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

Neil Steinberg - Patriot - Writ Large

Thats's Neil Steinberg talking to Korean War veterans in the photo to the left. Neil's the guy in the tie and dark sport coat chatting with American heroes in Leo's cafeteria. To the right is Leo High School Vice Principal and Marine Corps Veteran Frank Wilson and Illinois Veterans Affairs Asst. Director Rochelle Crump welcoming the crowd at the Leo War Memorial. I took the photos - my apologies for the lousey lighting. Windy City Veterans, Montford Point Marines, Burbank Marines, The Triple Nickle Parachute Veterans and the Leo Alumni Association - thick with veterans - Chicago Police, Chicago Firemen, Secret Service, F.B.I. and Postal Workers are all honored and participate. But - Let's get to the meat of the matter - one of our guests is a great American: Neil Steinberg.


Today's column by Chicago Sun Times columnist Neil Steinberg is brilliant. Steinberg, one of few journalists in Chicago who takes his time to get the correct, accurate, and honest presentation of events, Neil is also one of the very few writers who gets things right.

Neil Steinberg attended Leo High School's Annual Veterans Observance, celebrated on the Friday before Veterans Day, and actually spent most of his time with 80 year old veterans of WWII, Korea, and the younger guys of Vietnam and Desert Storm and America's continuing War on Islamist Terror. Neil Steinberg was not interested in the buffet - which seems uncharacteristic for news media types; Steinberg was busy asking intelligent questions of 80+ year Merchant Marines about the Murmansk Run; and Jim Furlong and Rich Doyle about being a tunnel rat and humping gear in the rice paddies.

People reveal who they really are when they think no one is watching them. The Leo guys saw Neil at his best - and he thought no one was looking. Neil Steinberg made no small efort to make Veterans feel good that they cashed in their youth in service to their country - Vietnam Era Vets and beyond found themselves holding the bag in Southeast Asia for those of us home here going to college and protesting the War. Now, soldiers in the War on Islamist Terror find themselves in similar straits - fighting an unseen enemy in a foreign land and getting their backs peppered with the contempt of those who sneer at their sacrifices. We tolerate some lousey attitudes in our wonderful democracy.

Neil Steinberg gets it. Here's some of his great essay:

Conformity, the suburbanite's sin. So what if people aren't rushing to fly their flags? Their loss. It's a shame that patriotism is usually left to patriots, who give it such a bad name by their mistaken belief that loving the country means blindly supporting any folly its leaders can conceive and heaping scorn on any fellow citizen who misses some conformist benchmark of behavior.

Patriotism isn't cool, but it should be. Forget suburbanites; you'd think the cutting edge would embrace it. You'd think the artists and the radicals, the malcontents and the visionaries, college students and tree-worshipping cultists would be the most patriotic of all, understanding that it is this great country that accepts their deviation, while in many other places they would be stoned to death or, more likely, never even exposed in the first place to the ideas that so overwhelm them.

But no. College professors, free-thinkers, vegans, Marxists all sneer at their country. They are young, or so dazzled by the sheen of their beliefs they fail to appreciate the soil they sprouted in, and they let flag-waving, misty-eyed patriotism be dominated -- present company excluded -- by exactly the sort of narrow, hidebound reactionaries who'd thrive under any dictatorship.

We are a nation born of radicalism, living under a constitution penned by rebels. Those who fancy themselves rebels today should appreciate that.


Rebellion has been redefined by a generation that would rather sneer at a country that embraces their individuality than display some patriotism

Now, That's Working Class Values!

Today's gem should be must reading for every American citizen. This is a later day Thomas Paine's 'Sunshine Patriot' caveat to the smug and self-satisified. Neil, I am proud to know you!

Neil Steinberg - American Patriot!


Leo High School will hold its Veterans Observance on Friday November 2, 2007 at 11AM in the Courtyard of Leo High School. Join the Veterans and genuine Patriots.

http://www.suntimes.com/news/steinberg/552759,CST-NWS-stein12.article

Spouse Sucker Puncher, Neil Steinberg, Screams Covid-19 Infamy? Remember October 2, 2005!

October Infamy 2005

                                                   December Infamy 1941

 In yet another badly written piece of oligarchy propaganda, Sun Times veteran wife-beating columnist attempts to parse memory of Pearl Harbor with  redundant Trump bashing and lock-down servility.  

Some people may agree heartily with Neil Steinberg.  Many people are needed to to support tyrants. 

Why do Americans remember Pearl Harbor?  Ask any American unimpaired with a bad memory, or public school education and you will learn that Japan conducted a sucker punch on this nation that was answered by millions of Americans, especially the 291,557 men and women who were killed fighting fascism. 

Neil Steinberg is a practiced sucker-puncher ( women only) dedicated to creating an American oligarchy.

Let's Remember Pearl Harbor - it was not a virus; it was a planned attack.

Neither is wife-beating; Steinberg's was a planned attack ( a choice) that the sneak tried to cover up. 

Let's remember October 2, 2005, when a practiced sneak tries to present idiotic lies to pump-up tyranny. 

