Eder Cruz Leo 2011 - The Highbeam Cutting Through the Pfleger Pfog

Eder Cruz flanked by Aurora Latifi and Margarita Silva of Leo High School


On April 21st, I posted the announcement of Eder Cruz Leo 2011 selection as one of 31 Illinois recipients of the Bill and Melinda Gates Millennium Scholarship. The Gates Millennium Scholarship follows the recipient for his or her post-secondary education: college, post-graduate ( Law, Medicine etc.)

Eder Cruz transferred to Leo High School from Cristo Rey in his sophomore year. For two years Eder was the only non-African American student here at Leo High School.

Tomorrow's Mark Brown column is a look at this remarkable young man. Mr. Brown does a splendid job in telling about the school that helped a tough, earnest and thoughtful young man. Albanian born math teacher, Mrs. Aurora Latifi, Spanish teacher Ms. Margarita Silva and Guidance Counsellor Ms. Kaitlyn Kurta are three special ladies who were particularly important to Eder in his quest for success. Leo High School is generally known as a Catholic school with a particularly high testosterone level, but it is the young women who are making real impact on our guys.

Since mid-March, Leo High School's true story has been fogged by the media concerning an Archdiocesan personnel matter between the Cardinal and Father Pfleger of St. Sabina's Parish. The story went viral and national and Leo was tagged as struggling, troubled and in Father Pfleger's words "literally failing." The fact of the matter the taggers of those terms have no skin in the game at Leo High School - not Michael Pfleger, not Jay Levine and not Phil Kadner. Not one of the foggy narrative taggers, took the time to phone, much less visit the Leo Leadership: President for Institutional Advancement Dan McGrath and Principal Phil Mesina. No one the taggers talked to Leo Alumni President John Gardner, or Leo Advisory Board President Bob Sheehy. No tagger gave a call to Leo Men with much monetary and spiritual skin in the game like Frank Considine '39, Bill Koloseike '45, Andy McKenna '47, Dick Landis '47, Don Flynn '56, Bob Foster '57, Terry Sherman '64, or Joe Powers '70.

Mark Brown visited Leo. Mark Brown helped cut through the Pfleger Pfog narrative.

Eder Cruz leaves a great deal of skin in the corridors of Leo High School. Eder Cruz is a game changer.

Click my post title for Mark Brown's great Pfog Cutter.

By the way, Yale University is dropping by Leo High School at 9AM to talk to another Leo Man - a game changer of the Class of 2012.

Michael Pfleger Biographer Tells Everyone to "Shut Up"

I have not had anything to say about Rev. Michael Pfleger - not my rice bowl. That is until today, when Michael Pfleger's biographer, one of hundreds of talented journalists in Pfleger's PR quiver, told America to shut up. I have much to say about Leo High School, which was impugned by and concerning Rev. Pfleger's most recent and public Via Dolorosa ( March 15- May 11 2011).

Leo High School was founded by Msgr. Peter Shewbridge in 1921 at the direct order of George Cardinal Mundelein - build a central Catholic high school for boys. St. Leo the Great Parish leading the newer surrounding parishes of St. Sabina, St. Kilian and Little Flower raised the funds for the school designed by Daniel Burnham's right-hand man, architect Joseph McCarthy. Cardinal Mundelein staffed the school with Irish Christian Brothers and laymen. The school opened in 1926 and Francis O'Neill was the first student to register. Mr. O'Neill turned 100 in February and more than seventy young men including a couple of white kids from Canaryville enrolled as freshman 2012.

Leo High School immediately developed a reputation for tough discipline, exacting scholarship and an athletic reputation that continues into this new century.

Thousands of Leo graduates came from St. Sabina Parish. Hundreds of St. Sabina bred Leo Men pour precious dollars in support of the school. They do that because of Robert W. Foster who single-handedly kept the doors of Leo High School open from 1991 until his retirement in 2009. Principal/President CEO Bob Foster had taught history, government, served as guidance counsellor, athletic director, football coach and school leader beginning in 1962, with brief absence from 1965-1970, returning in that year and continually serving the Leo students and our neighbors along 79th Street. Bob Foster was one heroic man serving a much larger mission. Leo High School continues thanks to Bob Foster, but without his physical presence. Bob Foster always taught, 'the individual is nothing; the mission is everything.'

