Catholic Schools, Charlottesville and The Idiot in the Classroom

One encounters very few 'idiots' in Catholic high schools.  They are led away from folly or disciplined to control their impulses.

Go to any Catholic high school next week.  Really.  Pop in on one. Go to the Office and make your presence known and listen.   You will be astounded by the . . . quiet.

Catholic schools succeed because they are free, for the most part, of idiotic policies that do nothing to help young people learn to master literature, history, math, science,music, art and theology.   The best Catholic schools have empty halls during class periods and the 36 or so actively engaged males and/or females are being engaged by someone with a command of the discipline being taught.

More than often, in single gender and many co-ed Catholic schools, those teachers also coach most of the sports and moderate the extra-curricular clubs and activities.  That is even more conducive to classroom management, because the young people engage the instructor 'beyond the classroom walls' and learn that the guy in the tie, was also struggling to get both legs over the high hurdles, while maintaining a B+ average, working part-time and coping with adolescence.   Shared goals and sweat make easy alliances and seed respect.

Catholic schools are diverse, but not daffy about it.  I have yet to witness a Selma moment at Bishop McNamara, Bishop Noll, or Brother Rice High School.  In 21 years at Leo High School, situated in Auburn Gresham and south edge of Englewood, I watched a dozen white boys from suburbs and Canaryville USA bond with hundreds of black gents from Englewood, Brainerd, Gresham, Chatham, and Grand Crossing.  The Canaryville guys took the Halsted bus from 79th to the Ville without incident, when the school vans were unavailable for transport home.  Two dozen Mexican Americans fared even better.  One white boy graduated from Leo and of the dozen or so Mexican lads, one graduated as a Gates Scholar.

There were dust ups.  The "N" word was used, back and forth in the more heated debates over Hip-Hop artists, Hillbilly music and places in the offensive line.   Some times words came to blows and both colors sat in detention,  " That Irish N@##eer ( redhead from St. Gabe's) said Vic Mensa's from O Street!!!!!   N@##ah' stays near 62nd & Stony Island. "

Such distinctions are very important to sophomore age male egos.

At Brother Rice there was even less attention made to skin and more to ego and placement in the upcoming football line-up.  One Blue-chip African American junior stands 5'6" and already has D-One colleges asking for the diminutive but elusive Seniors season highlight disc and his arch-enemy  a 6'4" offensive lineman and Blue-chip wrestler will challenge one another in every class they over ability, toughness, endurance and appeal to the fair sex.

That is the reality of American racism that I see most days.

Here is what the delicate creatures of the Chicago Tribune editorial board announce, having wached cable news for three days of coverage on the idiots and blood shed in Charlottesville, Virgini, "America does have a problem with racism, with anti-Semitism and many other forms of bigotry and intolerance. That's no secret. The question Americans must confront every day is how will they respond." Bruce Dold et al. 

The Tribune's application of the modal auxiliary assures all and sundry - America has a problem with race . . .and with Anti-Semtism ( when conflated by Zionism, Gaza, Palestinians, neo-Stalinist rhetorical flourishes, or matters of policy).

No. Charlottesville this week was a gathering of idiots left and right with an emphasis on right.

Charlottesville and Chicago Tribune editorials concerning race relations should be treated the same way a good Catholic high school teacher/coach treats someone's cherished and darling nitwit, attention demanding idiot and sophomoric time assassin - chided and isolated with warm sarcasm, until he gets with the program, " Mr. Hickey, our discussion concerns analyzing Steinbeck's monster metaphor from chapter five of The Grapes of Wrath, join us or spend some quality with Kenny moving tables for the Circle of Champions over the next two Saturdays."

The Class was not inattentive.  Hickey was an idiot . . .again. Let us not dwell on idiots, let us learn that Banks to Steinbeck were like the living dead - zombies with an insatiable appetite for human beings.

Racism : "[t]he theory that distinctive human characteristics and abilities are determined by race"  was only used by a human being for the first time in 1930's by Communist, abortion and gay activist Magnus Hirschfeld.

