Fr. Bob Barron takes on the Cosmic Impiety of Our Times

Father Robert Barron is the founder of the global ministry, Word on Fire, and the Rector/President of Mundelein Seminary.

Bishop Fulton J. Sheen, the television pioneer holy man, wit, historian and priest, had it made - he spoke to very open ears and attentive minds.  For decades Bishop Sheen was welcomed into the homes of not only American Catholics on the tube ( Catholic Hour, Life is Worth Living and Fulton Sheen Program), but captured the hearts and minds of other Christians and Jews as well.  One of his major topics was the universal fight against Communism.  Like Satan, Communism managed to fool people that it never existed.  Families who lost sons at the Pusan Perimeter, Inchon, the Chosin Reservoir and Pork Chop Hill in Korea, gradually became comfortable with Reds.

Here is a program from Bishop Fulton J. Sheen Program (1961-1968)  from 1968 -  on this taping the Bishop lays the economic, political, psychological and religious advantage of communist keeping non-Marxist nations at war: He nails it at 3:01

Joe Stalin croaked and avuncularly cartoonish shoe thumpers took his place. Americans no longer worried about Reds in academia, the State Department, or organized labor, because, like Joe Stalin, Senator Joe McCarthy croked.  However, Bishop Sheen continued to offer sermons warning against Communism and the devil's co-equal until advertisers to his national television program was limited to MagicKist carpet cleaning and American Catholics, Jews, and Christians became more interested in Laugh In and The Smothers Brothers and the return of Pete Seeger and his Red Banjo from America's basement. How dangerous could a skinny old geezer with a banjo strapped on be to anyone?

Like the Devil, Communism was no biggie.  The very same mindset of Aw-Shucks American hospitality and fair-play bumped science up in place of religious worship.

Now, decades after Bishop Fulton J. Sheen's return to Christ another witty and scholarly priest has stepped onto the American scene -Chicago's own Father Bob Barron, rector of St. Mary of Lake University in Mundelein, IL. Unlike, Bishop Fulton J. Sheen, Father Barron plays to a very hostile audience.

Like Bishop Sheen, Father Bob Barron has used the communications media (television, radio, print and the web) to engage the Devil and all of his works.  One of the best tools of evil is science.  Science has a huge altar and an enormous pulpit, as well as very talented and very bigoted voices shouting down people of faith who are no less schooled in the arcana of science, yet retain humbled before the author of the cosmos - God.

In the 19th Century, faith was eliminated from the discussion via the usual suspects - Hegel, Dewey and Marx.  Curricula K-20 offers no consideration of thought ( philosophy, science, history or literature) that does not consider culture except through the lens of Hegel, Dewey, or Marx.  American literature in high school text books practically dominates Emerson, Thoreau, Melville, Hawthorne, Garrison over any other consideration in order to valorize the subsequent identity-politics light weights who string out the canon.   In philosophy of education future teachers of American children receive an eye-dropper of Plato's thin broth redacted of course and feast upon Rousseau, Fichte, Mann, Dewey and now, comically sad but true, William Ayers.

As for science, there is no search for truth, only solutions to problems.  You can go to the moon, but you can not recall why we went there . . .to beat the Commies, Remember?  Commies are not a problem they are our bankers; therefore, cancel NASA shuttle flights.  We are tickled to death that we are getting great pictures from Mars, but why are we there?  What's the plan, there Hawking and Dawkins?


Father Barron chats with a priest scientist Father George Coyne:



Man built cathedrals that attempted to match to awe and majesty of God's love of man.  Man illuminated and preserved the works of Aristotle, Plotinus, Heraclitus, Empedocles and the plays of Aristophanes in beehive stone cells of monasteries far from the reach of savages in order to justify God's ways to Man. That is called piety.  The opposite of piety is pride and pride on steroids is hubris. Hubris is what the Greeks worried about - if man forgets God, Man is screwed.  We like to forget that.   We need Fulton J. Sheens and Bob Barrons.

In my opinion, Father Barron has a tougher row to hoe.  Bishop Sheen's foes, Satan and the Soviets, were much more understood by people during the American Golden Age ( 1945-1972).  I mark the end of WWII and Nixon's Trip to China and the very next year Nixon cleared the way for Roe v. Wade and the American Genocide*.   Once Tricky Dick ate egg-rolls with Mao and chatted realpolitik with Chou En Lai, Americans put on their eatin' pants too, burped away bad thoughts and watched the Tube and nodded that abortion was health care.

Father Barron offers a genuine consideration of modern hubris, or what Bertrand Russell called cosmic impiety, in an article from RealClear Politics.  Here is a salient passage:

 Though the sciences might be able to explain the chemical make-up of pages and ink, they will never be able to reveal the meaning of a book; and though they might make sense of the biology of the human body, they will never tell us why a human act is moral or immoral; and though they might disclose the cellular structure of oil and canvas, they will never determine why a painting is beautiful.And this is not because "science" is for the moment insufficiently developed, it is because the scientific method cannot, even in principle, explore such matters, which belong to a qualitatively different category of being than the proper subject matter of the sciences. The claim that "science" could ever provide a total understanding of reality as a whole overlooks the rather glaring fact that meaning, truth, beauty, morality, purpose, etc., are all ingredients in "the universe."
But as is usually the case with scientistic speculation, Carroll's thought is designed, above all, to eliminate God as a subject of serious intellectual discourse. The first and most fundamental problem is that, like Hawking, Dawkins and Dennett, Carroll doesn't seem to know what Biblical people mean by "God." With the advance of the modern physical sciences, he asserts, there remains less and less room for God to operate, and hence less and less need to appeal to him as an explanatory cause. This is a contemporary reiteration of Pierre-Simon Laplace's rejoinder when the Emperor Napoleon asked the famous astronomer how God fit into his mechanistic system: "I have no need of that hypothesis."
But God, as the classical Catholic intellectual tradition understands him, is not one cause, however great, among many; not one more item within the universe jockeying for position with other competing causes. Rather, God is, as Thomas Aquinas characterized him, ipsum esse, or the sheer act of to-be itself -- that power in and through which the universe in its totality exists. Once we grasp this, we see that no advance of the physical sciences could ever "eliminate" God or show that he is no longer required as an explaining cause, for the sciences can only explore objects and events within the finite cosmos.
To demonstrate the relationship between God and the universe more clearly, it would be worthwhile to explore the most fundamental argument for God's existence, namely the argument from contingency. You and I are contingent (dependent) in our being in the measure that we eat and drink, breathe, and had parents; a tree is contingent inasmuch as its being is derived from seed, sun, soil, water, etc.; the solar system is contingent because it depends upon gravity and events in the wider galaxy. To account for a contingent reality, by definition we have to appeal to an extrinsic cause. But if that cause is itself contingent, we have to proceed further. This process of appealing to contingent causes in order to explain a contingent effect cannot go on indefinitely, for then the effect is never adequately explained. 
Hence, we must finally come to some reality that is not contingent on anything else, some ground of being whose very nature is to-be. This is precisely what Catholic theology means by "God." Therefore, God is not one fussy cause within or alongside the universe; instead, he is the reason why there is a universe at all, why there is, as the famous formula has it, "something rather than nothing." To ask the sophomoric question, "Well, what caused God?" is simply to show that the poser of the question has not grasped the nettle of the argument.