The mission continues as it had after Leo High School was no longer directed by the pastor of St. Leo Parish, the racial demographics changed from white Catholic to African American, received no further subsidy from the Archdiocese per Cardinal Bernardin's directive, the departure of the Irish Christian Brothers in 1991 and the retirement of the legendary Bob Foster. There has been a huge bump in the mission's road, through no fault or participation of the school whatsoever. In fact Leo High School was never privy to any conversation about Leo High School's serving as a component in a hot-button personnel matter.

Leo High School has suffered the collateral damage from the Father Phleger flap. Leo High School was tagged with a narrative spun by ABC 7's Jay Levine and picked up by too many news persons who never bothered to contact Leo Leadership, let alone pay this great school a visit.

This morning I read a guest article for US Catholic by Robert McClory. I have never seen Mr. McClory here at Leo, let alone around 79th Street from Peoria west to Father Phleger's Throop Street. McClory is Pfleger's biographer and has a book out on sale - this current personal journey for Michael Pfleger can not hurt sales.

That same personal journey has caused an unnecessary bump for Leo High School. In fact the very words of Father Pfleger on the NPR chat-fest with Tavis Smiley and Cornell West, Leo High School was impugned as "literally failing."

The fact of the matter Father Pfleger has not been to Leo High School - like his biographer. He would have known that even in a lousy economy an inner city Catholic High School for young men with a student population of African Americans and a trio of Mexican Americans, raised many, many, many dollars, partnered with an NFL legend, raised ACT scores by 2 percentage points across the board, tested and enrolled the largest in-coming freshman class in 12 years, expanded its advisory board, netted new Non-Alumni support, place graduating seniors in the best colleges around the country, and announce Eder Cruz as a Gates Millennium Scholar for 2011.

Why Father Pfleger would say that Leo High School was literally failing? He has his reasons I suppose.

Back to Mr. McClory. Mr. McClory has a dog in this fight and it certainly is not the young men of Leo High School. Mr. McClory has a book out and a subject-client in Father Pfleger; yet, Mr. McClory demands everyone else to "shut up."

The context is this- Mr. McClory wants a total victory for Father Pfleger - that means making Cardinal George look weak by rescinding his suspension for Father Pfleger. McClory tells his national readers what he believes to be his straight dope on the conflict and also demands that Cardinal George mistrust his lying ears.

Hopefully, reason and hope will prevail when George, now back from John Paul II's beatification, and Pfleger meet again. George's suspension of Pfleger was based on what the cardinal thought Pfleger had said on a radio show. In fact, Pfleger said something quite different. Regardless, Pfleger's crime was that he did say that under certain circumstances, he might leave the priesthood and seek ministry in another (non-Catholic) church. And that is what really rankled George.

Like Cardinal George, thosands of Leo Alumni, all of Leo's staff, many of our parents, our students and evn the Associated Press, I heard exactly what Father Pfleger said to Tavis, Cornell and all of us out in radioland. Robert McClory is pretty bold there, but he is out of line in this summation:

Meanwhile, it would be especially helpful if the hordes of Catholics and bloggers who have never visited St. Sabina or driven around the neighborhood, never talked to Pfleger or listened to one of his sermons, never met or conversed with Sabina parishioners would just shut up and stop bloviating on a subject they know nothing about.

That did not stop Robert McClory. Speak up, folks! This is still America.

Robert McClory is author of Radical Disciple: Father Michael Pfleger, St. Sabina Church and the Fight for Social Justice (Lawrence Hill, 2010). He is also professor emeritus at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism and a regular contributor to U.S. Catholic.

McCain/Palin: Barry O'Bama Channels Tommy Makem to Snare the Paddy Vote!

‘ Can You HEAR ME ALL THE WAY UP THERE??? No? Well, then how the Hell do know what I'm Asking? Great Roaring Ugly Crowd of you here, God Bless All!

My Name is Barry O’Bama* - one sec . . . let me tune this banjo to C -tuning for the frailin’ . . . there now!

I need the vote of every Man -Jack of You . . . and the Missus, so. . . Did you think I’d be forgettin’ the Ladies is it? My wife Mickey and two girls’d have my tripes for boilin’ On with IT Now! If Know this One! . . . And Roar It Out . . .!

I was born about ten thousand years ago
In Bellmullet in the County of Mayo
It was me that chased the vermin, while St. Patrick preached the sermon
And I’ll whoop the man that says it isn’t so

Now, Here's the Chorus! Roar out and kick the shins of them's not Singin'!!!

Singing rightful too-ra-laddie too-ra-lee
There is no one who can tell a lie like me
You can search until you tire, you won’t find a bigger liar
I’ve been lying since the dawn of history

I saw Eve go pickin’ apples off a tree
She came over and she offered one to me
I turned and said, “Dear madam, go try your luck with Adam
I’m going home to have some fish and chips and tea.”

I saw Delilah cuttin’ Samson’s hair
She snipped away until his head was bare
When he couldn’t run away, she married him next day
And they opened a barber shop in Clare

With King Billy at the Boyne I heard them call
On his followers to follow till they fall
Then he said, “We’ll win quite easy, and we’ll canonize, young Paisley.”
Then he up and sang a verse of Derry’s Walls

It was Election 2008 I met them all
There was Ayers, Wright, Pfleger at De Paul
Then one day I nearly fainted, I was having my house painted
There was Palin hanging paper in the hall

Right ! Good on You! See you all in the booth . . .crowded it will be . . .on the Feast of St. Charles Borromeo - That’s Election Day to you chislers from Edison Park! Off with you then! Drive Carefully!’


'This is Dave Axelrod - Thanks Everyone! Lotta Truth in that song! Join us next week here at Camp Obama for 'Songs of My Father's Kibbutz' with Baruch Obama ben Barack.'


* http://www.rte.ie/news/2007/0315/obamab.html
US Presidential hopeful Barack Obama can now count himself as one of the millions of Americans with Irish heritage.

Research by the genealogy website ancestry.co.uk reveals that Mr Obama's great great great grandfather was born in Ireland, although it is not yet known where.

Falmouth Kearney sailed from Ireland to New York in 1850 at the age of 19 on the S.S. Marmion arriving on the 20th of March.

AdvertisementHe initially settled in Ohio, got married, had eight children, and later moved to Indiana, right next door to the state Obama currently represents in the US Senate.

Mr Keaney was part of the great American migration to escape the 1840s potato famine in Ireland.

Mr Obama's father was from Kenya, while his mother grew up in Kansas.


'A great deal has been made of Obama's Kenyan roots, however his European ancestry has until now been overlooked', said Ancestry.co.uk Managing Director Simon Harper.

If Mr Obama gets elected, he would be the first multiracial US president in history - and join a long list of those with Irish ancestry including Bill Clinton, Ronald Reagan, and of course, John F. Kennedy.

Ronald Reagan's great-grandfather, Michael O'Reagan, was born in Ireland in the 1820s. John F Kennedy's great-grandfather Patrick Kennedy came from Dunganstown, Co Wexford, while Bill Clinton's maternal ancestors are said to have come from Co Fermanagh.

John McCain: Obama wrong on Colombia, FARC, Ayers, Dohrn, and American Interests in General

John McCain returned from Colombia and three Americans and a Colombian Presidential candidate held by Marxist FARC terrorists fro six years were freed by Columbia's military with American assistance.

Senator Obama is wrong on America's Free Trade Agreement with Colombia, which is fighting Venezuela's dictator Hugo Chavez for the liberty of South American democracies - Ecuador, Bolivia, Paraguay, and Brazil are all in danger from Chavez's ambitions for a Marxist Continent.

William Ayers has been and continues to be an influence on Obama. Ayers has a long history with Chavez.

From American Thinker:

Obama may already be working with Hugo Chavez and the narco-war against Colombia. Colombian troops March 1 nailed narco-guerilla leader Raul Reyes just across the border in Ecuador. In response, Chavez threatened to invade Columbia. Information on a laptop computer found with Reyes' corpse detailed the FARC guerillas'relations with both Venezuela and Ecuador and included a February 28 letter from Reyes to the FARC Secretariat. The letter details extensive FARC relations with the governments of Colombia and Ecuador and includes this item:


"The gringos called for a meeting with the minister to ask him to tell us they are interested in talking about several topics. They claim they new president in their country will be Obama and that these people are interested in their fellow citizens. Obama will support neither Plan Colombia nor the signature of the Free Trade Agreement. In this regard, we replied we are interested in relations with the governments that are on equal grounds and that in the case of the United States, a public statement voicing their interest in talking to the FARC is needed, given their eternal war against us."


As Reyes predicted, on April 10 Democrats in Congress blocked enactment of a free trade treaty with Colombia -- in spite of the fact that Colombian exports are already allowed into the US without tariffs. Obama opposed the treaty, winning denunciation by Colombian president Uribe.

Obama is wrong - he is a Progressive Windsock. Obama is wrong on the Surge; he is wrong on Colombian Free Trade; Obama is dead wrong on Chavez and Senator Obama is wrong for the Office of President of the United States.

Barack Obama has had the wrong tutors ( Tony Rezko, Allison Davis, whose son Cullen is being sued for the wrongful death of three year old Curtis Cooper, Fr. Mike Pfleger, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, and the dious couple of unrepentant terrorists Bernadine Dorhn and William Ayers) and he listened to them with rapt attention.

Pay attention to Senator Obama.

Pay attention to John McCain. In the days to come the man who roughed up a Sandinista jefe back in the 1980's* will prove to be more than right on Colombia - just as he has been on the Surge.


*

The two senators have made peace since the remarks. Cochran said McCain included him on a recent campaign visit to Meridian. He told the Sun Herald on Monday that McCain, whose ancestors lived in north Mississippi, is the best man for the job.

But Cochran said he observed McCain engage in a physical confrontation with a Sandinista while participating in a diplomatic mission led by Sen. Bob Dole and others in the fall of 1987. Cochran, McCain - who had won election to the Senate that year - and other members of a bipartisan committee of lawmakers called the Central American Negotiations Observer Group - met with Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, head of the left-wing political party known as Sandinistas, about tensions in the region.

The atmosphere was tense, as the U.S. was pressing "pretty hard." Cochran noticed a disturbance at the meeting table in a room lined with armed personnel.

"McCain was down at the end of the table and we were talking to the head of the guerilla group here at this end of the table and I don't know what attracted my attention," Cochran said. "But I saw some kind of quick movement at the bottom of the table and I looked down there and John had reached over and grabbed this guy by the shirt collar and had snatched him up like he was throwing him up out of the chair to tell him what he thought about him or whatever. I don't know what he was telling him but I thought, good grief, everybody around here has got guns and we were there on a diplomatic mission. I don't know what had happened to provoke John but he obviously got mad at the guy and he just reached over there and snatched him."

No punches were thrown and the two sat back down, Cochran said. The man, who appeared ruffled after the confrontation with McCain, was an Ortega associate, but Cochran said he was unsure of his identity.

Flash-forward 21 years. Tuesday, McCain was traveling in Central America and he stopped in Colombia. In 2006 Ortega won his office back after losing a 1990 election.

http://www.bnd.com/news/politics/story/386304.html

John McCain: The Audacity of Truth - McCain Family Walks the Talk

I received an e-mail from Miss Vicki Hampton of Alabama which I post in Full.