That is the root of the term.  What it truly means is something else and I do not believe that I have witnessed overt acts racism anywhere, but by a few idiots on television.  I used to see Nazi dress-up losers on Kedzie at 63rd Street but they seem to have disappeared.

Lives matter.  Tiki torches not so much.

Go to any Catholic high school and watch lives being lived and one or two malleable idiots getting straightened out.

Game of Thrones and Theology: Varys and St. Callistus I

“Power resides where men believe it resides. It’s a trick. A shadow on the wall. And a very small man can cast a very large shadow.” Varys -Game of Thrones

It is matter of doubt, moreover, to no one, that the church of the apostles is the mother of all the churches, from whose ordinances it is not right that you should deviate to any extent. St. Callistus I

 Game of Thrones (GOT), like many good dramas from John Ford's 17th Century blood-tragedy T'is Pity She's a Whore to Deadwood, offer pot-holed paths to God.  

This is a Vale of Tears and so is HBO's Westeros.   As if things are not normally bad enough, Winter is Coming, or Here Already: GOT's Army of the Dead is on the march and our Kardasian Kultur is trying to get its head around Kim Jong Un.  Obama NSA Chief Susan Rice says, “History shows that we can, if we must, tolerate nuclear weapons in North Korea — the same way we tolerated the far greater threat of thousands of Soviet nuclear weapons during the Cold War,”  I mean, Dennis Rodman likes him and Seth Rogan made a movie about how funny he is - what's Trump's problem? Leave him alone.

Back to our fictional world of Westeros and one its more interesting characters - Varys.

Varys, AKA The Spider, is a former slave, eunuch and sorcerer's apprentice who ammassed political power and position by becoming a One Man Drudge Report - Varys gets the News before it is fit to print and acts accordingly.  He is the ultimate City Hall insider of any City he happens to glide through.  With venom and honey, Varys proves that knowledge is power, until knowledge shifts.  Enemies like Little Finger and the goatish old Grand Maester Pycelle.

Varys, like so many Mandarins at City Hall, the County Buildin, or the White House, uses information to remain viable, necessary and alive.   Most people find these deep state types - off-putting. Truth becomes an expendable expedient with them and they come up with convenient 'truths' like Chicago Values.

Varys reveals himself to be a very good hearted Mandrin.  Varys wants peace, justice and order and will create chaos to bring this about, all the while doing what he can to protect the brilliant and ethical dwarf Tyrion Lannister, as well as dim Samsa Stark.

Sexually ambiguous, Varys has flocks of "little birds'  orphans and street urchins who are his information highway and to whom he owes much of his power.

Most of the people of Kings' Landing assume he satisfies his desires with his "little birds" but this seems unlikely as Varys has never shown any malice or desire towards his spies, and he has himself stated that he would never seek to harm a child. Varys admits that, after his castration, he did sell himself sexually for a while in his struggle to survive the slums of Essos. However, he took no enjoyment from it- and, after witnessing so much cruelty take place in Westeros and Essos as a result of desire, he claims to be relieved that he can no longer experience it.

That is a core quality.  Core qualities, like core truths are anathema to the current secular PC morality, driven by class envy, race hate, gender victimization and academic fraudulence.   Core truth is was brings human being together and ultimately to God.

At the turn of the 2nd Century AD,  there lived a Roman slave by the name of Callistus.  He was brilliant and his master put him charge of a bank.   Like the Gospel of Matthew ( 25:14-30), Callistus invested 'creatively' seeking to increase his master's wealth and that of bank clients.  Unlike the gospel message, things did not pan-out for Callistus.

The bank went bust and Callistus tried to make things good by getting the people he made bad loans to pay up, he incited a riot at a synagogue was sentenced to the mines - Sixteen tons and deeper in debt.