No, Father, we have settled all that.  Science says "toss up those big-ass wind-turbines (NIMBY Rules apply of course) and all is well."  Go to Mars!  "Why?"  Because, there was water there billions and billions and billions of years ago! " And?"  There was water there billions and billions and billions of years ago. 

Keep at them, Father!

REV. ROBERT BARRON, M.A. (Phil), S.T.D., .

Francis Cardinal George, O.M.I., Professor of Faith and Culture

M.A., Catholic University of America; S.T.B., M.Div., S.T.L., University of St. Mary of the Lake; S.T.D., Institut Catholique de Paris. Former Associate Pastor at St. Paul of the Cross Parish. A member of the Catholic Theology Society of America, G.K. Chesterton Society, Paul Tillich Society. Author of The Strangest Way: Walking the Christian Path, Creation as Discipleship, A Study of the DePotentia of Thomas Aquinas in Light of the Dogmatik of Paul Tillich, Thomas Aquinas: Spiritual Master, And Now I See: A Theology of Transformation, Heaven in Stone and Glass and Bridging the Great Divide and The Word on Fire: Proclaiming the Power of Christ and of the Priority of Christ: Toward a Postliberal Catholicism. Articles on theology and the spiritual life have appeared in numerous journals.

*Planned Parenthood continues  to get one third( $ 345 Million dollars) of its funding to murder children from the Federal Government.
Forget Mars.  We got serious business here.

http://www.nasa.gov/pdf/622643main_FY%2013%20Budget%20Presentation.pdf

This is 'What is On,' When My Love Asks, " What Are You Thinking Right Now?"

Make sense?

Women are from Venus and Men are . . . . . . I'm sorry, what were you asking?  Oh, we are very different.  The mind wanders, though purpose allows us to somehow unplug the sink, get that raise, change the tires, knock out that Jap machine gun nest on Hill 262 . . .sorry.

I am always asked by the elegant, graceful and thoughtful woman I love, " What is on your mind, right now?" Nothing lurid, My dear.

Women really, really, really want to know.  I try and and try to explain, "not much."

Usually it is stuff I need to do.  Women think deep, caring and beautiful thoughts.  Men?



Ladies, This is what is going on when we have that far-away look.  It is not, "how can I make this a better world, or ' Was I unkind to interrupt her thoughts with a suggestion that I actually followed what the hell she was saying?"

Nope.  Here's what's on the brain screen, Girls. This one gets replayed in my old brain pan a lot!

Power - Hegel, Fichte, Horace Mann, Compulsory Education -The Roots of Our Nanny and Ninny American Society

“Education should provide the means to destroy free will”.  -Fichte

I

Fichte and the powerful men (Emerson, Horace Mann and John Dewey) who have inherited his ideals, when they see children, think: 'Here is material that I can manipulate'... All this, to any person with natural affection for the young, is horrible; just as we teach children to avoid being destroyed by motor cars if they can, so we should teach them to avoid being destroyed by cruel fanatics... This is the task of a liberal education: to give a sense of the value of things other than domination, to help create wise citizens of a free community, and through the combination of citizenship with liberty in individual creativeness to enable men to give to human life that splendour which some few have shown that it can achieve (Russell 1938:251 - parenthetical my own).

Yesterday, a Cook County judge dismissed any and all charges against the Occupy/NATO protesters because the City of Chicago did not arrest Obama Victory Party celebrators in 2008.

If that makes perfect sense to you, then you fully understand the nature of the American Progressive Power and Education Collective.  There is no room for rugged individuals like cops in this America, this Illinois, Cook County and City of Chicago.  

The cops were praised universally in May when there was clear and present danger of great violence and mayhem resulting from the organized and orchestrated voices, fists, feet, buttocks, beer and pop bottles of the American Left starring Occupy, Anarchists International and the anti-NATO gangs.

Chicago Police under Superintendent Garry McCarthy were masterful routing the goofs and ninnies.. It is axiomatic that the American public praise not soldiers, cops, firemen and medics too long.

As in the case of the American National Memory following 9/11/01,  unified pride and determination must be extinguished in place of greater goals, agendas and satisfying outcomes - a return to the Nanny and Ninny State*
.
The Nanny State makes sure that American Individualism is shackled by governmentally legislated mandates limiting the free exercise of conscience -Gay Marriage is a natural and civil right, Abortion is Health Care, Sugar, fat and salt and is poison, obesity can be cured by law, the Middle Class must disappear, while believing that it is being strengthened, and opportunity can only come from the Federal Government.

The Ninny State complies to everything that comes from the Nanny State.

Like drunks and degenerate gamblers, we hold these truths to be self-evident, because we learned them in schools -public schools and practiced what was preached over many decades without ever challenging the roots of power itself.

Power is what it is all about.  The power to turn Labor into SEIU was exercised patiently and incrementally.  The power to eliminate individualism and piety from the culture.  America must transcend its identity and become a global component in a New World Order.

Great people must be diminished and obscured and replaced by a poster image.

 I have never met a great person, powerful, influential, celebrated and publicly recognized for achievement, who was not a very humble, grateful, giving person.   I met met many, far too many, public persons who grabbed or were handed authority, influence and celebrity, who were cowardly bullies, frauds, grifters, users and sneaks.  While they may wield power, far too long in most cases, they never do anything for anyone or anything that does not add to their personal and public agenda. For them it is all about power.

