad.
I'll be content you loved me once in April.
Your lips were warm and love and spring were new.
I'm not afraid of autumn and her sorrow, for I'll remember April and you.
The fire will dwindle into glowing ashes, for flames live such a little while.
I won't forget but I won't be lonely, I'll remember April and smile.

Chicago Jazz is in the suburbs. Get to the Chambers in Niles.

6881 N. Milwaukee, Niles, IL 60714. 847-647-8282.

9/11 Stars and Stripes Forever Times Two

That much was clear from the appreciative response of the audience, estimated at 7,000. While not as quiet or enthusiastic as the Japanese crowds to whom the CSO recently played, the Chinese listened as if they had never heard an orchestra play as brilliantly, precisely or as loudly as this before. The applause was sufficient to recall Solti for three bows, after which he announced that for an encore the orchestra would perform a score ``totally unknown`` to them. That score turned out to be ``Stars and Stripes Forever,`` and, to judge by the number of Chinese I heard whistling John Philip Sousa as they filed out of the stadium, the all-American march was hardly unfamiliar.April 09, 1986|By John von Rhein, Music critic.Chicago Tribune

Music is the only thing to match the heroism and horror of that day.

9/11 Credible Threat - Round Up Them Yarmulke Wearing Hebes, Hillbillies and Fish Eaters

“It may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single-issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration,” DHS Capo - Janet "Big Sis" Napolitano -Tuesday, April 14, 2009 and, yet, she still has the job.

The Department of Homeland Security confirmed that it had information about a "specific, credible but unconfirmed threat," and the White House said President Obama was briefed Thursday morning and has been updated throughout the day.


“The president directed the counterterrorism community to redouble its efforts in response to this credible but unconfirmed information," a White House official told Fox News.

Step one - Send an apology to CAIR and the Ground Zero Mosque Folks


Step Two - Get the Yarmulke Wearin' Hebes ( per. Rev. Al Sharpton's dictum), Mackeral Snappers, Mountain Williams and all the unsophisticated Rubes who bowl, go to meeting or Mass of a Sunday, pay taxes, and welcome babies into our world under close watch -ASAP.

Outta about do it, Sis!

Barry Ain't No Harry and There's Hell to Pay.

I watched our President give, what I thought to be a petulant political speech, before the Greenbay Packers showed the nation what working men are all about. President Obama orchestrated a speech before a joint session of Congress and what looked like three foreign dignitaries.

I came away with an understanding that President Obama wants Congress to Pass the Jobs Bill right away.

Needless to say, the supine media cheerleaders at MSNBC likened the speech to President Harry Truman's 'Give 'em Hell' speech. Apples and lug nuts.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

You gotta love that 'sophisticated' belly scratch by Milky Matthews to lead off this 'sophisticated' dialogue.

And that, boys and girls, is what passes for 'sophisticated' analysis. Sans, historical sensibilities of course.

Harry Truman was the real deal. He became FDR's Vice-President in 1944, when it became clear that Henry Wallace the Progressive was more Red, than white or blue.

Henry Wallace is the father of the Democratic National Committee that controls the national narrative, by dint of lots of money, control of the media, academia and public service PACs that pretend to be real labor unions.

The spiritual children of Henry Wallace waited a very long time to grab control of the Democratic Party at the national level and will not let go easily.

The children of Harry Truman, Democrat, are confused. I know that I am so. I became less confused in 2004, when it was obvious that the Democratic Party was firmly in the grip of Wallace Progressives and John Kerry sail-boarded into Boston Harbor greeted by crowds of dowagers sporting pink I HAD AN ABORTION T-shirts and the XXXL Purple T-Shirts of Mandarin Andy Stern's SEIU.

The DNC ushered in my former Illinois State Senator, Springfield bunky of Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart, and United States Senator Barack H. Obama in that very convention. Obama wowed the crowd. Four years later, Obama was the nominee of the Democratic Party and President of the United States.

President Obama has fulfilled every obligation owed to the spirit of Progressive Henry Wallace, the ACLU, Planned Parenthood, and the public service PACs, that were anathema to Harry Truman.

Harry Truman was a combat veteran and a failed small business man. More importantly, Harry Truman was a dedicated machine politician, tutored by Kansas City boss Tom Pendergast, a Roman Catholic. Harry Truman was a Southern Baptist. The idea of a woman choosing to murder her unborn child was thought best left to the pagan Greek tragedians. Medea was a monster.