With bribes and broken promises Callistus weasled his way out of the mines and found work tending the Christian cemetaries for Pope Zephyrinus, not the brightest Pontiff in the drawer.  Soon Callistus became an Archdeacon and Bishop, much to anger of right-living ecclesiastical pharisses like the historian Tertullian and anti-Pope Hippolytus, both contempraries hated his guts and wrote his obituaries:

During the subsequent reign of Pope Zephyrinus, Callistus became a deacon and the caretaker of a major Roman Christian cemetery (which still bears his name as the “Cemetery of St. Callistus”), in addition to advising the Pope on theological controversies of the day. He was a natural candidate to follow Zephyrinus, when the latter died in 219.
Hippolytus, an erudite Roman theologian, accused Pope Callistus of sympathizing with heretics, and resented the new Pope's clarification that even the most serious sins could be absolved after sincere confession. The Pope's assertion of divine mercy also scandalized the North African Christian polemicist Tertullian, already in schism from the Church in Carthage, who also erroneously held that certain sins were too serious to be forgiven through confession.
Considered in light of this error, Hippolytus' catalogue of sins allegedly “permitted” by Callistus – including extramarital sex and early forms of contraception - may in fact represent offenses which the Pope never allowed, but which he was willing to absolve in the case of penitents seeking reconciliation with the Church.
Even so, Callistus could not persuade Hippolytus' followers of his rightful authority as Pope during his own lifetime. The Catholic Church, however, has always acknowledged the orthodoxy and holiness of Pope St. Callistus I, particularly since the time of his martyrdom – traditionally ascribed to an anti-Christian mob - in 222. 

Callistus was a generous soul who forgave human frailty, but was resolved to bring all Christians together.

Like Varys, Callistus was sneered at and slighted by his less talented rivals.  Both men were born slaves, suffered many indignities, served cruel masters and retained their core virtues and lived for others.

Game of Thrones is a fine Cliffs Notes aid to learning how to get back to God,  Winter is  Coming.

 

Game of Thrones is Theology

Two of my favorite characters from Game of Thrones - Arya and The Hound

I love the HBO series Game of Thrones. This fantasy medieval Continent of Westeros is peopled by folks like us.  Like our world and its history, Westeros is place where vice, betrayal, incest, sodomy, devil worship, megalomania and brute force appears to clear the way for a seat on the Iron Throne.

That is the basic appeal, for me anyway.  The worst of us always seem to avoid cancer, heartbreak, neglect, disappointment, favor and position.  The best around us seem to die too young, bear burdens unimaginable, pay the checks and receive scorn for their best efforts.  Just like life in Westeros.

The Captain of the State Championship Football team diddles his sister, murders the kid next door and is appointed by the Ward Committeeman to stand for the Cook County Board.

Just like here.  There are a few good people in public office, (name two) but there are more dummies, grifters, power junkies and cowards smiling over the crowd of hapless helots passing out their palm cards at the polling places every election.

If all of this seems rather depressing to you, it should not.

Life is not Sesame Street, it is more like Westeros, whether we live in Cook County, Pyongyang, or Kenebunkport.

Oprah, the Frugal Gourmet, Phil Donahue, NPR, Bill Moyers Barack Obama and The View numbed us for decades that we should all worship ourselves.

Game of Thrones, like Deadwood, Boardwalk Empire, the Wire and other cable dramas appear to have snapped us out of our stupor.

We are not all that important. The world is a Vale of Tears, get over yourself.

We are all redeemable - St. Augustine, Mary Magdalene, Ignatius Loyola, St. Olga of Kiev, Mary of Eygpt, St. Dismas and St. Callsitus, the Whitey Bulger of Rome all managed to turn things around before their obituaries were written.

We are all lovable to other people - even Donald Trump, even Cercei Lannister.

The great Chicago writer John Kass is a huge fan of Game of Thrones.  He recently challenged me to give some examples of " stone cold killers " and crooks who salvaged their souls, like the delightfully thuggish Hound - a knight without pity, but great sense of irony.

This beast serving cruel masters has made an ocean of blood from his victims, some of whom offered him a place on a cold night and the last of their food.  The Hound breakfasted by slaughtering the widower and his daughter. " They would not survive the winter," is his summation to the little girl the brute has saved from his cruel masters.

The little girl is a fierce Arya Stark,, who now appears to be more dangerous than Hound ever dreamed he could be.

John Kass is worried that this girl is now too far gone.

Nope.  Game of Thrones and the above mentioned dramas are at core theology lessons.  Theology draws us back to God, once we have re-hab-ed our way out of the delusion that we are god.  To quote Oprah, “The more you praise and celebrate your life, the more there is in life to celebrate.” ― Oprah Winfrey

Worked for the delusional Walt Whitman as well.  Celebrate yourself!  Then what?

God gave us everything.  What do we do with health, finance, family, home, friendships, or integrity?  Do we cave in to "what the heart wants?"  Yep.  More often than not, we do.  Our faith, if we were ever rooted in one, might get us to snap out the need to celebrate ourselves - to be the very bestest me there is - and actually lend a hand to the work around us.

Some of us might become Whitey Bulger, or Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

Some few of us might even become a Cardinal George, or a Gertrude Weil.

Most of us live in Flea Bottom, join the Lannister Army, or as Wildings. Some of us advance like the Onion Knight, Ser Davos Seaworth, the perfect model of working man, or the Bastard Jon Snow and find ouselves confronting our worst nightmares as well as pure human villainy.

The bad guys might win, the crumbs might have more in their checking account balances, but soldiering on and taking stock of lives and wondering if there is a right side to history, or whether God's plan includes your future comfort and good fortune are the very things that unite us. We are not 'special, entitled, or vital to life's path.'  We are here and that is good enough.

It took our culture decades to erase God.  It takes time to realize that fact and that God is not going anywhere.

Game of Thrones is not for children.  Game of Thrones is a theology test.

The Hound, Jamie Lannister, Arya Stark and even Little Finger can be redeemed.

Tomorrow, I shall talk about St. Callistus, a slave, an embezzler, a gang-leader, a cut-throat and back-slider who became Pope and a Martyr.

Go to church on Sunday and watch Game of Thrones.

More Than Kankakee County Fair, Lamancha Goats, Odd-Ball Bunnies and a Crab Cake BLT at the Longbranch in L'Erable, Illinois

"The goal that I aimed at in breeding American La Manchas was a breed that was able to produce 3½ to six quarts of fine-flavored milk with 3.5% or more butterfat over a period of one to four years between freshenings. They should have the w-way wedge body, strong legs well-placed, udders well-attached, both front and back, good barrel, short sleek hair, any color or combination of colors, horned or hornless, and head the size of Toggenburgs." Mrs. Eula Fay Frey American Breeder 1958. 

Pretty fair day at the Kankakee County Fair. The lightest of rains and the happiest of Americans celebrating the talents and the industry of future farmers, homemakers and patriots.

I love County Fairs.  They are generally free of political nonsense and all of the manure is produced by Beef and Dairy Cattle, swine, rabbits, fowls, shoe horses and the patter of the Carnies.

Kankakee County Fair is one of the best there is and so after 8:30 Mass at Sacred Heart Church in Morgan Park, the elegant Miss Sullivan and I motored south on 57 to Illinois Route 17 west for a breakfast at the legendary Blue's Cafes, where the prettiest woman and the homeliest men dine on real food. 

Then a trip down Wall Street and east to Route 52 South and Fair Grounds.

I parked at the very heel of the east lot, knowing that by mid afternoon the grounds would be jammed with cars, SUVS, Hill Billy Cadillacs and Customized Classics.  A $ 20 fee admits one and all for a daily visit, but you can purchase a $ 25 full term admission and opening day was only a Buck ($1).

The Fair Grounds is operated by a Board of Volunteers and offers use of the 87 acre facility not only for the Annual Kankakee County Fair, but also for weddings, concerts and races.   The grounds and its mission to promote American agriculture are on target.