Some of the worst bullies, frauds, grifters, users and sneaks choose teaching as a path to power.    Whether it is a gym coach who flirts and eventually seduces and impregnates a cheerleader, a social science teacher who uses the essays of her students to publish her book on adolescent sexual awakenings and shares none of the royalties or credit with her 'ghost-writers,'   the unprepared lazy clown who gives silent reading periods seven preps a day,  five days a week, while taking classes for his Type-75 Certification from Big Community Mail or Phone It In University,  education, like politics, can be a very warm and welcoming home for the useless, lazy and mean. Private and Catholic schools have the luxury of getting rid of such mopes and the best of them do and quickly.

Power differs from authority.   I can fire up a boiler in the winter but I am not the best person to do so.  The custodian, or the school stationary engineer.  I 'pigeon-see-makee-workee' buttons and pumps and water tubes, it will go on, but if things go south . . .hold the  phone, Richard. In short, I am no authority. Though I am no proficient, let alone authority on boiler maintenance and operations, I was taught simple tasks necessary for a satisfying outcome.  I went to Catholic schools. My public school counterpart would have nothing to do with any task out of his  step, level and license.  Catholic educators multi-task - always have and always will. . .until outlawed by Federal Mandate.

I learned that if something needs to be done, even without full authority or license I am obligated to fire the the damn things up!  If I see an unconscious man on the sidewalk, I may not pass him by. Rather, I must apply the rudimentary CPR tasks and face the all too real possibility of having my ass sued by the person I helped.  It's that Catholic thing.  I coached, mentored, supervised and taught in Catholic schools and still do. 

I am very well schooled in the canons of British, American and some World Literatures. My areas of interest are not limited to my tastes.  I love Thackeray, admire Dickens, worship Milton and  Pope and delight in Shakespeare.  I prefer neo-classical, Augustan poetry over the much more popular Romantics; Jane Bronte over Jane Austin; Montaigne before Bacon always with essays; Seamus Heaney & Wallace Stevens top Yeats, Frost, T.S. and Chesterton is more than equal to GB Shaw.  That stuff can not unplug a sewer line, nor can it bend electrical pipe.

My authority lies solely in my study and training as a teacher.  That authority did not include offering a National Honor Society insurance policy along with the syllabus for AP English Literature.  I did not give "extra credit" and neither would set of Michelin 59/80R63 XDR tires satisfy the semester essay requirements; nor, did it include the license to organize students as an agenda collective.

The idea  that one should develop as woman or man is repellent to schools of education, especially American education. The concept of Free Will lies at the core of Catholic teaching and task of each person is to recognize obligation to family, faith and nation within the individual's cosmic duty to the Creator.  Catholic education was established in America in Baltimore during the 1850's in reaction to evangelizing of citizens under the Hegelian Prussian models advocated by the likes of  Horace Mann a Unitarian minister.  Horace Mann visited Prussia in 1843 and returned with doctrine of universal compulsory education -

It was Mann and his like-minded comrades in the Massachusetts elite, who imagined education as a tool of an emerging republic to develop its human resources and direct that development. They saw themselves as the best and the brightest, so who better than they to say what education should be for everyone else.

Thus the advent of the Nanny State and Ninny State that America has become.  Students are compelled to track into niche and absorb all manner of nonsense that has absolutely nothing to do with " the examined life."

Progressive icon Emma Goldman railed against the individual -rugged and otherwise - in favor of collectivism and Americans eat this up!

'rugged individualism'... is only a masked attempt to repress and defeat the individual and his individuality. So-called Individualism is the social and economic laissez-faire

Individualism during the harsh Medieval times turned hostelers into Archbishops, like Thomas Becket, through the scholastic gradus.


Beggers can't be kings, but under the American collectivist education, buggers can be Dads. Power and compulsory education make it so.  Social engineering comes through schools.  As always, those born to the purple have education suited to their rank and privilege.


Where gentleman farmers and leading burghers attended the American but less feudal incubators of Groton, Phillips-Andover, Trinity & Harvard and Yale elite private schools, the rustics and immigrant  huddled masses were compelled to attend government schools founded by  Unitarian established doctrines and systems to mold workers, clerks and soldiers and their places in the Unitarian scheme.  The wealthy went to the elite schools:

Tier one would be our elite private prep schools and elite private (and top public) universities that, though they are not completely limited to our society’s social elite, are still generally bastions of the most privileged in our country, including many of our top political leadership. Lefty Parent

 These private educational institutions, colloquially known as "prep schools" in the United States, can be boarding or day schools, affiliated with a particular faith or completely secular. At the high end of the spectrum, they're known for ultra-competitive admissions, high tuition and top-notch facilities. Their aim is to provide students with education that funnels them into the very best universities.. . . These institutions all offer high-caliber instruction and uniquely valuable experiences to their students. But in a world where education is so competitive and expensive, and where the name of your high school can open doors for life, it's worth measuring the best of the best. Forbes

* Tier two would be the best of our public K-12 schools, located mostly in more prosperous neighborhoods, which have the resources to assist the most academically inclined of the children of the middle class to put them on the programmed path to get their degrees and then get good jobs as doctors and lawyers and other “knowledge workers”, our contemporary “apparatchiks”. Lefty Parent

These schools are the ones like a New Trier in Winnetka - home to Mayor Rahm Emanuel and funded by a wildly affluent. They are no pay prep schools. Likewise, CPS has created Magnet Schools which operate in most exclusive manner with regard to acceptance, yet remain linked by taxes to the universal compulsory model despite all of bells and whistles found in Naperville, Winnetka and Lake Forest public schools.

Then, of course the compelled helots and huddled masses of urban and rural America - real Mike Klonsky and Bill Ayers Annenberg Challenged children are warehoused, as they always have been in the Horace Mann, John Dewey Worker Beehives of Tier Three Schools.