My Parish, neighborhood - in largely Irish Catholic Democratic Chicagoese - st. Cajetan's has its former pastor and scores of its young men and women serving Iraq. There is hardly a tree on any block unadorned by Yellow Ribbons in support of the kids in harm's way: McGarry, Ford, Hayes, Burke, & etc. These are the folks our junior Senator, Barack Obama, snidely referred to as 'Bitter and clinging.' In 2001, Obama's pal Pastor Pfleger smeared our parish and all the others, St. Barnabas, Christ the King, St. John Fisher, St. Christina, St. Bede, Queen of Martyrs and Holy Redeemer with his broad race-baiting brush in a now forgotten bit of National Press coverage. None of my neighbors ever got so much as a smirk from Tony Rezko and more than enough contempt from Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn - most of cops around here remember them very well!

Here is why McCain will get many Democratic Voters.

This was an email message I got earlier from a friend of mine, so thought I would put it on here for all to read. I know for a fact that this is all true.

John McCain's Sons

Talk about putting your most valuable where your mouth is! Apparently this was not "newsworthy" Enough for the media to comment about. Can either of the other presidential candidates truthfully come close to this? .... Just a question for each of us to seek an answer, and not a statement.

You see...character is what's shown when the public is not looking. There were no cameras or press invited to what you are about to read about, and the story comes from one person in New Hampshire.

----------------------------------------

One evening last July, Senator John McCain of Arizona arrived at the New Hampshire home of Erin Flanagan for sandwiches, chocolate-chip cookies and a heartfelt talk about Iraq. They had met at a presidential debate, when she asked the candidates what they would do to bring home American soldiers - - Soldiers like her brother, who had been killed in action a few months earlier.

Mr. McCain did not bring cameras or press. Instead, he brought his youngest son, James McCain, 19, then a private first class in the Marine Corps about to leave for Iraq. Father and son sat down to hear more about Ms. Flanagan's brother Michael Cleary, a 24-year-old Army First Lieutenant killed by an ambush ... A roadside bomb.

No one mentioned the obvious: In just days, Jimmy McCain could face similar perils. 'I can't imagine what it must have been like for them as they were coming to meet with a family that ......' Ms. Flanagan recalled, choking up. 'We lost a dear one,' she finished.

Mr. McCain, now the presumptive Republican nominee, has staked his candidacy on the promise that American troops can bring stability to Iraq. What he almost never says is that one of them is his own son, who spent seven months patrolling Anbar Province and learned of his father's New Hampshire victory in January while he was digging a stuck military vehicle out of the mud.

Two of Jimmy's three older brothers went into the military. Doug McCain, 48, was a Navy pilot. Jack McCain, 21, is to graduate from the Naval Academy next year, raising the chances that his father, if elected, could become the first president since Dwight D. Eisenhower with a son at war.

----------------------------------------

I chose to share this with those who I believe will pass it on, to others who will pass it on. We hear so much inflated trash out there. How about a simple act of kindness .... And dedication to others placed above oneself?

Has anybody heard if Barack Hussein Obama has served in The American Armed Services?

This is for all you Barack voters.

From Barack's book, Audacity of Hope:

"I will stand with the Muslims should the political winds shift in an ugly direction."

HE DID NOT SAY STAND WITH AMERICANS!!!!!

Click my post title for more on McCain.

John McCain: Choice: American Leadership, or 'Dreams of My Father Phleger'

The Chicago Tribune lays out the contrasts between the two Presidential Candidates: Republican John McCain an experienced independent American Leader and War Hero and Senator Barack Obama a Chicago Hyde Park political chameleon with a powerful gift for oratory. thus:

McCain, vowing to restrain government spending, wants to extend the Bush tax cuts. Obama, proposing new spending for health care, wants to boost taxes on wealthier Americans. McCain pledges to prosecute the war in Iraq to a conclusive victory. Obama promises to bring troops home in 16 months.