Columnist charged with abuse
Jason George, Tribune staff reporter
CHICAGO TRIBUNE
Chicago Sun-Times columnist and editorial board member Neil Steinberg could face jail time if he is convicted of domestic battery charges related to an incident involving his wife last week.
Steinberg, 45, of Northbrook was arrested about 9:30 p.m. Wednesday in his home after his wife, Edie, called 911 and reported abuse, said Sgt. Michael Keady of the Northbrook Police Department. Steinberg spent the night in jail and posted bail Thursday.
Edie Steinberg had first tried to call emergency services on another telephone, but Neil Steinberg hit that phone out of her hand, causing minor injuries, Keady said.

She was able to call 911 on another phone, he said. Steinberg was charged with one count of domestic battery and one count of interfering with the reporting of domestic battery. Both are misdemeanors and carry sentences of up to a year in jail, Keady said.

This was the first case of reported domestic battery at the Steinberg home on the 2000 block of Center Avenue, Keady said.

Edie Steinberg said Saturday that her husband was not at home and that she had no comment on the incident.

Neil Steinberg, who did not return messages left at his home and office, said he was "deeply humiliated" by the episode and will enter alcohol counseling Monday, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.

Sun-Times Editor John Barron was quoted as saying, "We hope for the best for Neil and his family."

An editor at the paper said no one at the Sun-Times had any additional comment.

Steinberg, who is the author of five books, has worked at the Sun-Times since 1987, according to a biography that accompanies his syndicated column. He and his wife have been married for 15 years and have two sons.

----------

jageorge@tribune.com

Neil Steinberg! Words that People Say Really Matter, Because They Often Match What People Believe And Do.

 

    The darkness drops again but now I know
    That twenty centuries of stony sleep
    Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
    And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
    Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born? William Butler Yeats, The Second Coming

 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?” Neil Steinberg Chicago Sun Times 2009

The immediate snotty crack above 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 used to meet black gents like Doc and Stewart up at Keegan's Pub having a drink and  a horse-laugh with their paler hued neighbors. Now, Keegan's  is Barney Callaghan's and a younger crowd attend the same salons. However, when I read Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun Times (without paying for either mind you), one might think that folks spent  all of  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.

Well, Monday was Halloween!  A very nice time for kids and their parents.

Trick, or Treat!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!   Note there is no question.  The implied meaning Treats without your windows getting soaped, your front porch egged, or worse. The tricks have gone the way of merry at Christmas time.

We still love Christmas, Hanukkah, or Yule tide, but the concept of being merry in our age could get a some poor slob locked up and wearing a Velcro dinner jacket on the fourth floor of the local hospital,

I glanced at the Sun Times this morning and saw that Neil Steinberg had a scold for people Neil deems stupid - anyone not Neil Steinberg.

He echoes William Butler Yeats's dismissal of 'polite, meaningless words'

People just say stuff.
Such as “How are you?” when they couldn’t care less how you are. And “I’m fine” when they’re not. It’s expected, the grease that society slides forward on. Hardly worth noting.
When it comes to politics, however, this just-say-stuff habit is more worrisome. Then the grease can send our nation skidding off of a cliff of toxic nonsense and paranoid fantasy. Politicians make promises that they can’t possibly deliver. They air claims that can’t possibly be true, that directly conflict what they just said a day or two ago. And their followers, well, follow, saying things they neither mean nor think about.

Yeats meant what he said about the people he met and knew before they 'changed; changed utterly' by British firing squads.  They were the same people, only dead and honored for their deaths in 1916.


Several days ago, Steinberg wrote a piece that was standard if you back Trump you are a racist Cro Magnon, honeyed with William Butler Yeats.

As terrible as the election of 2016 is, it is also only the beginning. Clinton might win — I hold out hope she will win, unless of course she doesn’t. But that won’t be the end. Somewhere, a sharper, slicker, more disciplined, more palatable version of Donald Trump — Donald 2.0 — is being assembled. Some Marco Rubio-caliber fraud is staring hard at himself in the mirror, liking what he sees, and cooing, “Next time, it’s your turn baby!” The rough beast awakes and slouches toward 2020 to be born.

I used to read and like Neil Steinberg.  Then I learned that his words did not match the guy. Where I come from, that is a problem.  Neil might have been well-served taking a graduate course in regular folks.  But, back to the nub. Neil is on a Yeats kick.

He and so many 'journalists, politicians, anchorpersons, bankers, oligarchs, academics and  hacks are worried that Trump might win on November 8th - I don't worry, nor do I believe that he will get by stacked decks.  Steinberg says stuff all of the time and he believes it.  He hates Trump and the people voting for him with the same passion as he hated people for not worshipping at Obama's 2008 Greek Temple. He goes Orewellian Big Brother on them with great regularity.

 

  Then, Neil decides to really gin-up the Two Minutes Hate on the specific people who might back Trump and nail us good:

Such as? Abortion. “Abortion is murder,” the anti-abortion crowd claims. You hear it all the time. First, that’s incorrect. Since murder is a legal term, and abortion is legal and thus it is by definition not murder. What they mean is “Abortion should be murder.” Except they don’t mean that either, as you can demonstrate by replying, “Oh really? If it’s murder, then for how long should the murderers go to jail?” And the answer is “umm.” We can translate that grunt as “OK ‘abortion is murder,’ is just something we say because it sounds powerful and more compact than, ‘I want to force my religion on you while dragging gender roles back to the 1950s.'” Admittedly quite a mouthful.