* Tier three would be the rest of our public schools, mainly in the inner cities and poor rural areas, generally under resourced and failing (by design as it is argued by some). Though there are the occasional exceptions of schools or individual students that rise above these circumstances into the second tier, which perpetuate the myth that anyone can succeed, many of our youth in these schools have the odds of success heavily stacked against them. From these ranks many of our lower-paid worker-bees come, including many of the enlisted soldiers in our volunteer army. Lefty Parent

The Tier Three schools are the horrific barns parents of limited income must send their children. There they are housed until such time as they may reap the benefits doled to them.  The only chance these children have of becoming rugged individuals who contribute while they save what they earn is catholic schools.  I group all denominations under this small c rubric.  Roman Catholic schools reject the Horace Mann compulsory  second and third tier models.  Catholic schools like their medieval rooted schools teach free will, humility, commitment to  God and the scholastic gradus* - One must move up the steps once one has mastered the skills and the understanding of each level of progress and proficiency.  Other Christian Faiths adopted the Catholic system of education -parochial school.

In our Nanny & Ninny State, rugged individuals need not apply until they take the required univeral and compulsory anti-individual, racist, sugar eating, carbon foot-printing, pan-homophobia, breeder happy counsel and licensing.


N.B. Much of what sparked my rather gabby post above was sparked by a posting from a blog entitled Lefty Parent which I link below. Thanks, Lefty!

*The Trivium consisted of:

• Grammar

• Rhetoric

• Logic

The Quadrivium consisted of:

• Arithmetic -- Number in itself

• Geometry -- Number in space

• Music, Harmonics, or Tuning Theory -- Number in time

• Astronomy or Cosmology -- Number in space and time

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/ct-met-grant-park-arrests-judge-0928-20120928,0,3817020.story
http://www.leftyparent.com/blog/2011/10/15/napoleon-prussia-the-u-s-education-system/

Dillon Hoey- A Catholic Education is a Lifestyle

It has been my honor to meet and get to know hundreds of Leo Men. At the top left of this page from the Leo Alumni Website is one of the greatest - J. Dillon Hoey.   Mr. Hoey went home to Christ in April of 2003.  I accompanied Leo ,teacher,  coach, President-CEO and Father Figure Bob Foster to St. Michael's Catholic Church in Old Town for the funeral Mass.  Bob Foster was a year older than Dillon Hoey and had been a team mate on 1956 City Championship Team coached by the legendary Jimmy Arneberg.

Dillon Hoey was a very close friend of my cousin Eddie Burke.  Eddie played for the Mendel Monarchs against his buddy and some of scariest human beings in Catholic League football:  Leo Men Tom Winecki, Don Flynn, Eddie Ryan, Pony Cavanaugh, Rich Boyle, Bob Swast and of course Bob Foster.  Eddie went to Notre Dame and Dillon went to Yale but they kept in touch all through college.

My cousin went on to play with the Houston Oilers and became an attorney in Houston after his pro career. Dillon Hoey became a famous labor lawyer and workers compensation advocate.  At Yale he roomed with future Vice President Dick Cheney and like his long friendship with Ed Burke kept in close touch throughout his life.  Ed Burke continues to  send in money to help Leo kids and their families in memory of J. Dillon Hoey, Leo 1959.

I mention all of this because last night Leo President Dan McGrath, football coach and Dean Mike Holmes and me attended a high school recruitment night at J. Dillon Hoey's parish and alma mater St. Barnabas School in Beverly. We were joining the many Catholic high schools in presenting our case to 7th and grade students looking to their futures.  

One young man who stopped by our table  and filled out a card was the grandson of Dillon Hoey.  His grandfather forged the competitive nature that made him a highly successful and very giving man.  My cousin Eddie Burke and his pal Dillon Hoey faced one another over the scrimmage line and represented what is best in Catholic schools on the broken beer bottles, ciders and rocks of the old Shewbridge Field which was the home of the Leo Lions as well as the wonderfully maintained Eckersoll Stadium and the icon St. Rita Stadium, notable for the sewer manhole handicap in its south end-zone.

Catholic schools are God centered places of learning. Fierce competition for places on teams, as well as a desk in a classroom are part and parcel of this cradle of virtue.  Catholic high schools are all fundamentally the same,but distinct in spirit and traditions.  The is cost in time talent and treasure.  Leo welcomes anyone who wants to succeed, base his life on the gospel, dedicate himself to others and give back more than he receives.  It ain't pretty, neat, or easy; neither is life.

J. Dillon Hoey was the son of a Chicago cop.  He put his heart and hands into the work all through his high school experience, knowing full well that goals are not the end of the story. Once goal is met, a Catholic educated young man should ask, " Okay, what do you want me to do now?"

It would be great to see Dillon Hoey's grandson choose Leo.  This school would serve him as much as it did his grandfather.  However, whatever Catholic school the young man decides up will be an equally great choice. A Chicago public school is out of the question, because there is only a "there" there. A Catholic education is lifestyle.

God Bless the young man and his wonderful grandfather.  Read the tribute from Dillon Hoey's law firm, especially the wonderful quote fro St. Francis of Assisi.

Dillon Hoey - Leo 1958 wearing # 98

J. Dillon Hoey at Yale

Remembering a Life of Giving

J. Dillon Hoey
1941-2003

---

Our firm is deeply saddened by the loss of our wonderful friend, J. Dillon Hoey. Dillon passed away on Sunday, April 27, 2003, from pancreatic cancer.

Our thoughts and prayers are with Dillon’s wife Mary Ann, and other family members. The funeral mass was held at St. Michael’s Church, 1633 North Cleveland Street, Chicago, Illinois, on Thursday, May 1. In lieu of flowers, the family requested that donations be sent to The Alzheimer's Association.

Dillon will be greatly missed by the 35 families of Hoey & Farina, and by so many more in the railroad and legal communities. We want to thank everyone who has sent their sympathies. We have passed these condolences along to Dillon’s wife and family.

Born and raised on the south side of Chicago, Dillon was the son of a Chicago policeman and the grandson of a railroad worker who was fatally injured on the job. With an entire career representing injured workers, Dillon’s professional life manifested the personal values that grew from his strong south side roots.

Dillon grew up in Chicago’s Beverly neighborhood. He attended Leo High School, where he was part of the legendary football squad that won the city championship. Later, at Yale University, Dillon was on the undefeated 1959 freshman football team with Dick Cheney, the current vice president of the United States. After Yale, Dillon returned to Chicago where he attended DePaul University’s College of Law.