This jaded urbanite learned to love the life rustic, when I taught at Bishop McNamra High School from 1975-1988.  Kankakee is the center of Illinois French Heritage and all of the surrounding townships south through Iroquois County reflect that influence.  Towns like Beaverville, Papineau, Martinon, St. Anne, St. George and Bourbonnais are steeped in French Canadian culture, dating back to the 1840's, when Pastor Chiniquy, the Pastor Michael Pfleger of his times, lured thousands of French Canadians to Illinois. Charles Chiniquy is only American Catholic heretic and schismatic, so far.  Most of the people remained faithful to the Catholic Church and a few families formed the Chiniquy Presbyterians, until the Presbyterians kicked them out.

I married a girl of French ancestry - Mary Cleary. Her Mom's family were from St. George and spoke French in the home; they were Duvals and Fortins.

The French farmed the best soil in Illinois and the Kankakee County Fair reflects that.

Upon entry to he fair grounds, the sponsors ( Case, John Deere, Mahindra, Oliver and tractors, discs and rakes) greeted the crowd. We would watch these brands compete in the Tractor Pull.

Then on to the livestock sheds!

Now, I have been to over thirty County Fairs, five Kentucky Derbies and eight hog call contests, but I have never seen anything like this weird looking son of a bitch. This blue ribbon winner from 7th grader Ms. Buente of Bonfield 4-H takes the prize with me too.

Not to be out done for strange the Lamancha goat was the next eye-brow raising exhibit.  Miss Sullivan lingered among the feathered contestants cockadoodle-doing up a cacophony only matched by Lalapalooza.  "They're birds for Crissakes."  Nasty, smelly foul tempered birds.  I hung with the swine.

Then lured Miss Sullivan to the goat pens and Lamancha goats. I learned about the Lamnacha goats from the Grand Prize Winner ( who asked to be nameless here) from Chebanse, "These are dairy goats and have been bred so.  Spanish goats from LaMancha produced great, high fat milk and they had remarkably short ears - gopher ers. But this is an American breed going back to 1958.  The ideal is to breed the shortest to non-existent ears."

I had always assumed that the ears had been cropped - I learned something yesterday.

The Sheep, the beef cattle and visiting African Leopard all took a backseat to the looming Tractor Pull.  The leopard was part of a Wild Animal menagerie for the little guys, but I loved watching the big cat nail chicken thighs.

That gal could eat!

Now, the tractor pull - To the uninitiated this sport appears rather odd.  To the initiated it is, but really fun, noisy and captivating. Here are the basics: "All tractors in their respective classes pull a set weight in the sled. When a tractor gets to the end of the 100 metre track, this is known as a "full pull". When more than one tractor completes the course, more weight is added to the sled, and those competitors that moved past 300 feet will compete in a pull-off; the winner is the one who can pull the sled the farthest."

Here is last year's event!    



This is yesterday's pull

This John Deere entry failed badly - barely hitting 200 feet.   I sent to purchase "the smallest scoop of strawberry ice cream in a Belgian waffle cone and a very small cup of water."  Dutifully, I succeeded in the former and failed miserably at the later.  The girls from Georgetown, Illinois looked at me like I had never eaten a funnel cake, when I asked for the water.  As if!!!!

It was time to stretch our legs and enjoy the wonders of the midway. Being a veteran Dad, I delighted in not going to any of the many ATM machines strategically positioned all along the midway rides and gaming booths.

Having spent the equivalent of a year's tuition at St. Ignatius College Prep, over the years of fatherhooding three wonderful children on carnival rides, duck ponds and darts, I declined the offers to give it a try and watched scores of Happy Pappies dig out the debit cards.

Our day was done at the Fair!  Now, it was time to dine À la manière de nos ancêtres français.  We were off to L'Erable and the fabled Longbranch Saloon.

L'Erable, Illinois is south of Kankakee in Iroquois County east of Clifton at the County Road junctions of 2400 S and 1500 E. Ashkum Township and is identified by St. John The Baptist Catholic Church and the Longbranch.