Harry Truman, as we all know, was not a sophisticate. Therefore, he could not parse truth. When he need to decide to drop an Atomic bomb, rather than have American mothers witness the slaughter of a generation of their sons by landing in Japan, Harry Truman pulled the trigger. He did not call in Navy Seal Team Six.

With victory came the tumultuous economic downturn linked to going from a wartime to peacetime economy, Harry Truman took the heat. Railroad workers, union men, did not go to fight fascism as they were needed here at home and were paid a pretty good wage transporting troops and war material. After the war, things slowed and so did overtime.

In the spring of 1946, a national railway strike, unprecedented in the nation's history, brought virtually all passenger and freight lines to a standstill for over a month. When the railway workers turned down a proposed settlement, Truman seized control of the railways and threatened to draft striking workers into the armed forces. While delivering a speech before Congress requesting authority for this plan, Truman received word that the strike had been settled on his terms. He announced this development to Congress on the spot and received a tumultuous ovation that was replayed for weeks on newsreels. Although the resolution of the crippling railway strike made for stirring political theater, it actually cost Truman politically: his proposed solution was seen by many as high-handed; and labor voters, already wary of Truman's handling of workers' issues, were deeply alienated

In the early 1960's, disciples of Henry Wallace forced the issue of organizing public service workers into unions. America was wealthy. What's a few tax dollars? They bumped the pay. What about pensions? No sweat!

By 2008, American labor was dominated by the public service employees. They were not the heroes of labor. They were not shot at the coal mines. Beaten and stabbed in Flint. The public service employees became labor, long after labor lost its industrial muscle. They were the labor loudmouths. They bullied the weak and bribed the ambitious elected officials with the threat or reward of votes and money.

The American economy sagged and collapsed.

Which brings us to last night's speech. Empty rhetoric and more taxes.

The sophisticated Wallace still controls the microphone, the megaphone, and the Teleprompter.

America could use a Harry Truman unsophisticated President, who has some skin in the game.

Mitt Romney's Hit to the Fence

Bendix was The Babe and Mitt played both last night!


I believe that people generally come to look like what they do for a living. English teachers look like English teachers; cops, cops; firemen, like smoke eaters; plumbers, like neurosurgeons.

Mitt Romney looks like a movie star, from the 1950's. Another star of that by-gone era, was William Bendix. Bendix could play a cab driver, a sailor, a cop, a stagecoach driver, a mob enforcer, a priest, or Babe Ruth. Mitt Romney would have been type-cast as jilted-lover, a playboy, the executive officer of a destroyer hunting a Nazi sub, the co-pilot of a Pan Am flight in a storm, or a movie star in a movie about Hollywood. Babe Ruth?

Newt Gingrich looked like Cliff Arquette, the Old Charlie Weaver character





Michele Bachmann played Polly Bergen without the sex appeal






Rick Perry was Jack Palance






Hermain Cain was the handsome, tough dependable black guy in all the old Korean War movies James Edwards






Jon Huntsman was Speedy Alkaseltzer





Ron Paul again chewing up the scenery as Pa Kettle






Rick Santorum played Jimmy Olsen, again.


I watched the GOP debate expecting the sleep-inducing platitudes and mild gottchas, but was delighted to see Mitt Romney not only play the Bambino, but gesture his bat to the far fence and knock one over the cheap seats and out into Armour Park.

Mitt morphed into William Bendix as The Babe, after helping Jack Palance up after a huge group beat-down over his Texas Med Mandate with this -

Right now, we have people who on this stage care very deeply about this country. We love America. America is in crisis. We have some differences between us, but we agree that this president’s got to go. This president is a nice guy. He doesn’t have a clue how to get this country working again

It's Outta Here!

If Rick Perry is to keep up with Mitt he needs to shed Jack Palance and become Ward Bond. Ward Bond trumps William Bendix 24/7!

I still hope Ava Gardner walks on stage - not even Ward Bond can upstage that beauty.
Sarah Palin is Ava Gardner with Judy Holliday's voice, God help her.

UPdate - "I wish Sarah Palin had Ava Gardner's smoky voice, I think that's what will ultimately kill Sarah Palin's chances, is her high pitched screechy voice. I love everything Sarah says, just can't stand listening to it." Chicago Renaissance Man and cinema auteur Mike Houlihan wishes that Gov. Palin's voice could match the smoky allure of Miss Gardner. Alas, take what God provides, Michael.

Joel Kotkin Holds a Mirror to California and We See Illinois

Gov. Pat Quinn is one hobbled donkey.