Twenty five years ago, Dillon started his own firm. He was appointed Designated Legal Counsel for the United Transportation Union in 1991, and appointed Designated Legal Counsel for the Transportation Communications Union in 1998. Never one to rest on his accomplishments, Dillon continued to build the firm, which now holds seven union designations. During these years, Dillon’s leadership was instrumental in Hoey & Farina, obtaining many of the largest verdicts and settlements for railroaders and their families in the United States.

In the process of building the law firm, Dillon also expanded the definition of Designated Legal Counsel. Dillon offered more than the best legal representation to railroaders and their families. His mission -- the firm’s mission -- was simple -- inform railroaders of their unique rights under the law. The fruit of his efforts is an array of resources; a collection of books, videos, email and print newsletters, websites and seminars that are available for free to railroaders and their families. Dillon raised the bar for what it means to serve as Designated Legal Counsel, and the union membership is the better for it. We know that this is exactly what Dillon envisioned and what he delivered.

Dillon's long list of professional associations include the Academy of Railroad Labor Attorneys, American Trial Lawyers Association, and the American Bar Association. Dillon’s involvement in the community was equally impressive. Dillon served on the executive board of Leo High School, where he was an active contributor to the school and a sponsor of Leo students. Dillon also served as chairman of the Art Committee of the Union League Club of Chicago, a leading civic and community organization. We have highlighted only a few of Dillon’s many community and educational involvements over the years.

St. Francis of Assisi reminds us, “When you leave this earth, you can take with you nothing that you have received, only what you have given: a full heart, enriched by honest service, love, sacrifice and courage." Dillon left us on Sunday, April 27, 2003, and it is certain that he left with a wonderful heart filled by a lifetime of giving to others.

Hoey & Farina pledges to continue the firm and the mission that Dillon built as a tribute to his life. We will continue to honor and celebrate his life in our work, in our hearts and in our prayers.

http://www.leohsalumniassoc.com/images1959/seniors_1959/pages/seniors%20HJ_jpg.htm

http://www.hoeyfarina.com/railroadhfdillonhoey

God Bless Israel! God Bless America! United Nations? meh.

US President Barack Obama says Israel’s call for drawing red line over Iran’s nuclear energy program is just “noise” he tries to ignore -“When it comes to our national security decisions, any pressure that I feel is simply to do what’s right for the American people. And I am going to block out any noise that’s out there,” & here's Iran's Merle Haggard - 

AHMADINEJAD: “I have spoken about this topic at length, previously. We generally speaking do not take very seriously the issue of the Zionists and the possible dangers emanating from them.Of course they would love to find a way for their own salvation by making a lot of noise and to raise stakes in order to save themselves. But I do not believe they will succeed. Iran is also a very well recognized country and her defensive powers are very clear.”

Same speech writers? President Obama and the United Nations are pretty much on the same page. . .and that ain't good.

The nasty and evil but clownish Ahadinijad posing as a world leader demands, "Who is it who determines what the U.S. government must do? Is it the Zionists...? The U.S. government must make such vital decisions under the influence of Zionists?" Netanyahu's insistence, he said, "should be seen as a great insult and taken as such by the people of the United States. Who are these Zionists to dictate to the U.S.?"

The United Nations is nothing more than a forum for Anti-Semitic clowns and tin-pot dictators, it seems to me.

The United States of America took oppression and hate by the scruff of the neck in two world wars, only to have American naivete and idealism made a mockery by the people on the edges of humanity.

The League of Nations was a land grab scam that gave birth to the Bavarian paper hanger and Viennese pan-handler with penchant for spewing hate and the United Nations evolved into a haven for criminals and genocidal maniacs thanks to likes of timid and self-conscious Americans who were embarrassed by truth telling heroes like Daniel Parick Moynihan, Jeanne Kirkpatrick and John Bolton.

Every year, America gets its pants pulled down by the very thugs and louses that two world wars, a Korean "police action."  many Mid-East crises and a Cuban Missile Crisis could not quiet, let alone reform.

Fidel Castro, the Jung Ils,  Nasser, Yasser Arafat, Hugo Chavez, Robert Mugabe and the prize thug Ahmadinejad enjoy the Big Apple and micturate on their hosts.

In 2008, Columbia University laid out the red carpet for this Jew-hating creep.  He was given another forum from which to spew his venom all the while our home -grown ninnies,  nodders and hand-wringers preached about our traditions of fair play.   Shortly, after this very same scruffy mope who can't seem to make razors work properly, nor fully understand the intricacies of knotting a tie, opened fire on his own people and slaughtered dissent, while our newly minted Nobel Prize President voted present.

Israel is Old Testament rooted and blossomed in the sand and rock equivalent of America's Appalachia after millions of Jews were slaughtered by the Ahmadinejad's Teutonic spiritual pappy.  The Jews turned land called Palestine by the British into a green and lush land of productive and happy God fearing people.  The long time occupants, like the most aboriginal Scots-Irish mountain-holler dweller maintained feuds, wallowed in filth and never gave progress a second thought.

Instead, the Lost Children of Hamas, blanketed themselves in Wahabist Marxism victimhood.  When everyone says you are oppressed, you are, by God, oppressed and ready for a feudin'! Clever chaps got  Fulbright free education and learned to activist from the likes of Edward Said, a brilliantly evil literary  sorcerer.  Israelis, he argued, were no different than Nazis.  Really. Huge difference, there, Eddie.   Edward Said makes sense to minds already convinced that science demands t.he deaths of unwanted children, the elderly, the challenged and the undesirable.  .

The same mind-set that equates Israel to the Third Reich is convinced that abortion is health care. It is only a short cha-cha to dance from parsing one's reasons for murdering an unborn a child to wholesale genocide. Hitler loved Margaret Sanger and danced a hearty jig to her tune.

Jews survived the anti-Semitic slaughter only to be tormented by the Clement Attlee -Harold Macmillan British interested only in preserving the Suez and British Petroleum, who trained the Jordanians and Palestinians of Arab Legion to kill Jews, when necessary. The United Nations, before it was hijacked by its current lunatics, recognized Israel and the Arab World again tried to kill the Jooooos. - 1948 every nation but the Arab States (39-13) voted to recognize Israel.  Israel fought the Arab world for its very existence (that means avoid complete annihilation at the hands of these deeply religious folks) and again in 1956, 1966, 1972 wars as well as endless terror strikes, hijackings murders and bombardments - all with the aid of fashionable Marxist International Solidarity.   

Today, I do not expect President Obama to take the thugs to task, nor do I expect him mention the world-wide idiots who deny the Holocaust, preach the destruction of Israel, pray to some god for the extermination of the Jews and expect to be petted and feted.  No, President Obama did not earn his Nobel Prize by being like Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln, Roosevelt( Teddy & Franklin), Truman, JFK, nor in any way shape or form like Moynihan or Bolton.

President Obama will be exactly like his model Woodrow Wilson and come away from the UN speech and history with gallons of pee in his Florsheim's.





http://www.algemeiner.com/2012/09/23/both-president-obama-and-ahmadinejad-liken-israeli-concerns-over-nuclear-iran-to-noise/
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/09/24/breakfast_with_ahmadinejad

"We Are ALL Redistributionists" Shouts Clarence Page ! Well, Two for Sure; Meet Jesse and Willard -The Marx Brother

"In fact, whether we Americans face up to it or not, we're all redistributionists now . . ." Clarence Page of the Chicago Tribune 

A real Spartacus moment there Clarence! You know, when Kirk Douglas stands up to take his lumps from Sir Larry at the end of movie and Tony Curtis springs vertical with " I'm Spartacus!"  Then, John Ireland and then all the other extras, "I'm Spartacus!"  We are ALL Redistributionists!  Yes, yes, yes! I'm IN! Forward!

I am Willard!  I am Jesse!  Those are the two scamps who pinched hundreds of Benjamins from Campaign Forward - Obama 2012.  Clarence is a scamp his own bad self!

Clarence Page was recently under the 'hot lights' of Tribune editorial board over wetting his beak in an ethically challenged cash snatch from a terrorist bundling group:

Page’s crime? A breach of editorial policy. He failed to get advanced approval for a $peaking gig, and the group he $poke for, MEK, makes the Tribune nervous. MEK is an organization of Iranian exiles opposed to the current government and is currently on the State Department’s list of international terrorist groups.WBEZ July 3, 2012

WBEZ - a government funded news organ of record for everything Progressive parsed a bully narrative for Clarence.  He was doing only what any red-blooded American 1%er should do -grab some dough!  Clarence Page is getting checks from  The Chicago Tribune, syndication deals, Bruce Dold approved speaking gigs and of course Public Television not only brought to you in part with grants from Exon Mobile, the Joyce, MacArthur and assorted boarded and looted foundations, but also tax payer dollars. Redistribution of wealth!  Clarence gets mine. Yet, I get none of his.  Redistribution of wealth is a nice way of saying 'its okay, take someone else's money.'

Without going back to the roots of socialism in 1827 England sparked by Malthus and later Jeremy Bentham,Utilitarians, Philosophical Radicals, Marx and Engels, Hegel, Dewey, and all them folks, Redistribution is the key to votes and it costs money.  

Irony is best served up with white cheddar cheese popcorn, or reading the morning's edition of the Sunday Tribune.  Not only is there a serving Clarence Page's work for the Obama Campaign in the opinion section, but also a news item that graphically presents redistribution of wealth.

Bail was set at $100,000 and $75,000 today for two men charged with depositing two checks stolen from President Barack Obama's campaign headquarters into bank accounts they fraudulently opened.
A judge Saturday set bail at $100,000 for Jessie Adams, who allegedly instructed Willard Elam and another unnamed man who remains at large to open up bank accounts at separate TCF bank branches in the south suburbs. Adams is charged with one count of organizing a financial criminal enterprise.

Bail for Willard Elam, who is charged with continuing a financial crime enterprise, was set at $75,000 Cook County prosecutors said Elam and the unnamed man were accompanied by Adams and pretended to be business owners of actual companies that work with Obama's presidential campaign.

They opened up the accounts on Sept. 12 and Sept. 13 at TCF Bank locations in two different grocery stores and presented fake documents to open the bank accounts before depositing the checks, one valued at $24,857 and the other at $23,839, prosecutors said. 

A comptroller with Obama's reelection campaign caught on to the scheme when two companies complained they had not been paid. It was not immediately clear how the three men obtained the checks, prosecutors said.

Adams, 36, of the 1100 block of Spencer Road in Joliet, works for a general contracting company, and Elam, 48, of the 15500 block of South Drexel Avenue in Dolton, is a laborer, authorities said.

Police said Adams allegedly recruited Elam for the alleged crime.

Allow me to point out the number of uses of said (3)by the Tribune scribe as a paragraphic close -  well, said is the word well-said. Allegedly, of course.


It appears that the vetting process in the Obama Campaign takes a page from the mind of Clarence Page - It appears that our two cuffed and processed miscreant Marxists passed themselves off as business men.  They do have that Romneyesque quality of corporate person-hood, don't you think?  Real country club ( no, not Malt Liqour, you racist!) types, who wear straw boaters and white linen sack suits with collarless white cotton shirts as they croquet their way over the backs of workers.

Yep, Clarence says "If Romney really wants to give those low-income voters away, I'm sure Obama would be delighted to take them."

Now, these two 'pretended to be businesses men'' which begs the question - " Have Willard and Jesse paid taxes in recent years and are they in fact numbered among the 47% disdained by Romney and therefore embraced by Obama?  Hmmmm?

Were Willard and Jesse merely going home?  Finding the pantry stuffed and heaping board over-flowing with bounty to be taken by all within the warmth of the Obama 2012 hearth?

Home, Lads! Home.

If Clarence Page can find it within his heart to forgive himself for snatching a fee, but failing to cash it before Bruce Dold found out about it, I am quite sure that WBEZ can and will find a narrative to parse the motives and the actions of Willard and Jesse, the Obama 2012 Marx Brothers.

Redistribution - it's what's keeping you from dinner!
 http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/chi-two-suburban-men-charged-with-stealing-checks-from-obama-campaign-20120922,0,7185084.story

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-were-all-redistributionists-including-romney-20120922,0,2597111.column

http://www.wbez.org/blogs/achy-obejas/2012-07/why-tribune-scapegoating-clarence-page-100625

How The U.S. Obama White House Would Have Handled the Custer Massacre

June 25, 1876 - Reuters Dakota Territory

Native Americans are believed to have been provoked following a spontaneous demonstration against the incessant playing of "Garryowen*" by colonialist forces of occupation and some level of physical violence took place near the Little Bighorn River.  (developing)

Department of the Interior and Indian Affairs Secretary Hillary R. Clinton - " The playing of an offensive and in fact racist cavalry tune has no place for the sympathies of this Administration."