  It is in unincorporated

The Longbranch has always been a great place for food and drink, but 3rd Generation owners: Nick & Lindsay Bohn have brought more pizazz to the menu with Cajun Shrimp & Andouille Pasta, Steak Parmesan and Prime Rib done to perfection.

The bar is welcoming and if you don't care for IPA you ordered on friend's recommendation, a chilled bottle of whatever else you like is uncapped and poured in a cold glass with so much as a raised eyebrow.

I had the CrabCake BLT -  Miss Sullivan Longbranch Burger We took restorative stroll to the Church and its War Memorial before heading north to Chicago.

Miss Sullivan dozed contentedly as I rode the speed limit through the soybeans and tall corn to 111th Street.  I dozed not all but delighted in a more than fair day.

The Mystery Lingers: Was Wyndham Lathem a Test Tube Baby? Where's He From, for Crissake?

Early life[edit]
Wyndham Lathem was born August 10, 1974.[1] He completed his AB in biology at Vassar College (1992-96). He was a research technician at Rockefeller University from 1996 to 1998 in the laboratory of James E. Darnell, Jr. He earned his PhD from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in microbiology (2003) in the laboratory of Rod Welch.[2]  Wikpedia 8/06/2017

Wyndham Lathem was born.  Was he?  Was he really? Where exactly?

Before his Vasser ( one of the elite Seven Sisters until 1969) years, did young Wyndham have any social, educational, or civic intercourse with other carbon footprints?

The only place offering any bit of information on this Northwestern University plague hunter, who took to the streets on the Day of Science Baby Finger Poke in Trump's Eye, is Heavy - another Top Story website.

At least on these pages, as opposed to Northwestern University, The Chicago Tribune, DNAinfo Chicago and the always daffy Sun Times, someone took to the time offer some background on the  alleged Ted Bundy of Evanston.

We know something about the other suspect, Oxford bean counter Andrew Warren:

 Warren Worked in Payroll for a College That Is Part of Oxford University
Both Warren and Lathem work for prominent universities; Professor Lathem was a researcher into the “Black Death” plague at Northwestern, and Warren was linked to Oxford.
It’s not yet clear how Warren knew Lathem or Cornell-Duranleau.
According to CBS Local, Warren is “a senior treasury assistant at Somerville College, a part of the University of Oxford in Great Britain.” (The victim’s name was given as Trenton Cornell-Duranheau by many news sites, but his obituary spells it Duranleau).
Somerville College listed Andrew Warren as an employee but has now deleted his page from its website. He worked in payroll, according to UK Daily Mail.
Warren’s LinkedIn page says he’s from Swindon, United Kingdom and lists only the Somerville College employment. . . . Daily Mail reports that Warren, who was also called “Andy,” left behind a “heartbroken boyfriend Martin Grant, 44, who has been a relationship with the murder suspect since at least 2011” and both the sister and boyfriend “have been desperately looking for him ever since.” Warren, a former bus driver, had never been to America before, the news site reported. His neighbors told British media that Warren would help them out, according to UK Mirror.
Those who knew Warren in England told Daily Mail he was a “gentle lad” they couldn’t imagine was capable of murder and who lived in his childhood home until his father died recently; the news site reported that authorities in England confirmed he’d been reported missing the day after he “secretly” flew to America.

The Professor?  Wyndham Lathem?  He was Born, graduated from Vasser, Wisconsin at Madison, hateed plagues and Trump and disappeared.


Was Wyndham a test tube baby?  An invitro pioneer?  Spawned in lab? Grew up like a mushroom and slaughtered a hair dresser?

Might as well wait.  Warts go away quicker than Chicago journalist develop an interest in aything, but smearing cops, worrying about the Trumpopoclypse and propping up City Hall.

Read the CAPS bulletin's there is more there, there.

Is NW Professor Wyndham Lathem from St. Tommy More Parish?