CHICAGO -- Gov. Pat Quinn said Tuesday that he plans major spending cuts, including layoffs, as he tries to keep state government running within the tight budget sent to him by Illinois legislators.

Quinn would provide no details about the scope of the cuts. Asked if thousands of state employees could lose their jobs, he said, "We have to do what we have to do."

Forbes Magazine

Gov. Quinn's Labor Day must have been a sobering one, or maybe not. He's got a few years left and Lt. Gov. Sheila Simon has his back. Dr. Quentin Young, Planned Parenthood, SEIU, Sierra Club, Dawn Clark Netsch, Terry Cosgrove and every civil union, and of course TaxaPalozza's Ralphie Martire is always armed with pie charts to keep the Illinois peasantry quiet with platitudes and promises. Gov. Quinn stayed away from Labor Day marches and celebrations, because he had some really bad news - lay-offs are coming and it is THEIR fault.

THEIR (THE HAPPY ELECTORATE OF ILLINOIS REGULARS) consists of anyone and anything. Well, me for example. I voted for Pat Quinn. I was happy to help Pat Quinn, Catholic League guy with a compelling narrative of personal thrift and devotion to the working guy.

I knew better. Pat Quinn is hobbled by the powerful interests that got him elected. It was long dusty road to the Governor's Mansion. Pat Quinn mowed his own lawn, while George Ryan hired kids from Greenwood Street in Kankakee. Pat Quinn buried his 'personal opposition to abortion' in favor of his very public support of a Woman's right to choose to kill her unborn child. Pat Quinn saw the rise of public service unions as adding votes and not subtracting tax-dollars from Illinois' once robust middle class. Pat Quinn agreed Green every step of the way and drank gallons of Andy Stern's SEIU Purple Kool-Aid.

I remember when one of the parents of a couple of my students in Kankakee was vigorously organizing State, County and Municiple clerks into one of the one big unions, shortly after AO Smith, Roper and other industries left Kankakee County. He argued that getting clerks, secretaries, go-fers and others into a public sector union would build an army of voters.

Skilled trades and indutrial unions were all about cutting a trail to the middle class by dint of skills acquired and voctional advancement. SEIU changed all of that.
An unskilled worker was paid not by a standard collective bargaining agreement between a union and a private manager, but via legislation that is politically goaded. Vote this way and get support. That worker's dues were subtracted from his State, County, City, or State funded hospital, school district, or whatever paycheck.
Those dues went back to the one big union. The SEIU janitor remained a janitor and was doled out benefits after the right legislative session. The SEIU janitor is yet a janitor.

Pat Quinn the Governor is about to lay off that long serving janitor. Pat Quinn is the Governor looking for nickels in my basement couch. They're not there. I used them to buy Illinois ethanol gas at Kean.

Demographer and scholar Joel Kotkin has been the Jeremiah of economic disaster coming at the hands of the Progressive Philistines for years.

California's Progressive Template Governor Jerry Brown is Pat Quinn writ large.

Here's what he has going on:

In its modern origins California was paean to progress in the best sense of the word. In 1872, the second president of the University of California, Daniel Coit Gilman, said science was "the mother of California." Today, California may worship at the altar of science, but increasingly in the most regressive, hysterical, and reactionary way.

California's dominant ruling class—consisting of public-employee unions, green jihadis, and Democratic machine politicians—has no real use for science as Gilman saw it: as a way to create prosperity for its citizens. Instead, the prevailing credo of the state has been how to do everything possible to return to its pre-settlement condition, with little regard for what that means to the average Californian.

Nowhere was California's old technological ethos more pronounced than in agriculture, where great Californians such as William Mulholland, creator of the Los Angeles Aqueduct, and Pat Brown, who forged the state water project, created the greatest water-delivery system since the Roman Empire. Their effort brought water from the ice-bound Sierra Nevada mountains down to the state's dry but fertile valleys and to the great desert metropolis of Southern California. Now, largely at the behest of greens, California agriculture is being systematically cut down by regulation. In an attempt to protect a small fish called the Delta smelt, upward of 200,000 acres of prime farmland have been idled, according to the state's Department of Conservation. Even in the current "wet" cycle, California's agricultural industry, which exports roughly $14 billion annually, is slowly being decimated. Unemployment in some Central Valley towns tops 30 percent, and in cases even 40 percent. . . . Of course, the self-described "progressive" mafia that runs California will point to Silicon Valley and its impressive array of startups. But for the most part, firms like Google, Twitter, and Facebook employ only a small cadre of highly educated workers. Overall, during the past decade the state's high-tech employment fell by almost 4 percent, while Texas's science-based employment grew by a healthy 11 percent. The sad reality is that turning T-shirt-wearing kids like Mark Zuckerberg into multibillionaires doesn't do much to reduce unemployment, which even in San Jose—the largely blue-collar "capital" of Silicon Valley—now hovers around 10 percent.