Quite a mouthful.  You know what they say about people who talk with their mouths full?

Two words - Nuremberg Laws, numb nuts.

Nuremberg Laws and Roe v. Wade. Hitler murdered Jews and Planned Parenthood murders babies.  See, nothing on my teeth and gums.

Words matter and people mean what they say, even if they use Yeats.

Neil went through a Dante period that was equally shallow in 2008-'09. During his Inferno Days,  Neil had lunch at Kens on Western Ave. around the time when Mr. Steinberg's conduct brought public humiliation on him and his tenure as an employee, much less a columnist was doubtful.  Blood under the bridge.  No one forgets a kindness like a guy who believes that he is Emile Zola.   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, including cops, fireman, school teachers. the Mayor of Evergreen Park, two writers from Beverly Review and a number of Leo Alums who had attended the Veterans Observance.

Generally, when one breaks bread with another person some kind of bond of mutual grace and respect surfaces - not so with too many columnists.  A few months later, Neil smeared the people he lunched with to make a snotty crack about the stupid people who did not vote for and worship Obama in 2009.

Hell, I didn't vote for Obama in 2008, or 2012, because I firmly the believe the man has limited mental capacities - he has yet to disappoint me as our first Ted Baxter President.

I say, "Good Morning,: because I mean that I hope everyone including Neil Steinberg has a very good morning.

Neil Steinberg is a semiotic totalitarian - he and his circle know what meaning is and they will tell us.  He gets caught up in all of that clever Jacques Derrida deconstructionism that journalists employ to white-out events, words, deeds and meanings. Poetry works for semiotic totalitarians.  Me and the neighbors tend to be prosaic.

When I say " Get the @#$% off my porch,"  I don't mean come on in and set a spell.

Neil Steinberg says, "It does take a certain kind of monster to run for political office " Really? Meet Illinois Representative Kevin Joyce:Monster

It does take a certain kind of monster to run for political office, to kiss all those babies, raise all that money, and for what? A low-paying handhold in the rugby scrum of elected office.

Chicago Sun Times: Neil Steinberg

Really?

This is the new de Tocqueville? Political dilettante ink-slingers try to keep well-heeled urban hipsters from shopping for arugula at Whole Foods, because the CEO and Founder disagreed with President Obama's Government Health Initiative Blow Through.

They huff and puff about which kid got into the University of Illinois and ignore the idiot hack foisted on Chicago State University after that school was looted by its President for years. They huff and puff about Green Initiatives. They huff and puff about mean Police Officers. They huff and puff about damn near everything that means absolutely nothing to the proper running of government and making people aware of the greatness of our Republic. They are well-schooled ( educated might be a stretch) suburban and self-important. These Opinion Touters , the Marins, Browns, Zorns and Steinbergs, are direct opposites of most people in public service.

I know a guy from the north side who is responsible for a huge department in Cook County government and that department runs well. He is never mentioned in the news. He does not reach out to news people and news people have no idea who he is, because he is at work at 6:30 a.m. ( I get calls every now and then at Leo at that time, because I am at Leo by 6:00 a.m. most days) concerning Leo matters and County matters. He is efficient, demanding and professional. You do not 'get' anything from this guy without going through procedures that get goofier every time a mope on the Cook County Board gets jonesing for his name in the Sun Times or the Tribune.

Today , I glanced at Neil Steinberg's piece about Chris Kennedy's PT ( Political Tease) of the Illinois Pundits. The voters could give a fat rat's ass about Chris Kennedy's Camelot Dreams and the guy would be deader than a raccoon family crossing I-57 at Rush Hour, were he to run for State wide office. Back when, Paul Vallas was thinking about a run for Governor and meeting Blago in the Illinois Primary -WAIT-WAIT Chris Kennedy posed the idea that He should run as Governor and Vallas should be HIS Lieutenant Governor. Just a thought . . .an idea . . . a Trial Balloon which was laughed in the atmosphere and out of the room by much smarter people . . .after giving Kennedy the sober nods due a Kennedy. Pure Hickey hearsay! Pure.

Neil Steinberg wanted Chris Kennedy to run for Governor, or Senator, or Will County Coroner, because he is not like all those people in public service who stand for something and then stand in front of the voters and stand for election. Kennedy is no Steinberg Monster. Those are the people that put themselves on the line to make things better for other people and can expect a snotty crack from a Neil Steinberg.

Other Monsters I like - State Rep. Mary Flowers, Speaker Madigan, Sen. Dan Cronin, Rep. Patti Bellock, Rep. Jim Durkin, Rep. John Fritchey, Sen. Ed Maloney - Republicans and Democrats, Monsters all! Monsters in the same way that Neil Steinberg terms me and my neighbors as Nazis ( "It was a Joke" -giggles, