Nick Novich - Entertainment Empire -Educated Entrepreneur

Nick's on Halsted and Armitage was a breakthrough saloon in 1977. While Disco lounges proliferated in the suburbs and on the urban fringes, and faux cowboy barns lured in the Urbane Cowboys ( why is it that only lawyers seem to wear the goofball cowboy hats while wearing Hickey-Freeman suits and Johnson-Murphy tasseled loafers?), Nick Novich - English Teacher, Football Coach, Serbian-American Jazz Cat - established what would become the 'spot' for the hep and those who have the good sense to listen to the hep.

Nick was my mentor as a baby teacher at Bishop McNamara High School in Kankakee, Illinois. Nick established the football program that Rich Zinanni would drive to five State Football Championships, following Novich's foray into Liquid Refreshment and Alternative Conversation Entertainment.

Nick Novich is one of those people that God blesses all of us with by putting his/her talent, soul, intesity, courage, confiction,humor and loyalty into our paths at times in our lives. I have been blessed to meet many such talented people - Max Weissmann, Terry Sullivan, Mike Joyce, Boz O'Brien, Bernard Callahan, Carlos Nelson, Mike Holmes, Marquis Ball, Thomas Hayes, Lonny Newman, Tom Kotel, Billy Higgins, Marty Tully, Jack Higgins, Rose Keefe, Richard Lindberg, Steve Rhodes, Jim Frogge, Paul Tutt, Willie Winters, and Terry McEldowney to name just a few. Nick Novich could command this regiment of talented people - singers, writers, coaches, artists, boxers, pipe-fitters and saints.

The original Nick's Place had been a bust-out joint of the filthy Old Style sign variety, where gents in full need of an alcoholic topping off could be assured of Sunnybrook and ten ounce domestic beer. Physics teacher and football coach Jim Frogge and I took a trip up to the DePaul area one Saturday and helped Nick toss some of the old fittings and were rewarded with cold Ale at Glascott's Grogery.
It was here that Nick laid out his strategies for alternative entertainment - "Music - the jukebox can not be dominated by what WLS tells people to listen to - I am the Captain of my bar and we will listen to Dr. Horse, Etta James, Sun Ra, Stanley Turentine, Blossom Deary, Curtis Mayfield and the Impression, anything that Jerry Butler sings, piano concerti by Glenn Gould, . . ."

I asked, "Any Planxty, or the Dubliners?" Nick, looked at me with hopeful tolerance, " In time, my Son, you will grow into the man I hope you can become. Eat your vegetables and read your Yeats."

Nick's was not a 'Fern-Bar' it was a clean, well-lighted place where actors, artists, politicians like the great and visionary Danny O'Brien who would die in a Michigan accident, and school teachers with nickels and dimes could congregate, converse, consume Imported Beer on tap, as well as hand-crafted Wisconsin ambrosia's like Point and the absolutely heavenly Eau Clair All Malt - from the Chicago Keeley's Half & Half recipe.

Nick commanded a welcoming house of Hep. Bigots, loud-mouths, louts, skanks, pests and sharks were solidly shown the door.

Ten Years ago Nick moved to his current Milwaukee Ave. location and has opened a wonderful place in Uptown.

This past December, Nick hosted a gathering of writers Richard Lindberg, Rose Keefe and others for a talk about Chicago Crime figures and Nick was thick in the soupy mix of facts and legends concerning Big Mike McDonald, Bathhouse John Coughlin and the legendary Paddy Bauler. Nick knows the 42nd and 43rd Ward histories. Nick lives literature and history.

Last night, Nick and I caught up on the phone to discuss the sorry state of American Education, how bullies flourish in an institutional setting like Notre Dame, and the power of music to sensitize and spark the best in the human species. "Have your boy lie on his back with eyes closed and listen to Coltrain, or Miles Davis and he will emerge a different person."

Nick could lead people to a great watering hole but getting a horse of a former St. Rita football player who has subsisted on a diet of LaLaPalooza?'

Go to Nicks! Go to Flat-Iron! Go to Nick's in Uptown! Get better.
Entertainment.

Contact - Nick!
Nick's Beer Garden
1516 N. Milwaukee Ave.
Chicago, IL 60622 773-252-1155 http://www.nicksbeergarden

http://www.nicksbeergarden.com/

Hickey Family and Obama Administration 100 Days Timeline

Some key actions since President Barack Obama was sworn in Jan. 20: Key moments in the effort of Pat Hickey to provide our sagging economy with much-needed infusions of cash! I would have just spent it on food anyway.

Day 3: Signs an order to close Guantanamo Bay.

Emerald Plumbing's Brian Dalton comes out in -25 Below Zero to chop and dig out the City Parkway Tree Roots Blocking the access pipe to my sewer line. $$$ , but the heroic plumber dug out the source of water in the basement. Brian Dalton did this in a blizzard!

Day 10: Signs a bill making it easier for employees to sue for work/pay discrimination.

Roto -Rooter Comes out to clear the City Parkway Tree roots that clogged my sewer line thirty feet from the access pipe on my sewer line - The access pipe would not allow the foam Root-killer to take effect. Yikes, $ 275.00

Day 16: Extends health coverage to 4 million uninsured children.

Clare is accepted at Mother McAuley! Tuition $ 8,000 and change - $575 registration fee due immediately.

Day 25: The House and Senate pass his economic stimulus bill.

Clare registers at Mother McAuley - School Belles Uniform Fee $$$$.

Day 29: Approves sending 17,000 more troops to Afghanistan.

Clare makes the St. Rita Cheer leading Squad! $$$$
Day 39: Sets Aug. 31, 2010, as the end of the U.S. combat mission in Iraq.

Wind blows gutters off! Followed by an ice-storm due to Global Warming! Gutters replaced $$$

Day 47: Says he is open to approaching moderate Taliban in Afghanistan.

Nora comes home from Boston when her job ended! Welcome back home Baby! Welcome to the American Job Market! $$$$

Day 49: Lifts restrictions on the use of federal money for stem cell research.

Clare is Confirmed in the Faith by Bishop George Rasseas ( Best Homily Ever)! Clare is a Soldier of Christ! Hickey/Demateo/Gunkel/Holm/Cleary/Winters Confirmation Party for Clare at Traverso's $$

Day 56: Calls $165 million in bonuses paid by AIG to employees "an outrage."

Hickey fires Orkin after the ants proliferate having paid beau coup bucks to the Orkin Man! Buys Tero Ant Preventers for $8 at True Value and no ants!

Day 60: Tells Iran he wants to end differences between the two countries.

Sump pump dies a noble death and Hickey goes to Sewer and Plumbing Supplies at 90th & Green and buys a cast-iron "2 Zoeller ejector Pump* and replaces the pipe and flanges. One third of his Tax Return!

Day 69: Forces out GM Chairman Rick Wagoner.

Hickey gets the tires rotated!

Day 74: Calls for a world without nuclear weapons during a speech in Prague, Czech Republic.

After years of service the Hoover High end Dirt Destroyer burns out and Hickey replaces the old sucker! $$$

Day 77: Tells the Turkish parliament that America is "not at war with Islam."

Conor's Transmission drops and Dad helps $$$!

Day 84: Lifts restrictions on Cuban Americans' visits to the island; drops limits on remittances.

St. Rita Cheerleader Fees and uniform fitting $.

In my 100 Days, I have been told. 'Hey, Hickey! You losing weight? You ain't such a fat-ass these days!'

Tonight, President Obama will share it with us all!

*

The powerful, rugged Zoeller M53 Sump Pump has sufficient power to drain flooded excavations, basements, window wells, construction sites, and swimming pools. The single-phase motor on this pump is permanently-lubricated for continuous use and hermetically sealed to ensure a long service life and dependable operation. Features include a nonclog vortex impeller and a screenless suction inlet, enabling the Zoeller M53 to be used in areas where conventional sump pumps would clog or freeze up due to the accumulation of light debris. This pump also has a convenient carrying handle for easy transport. A powder-coated green epoxy finish and stainless steel screws, guard, and switch arm limit rust and corrosion.

Only use the Zoeller M53 Sump Pump with nonflammable liquids that are compatible with pump component materials and in nonflammable/nonexplosive atmospheres.

product specifications:
Amps
9.6
Base Material
Polypropylene
Cord Length (Ft.)
9
Dia. (In.)
10 3/32
GPM of Water @ 10 Ft. of Head
34
Height (In.)
10 1/16
Housing
Cast Iron
HP
3/10
Impeller Material
Polypropylene
Item
Submersible Sump Pump
Max. Dia. Solids (In.)
1/2
Max. Head (Ft.)
19
Off Point (In.)
3 1/4

On Point (In.)
8 1/2

RPM
1550

Switch Type
Vertical

Thermal Protection
Yes

Top Material
Cast Iron

Voltage
115

Weight
22.00

Arlen Specter Joins the 19th Ward Regular Democratic Organization . . .or not.

So, you wanna be a DemAcrat,Arlen? Ain't that nice.

AS - Good afternoon, I have become a Democrat. I am here to speak with the Top Democrat.

Sec. Matt O'Shea is on an important teleconference with Jackie Casto, Ed Carroll, and Mike Houlihan - the Movie Star -at the moment. Please take a seat and would you care for coffee?

AS - No thank you. I have some great ideas for . . .

Sec. -That's nice. Matt O'Shea will be with you in . . . well, after the conference, sir.

AS- Matt O'Shea? I expected to meet with Senators Burris and Durbin.

Sec.- Ain't that the way? (Ring,Ring, Riii. . .)

Sec.- Just a minute - Hello! Good Morning! 19th Ward Regular Democratic Org . . .Hey, Frannie! The corner of 108th and Rockwell - that's Hickey's house. What's that goof want? Tell him that the sewer line is his from the parkway to the street. He knows that - he's a damn pest. That and 'who trims the Trees - I'did'n' plant 'em' What a pain in the ass Hickey has been and continues to be - He's three votes anyway. Goofball and his son and daughter. They ain't nothing like the Old Man, but then who is? Yeah, Homer Simpson. Listen, tell him that Matt knows. Everyone in the damn 23rd Precinct knows. I'll call you back Frannie. I got this guy from Pennsylvannia was sent in to register. Republican. Looks like it. Bye,Bye! . . . I am sorry, Sir, now take these forms and write in your address - you'll need a valid Illinois Driver's License and two utility bills addressed to you.

AS- Madame, I am here to speak with a Top Democratic Operative. I am Senator Arlen Specter!

Sec.- Well, Arlen, take the forms and fill them out.

AS- I am not a resident of Chicago, Madame.

Sec. - Well . . . Arlen, I guess you can not register to vote then.

AS -I am here to meet with . . .

Sec. You did not have an appointment, . . . Arlen.

AS - I am a United States Senator . . .

Sec. - And . . .Arlen, . . .Mr. Matt O'Shea is the Democratic Ward Committeeman.

AS - This is ridiculous!

Sec. - What is, . . . Arlen?

AS - Good Day!!!!!

Sec. - Bye,Bye . . . Arlen! . . . ( shouts) Matt, he's gone!

Former President 'W' ( pronounced 'Dubyah') - Flew Air Force One over New York!

When President Obama learned of the episode on Monday afternoon, aides said, he, too, was furious. Senior administration officials conveyed the president’s anger in a meeting with Mr. Caldera on Monday afternoon.

New York Times 4/28/2009


Mr. Caldera - "Ladies and Gentlemen, President Obama knew nothing of the fly-over that frightened thousands of New York residents as well as milions of Americans. The former President, who tortured sweet guys from the Mid-East and invaded Iraq without provocation was a member and a pilot of the Texas Air National Guard. Former President Bush is responsible for the current economic crisis, eats Tex-Mex, and regularly coughs without following the directives issued by the Secretary for Homeland Security, Janie Walnuts Napolitano, and lives in a State that has threatened secession. Also there had been a second set of keys to Air Force One, prior to The 100 Days! - MSNBC has done the math for all of us! Thank you!"

Mark Brown's 'Field of Dreams' - How Long -Oh, How Long?

"Waiting three more days didn't seem so bad after all. It made me wonder how much longer Illinois gay couples will have to wait." Chicago Sun Times Mark Brown



The idyllic fields of conjugal corn are not yet. How long? Oh, how long?

'Walp! First there's the disc-in' Gotta get the Deere out in the fields and turn up the mud. Too wet to plow most days here's about - with all this Global Warming back-lash and what-not. Then the seeding - it's all natural. Then good manure to heep on things and soon, very soon the corn will be as high as Mark Brown's eye!"

Ray Kinsella's Field of Dreams is shooting up in Iowa. Same Sex couples can marry-up and build a life and spread their seed, just as their oppositional breeding fellow citizens can do -hogging the bliss.

Neighbors laughed at Ray and said the Hawkeye Farmer was daft! Daft.

The Field is set and now coming out of the tall corn are the ghosts of those denied their human right to have joyous and bountiful sex.

Ray told me, 'Look There! Build and they will come!'

Out of the green stalks minced the greats of the past!

King James Charles Stuart and George Villiers!

Oscar Wilde and Lord Alfred Douglas!

Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas!

Jane Addams and Ellen Starr and Mary Rozet Smith!

J. Edgar Hoover and Clyde Tolson!

and on and on and on and on they tripped through the tall corn!

I said, Ray, 'Oh, it isn't heaven! It's Iowa!'

Ray thumbed up his worn and mud caked Dekalb Seed Corn Cap, "Try and keep it Civil, Hickey!"

I will, Ray. I will.

Governor Lisa Madigan - and not because of her Dad. Read Tom Roeser and Steve Rhodes

Even The Hoods like Lisa Madigan.

Mr. Tom Roeser and Master ( He's Way Younger than Tom and much younger than me) Steve Rhodes are two very sharp Chicago political observers and clear political journalists.

They are poles apart politically and pols mean very little to them personally.

Today both gents treated the discerning reader to the expected arrival of Governor Lisa Madigan (D.IL).

First the insight and judgment of Tom Roeser. After giving Rep. Mark Kirk (R.) a tune-up over his Pro-Choice on Abortion -a Woman's Right to Kill Her Kid - Tom Roeser nails it:

At this writing no one has heard from Kirk about his plans. But this is just to say to the party’s financial leaders who are planning that double-digit budget: it will all go to waste and be lost in the election of Lisa Madigan (likely to be the Dem gubernatorial nominee) if you don’t consider conservative grassroots people in the gubernatorial selection. Madigan is a veritable pinwheel of grassroots movement support: pro-aborts, feminists, labor, gay rights. You name a nice little guy with a cute button nose and smile but no grassroots and you’ll once again have to relearn what you should have learned when you nominated Judy Baar Topinka: a Republican nominee for governor with no grassroots conservative support can’t make it.

http://www.tomroeser.com/

Attorney General Lisa Madigan has performed as a solid Attorney General for Illinois and has made that Office her own and no adjunct to her Dad, Speaker Michael Madigan's adult direction of Springfield. Governor Pat Quinn is a lovely guy, who made a career as the earnest clean-government hobby-horse rider in the sky. He's is Governor of Illinois because Illinois wanted Rod Blagojevich and gave that goof enough gas in his Mo-Ped to ride all over that desire. Why to go Land O' Lincoln!

Governor Pat Quinn wants to shoot Illinois' feet off with a tax from hell. Alpha Mike Foxtrot, as Marty Tully would say. Marty did a bunch of tours in Vietnam before becoming one of the two best homicide cops in Chicago.

Mr. Roeser, the Illinois Samuel Johnson, picks up the Governor Madigan specimen with the delicacy of a Loyola University Medical Center Neurosurgeon. This Butterfly Lives! Lisa Madigan flies on gossamer-like wings made of a cotton and linen blend, with red and blue minute silk fibers running through it -dollar bills miles of them.
Those dollars come from real Labor Unions and also PACS -ACORN/SEIU/Planned Parenthood & etc.the Democratic Party Astro-turf. The GOP tends to draw dough from businesses and rich guys.

Lisa Madigan will be the governor of Illinois.

Then, at the NBC website, the brilliant and witty Steve Rhodes with more pithy prose and Progressive sympathies states the glaringly obvious -

Madigan can always change her mind, or opt to run for another office, but right now she - or somebody on her behalf - is raising money in preparation for something, and seeing as how the e-mail references a poll that looked at a match-up with Quinn, there is no other conclusion to draw at the moment.

That poll, sponsored by the Service Employees International Union, showed Madigan with a 48-24 lead over Quinn in the city of Chicago, with 28 percent undecided. An early poll like this has limited value, but its portentous that Madigan is raising money off it.

The path to Springfield is paved with dough - that is nothing new, nor is something to pull your skirts up and shriek like a fair, fat and fifty something Maiden Aunt.
There is a right way to raise money and the Blagojevich way - 'Hey, I'm gonna be Governor . . . know what I mean? That's some wallet you got there. Gimme it!'

All the Campaign Reform nonsense comes from losers who could not get anyone with the pilot light going to drop them a nickel. That is why SEIU and Planned Parenthood shower dough on Forty Watt Howlers like Jan Schakowsky. I could care less if anyone financed his own campaign or had the backing of Uncle Moneybags. The smart money goes on the horse with the best blood, feed, trainer and record.

Lisa Madigan is the Class of Field. The Oat-blowers of the Democratic Party and the Glue Bottle-Aspirants of the GOP should be aware of the very sound drubbing they will get from Lisa Madigan.

Public Execution of the Entire GW Bush Administrations ( Both) Sponsored By the ACLU -The Only Way to Save the Soul of the Country!

Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont wants a kind of “truth and reconciliation commission,” with no punishments to be meted out except exposure; others want a major congressional investigation, while still others want the Justice Department to undertake a criminal investigation.

The Man with Turtle Waxed Dome has Spoken! I'm With Maple Syrup Man! Let's Get to Lynchinmg Bush! Rice! Cheney! Scott McClellan -He Was With Them! Any One With Them! Hang the Dog! The Houston Astros! Josh Brolin! He Played W!Save Our Soul! Execute! This is Roger Baldwin's AmeriKa!

CNN, Big Ed, Butc Maddow, Tubby Olbermann, David Sssssschueshter, Milky Matthews, KOS, MoveOn Dot Org! Let's go! My Soul's Damaged! Think of the Children!

I am now a Progressive, there is no money in being a regular guy. I have ordered all of my children to attend Gamelial Institute and train as Saul Alinsky community activists.

As a Progressive, I now demand that a Woman's Reproductive Health Initiative be exacted upon all teens who get themselves 'knocked up, or have a duck in the oven'! This must be paid for by tax-payers. Yes! 86 God, while we're at it! Bill Maher is not a bigotted Sissy! Really.

More importantly, we must save Amerika's Soul! God's had his time! Change! We Trust in Only in the ACLU! Call Geithner at Treasury and get the Mullah fixed.

Finally, I call for the immediate and public execution of all criminals in the George W. Bush Administration. Hey, why wait? The Media will play ball! Televise! Live Stream! You Tube! Let's Do it! Why waste time! Dig it! Move On!

How can I help?

Duke Ellington -From the Sacred Concerts -Heaven

Duke Ellington's Sacred Concerts -there were three. This is Heaven from one of them!

Click my Post Title for the Video link.

The 1960s were, for Ellington, a period when he produced some of his finest recorded work (certainly on a par with the stuff from the late 1950s) most notably The Popular Duke Ellington (recorded a year after the first Sacred Concert album, with both albums produced by RCA's legendary A&R man, Brad McCuen) where he introduces a new audience to his most popular compositions, such as Take the 'A' Train (written by Billy Strayhorn of course), Mood Indigo, I Got It Bad, Solitude, Black and Tan Fantasy, and the almost evangelical Do Nothin' Till You Hear From Me, (written by Ellington in 1940 as Concerto for Cootie), a piece that has a lot in common with his beautiful melody Come Sunday (written for his extended work Black, Brown & Beige in 1943), which later became a corner stone of his first Sacred Concert. To me this suggest that just about everything Ellington (a devout Christian) wrote from the 1940s onwards was spiritually headed toward his series of Sacred Concerts. Sadly, Ellington's Sacred Concerts have come in for quite a bit of criticism over the years, most notably that they lack cohesive musical form, which is like saying Faure couldn't write a requiem. Nothing could be further from the truth.

When we listen to Duke Ellington's Concert of Sacred Music (recorded at the New York Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church) we hear Ellington at his best, where he uses the whole Ellington bag of compositional signatures (including a hint of Delius here and there) centred around the individual voices of his musicians, creating the Ellington 'family' sound that takes us into his world and, by degrees, his Christianity that, like a simple, familiar hymn, can move us beyond the musical form and into a higher realm. Just listen to track 2, side 1, Tell Me It's The Truth, sung by Esther Marrow, followed by Come Sunday, to get the idea.

This is not just music, but worship.

http://www.zimbio.com/Steve+Newman's+Jazz+Groove/articles/24/Duke+Ellington+Sacred+Concerts
True, I caught the Dupage College Jazz Ensemble's presentation last night. Mind Blowing.


Programme Note
Digital perusal score available from SchirmerOnDemand
1. In the Beginning God
2. Will You Be There?
3. Ain’t But the One
4. Tell Me It’s the Truth
5. Heaven6. Something ’Bout Believing
7. Praise God
8. Father Forgive
9. The Lord’s Prayer
10. The Shepherd
11. David Danced
12. Almighty God
13. Come Sunday
14. My Love
15. Freedom
16. Meditation
17. Praise God and Dance
18. Praise God and Dance (encore)

Neil Steinberg - Now, You Have No Warm-Up!

Last Tuesday, Neil Steinberg called me at Leo. I liked Neil Steinberg as a person at one time, because I had mistaken the grace of his prose for actual grace. Hey , I am mistaken often. I thought John McCain really wanted to be President. Last October Neil had written a piece for his Chicago Sun Times column calling on everyone to vote for President Obama, which most people happened to do. However, Neil Steinberg used that column to make his point by inferring that people in my neighborhood are Nazis.

Last October, Steinberg wrote,

Obviously, you want Obama elected — the nation will soon realize what it has done, the pendulum will swing the other way — your way. At long last! Ausgerechnet jetzt!

Persuasive stuff. But if I know you — and I do — about now you’re asking yourself: “Hey, wait a second. This guy’s a Jew. Why would a Jew be looking out for the best interest of the Iron Fist of Righteous White Anger, Mount Greenwood Corps?”

This snotty crack followed a series of Sun Times columns by other like-minded writers who hate cops and white Catholics in general that spouted pretty much the same lie. I live in Morgan Park which, like Mount Greenwood, gets grouped in a collective that the media call Beverly or the political landscape of the 19th Ward - home to largely white Catholic, government employees, teachers, nurses, tradesmen, some well-to-do folks, cops and fireman. Many black Americans live very well in this neighborhood as well. I meet black gents like Doc and Stewart up at Keegan's Pub drinking and horse-laughing with their paler hued neighbors. However, when I read Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun Times (without paying for either mind you), one might think that folks spent their time chasing Eliza over the ice flow on the Ohio River, as the poor child attempts to find the Underground High Speed Railroad. Nope.

Steinberg and I were friendly, before that snotty crack. I had invited Neil out to Leo the previous November for the Veterans Observances, gave him a Leo Warm-Up just like the ones worn by the remarkable Leo Lions on the basketball courts of Illinois. It is a swell garment. Champion, I believe. I took Neil Steinberg to Jackie Casto's Ken's on Western Ave. for lunch, where the talented word-sculptor chatted with a thick number of folks who live here.

Generally, when one breaks bread with another person some kind of bond of mutual grace and respect surfaces - not so with too many columnists, who believe themselves to be later day John Steinbeck's - Steinbeck gave every reporter with literary pretensions license to pretend to 'care about the downtrodden' and hate cops when Tom Joad uttered,"...I'll be all around in the dark. I'll be ever'-where - wherever you can look. Wherever there's a fight so hungry people can eat, I'll be there. Wherever there's a cop beatin' up a guy, I'll be there."

Steinberg decided to lord it over the people in my neighborhood and columnists always seem to get away with saying anything about anyone. They keep their jobs, because the thin-hearted variety of columnist will write to advance whatever tack the editorial board takes - conservative editor and Neil is conservative,or radical; Neil gets radical. That's his church not mine.

I have had nothing to do with Neil Steinberg since October. I figure if a person has no use for another person why play at it. Life's too short. No grudge. No sweat. No nothing.


So Tuesday, Neil Steinberg calls me at Leo and to the very best of my knowledge the back-and-forth goes like this:

( ring, or Buzz) Hickey picks up :

- Leo High School -this is Pat Hickey. . .

- Hey, it's Neil Steinberg . . .

- What can I do for you?

- We haven't spoken in a while. What's new?

- Nothing. What Can I do for you?

- We were pretty friendly and you haven't spoken to me in a while . . .I have gotten e-mails about the harsh things you say about me. It was a joke - Satire. Why not be a man and talk about it.

- Talk about what? You smeared my neighbors, the people you ate with, the people who support black kids here at Leo, you called them a bunch of Nazis

- It was a joke. I write something and I generally don't think about it . . .

-(Louder than a nuanced sophisticate) That is the problem. You say something snotty about people that have little or no voice whatsoever and you call it a joke?

-Perhaps there was some ring of truth to what I said if you and your friends are so sensitive and . . .

- ( More than Loud) You can hop-up and kiss my ass, J@#off! ( click)

Today, Steinberg slaps back at my 'close-knit tribal ethnic' response to his 'apology' and make friends overture - which translates to 'I Take Back Nothing -Take it and Like It' in Medill School of Journalese:

It was with mingled melancholy and liberation that I bagged up my Leo Lions baseball warm-up jacket to give to the homeless. The coat was a gift from an administrator there who had befriended me, and every time I wore it, I had happy memories of my visit to Leo High School and of my pal, plus a little undeserved ego boost, as if I had once been that hot left hander with a mean sinker, Bucky Steinberg.

But alas, I made a joke last October that ruffled this guy's feathers. After five months of running across his nasty personal comments -- it's amazing how some fellows can shift from butt-nuzzling obsequiousness to permanent outrage -- flying across cyberspace, I realized that he wasn't getting it out of his system, as I hoped he would, and I had better phone him. It seemed the manly thing to do, and believe it or not, despite the acerbic edge to this column, I don't like to be on bad terms with anybody.

I figured I'd apologize, we'd bury the hatchet. Alas, he was still doorjamb-gnawing mad, and the conversation did not go well. He invited me to kiss something that I'd prefer not kiss, and hung up.

Oh well, I'll survive, and I'm sure some toothless shuffling drug addict will enjoy his new Leo Lions warm-up jacket.

As a butt-nuzzler who takes a back seat to no one - no matter how obsequious, I appreciate the genuine in all things. I appreciate Neil Steinberg's understanding that one person fails to understand his joke and his own sense of what amounts to a genuine apology.

I have shot my mouth off like a jerk and said something akin to 'Jesus, that was stupid of me.' When I failed to understand the stupidity of an off-hand remark, I fully understood the knuckles tapping my gums. That is the essence, the core and the foundation of a serious failure to communicate. Consequences. A wise police officer told me, "Too many people these days worry about self-esteem and pay absolutely no attention to self-respect or respect for other people."

I also understand shunning. Shunning occurs when a person purposefully violates the rules of good grace, manners and respect. A person whom I have willfully, or even unwittingly, offended would and should shun me -have nothing to do with me. Likewise, I should have nothing to ask of that person - beyond forgiveness and sometimes forgiveness goes along with the shun. Forgiven, but not forgotten. When I poison a well, I do not tell everyone how thirsty I am.

Neil Steinberg reacted in the manner that I fully expected - like a teenage girl told that she is 'not all that' and tosses the letterman sweater away. Given the spiralling state of newspapers, Neil Steinberg may have done well to hang on to that natty and quality garment.

At least, the 'toothless shuffling drug addict' will have a quality Champion warm-up and will appreciate Neil Steinberg.



http://www.suntimes.com/news/steinberg/1247379,CST-NWS-stein29.article

Jazz at Brando's! Terry Sullivan Sings The American S

Jan Schakowsky Recalls Torture!

“Rod Blagojevich has pulled together an unprecedented group that has unified all wings of the Democratic Party behind his call to improve our schools and make sure every senior citizen in Illinois can afford prescription drugs,” added Schakowsky.



"For tomorrows primary election, here are the candidates in contested races that I am supporting...Governor - Rod Blagojevich" -

Leo Lions Honor Commitment and Courage: William Koloseike Man of the Year!

I am on my way over to Leo High School to welcome home the 104 members of the Class of 1959, after the Jubilee Class revelled in the return of pals, many not seen by the classmates in fifty years.

Alumni President Rich Furlong, one last night's Hall of Fame Inductees, will lead bus loads of Leo Men and their wives over to 7901 S. Sangamon to tour the school that helped them launch their lives.

Ronnell Reynolds, the Chief Engineer of Leo High School, will have opened class rooms, the famous 'band box' gym on the third floor, the Leo Boxing Room -home to ten Golden Gloves Champions, the cafeteria that 50 years ago had been the Chapel of St. Leo which served as an annex chapel to the now closed St. Leo Parish, and the courtyard War Memorial and Shrine to Our Lady, where each year Leo High School Honors America's Veterans on the Friday before Veterans Day.

On the War Memorial is the name of nearly two-hundred Leo Men who died in the service to their Country - Pro Deo et Patria: for God and Country - is inscribed on the cornerstone of school set by Cardinal Mundelein in 1926. One of those names, Lt. Col. Thomas O'Dea*, reminds us of 'the full measure of devotion' exercised in living a courageous and committed life.

Last night more than 600 Leo Men paid tribute to the values that maintain Leo High School. Other Catholic high schools have closed, but Leo continues in the public imagination,because of the courage and commitment of thousands of Leo Men.

Leo High School brought generations of young men, most of them the sons of immigrants from Ireland, Italy, Poland, Lithuania, Belgium and Germany, together in order to be 'led' (educare -in Latin)to an other directed life - a life beyond the self.

These tough and willful kids met Irish Christian Brothers, tasked with disciplining but also nurturing a love of science, art, literature, and most of all the Faith. The Christian Brothers are gone from Leo, but their presence remains in the spirit of the school and witnessed in the school's crest. Primarily, it may be witnessed in the lives of men who do for others. Last Night, William Koloseike '45, was named Leo Man of the Year.

Bill Koloseike, Bill Kay to Chicago's automobile buyers, was a hard-as-nails football player. Last night, Leo Hall of Famer Jerry Tourville, asked me to re-introduce him to the man who 'knocked him on his ass every day on the cinders and broken beer-bottles of Shewbridge Field.' Jerry played football at Colorado after he graduated from Leo and had not seen Bill Kay in decades. In that time Bill Koloseike has been a river of moral and financial support of Leo President Bob Foster, as well as a Jesuit Volunteer teacher and establishing a school for poor kids in Africa.

Bill Kay is about 5'6" and Jerry is about 6' in height. 'Jesus!'replied Mr. Tourville upon introduction, not in prayer,but in honor of the fierce impact the smaller man had in Mr. Tourville's life.

Bill Kay went into the Marines at the end of WWII, instead of playing college football. Another Leo Man and Leo Hall of Famer, Dick Prendergast '43 asked to meet Bill Koloseike. The last time these two men met was in April 1946 at Great Lakes Naval Station. The young Bill Koloseike processed ( 'mustered')Dick Prendergast out of the Marine Corps, after Dick's three years of combat as a forward oberserver ( Joint Assault Signal Company JASCO) all over the Pacific -Guam especially.

Leo Honored Bill Kay and Jack Hallberg and Jim Farrell another quiet hero who served in Vietnam as a Captain in the U.S.Army in Vietnam. Each of these men deflected the Honor bestowed upon him last night to Bob Foster, Leo President, who has remained the anchor to this great school and to the great Leo Alumni who lived and breathed the Spirit of the Lion and have gone Home to Christ- Dr. Thomas 'Doc'Driscoll, Jim Coogan and especially Jack Howard.

Nine Leo Men and a veteran teacher, Bob Schablaske, were inducted into the Hall of Fame 2009 Class.

600 and change Leo Men provide hundreds of thousands of dollars annually to Leo High School, so poor black kids who live in the same bungalows, three flats, and street-front apartments along 79th Street as the older white Leo men can develop character, courage and a deep sense of commitment as they had years before.

These are magnificent people.

Time to get over to Leo and make sure the men of 1959 get the tour they deserve.

* Click my post title for yesterdays tribute to Leo Men.

Bill Maher Goebbels Speaks!

If conservatives don't want to be seen as bitter people who cling to their guns and religion and anti-immigrant sentiments, they should stop being bitter and clinging to their guns, religion and anti-immigrant sentiments.

Our theme this evening is hotly disputed. I realize that my viewpoint is subjective. There is really little point to discussing propaganda. It is a matter of practice, not of theory. One cannot determine theoretically whether one propaganda is better than another. Rather, that propaganda is good that has the desired results, and that propaganda is bad that does not lead to the desired results. It does not matter how clever it is, for the task of propaganda is not to be clever, its task is to lead to success. I therefore avoid theoretical discussions about propaganda, for there is no point to it. Propaganda shows that it is good if over a certain period it can win over and fire up people for an idea. If it fails to do so, it is bad propaganda. If propaganda wins the people it wanted to win, it was presumably good, and if not, it was presumably bad. No one can say that your propaganda is too crude or low or brutal, or that it is not decent enough, for those are not the relevant criteria. Its purpose is not to be decent, or gentle, or weak, or modest; it is to be successful. That is why I have intentionally chosen to discuss propaganda along with a second theme, knowledge. Otherwise, our discussion this evening would be of little value. We have not gathered to discuss lovely theories, but rather to find ways of practically working together to deal with our everyday challenges.

It's been a week now, and I still don't know what those "tea bag" protests were about. I saw signs protesting abortion, illegal immigrants, the bank bailout and that gay guy who's going to win "American Idol." But it wasn't tax day that made them crazy; it was election day. Because that's when Republicans became what they fear most: a minority.

What is propaganda, and what role does it have in political life? That is the question of greatest interest to us. How should propaganda look, and what is its role in our movement? Is it an end in itself, or only a means to an end? We must discuss that, but we can do that only when we begin with the origin of propaganda itself, namely the idea, then move to the target of propaganda, namely people.

Ideas in themselves are timeless. They are not tied to individuals, much less to a people. They rest in a people, it is true, and affect their attitudes. Ideas, people say, are in the clouds. When someone comes along who can put in words what everyone feels in their hearts, each feels: "Yes! That is what I have always wanted and hoped for." That is what happens the first time one hears one of Hitler's major speeches. I have met people who had attended a Hitler meeting for the first time, and at the end they said: "This man put in words everything I have been searching for for years. For the first time, someone gave form to what I want." Others are lost in confusion, but suddenly someone stands up and puts it in words. Goethe's words become reality: "Lost in silent misery, God gave someone to express my suffering."

The conservative base is absolutely apoplectic because, because ... well, nobody knows. They're mad as hell, and they're not going to take it anymore. Even though they're not quite sure what "it" is. But they know they're fed up with "it," and that "it" has got to stop.

Here are the big issues for normal people: the war, the economy, the environment, mending fences with our enemies and allies, and the rule of law.

And here's the list of Republican obsessions since President Obama took office: that his birth certificate is supposedly fake, he uses a teleprompter too much, he bowed to a Saudi guy, Europeans like him, he gives inappropriate gifts, his wife shamelessly flaunts her upper arms, and he shook hands with Hugo Chavez and slipped him the nuclear launch codes.