Magazine cover stories and movies cannot obscure the fact that entrepreneurial growth—the state’s most critical economic asset—has now stalled. In fact, according to a study by Economic Modeling Specialists Inc., last year the Golden State ranked 50th among the states in creating new businesses.

California remains rich in promise, home to spectacular scenery; a great Pacific location; leading firms like Apple and Disney; and a still-impressive residue of talented, diverse, entrepreneurial, and ingenious people. But the state will never return until the success of the current crop of puerile billionaires can be extended to enrich the wider citizenry. Until the current regime is toppled, California's decline—in moral as well as economic terms—will continue, to the consternation of those of us who embraced it as our home for so many years.

Illinois is the reflection of California. Take a good look. I quit THEIR, here.



http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2011/09/06/general-il-illinois-budget_8661451.html

Pope Asinus Lardum I -Gaudeamus Habemus Papam!

“Human life begins when the fetus can survive outside the womb, . . .
“Some people, I guess, just like to be the uterus police, the bossypants of other women’s reproductive parts. And that has always struck me as really, really weird.” from the Washington Post

Pope Asinus Lardum I (Michael Moore) Progressive Pontifex Maximus

Glad he could straighten that out, in between bites.

Joseph Epstein and Some Literary Lives Not Worth the Trouble

I was working as a janitor at Orchestra Hall, while I attended Loyola University in Chicago between 1970-1974. They were the Solti years. I soaked in the greatest and most soul stirring music by the most disciplined and finest craftsmen in the musical arts.

Whenever the symphony rehearsed or performed the maintenance staff was like the crew of submarine being pinged by an enemy destroyer. Silent running. No vacuums; no noise; no grab-assing! Though we were all union members of Elevator Operators, Janitors, Electricians, Painters, Stage Hands and Stationary Engineers unions, violating the silence could get one tossed from the job.

During those times and many others I studied.

Like the music I soaked in Ruskin, Chaucer, Bacon, Wordsworth, Bellow, Bashevis Singer, O'Connor, Tolstoy and Turgenev. The professors at Loyola, Jesuit and Lay shaped the study to good effect. One of the more difficult authors in the entire canon of English studies, for me anyway was Thomas Carlyle and of his works Sartor Resartus the most difficult.

The work originally was a series of offerings found in Fraser's Magazine that purported to be philosophical commentaries on the life and works of Diogenes Teufelsdröckh whose development of the philosophy of clothes was to have been a very big deal. It wasn't and that was the joke. Carlyle being a lowland Scot was about as funny as a Quaker on Valium.

What I took away from the work was the very real understanding that literary artists could be absolute drips, crabs, bigots, bores and humbugs. I would wish to spend time with the living breathing Thomas Carlyle as I would with Studs Terkel. Both gents are asleep with Kings and Counsellors and in a very good place - for all of us.

I love to read and I like to read people who remind me of my better professors - the men and women who soaked themselves in their disciplines. While I was a high school teacher, I worked to be a better teacher by reading and subscribing to the better literary journals. One of the best was American Scholar edited by America's Montaigne -Joseph Epstein. it was in the pages of American Scholar where I discovered Gary Saul Morson who defended literary criticism fro the waves of fashionable idiots like Noam Chomsky. Morson, like Epstein taught at Northwestern, is a brilliant Tolstoy scholar. I am a Thackeray geek; Tolstoy was as well; therefore the connection of interest.

Morson and Editor essayist Epstein are fierce defenders of the humanities and the unifying purpose of art and politics. They confound the Marxists and Semiotic Totalitarians who have dominated literary discourse and academic studies for far too long.

The American Scholar is no more, but Joseph Epstein whirls his pen dervishly in defence of the literary arts.

Joseph Epstein is the "Retailor of the tailors" to use Carlyle's translation for his dense satire. I subscribe to the purportedly Jewish magazine Commentary, as much because Joseph Epstein proses there regularly as anything else.

Last month, Epstein took a look at the literary critic Alfred Kazin, whom, like Noam Chomsky - the Rodney Dangerfield of the Humorless, everyone worships, but no one reads. Here is a Fun Size bite of Joseph Epstein:

The writers Kazin most strongly admired were William Blake​ and Ralph Waldo Emerson and Simone Weil and Jean-Paul Sartre, advocates of life intensely lived but with an emphatically preacherly vein added. Kazin resembled them all in never being in doubt about his own superior rectitude. He thought himself an American Orwell, his heart always in the right place and keen to take up a position in what used to be known as “the third camp,” scorning, that is, Communists and anti-Communists alike. “I have never recovered from the thirties or wanted to,” he wrote in Writing Was Everything. “A son of the immigrant working class whose parents were tortured by poverty, I hardly needed the depression to be suspicious of moneyed power, or to see that in this society money is the first measure of all things and the only measure of many—or to learn for myself that there is no way in America of being honorably poor.”

Kazin preferred to think himself a writer rather than a critic. But in his noncritical writing, without a book or author to intervene between him and the reader, his personality comes through and putrefies everything with his self-righteous sourness. Like Emerson and Thoreau, he was a blatantly self-approving writer, and the strong element of confidence about his own virtue spoils much of what he wrote apart from his criticism, including his autobiographies.

The first of these, A Walker in the City, which in his Journals he refers to as “my Walker poem” and “a fable of youth, sweetness, and search,” today feels overwrought, overwritten, straining for lyricism: “Somewhere below they were roasting coffee, handling spices—the odor was in the pillars, in the battered wooden planks of the promenade beneath my feet, in the blackness upwelling from the river.” Lots of such passages occur in a book that often reads as if written by Walt Whitman bloated on matzah brei. The other two volumes of Kazin’s autobiography are blighted by Kazin’s need to score off enemies, left and right, real and imagined. Remove these portions about his enemies and the books go up in smoke.

( emphasis my own! Matzah Brei - is Jewish Scrapple sans pork)

You can soak up Joseph Epstein by clicking my post title. If Studs Terkel is a "Chicago Treasure" he is surely in his proper place, now; Joseph Epstein is readily available. Thank God!

Explosion Rocks My World - Fire at Fabled Franconello's

Photo Det. Shaved
A phone call after 11 P.M. is never good news. My daughters went to the Carrie Underwood concert at Ravinia with their Aunt Gail last night. Nora dropped off Clare at 11:30 P.M. and headed home - kids all accounted for. Early this morning, Nora called and left me this message -"There were fire trucks and cop cars all over Western at 103rd last, when I went home. I wonder what happened." I found out up at Kean Gas when I got my coffee; I could not be more sickened unless I were awakened at the sound of 'Well Good morning, darling. . .' and the sight of Chaz Bono's head on the pillow opposite to mine.

Tragedy. A gas fire erupted at the best restaurant south of Heart of Italy -Franconellos.

By William Lee
Tribune reporter
9:35 a.m. CDT, September 5, 2011

A suspected gas leak sparked an explosion that ripped through an Italian eatery in the West Beverly neighborhood on the city's South Side, officials said this morning.

No injuries were reported in the blaze at Franconello Italian Restaurant, 10220 S. Western Ave. The blaze was called in about 11:57 p.m. Sunday and was struck out by fire crews within 20 minutes authorities said.

The blaze caused heavy fire and structural damage to the building, leading to the collapse of a south wall on the structure's second floor, according to the Chicago Fire Department.

Fire officials suspected the fire was caused by a gas explosion, but fire investigators hadn't pinpointed the cause, officials said.

A representative with Peoples Gas couldn't be reached for comment this morning.

First opening in fall 1993, the restaurant was a partnership between friends Frank Russallo and Nello Sabatina, who combined their names to come up with the restaurant's name.

The friends took a former lawn equipment shop and transformed it into a slick, yet family-friendly restaurant known for its pastel and mauve tones, open kitchen and bottles of fresh oil that adorned every table.

Neither owner could be reached for comment.

wlee@tribune.com

Twitter: @MidNoirCowboy

Franconello's is a happy place, where family and friends throng the tables sagging under the weight of the portions. The staff are the friendliest people. Singer and beauty Susan Tunney is one of my favorite waitresses and owner Nello is the Beverly Uncle hosting the party seven days a week.

The food is magnificent.

I hope the loss is temporary.

Happy Labor Day! Old Merle has it Covered

Merle Haggard and the Strangers sum up the nature of it all . . ." 'long as his two hands are fit to use."



God Bless All Who Labor!