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney - "Recent events in the Dakota Territory have absolutely nothing to do with . . . nothing to do with U.S. policy.”

June 26, 1876 Obama White House Press Room

Jay Carney -" It seems that Gen. Custer, in complete violation of U.S. Policy and glory hungry opponent of the enlightened and inclusive policies of President Ulysses S. Obama and a few of his troopers perished following an otherwise peaceful celebration of diversity by the combined communities of Sioux, Cheyenne, Blackfoot, and Arapaho people called in response to unfair housing and mortgage practices in Black Hills by private business interests."

June 27, 1876 Obama White House Rose Garden

President Ulysses S. "Sam" Obama - " It is with deep regret that a musical number adopted by renegade members of our armed forces as a provocative and racist psychological warfare tool caused the deaths of those troops. Make no mistake and let me be perfectly clear.  I have made this a priority and I will focus on this matter with gas lamp clarity that no stone will go unturned or unnoticed until more is made of this matter.  Thank you and God Bless America."


July 4, 1876 Obama White House Press Room

Jay Carney - "  While we regret the deaths of Gen. Custer and a handful of others, let's not forget that . . ."

Jake Tapper -" Jay, the tribes were armed with repeating Henry and brand-new Winchester rifles, while defense cuts made by this Administration afforded only Spencer breech-loading .   .  ."

Jay Carney - "Jake, is there a question in there?"

( press pool laughter)

Jake Tapper - " Was this a planned attack by the tribes."

Jay Carney - " That is absurd, Jake.  You know better than that.  The President and Secretary Clinton have told the nation and the world that the repeated playing of Garryowen - an Irish tune adopted by colonialist Britain to provoke the communities of occupied Imperial India by the way - sparked spontaneous demonstrations and Ghost Dances only to be interrupted by the massive and intrusive presence of a few score members of the renegade batallion of the 7th Cavalry."

Jake Tapper -" So this was a massacre?"

Jay Carney -"Absolutely not!  This was a spontaneous reaction to the repeated and offensive playing ofr Garryowen - that's all for today.

July 14, 1876 Obama White House Press Room

Jake Tapper - " Reports from Generals Crook and Terry in the Dakota Territory confirm that General Custer . . ."

Jay Carney - " Jake, he was Lt. Col. and the title General is an honorific."

Jake Tapper - " Custer was breveted . . ."

Jay Carney - " That was Lincolns Administration, Jake.  President Obama gave him the rank of Lt. Col. and not General."

Jake Tapper - " I stand corrected.  The reports indicate that repeating rifles used by the Native American Coalitions overwhelmed the troopers under Custer . . .because they were armed only with obsolete breech-loading Spencers resulting in their deaths. Moreso, Generals Terry and Crook report that every soldier was mutilated. Was this a massacre."

Jay Carney - " That is a gross over-statement, Jake, and I find that accusation misleading and frankly offensive.  Custer was not mutilated.  As to your question, brief as it was, Yes. It is self-evident that a massacre took place, as the President has said all along.  No more Questions."




 * "GARRYOWEN"

The Official Song of the 1st Cavalry Division

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          Click here to play Charge      Click here to play Garryowen
Performed by the
1st Cavalry Division Band

"Garryowen" is an old Irish quick-step that can be traced back to the early 1860's.  In 1867, "Garryowen" was adopted by the 7th Cavalry Regiment as the official Air (tune) of the Regiment, and the historical nickname given to the 7th Cavalry Regiment and Troopers.  It became the Official tune of the 1st Cavalry Division in 1981.  "Garryowen" has become undoubtedly the most famous of all the regimental marches in the Army.

1st Cavalry Division Patch

The geographical area that provided the inspiration and the name of one of the most popular, rollicking folk songs of Ireland, is situated near the City of Limerick and located a half mile southeast of King John's Castle, on the upward slope of a hill at the end of Garryowen Road in Limerick County.  Local traditions and folk lore have preserved the historical significance of the area and the origin of its name "Garryowen", a compound English word composed of two Irish words, Garrai (the Irish word for Garden) and Eoin (the Irish word for the name John, referencing King John's Castle - a local landmark at the bottom of the hill).  The name Eoin, pronounced a "O-in" or "Oh-en", was later phonically transformed to "Owen" in the English language, thus allowing the two separate Irish words "Garrai" and "Eoin" to be translated into the single compound English word, written without the capital "O", as Garryowen.

The terrain features of the Garryowen provided a broad, commanding view of the richly cultivated surrounding countryside, the old town of Limerick and the valley of the Shannon River which gently washed the battered, fortified towers of King John's castle which was constructed in the late 1180's to control traffic along the river.  The surrounding plot of ground soon became a favorite holiday resort with loyal patrons of citizens from near-by Limerick because the atmosphere and local accommodations were somewhat similar to those offered to the London mechanic by the Battersea tea-gardens.

A review of Irish literature reveals that Garryowen "became a general rendezvous for those who sought simple pleasure and amusement.  The elderly drank together under the shade of trees and the young played ball, goal, or other athletic activities on the green; while a few lingered in the near-by hedge-rows with their fair acquaintances.  Garryowen was soon to become as famous for scenes of strife as it was for mirth and humor; and broken arms, legs and heads became a staple article of manufacture in the neighborhood."

"These new diversions were encouraged by a number of young people having a greater supply of animal spirits than wisdom to control themselves.  The young gentlemen being fond of wit, amused themselves by having parties at night to wring the heads off all the geese, and tearing knockers off the doors in the neighborhood.  They sometimes suffered their genius to soar as high as the breaking  of a street lamp, and even resorting to the physical violence of a watchman.  But, this type of joking was found a little too serious to be repeated very frequently, for few achievements of so daring a violence were documented in the records.  They were obliged to content themselves with less ambitious distinction of destroying door knockers and store-locks, annoying the peace of the neighborhood, with long continued assaults on the front doors, terrifying the quiet onlookers with every species of insult and provocation, and indulging their fratricidal propensities against all the geese in Garryowen."