Some kind of idea is at the beginning of every political movement. It is not necessary to put this idea in a thick book, nor that it take political form in a hundred long paragraphs. History proves that the greatest world movements have always developed when their leaders knew how to unify their followers under a short, clear theme. That is clear from the French Revolution, or Cromwell's movement, or Buddhism, Islam, or Christianity. Christ's goal was clear and simple: "Love your neighbor as yourself." He gathered his followers behind that straightforward statement. Because this teaching was simple, crisp, clear, and understandable, enabling the broad masses to stand behind it, it in the end conquered the world.

One then builds a whole system of thought on such a brief, crisply formulated idea. The idea does not remain limited to this single statement, rather it is applied to every aspect of daily life and becomes the guide for all human activity — politics, culture, the economy, every area of human behavior. It becomes a worldview. We see that in all great revolutionary movements, which begin with a clear, crisp, understandable, all-encompassing idea. They spread more and more and become a mirror of life that reflects all activities of the peoples, and indeed in a particular way.

Then one can say that a person has a worldview—not because he knows a lot or has read a lot—but because he sees all of life from a certain standpoint, and measures everything by a certain standard. I am a Christian when I believe that the meaning of my life is the heavy responsibility to love my neighbor as myself. Kant once said: "Act as if the principle of your life could be the principle for your entire nation." I am a National Socialist not when I want this or that from politics, rather when I consider all aspects of daily life. I must act in all things by putting the good of the whole above my personal good, by putting the good of the state above my personal good. But then I also have the guarantee that such a state will be able to protect my personal life. I am a National Socialist when I see everything in politics, culture or the economy from this standpoint. I therefore do not evaluate the theater from the standpoint of whether it is elegant or amusing, rather I ask: Is it good for my people, is it useful for them, does it strengthen the community? If so, the community in turn can benefit, support and strengthen me. I do not see the economy as some sort of way of making money, rather I want an economy that will strengthen the people, make them healthy and powerful. Then too I can expect that this people will support and maintain me. If I see things in this way, I see the economy in National Socialist terms.

Do these sound like the concerns of a healthy, vibrant political party?

It's sad what's happened to the Republicans. They used to be the party of the big tent; now they're the party of the sideshow attraction, a socially awkward group of mostly white people who speak a language only they understand. Like Trekkies, but paranoid.

The GOP base is convinced that Obama is going to raise their taxes, which he just lowered. But, you say, "Bill, that's just the fringe of the Republican Party." No, it's not. The governor of Texas, Rick Perry, is not afraid to say publicly that thinking out loud about Texas seceding from the Union is appropriate considering that ... Obama wants to raise taxes 3% on 5% of the people? I'm not sure exactly what Perry's independent nation would look like, but I'm pretty sure it would be free of taxes and Planned Parenthood. And I would have to totally rethink my position on a border fence.

I know. It's not about what Obama's done. It's what he's planning. But you can't be sick and tired of something someone might do.

Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota recently said she fears that Obama will build "reeducation" camps to indoctrinate young people. But Obama hasn't made any moves toward taking anyone's guns, and with money as tight as it is, the last thing the president wants to do is run a camp where he has to shelter and feed a bunch of fat, angry white people.

Look, I get it, "real America." After an eight-year run of controlling the White House, Congress and the Supreme Court, this latest election has you feeling like a rejected husband. You've come home to find your things out on the front lawn -- or at least more things than you usually keep out on the front lawn. You're not ready to let go, but the country you love is moving on. And now you want to call it a whore and key its car.

That's what you are, the bitter divorced guy whose country has left him -- obsessing over it, haranguing it, blubbering one minute about how much you love it and vowing the next that if you cannot have it, nobody will.

But it's been almost 100 days, and your country is not coming back to you. She's found somebody new. And it's a black guy.

The healthy thing to do is to just get past it and learn to cherish the memories. You'll always have New Orleans and Abu Ghraib. If someone tells me today: "You are a demagogue," I answer him in this way: "Demagogy in the good sense is simply the ability to get the masses to understand what I want them to understand." Of course, I can adjust to the feelings of the broad masses, which is demagogy in the bad sense. Then I change not only the form of what I want to say, but also the content.

You cannot tell me that things have changed. Formerly, speakers built movements; today we live in the age of the press, and it is the writers who are influential. This theory is obviously false. Of course the press is important. But if you examine well-written editorials, they turn out to be speeches in disguise. The Marxists did not win through their editorials, but rather because each Marxist editorial was a little propaganda speech. They were written by agitators. They sat in their offices or in smoke-filled bars, writing not elegant, intellectual and polished essays, but rather brutal, direct words that the average man understood. That is why the masses devoured the Red press. We must learn from their example. Marxism did not win because it had great prophets — they had none. Marxism won because its nonsense was promoted by agitators of the ability of August Bebel and Lenin. They led Marxism to victory. If the völkisch movement had had such agitators at its disposal, its stronger intellectual foundations would surely have led it to victory. Some critics complain: "All you do is criticize! You only complain. You can't do things any better yourselves!" Others say that "the Angriff [Goebbels's newspaper in Berlin] is entirely negative. Say something positive for a change." Well, I am not in a position to say anything positive about Isidor Weiss [the Jewish Vice Chief of Police in Berlin, and a regular Goebbels target]. I can only be negative. And there is nothing positive I can say about the Republic. There is nothing positive about it. I can say something positive only when I eliminate the negative. The most brilliant statesman on earth could do nothing with this Republic. And Marxism preached only the negative for sixty years. The result was that it took over the state on 9 November 1918. Hitler once said: "Keep those know-it-alls who always want to do something positive away from me." We can do something positive only when we have first gotten rid of the negative. A leader does not emerge from a conference table. He develops from the masses, and the more a true leader rises from the masses, the more he draws the masses to him. The mass is the weak, cowardly, lazy majority of people. One can never entirely win the broad mass. The best elements from the mass must be put in a form where they can be victorious. That is the task of a brilliant mind. We thank fate that it has given us one of these minds, a mind superior to all others, whom we willingly serve. That is the proof that we will win. If others find their wisdom in majority rule, but a movement is led by one person, that movement will win. When it wins is irrelevant. It will win because that is the way things are. Look around as much as you want. You will everywhere see our movement's intellectual foundations.

The task of the leaders and followers is to drive this knowledge ever deeper into the hearts of our shattered nation. Each must make that clear, each must think things through. Everything we do must be clear. We will never give up. If everything is clear, one does not have to be an outstanding speaker. If he can say it all in a few words, he is a propagandist. If we have an army of such propagandists, from the littlest to the Führer himself, and if each spreads our crystal-clear knowledge to the masses, the day will come which our worldview takes over the state, when our organization seizes the reins of power, when we are no longer members of a slave colony, but rather citizens of a political state that we ourselves have formed.

That is our task on this planet: to create the foundation on which our people can live. When we do that, this nation will create works of culture that will endure for eons in world history!

And if today's conservatives are insulted by this, because they feel they're better than the people who have the microphone in their party, then I say to them what I would say to moderate Muslims: Denounce your radicals. To paraphrase George W. Bush, either you're with them or you're embarrassed by them.

The thing that you people out of power have to remember is that the people in power are not secretly plotting against you. They don't need to. They already beat you in public.The important thing is not to find people who agree with me about every theoretical jot and tittle, but rather that I find people who are willing to fight with me for a worldview. Winning people over to something that I have recognized as right, that is what we call propaganda. At first there is knowledge; it uses propaganda to find the manpower that will transform knowledge into politics. Propaganda stands between the idea and the worldview, between the worldview and the state, between the individual and the party, between the party and the nation. At the moment at which I recognize something as important and begin speaking about it in the streetcar, I begin making propaganda. At the same moment, I begin looking for other people to join me. Propaganda stands between the one and the many, between the idea and the worldview. Propaganda is nothing other than the forerunner to organization. Once it has done this, it is the forerunner to state control. It is always a means to an end.

Bill Maher is the host of HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher."

What a Juice Bag!


http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-maher24-2009apr24,0,927819.story



http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/goeb54.htm

Leo Hall of Fame Honoree - Lt. Col. Tom O'Dea, Vietnam Hero

Leo High School at 7901 S. Sangamon is the home of heroes - thousands of them. Leo Men remain committed to providing an education for poor kids from their old neighborhoods. Leo High School serves African American young men from Auburn/Gresham, Englewood, Brainerd, Grand Crossing and Chatham with a college preparatory education that sends 93% of our guys on to great colleges and universities.

Leo Men are aging white, Catholic middle class guys. They might have left the neighborhood, many to go to war for America, but they never left their school nor the kids who are a different color than them and tend to worship at different churches than the Catholic boys who went here decades ago. Ninety-nine and nine tenths percent of the financial aid coming to the one hundred percent black kids comes from these white Catholic gentlemen.

Tonight Leo honors a body of men who exemplify the school's motto -Facta Non Verba -Deeds Not Words. Among the honorees that includes a former Leo principal, the current Leo Alumni President, a long-time Leo teacher/coach,the CEO of the John Buck Company, a basketball icon, a rock-ribbed union tradesman, a Chicago Fire Department Hero, an Oil Company executive, and the manager of Florida Marlins is a fallen hero of the Vietnam War.