Professor Wyndham Lathem, Northwestern University - not a member of the Flags Club, Canaryville USA, Illinois Prince Hall Masonic Lodge, or Chicago Polish Highlanders


Quis, quid, cur, quomodo, ubi, quando, quibus auxiliis (  Who, what, when, where, why, in what way, by what means) Boethius.

Old Boethius knew his journalism and it got him locked up by Emperor Justinian.   He could not work at the Chicago Tribune, or Sun Times for that matter.

Case in point is the mystery surrounding Professor Wyndham Lathem in the awful murder of a young cosmetologist.

We got the quid, quando and the quomodo in this story -

• QUID -Murder most foul, to be sure.  A 26 year old cosmetologist from Lennon, Michigan was savagely mutilated 
• QUANDO- It seems that the professor at some point had opened his living quarters to young Trenton Cornell-Duranleau. the victim had lived in Heart of Chicago ( 2200 S. Wood Street) neighborhood. 

• Quibus Auxiliis- via  "multiple sharp force injuries," in the Gold Coast apartment of one Prof. Wyndham Lathem.

The QUIS is lacking - especially concerning Wyndham Lathem. 

Three days before the ghastly the slaughter of Trenton Cornell-Duranleau, a man from Oxford University arrived, by the rather plebian name of Andrew Warren joined the couple on Chicago's tony Gold Coast.

Wyndham Lathem and Andrew Warren drove to Lake Geneva Wisconisn where one of the two donated a check in the amount of $1,000 in memory of the mutilated Cornell-Duranleau. The couple subsequently drove to the San Francisco/Oakland areas to surrender to police authorities.

We know the back story of the victim and also the man who accompanied Wyndham Lathem to Lake Geneva and  rebel California, but absolutely nothing about Wyndham Lathem.

You see, Northwestern University immediately scrubbed its website of any particulars concerning Professor Wyndham Lathem.  Perhaps, that is Northwestern University's way of cooperating with police authorities.

However, it leaves a huge whole in the narrative concerning the crime that has managed to spark the interests of Chicago's media, unlike the stabbing of a man sitting on a bench at 6500 S. Racine. yesterday, or April's slashing of  50 year old man in Gresham at 8500 block of South Peoria Street - no arrests have been made.

We get the back-stories of victims and killers in Chicago, especially if the police were in anyway involved.  A professor made a statement in the Chicago Reader recently that speaks to the media priorities - "A felony murder charge for an arrestee where a police officer has killed somebody is an indicator that the police officer probably engaged in misconduct.”  Got that?  A legal scholar from University of Buffalo, no less, said that.

Every scintilla of information concerning the cops involved is splashed on the pages of the Chicago Tribune, Sun Times, Chicago Reader, Windy City Times, and DNAinfo Chicago for weeks on end, like the sanguine fluids of Trenton Cornell-Duranleau in the aprtment on north State Street.

However, we know little to nothing concerning Professor Wyndham Lathem - no Quis

• WHO are his people, the Lathems ?
• WHERE is Wyndham in the line of birth and did that birth take place?
• WHAT else has Wyndham Lathem done in his past?

I can safely say that Professor Wyndham Lathem did not play some football at Mount Carmel High School back in the day. That is a deduction based upon his name, which seems more at home on the cross-country team.  Flawed deduction no doubt, but then, again, I am no professor.

I am a Cur, as my Aunt Margarite always called me - a yapping mongrel puppy who always asked why.

He ain't from St. Tommy More Parish, even though both playgrounds spawned males prone to physical violence.

He ain't a member of the Flags Club

He ain't a member of the Illinois Prince Hall Masonic Lodge at 43rd Street. 

He ain't a member of the Polish Highlanders.

• Why did Northwestern scrub the biography?

• Why is there no background story on Wyndham Lathem?

This is a mystery in itself.

Were this man 'Officer Wyndham Lathem, CPD' we would know his last bikini wax job and how he did on the New York Times Cross-word Puzzle.