"The fame of the 'Garryowen Boys' soon spread far and wide.  Their deeds were celebrated by some inglorious minstrel of the day in that melody which has, since, resounded over the world; and even symbolically competed for national popularity with 'St. Patrick's Day'.  A string of verses were appended to the tune which soon enjoyed equal notoriety.  The name of Garryowen was as well known as that of the city of Limerick, itself, and Garryowen soon became almost a synonym for Ireland."

7th Cavalry Distinctive Unit Insignia

"Garryowen" is known to have been used by Irish regiments as a drinking song.  As the story goes, one of the Irish "melting pot" Troopers of the 7th Cavalry, under the influence of "spirits", was singing the song.  By chance Custer heard the melody, liked the cadence, and soon began to hum the tune to himself.  The tune has a lively beat, that accentuates the cadence of marching horses, and for that reason was adopted as the regimental song soon after Custer arrived at Fort Riley, Kansas to take over command of the 7th Cavalry Regiment.  It was the last song played for Custer's men as they left General Terry's column at the Powder River and rode into history.

During First Team ceremonies the song is not sung; however, it is customary for the song to be played at the conclusion of the activities and the guests stand and clap.

"Garryowen" was also the Regimental March of another famous fighting unit, The Royal Irish Regiment, that was organized in 1684 from the Irish Pikemen and Musketeers by the Earl of Granard to fight for Kink William.  This regiment has seen service in all parts of the world.  For their outstanding valor at the Battle of Namur, they received the title of "The Royal Regiment of Foot of Ireland".  In addition, in recognition of its deeds on this occasion, King William conferred the right of displaying the badge of the Harp and Crown, and that of the Lion of Nassau, with the explanatory legend.

The Royal Irish showed noble courage and performed gallant service throughout the Crimean War.  On their colors are inscribed "Egypt"; "China"; "Blenheim"; "Ramillies"; "Oudenarde"; "Malpaquet"; "Pegu"; "Savastopol"; "New Zealand";  "Afghanistan, 1879-80"; "Egypt, 1882"; "Tel-el-Kebir"; "Nile, 1884-85"'; "South Africa, 1900-02"; "Flanders, 1914"; and "Gallipoli, 1915."  The Royal Irish Regiment was disbanded in 1922 on the formation of the Irish Free State.

One can only wonder how many of the former members of the Royal Irish Regiment emigrated to the United States and enlisted as Troopers of US Cavalry units.  Could this have been how Custer heard this song?

Part of the mystery may be solved.  The history of the 69th New York Infantry which reflects the history and progress of the Irish in America.  From unwelcome immigrants escaping famine and persecution, they were assimilated and integrated into the society of America.  Its ranks were filled with heroes, priests, poets, politicians, laborers, lawyers, in short a cross section of Ireland's greatest export - her sons.

69th Infantry Distinctive Unit Insignia

The "Fighting Sixty-ninth" had its origins in early 1851, when the Irish citizens of New York City formed a militia regiment known locally as the Second Regiment of Irish Volunteers.  Unanimously, the group selected "Garryowen" as their official regimental marching song.  On 12 October 1851, the Regiment was officially accepted as part of the New York Militia and designated as the Sixty-Ninth Regiment.  In 1858, the Regiment would have its first call to duty.  Their many subsequent calls to duty included the Civil War, Spanish American War, the Mexican War, World War I, World War II and most recently Operation Iraqi Freedom II where it was attached to the 1st Cavalry Division as part of the 39th Separate Infantry Brigade.  Today it is officially known as the 1st Battalion, 69th Infantry (Mechanized) and is part of the 42nd Infantry Division.

---

The Lyrics of the song are as follows:

"Garryowen"

[Verse 1]

Let Bacchus's sons be not dismayed,
but join with me each jovial blade,
come booze and sing and lend your aid,
to help me with the chorus:

"Chorus"

 Instead of spa we'll drink down ale
and pay the reckoning on the nail,
for debt no man shall go to jail;
from Garry Owen in glory

[Verse 2]

We are the boys who take delight
in smashing Limerick lamps at night,
and through the street like sportsters fight,
tearing all before us. (Chorus)

[Verse 3]

We'll break windows, we'll break doors,
the watch knock down by threes and fours,
then let the doctors work their cures,
and tinker up our bruises. (Chorus)

[Verse 4]

We'll beat the bailiffs out of fun,
we'll make the mayor and sheriffs run,
we are the boys no man dare dun,
if he regards a whole skin. (Chorus)

[Verse 5]

Our hearts so stout have got us fame,
for soon 'tis known from whence we came,
where're we go they dread the name,
of Garry Owen in glory. (Chorus)

---

In 1905, there was a special set of lyrics written for the Troopers of the 7th Cavalry Regiment:

[Verse 1]

We are the pride of the Army
and a regiment of great renown,
Our Name's on the pages of History,
from sixty-six on down.
If you think we stop or falter
while into the fray we're going
just watch the steps with our head erect,
while our band plays Garryowen. (Chorus)

"Chorus"

In the Fighting Seventh's the place for me,
Its the cream of the Cavalry;
No other regiment ever can claim
Its pride, honor, glory and undying fame.

[Verse 2]

We know fear when stern duty
calls us far away from home,
Our country's flag shall safely o'er us wave,
No matter where we roam.
"Tis the gallant 7th Cavalry
it matters not where we are going"
Such you'll surely say as we march away;
and our band plays Garryowen. (Chorus)

[Verse 3]

The hurrah for our brave commanders!
Who led us into the fight.
We'll do or die in our country's cause,
and battle for the right.
And when the war is o'er,
and to our home we're goin
just watch your step, with our heads erect,
when our band plays Garryowen. (Chorus)

Reference: "From Custer to MacArthur, the 7th US Cavalry" and "1st Cavalry Division, A Spur Ride Through the 20th Century, 'From Horses to the Digital Battlefield" and from the Cavalry OutPost Publicationshttp://www.first-team.us.

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/opinion/op_ed/view/20220921how_the_truth_hurts_hence_white_house_avoids_it/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-19587068

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/editorials/and_libyan_reality_intrudes_x9lAPJsm4Es9TFi1DNRGMN?utm_medium=rss&utm_content=Editorials