Read Erin Mattingly's moving tribute to her grandfather, Col Tom O'Dea!

I'm headed to Chicago this weekend for an incredible event. Thomas Francis O'Dea, my mom's father and my Papa, is being inducted into his high school hall of fame at Leo Catholic High School in Chicago. It's incredible enough to think that, if he was alive, at the age of 82 my Papa is being recognized by the high school he left in 1944, but it's even more incredible considering Papa's history...
Papa was a military career man, much like most of the men on both sides of my family. My mom talks about Papa as a brilliant man. One who knew 7 languages. One who tutored mom through math in elementary school and encouraged his children to get their education. One who wrote her letters while serving overseas telling her to study had, be a good girl, and help Nana. One who loved my Nana and made her the best person she could be.
He went to Leo Catholic High School, where he served as class President and editor of the yearbook

(his granddaughter was editor of the good ole' Ottawa Hills yearbook, too!) (he's the good looking one in the upper left corner... Apparently I have his nose!)

Unfortunately, I never had the joy of knowing my Papa. I found this online and thought it summed up best the legacy that my Papa left when he was killed serving in Vietnam on December 25, 1968:

2 January 1969 - Army Lieutenant Colonel Thomas F. O'Dea, Jr. knew what it was like to be fighting a war thousands of miles away from home on Christmas Day - the loneliness, longing, and fear. He was a career soldier, and Christmas found him him acting as military advisor in Tay Hinh province northwest of Saigon.That morning he climbed into a helicopter to fly over the province and wish his men a Merry Christmas.It was his last mission. He was killed when the Viet Cong shot his helicopter down. He was 42.Lieutenant Colonel O'Dea of 10120 Morgan Street, Chicago, left a wife, Roberta; and four children, Thomas 18; Cynthia 15; Therese, 12, and Sandra 8.

My mom is Therese. As I've mentioned in previous posts, whenever I go up to DC, I go to visit my Papa and Nana at Arlington National Cemetery, under their oak tree. And whenever Phil takes me on his awesome running route through the Monuments, we stop at the Vietnam Memorial and touch Papa's name and say a quick prayer. And although I feel like I know the legacy of the man from what my mom has told me, I'm really looking forward to meeting those who knew him back in high school. Apparently, his best friend from high school will be sitting at our table Friday night. I know my mom is thrilled to celebrate his life with his friends, my Dad, Phil, and me and I can't wait to get to know Papa even more through the stories and reminiscing of his years at Leo High. Chi-town, watch out, the O'Dea/Mattinglys are coming to town!

*Leo High School Hall of Fame Class of 2009
James Corbett – 1952
Bob Kman – 1959
Tony Parker -1973
Bob Schablaske –Faculty
Mike Coyle – 1958
John Eckenstein – 1951
John Boles -1966
Rich Furlong -1959
John O'Donnell -1968

Lt. Col. Thomas J. O'Dea (posthumous) -1944


Click my post title for hundreds of more Leo Heroes!

The Nutbags( Pelosi,Kerry,& etc.) Want an American MiniTru -Ministry of Their Truth - I Wish I Had the Neumatic Tube Concession for the Memory Holes!

The Ministry of Truth is involved with news media, entertainment, the fine arts and educational books. Its purpose is to rewrite history and change the facts to fit party doctrine, for propaganda effect. For example, if Big Brother makes a prediction that turns out to be wrong, the employees of the Ministry of Truth go back and rewrite history so that any prediction Big Brother previously made is accurate. This is the "how" of the Ministry of Truth's existence. Within the novel Orwell elaborates that the deeper reason for its existence is to maintain the illusion that the party is absolute. It cannot ever seem to change its mind (if, for instance, they perform one of their constant changes regarding enemies during war) or make a mistake (firing an official or making a grossly misjudged supply prediction), for that would imply weakness and to maintain power the party must seem eternally right and strong.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ministry_of_Truth

Boy, does that have a familiar ring to it - truth. 'We did not Bow - The President was looking for nickels on the carpet!' & 'We do not want to look in the rearview mirror to that 'dark chapter in American history,' when we stopped . . .what's Napolitano call terrorists now? . . .Oh Yeah, . . .threats both foreign and domestic, both natural and manmade . . . I put this Hummer in Reverse to Roll over the Bush-ies!'

The Congress and it seems the Obama Administration want to develop a MiniTru - Ministry of Truth with the bailout of newspapers.

Influential Los Angeles Times columnist Rosa Brooks has hung up her journalistic hat and joined the Obama administration, but not before penning a public proposal calling for some radical ideas to help bail out the failing news industry.

Brooks, who has taken up a post as an adviser at the Pentagon, advocated upping "direct government support for public media" and creating licenses to govern news operations.

"Years of foolish policies have left us with a choice: We can bail out journalism, using tax dollars and granting licenses in ways that encourage robust and independent reporting and commentary, or we can watch, wringing our hands, as more and more top journalists are laid off," she wrote in her parting column on April 9.

Brooks said this would help rescue the industry from a "death spiral" and left the government unaccountable to the journalists who must keep it honest. "[I] can't imagine anything more dangerous than a society in which the news industry has more or less collapsed," she wrote.

Then we hear from the WindSurfer ( my Last National Democratic Vote Tossed in the Crapper to Him) John Kerry,"there will also be serious consequences for our democracy where diversity of opinion and strong debate are paramount." Oh Yeah.

Free Press owned by the government is not a Free Press -Free Press is a term to describe news reporting that is allowed to be honest & truthful; as opposed to news that is forced to twist facts or lie. http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_free_press

We don't need a Government owned Railroad ( High Speed Rail)

We don't need a MiniTru.

Free Market Capitalists develop, finance and run railroads and newspapers. Freely. Free to Succeed and Free to Fail.

We need a competent government - that is Change We Need to Believe In - or Vote for It next time.

America! before MSNBC and Its Obsession with Self-Loathing

Long before American Military would be pilloried on the nightly news, abused by the screeching of Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann, David Schuester and Rachel Maddow; before Ward Churchill, Bill Ayers and SEIU became the templates for Community Service. Americans proudly jumped at the chance to valorize Patriotism.

America has had its head shoved downward to contemplate re-constituted American History by academics, politicians in the pockets of Advocacy Agendas, and compliant journalists.

Max Weismann of the Center for the Study of Great Ideas founded, ironically enough at the University of Chicago, by America's greatest Thomas Aquinas scholar, Mortimer Adler, sent me this remarkable photo from World War One Era America.

The troops at Fort Dodge, Iowa created this remarkable photograph - without the aid of PhotoShop.

CLICK THIS PHOTO FOR A STUNNING VIEW!

FACTS: Standing Tall for Liberty 1918 -Fort Dodge, Iowa

Base to Shoulder: 150 feet
Right Arm: 340 feet
Widest part of arm holding torch: 12 1/2 feet
Right thumb: 35 feet
Thickest part of body: 29 feet
Left hand length: 30 feet
Face: 60 feet
Nose: 21 feet
Longest spike of head piece: 70 feet
Torch and flame combined: 980 feet
Number of men in torch: 2,800
Number of men in right arm: 1,200
Number of men in body, head and balance of figure only: 2,000

Total men: 18,000

Celebrate Earth Day - Eat a Critter - Al Gore Will!

Henry David Thoreau is a hump. I used to love teaching Walden and present HDT as the phony self-absorbed goof that he was in life.

Walden, like The Social Contract was the work of a rock-ribbed hypocrite and self-absorbed narcissist -which is why these Romantic idiots, Thoreau and Rousseau, are so popular among the soul-patched-knit-hat, Venti gulping activist crowd.

Thoreau never did a damn thing for anyone on this planet - spare me the Night Thoreau Spent in Jail BS over the racist Mexican War (that was a damn fine War and no one in California is beefing about it but the Commies). He was a rich back-stabbing hump who chronicled his log cabin manliness - like the sissy he was. A real guy would do and clam up about it. The only clown in history of thought lower in my estimation than Thoreau would be Rousseau - a louse of the first order - followed closely by Sir Francis Bacon.

Thoreau is the Patron Saint of Earth Day. A phony-assed PC bit of nonsense, swooned over by nit-wits that read parts of books and learn everything else by redaction.

So, today I took my Carbon Footprint Test.

Me and the Kids are way below where we should be. This year I'll Make Big Foot wish he had my Carbon Foot Print!

Your Carbon Footprint:
House 2.70 tonnes of CO2
Flights 0.47 tonnes of CO2
Car 4.10 tonnes of CO2
Motorbike 0.00 tonnes of CO2
Bus & Rail 0.00 tonnes of CO2
Secondary 36.68 tonnes of CO2

Your footprint is 43.94 tonnes, which equates to 3.99 tonnes per year
The average footprint for people in United States is 20.40 tonnes
The average for the industrial nations is about 11 tonnes
The average worldwide carbon footprint is about 4 tonnes
The worldwide target to combat climate change is 2 tonnes


Total = 43.94 tonnes of CO2

Kids, Crank Up the Jam! Turn on the Lights! The Carbon Hickeys Gonna Par-Tay Tonight!
Fois Gras Pizza it is!
Photo of Hickey Footprint Above!

Hickey's 1,000th Post - With Johnny Rivers and Orestes Brownson

Looks like I batted out a grand of these posts. Good practice and exercises each morning along with my prayers and devotions amid sets of 100 push-ups/pull ups/sit-ups and throw-ups. Toweling off the beads of sweat and penitential droplets of tears, I think of what to write about usually after a bracing cup of hot coffee from Kean or perhaps a hotter bit of news.

I work in the poor side of town and have the greatest regard for the families who struggle to meet tuition costs with the heroic help of the Leo Alumni. This is a BS-free Black and White Educational Coalitional - no Progressive helps in any way, shape, or form.

So to celebrate, click my post title for vintage Johnny Rivers* and read some youthful 19th Century American Thought by a guy buried at Sared Heart Chapel at Notre Dame, but by Progressive intellectual bigots - Orestes Brownson.

From Protestant Journalism in Brownson's Quarterly Review

We distinguish between the journal and the newspaper. The newspaper originated some three hundred years ago, if we are not mistaken, in the commercial city of Venice, and was designed chiefly to communicate such intelligence as was of special interest to merchants and bankers, or, as we say now, to the business classes. Gradually it enlarged its scope, especially when transferred to England, and gave political intelligence, as well as banking and mercantile information; but it confined itself to giving current news, and avoided all political and other discussions. It grew naturally out of the invention and general adoption of the art of printing, and simply superseded the intelligence which had been, from time immemorial, communicated by written instead of printed letters. The newspaper was not only a harmless, but a useful invention.

The journal may indeed publish news, but it is not by any means a newspaper. It is of recent origin, and owes its birth to the French revolution of 1789, that fountain of so many evils, and, to human eyes, of no good. The design of the journal is to influence and control public opinion, and, through public opinion, to influence and control public action. The public to which it is addressed may be a party, a faction, a coteric, or a sect, but its design is always to influence and control the thought and action of its public, whether its public be larger or smaller; and it seeks to do this by discussion, by arguments addressed to reason or prejudice, and by declamation, or inflammatory appeals to passion. The so-called independent journalism, represented by such journals as the N. Y. Herald, the N. Y. Tribune, and the N. Y. Sun of this city, professes to be independent of all parties, sects, and cliques, and to set forth the views and convictions of its management alone, or what its management believes, or pretends to believe, is for the public interest. But it must have popular support, a wide popular circulation, and, to gain this, it must court popular opinion, and study not to outrage popular prejudice. It can afford to have no unpopular principles, nor to support an unpopular cause. Indeed it cannot afford to have any principles, especially any religious principles, for any decided principles are sure to be unpopular with one or another section of the public. It, in fact, has no positive religion of any sort; and whatever religion it favors, is so vague and indeterminate that it is as good as none at all. Its influence in regard to religion is either to encourage infidelity pure and simple, or perfect indifferentism. Its religions is secularism, and it is less really independent and more fatal to all the great interests of society than even the partisan or sectarian press.

Satan never made a better hit than when he invented independent journalism; and the New York Herald, which so admirably represents the spirit of the age, should be, as we have no doubt it is, a great favorite with him. None but a renegade or bad Catholic could ever have founded and sustained such a marvellous journal; nor could even a bad Catholic have done it without extraordinary satanic assistance. The very design of the journal is satanic. It throws the forming and directing of public opinion and action into the hands of men who are responsible only to the laws, and hardly to them; who have and can give no guaranty of their wisdom, who scout all authority but their own, and proceed always on the assumption of their own infallibility, and that of the public to which they appeal. Independent journalism is Protestantism raised to its highest power, the deification of private judgment, and a fitting forerunner of Antichrist. Its power is immense, and its despotism is in proportion to its power. . . .

The greatest difficulty a Catholic reviewer encounters is in convincing Catholic laymen and journalists that catholic means catholic. The difficulty is almost as great as that of convincing certain routinist philosophers that nothing is nothing, not something. If religion is catholic, it is supreme and universal, the supreme law in every department of life, extending to every species of human activity. Whether we eat or drink, whether we sleep or wake, whatever we do, we are to do it for the glory of God. The goods of this life, whether national or political, social or economical, are never secured, or, if secured, cease to be goods,

http://www.orestesbrownson.com/index.php?id=5

* Poor Side of Town was a signal to every hormone bursting (abeit, tempered by a Powerful Catholic counter-balance of moral and ethical dignity and the gentling balm of our better natures) south side male (circa 1967) that a 'two-hander' dance would put you in close proximity to the iconic beauties of parish life - Sharon Monahan, Nancy McNicholas, Marita McEnery, Joanne Stefanu, Carolyn Velos, Cynthia Prochaska, Shirley Ward, Rose Proszak, Dianne Zackevich, Denise O'Malley, Ginny O'Malley, Eileen O'Connor, Michele Fiscelli, and Mary Gill. As the needle cut through those grooves, young men were transported to Elysium** - in Little Flower Gym, Leo Cafeteria, and at Mendel, Marist, Brother Rice and I am sure at the public schools.


"Poor Side Of Town," signaled a significant change in Johnny Rivers' musical direction. "I had this tune I'd been working on, and I kept playing it for Lou," Rivers says. "It took me about six months to finish. We cut it with Larry Knechtel, Joe Osborn and Hal Blaine. I did my vocal performances live with the band. I sat and played my guitar and sang. There weren't any overdubs. So we said it could use some singers and maybe some strings. That's the time we got together with (arranger) Marty Paich."

Paich, who arranged for Mel Torme and Ray Charles, put lavish strings on "Poor Side.'' However, Adler and Rivers found Imperial reluctant to tamper with a winning formula. "Al Bennett and those guys were goin' 'Man. don't start comin' out with ballads. You're gonna kill your career. You got a good thing goin' with this funky trio rock sound, stay with that."' "Poor Side Of Town" became Rivers' first #1 record.

http://www.johnnyrivers.com/hits.html

**

And those that have three times kept to their oaths,
Keeping their souls clean and pure,
Never letting their hearts be defiled by the taint
Of evil and injustice,
And barbaric venality,
They are led by Zeus to the end:
To the palace of Kronos

Hell, we usually went to Atlas Hamburgers at 79th & Winchester.

Three Card Monte With President Obama

WASHINGTON — President Obama on Tuesday left open the door to creating a bipartisan commission that would investigate the Bush administration’s use of harsh interrogation techniques on terrorism suspects, and he did not rule out taking action against the lawyers who fashioned the legal guidelines for the interrogations.

Pressure Grows to Investigate Interrogations (April 21, 2009)
The latest on President Obama, the new administration and other news from Washington and around the nation. Join the discussion.

Mr. Obama, who has been saying that the nation should look ahead rather than focusing on the past, said he is “not suggesting” that a commission be established.

But in response to questions from reporters in the Oval Office, he said, “if and when there needs to be a further accounting,” he hoped that Congress would examine ways to obtain one “in a bipartisan fashion,” from people who are independent and therefore can build credibility with the public.

or as Rahm Emmanuel said two days ago,

EMANUEL: 'Yes, but those who devised policy, he believes that they were -- should not be prosecuted either, and that's not the place that we go -- as he said in that letter, and I would really recommend people look at the full statement -- not the letter, the statement -- in that second paragraph, "this is not a time for retribution." It's time for reflection. It's not a time to use our energy and our time in looking back and any sense of anger and retribution.' (This Week, ABC News, April 19, 2009)

or, ANY and EVERY Person who served in the George W. Bush Administrations 2000-2008 - Lawyer Up!

You think Water Boarding is Torture? Now, this will be Torture!

Lard-Asses and Methane Gases! Al Gore and Mike Moore Give Cheeseburgers Passes!

Lard Asses are Rocking the Green Boat! As the Tubby Stubby Kaye sang in Guys and Dolls:

I sailed away on that little boat to heaven
And by some chance found a bottle in my fist
And there I stood,Nicely passin' out the whisky
But the passengers were bound to resisist
For the people all said beware
You're on a heavenly trip
People all said beware
Beware, you'll scuttle the ship.
And the devil will drag you under
By the fancy tie 'round your wicked throat
Sit down, sit down, sit down, sit down
Sit down, you're rockin' the boat

Green Hates Lard - 'Carbon FootPrint! Carbon Footprint! Kill Them or at least render the lard down to something useful!' Says The Sweating Toned, Geek Bike-Hatted Progressive, Hot from the Cross Bar of His Schwinn Phantom ( fenderlight, springer fork, chrome fenders, tank, rack, chainguard, balloon tires, and large saddle--all hallmarks of cruiser bikes.)1954~!

Dr Phil Edwards, of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said: “Moving about in a heavy body is like driving in a gas guzzler.”

Each fat person is said to be responsible for emitting a tonne more of climate-warming carbon dioxide per year than a thin one.

It means an extra BILLION TONNES of CO2 a year is created, according to World Health Organisation estimates of overweight people.

The scientists say providing extra grub for them to guzzle adds to carbon emissions that heat up the world, melting polar ice caps, raising sea levels and killing rain forests. The environmental impact of fat humans is made even worse because they are more likely to travel by car — another major cause of carbon emissions.

Progressives the World Round Hate Overweight Folks - who tend to be married with children ( Fatties Don't Seem to Abort!), pay mortgages instead of rent ( are not transient demographics), tend to smoke and drink beer and do not have memberships in health clubs - Demographer Joel Kotkin explained this years ago -

The new progressivism reflects largely the narcissism of its political base in the urban core and a few elite suburbs. Liberal “progressive” activists in affluent,largely childless places like San Francisco, Manhattan, Seattle, Portland, and Boston see the world as needing simply to become more like themselves. As The
Stranger, a Seattle weekly, put it, they perceive themselves as “islands of sanity,
liberalism and compassion” compared with the suburbs, exurbs, and rural areas
where “people are fatter and slower and dumber. “

That is why Lard Asses pay more on United Airlines - unless you happen to be Al Gore, Keith Olbermann or Mike Moore - Progressive Lard asses!

Olbermann & Maddow Seek Joint Custody of Somali Pirate Waif - Our Own MSNBC Canute!

Abduhl Wali-i-Musi has captured the hearts of MSNBC and they will want you to know that -'It's Alright to Pour Out Your Heart to Abduhl Wali-i-Musi !'

Two Single - UnMarried ( He Can't Get a Date and She Can't Get a License-for Now!) -MSNBC Anchors Rachel Maddow and Tubby Olbermann have opened their hearts to the Kid from the Horn! The Kid with the Heart to Know that Seals Were About to Light Up His Life! Abduhl Wali-i-Musi our Own American Canute ( you know the! . . .The Squarehead Polar Bear Cub) who will Steal our Hearts after Stealing our Ship!'

Show the Love! Laughter is harder... Discover where the emotion is...the friendship is...and the laughter is...Abduhl Wali-i-Musi is here to stay and get richer than Johnny Depp! . . .And He Will!!!!! The Pirate Who Will Scuttle Your Heart -Abduhl-Wali-i-Musi - A Smile That Can Light Up a Room -Dropped the AK-47 to Light Up Sailors!

Friendship is stronger... Trust is deeper... When it comes from the heart. Abduhl Wali-i-Musi MSNBC's Heart is Yours! CNN wanted it but they keep tripping over their own wee-wees as we say here.

This story has got Oscars written all over it!!! Boffo!

Rosie O'Donnell IS Keith Olbermann!

Sean Penn is Rachel Maddow - Together on the Big Screen and DVD's Pirated in Asia!

How about Alec Baldwin as Little Abduhl Wali-i-Musi and Susan Sarandon as His Ma? Bill Maher the Narration!

Kids! Get Dad's Story Board and a Twelve Pack of Leinie!

These Two Terrorists Were Water Boarded 266 Times- That's All??????

President Obama ordered that all documents reveal everything about the shocking treatment our guests in Gitmo were treated to and frankly, I am shocked.

You mean to tell me that these two were only watreboards 266 times between them? These two mopes* merit more wet and wild! Much, much more! The Waterboarding Park is Closed Permanently - well, until 2012 anyway.

It'll be back open.

*

Khalid Shaikh Mohammed is the self-described mastermind of the Sept. 11th attacks, a man who called himself a "jackal" and who explained away the 3,000 victims of that day by saying "the language of war is victims." At least that is what he has told American interrogators, and what he said at a closed hearing in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, after being held in secret prisons for close to four years.

On Dec. 8, 2008, Mr. Mohammed, along with four co-defendants, sent a note to a military judge at Guantánamo asking to confess and to plead guilty.

Mr. Mohammed, an ethnic Baluchi, was born in Kuwait on April 24, 1965. He is the uncle of Ramzi Yousef, mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombings. After graduation from secondary school, he enrolled at Chowan College in Murfreesboro, N.C. and then transferred to North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University. He graduated in 1986, earning a degree in mechanical engineering.

According to the 9/11 Commission Report, his only involvement with the 1993 World Trade Center bombing was conversations with Mr. Yousef, and some contributions to the conspirators. He traveled to the Philippines with Mr. Yousef in 1994 and worked on the Bojinka plot -- a plan to explode 12 commercial jets over the Pacific. They also made plans to assassinate President Clinton on his November 1994 trip to Manila. The Bojinka plot fell apart and in 1995 Mr. Yousef was arrested in Pakistan.

Mr. Mohammed was indicted in the United States on charges stemming from the Manila plot, but he eluded the F.B.I. in Qatar in 1996. He fled to Afghanistan and met with Osama Bin Laden, where he proposed a plan to train pilots to crash 10 planes into targets in the United States. Mr. bin Laden was not persuaded but he asked Mr. Mohammed to join Al Qaeda, an offer he declined. After the 1998 African embassy bombings by Al Qaeda, however, he accepted Osama’s invitation to move to Afghanistan and pursue the 9/11 plan.

In addition to directing the 9/11 plot, Mr. Mohammed was involved in several other plans, according to the 9/11 report, including sending Dhiren Barot to the U.S. to check out targets in New York City, as well as plans for attacks in Israel, Thailand, Singapore and Indonesia.

In October 2001, Mr. Mohammed became one of the 22 men on the FBI’s list of most wanted terrorists As an operations chief for Al Qaeda, he launched plots including a suicide hijacking over the Pacific and plans to blow up gas stations and bridges (according to Defense Department documents).

He was captured on March 1, 2003 in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. For the next several years, Mr. Mohammed was held in secret prisons run by the Central Intelligence Agency. In September 2006, Mr. Mohammed and 13 other “high value’’ Al Qaeda prisoners were transferred to the detention center in Guantánamo.

At a hearing held there released in March 2007, Mr. Mohammed took full credit for the 9/11 attacks and a number of other plots. He also asserted that he had personally decapitated Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. The scope of his confessions led some human-rights advocates to wonder if they reflected the effect of his captivity and harsh interrogation. Other intelligence experts wondered if he were claiming so much to provide cover for former colleagues who might have been involved.

The Times reported on April 20, 2009, that a 2005 Justice Department internal memo said that the C.I.A. used waterboarding 183 times in March 2003 against Mr. Mohammed. The Times reported in 2007 that Mr. Mohammed had been barraged more than 100 times with harsh interrogation methods, causing C.I.A. officers to worry that they might have crossed legal limits and to halt his questioning. But the precise number and the exact nature of the interrogation method was not previously known.

The release of the numbers is likely to become part of the debate about the morality and efficacy of interrogation methods that the Justice Department under the Bush administration declared legal even though the United States had historically treated them as torture.

Related: Osama Bin Laden | Sept. 11, 2001

Abu Zubaydah was captured in Pakistan in March 2002 after a gunfight with Pakistani security officers backed by F.B.I. and C.I.A. officers. Bush administration officials portrayed him as a Qaeda leader. That judgment was reflected in an Aug. 1, 2002, legal opinion signed by Jay S. Bybee, then head of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel.

The memo summarized the C.I.A.'s judgment that Abu Zubaydah, then 31, had risen rapidly to "third or fourth man in Al Qaeda" and had served as "senior lieutenant" to Osama bin Laden. It said he had "managed a network of training camps" and had been "involved in every major terrorist operation carried out by Al Qaeda."

The memo reported the C.I.A.'s portrayal of "a highly self-directed individual who prizes his independence," a deceptive narcissist, healthy and tough, who agency officers believed was the most senior terrorist caught since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. In April 2009, the release of a 2005 Justice Department legal memorandum revealed that C.I.A. interrogators used waterboarding at least 83 times against him in August 2002 - and that the interrogation technique had been ordered based on a highly inflated assessment of his importance.

An article in The Times on April 18, 2009, said that Abu Zubaydah had revealed nothing new after being waterboarded. A former C.I.A. officer, John Kiriakou, told ABC News and other news media organizations in 2007 that Abu Zubaydah had undergone waterboarding for only 35 seconds before agreeing to tell everything he knew. In April 2009, Mr. Kiriakou disputed the Times article, saying that he believed that after unspecified "techniques" were used, Abu Zubaydah revealed information that led to the capture of another terrorist suspect, Ramzi Binalshibh.

The Times article, based on information from former intelligence officers who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Abu Zubaydah had revealed a great deal of information before harsh methods were used and after his captors stripped him of clothes, kept him in a cold cell and kept him awake at night. The article said interrogators at the secret prison in Thailand believed he had given up all the information he had, but officials at headquarters ordered them to use waterboarding.

The United States had first begun interrogating him, according to multiple accounts, in Pakistan, and continued the interrogation at a secret C.I.A. site in Thailand, with a traditional, rapport-building approach led by two F.B.I. agents, who even helped care for him as his gunshot wounds healed. Abu Zubaydah gave up perhaps his single most valuable piece of information early, naming Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, whom he knew as Mukhtar, as the main organizer of the 9/11 plot.

The conclusion that he revealed no new information after being waterboarded appears to be supported by a footnote to a 2005 Justice Department memo saying the use of the harshest methods appeared to have been "unnecessary" in his case. An official with direct knowledge of the case told The Times that watching his torment caused great distress to his captors.