"These two individuals represent about as stark a choice as we've ever had in American politics," said Darrell West, professor of political science at Brown University. "Voters are going to get what Barry Goldwater long ago promised — 'a choice instead of an echo.' "

He added, "The biggest differences are age, race and philosophy ... Those are things that translate into different perspectives on public policy."

Even their campaign styles seem to come from different worlds. Obama electrifies large arenas, while McCain is far more comfortable in smaller gatherings. Possibly because of this, McCain on Wednesday challenged Obama to a series of 10 town hall-style campaign debates.

"What we haven't seen are these two candidates face-to-face with one another," said David Lanoue, chairman of the political science department at the University of Alabama and author of "From Camelot to the Teflon President." "Clearly, Obama is a very inspiring, eloquent speaker. … He is best behind a podium with a prepared speech. McCain is best in a person-to-person situation with no prepared remarks."

"I think there is another dimension, and that is whether Barack Obama is seen as an elitist candidate," said Herb Asher, professor of political science at Ohio State University. "McCain will try to wrap himself in the mantle of change and present Obama as the agent of the wrong kind of change. ... It's really going to be a chance for Barack Obama to fill in the rest of his biography."


Discontent unites
And the choice arrives at a time when Americans are unified in one thing: their discontent.

Seven in 10 Americans are dissatisfied with the state of the nation, the latest Pew Center survey has found, and 27 percent of those surveyed in mid-May voiced disapproval of the job Bush is doing.

"The fundamentals are certainly going in a Democratic direction," Pew's Kohut said. "But there are rather sharp sets of really well-defined positives and negatives for each of these candidates, which makes it a much closer race."

mdsilva@tribune.com

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-obama-mccain-differencejun08,0,3350838.story

The biggest differences are not age, race and experience - hardly. They are the people each man brings to his corner- for John McCain, Medal of Honor recipient Col. Bud Day and for Senator Obama, domestic terrorist Billy Ayers and Mike Pfleger.

More significantly, Barack Obama, whom I early tagged as a political chameleon, comfortably moved among any political opportunists who could also help him: Rezko, Billy Ayers, Bernadine Dohrn, Illinois Senator Emil Jones, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Alice Palmer, and Pastor Mike Pfleger.

Click my post title for more.

Sorry, Father Pfleger. You'd Like Us to Hate You, But We Can Not Oblige. Ignore, Yes!

Father Pfleger has the Chicago Sun Times, which helped create the character screaming all over You Tube, going flat-out to help save his Public Life.

Instead of going to the Catholic Parishes that Pfleger routinely smears as racist and offering a true apology, The Real Pfleger sniffled to his flock that he has received 3,000 hateful e-mails ( Is that All?) over his disgracefully racist rant at Trinity. He said he has received 'Death Threats,' which he should have reported to the Chicago Police Department - that group of brave men and women that he calls a 'systemically racist' army of occupation.

The Chicago Sun Times, a dying fool itself. offers this from Pastor Pfleger's Apology.


Hate me if you will. Hate my imperfect presentation. Hate my imperfect dramatization. Hate my imperfect articulation. I have never presumed to be anything but imperfect, but I pray I can still beat the drum of justice, even if sometimes I am off beat.

Thank you.

No Thank You, Father. You are finally out in the Public Eye, as the Man in Full.

We have always understood. You have made a career of scooping everyone that I love and respect in your convenient net. No Fisher of Men - Just a Poacher.

To make your life simple, your ministry, your enterprise, your agenda, your celebrity, your hubris, you have made me and my children, my parents, my brothers and sister, my extended family, my neighbors, my heritage, my moral foundation, my history, my identity and my Church as racist and two dimensional monsters.

I know other priests who have worked as hard as you for poor black people and with as much success in meeting their spiritual and temporal needs, but without the snap and fizz you demand in the Public Eye. They minister and that is tough and unsexy work.

You spit and vilify, get the media and attention necessary and run away for awhile. Works for you, until now.

Now, your sad and divisive methods are out in full. Endgame.

You ask us to Hate You. Sorry, I can not oblige. I ignore you.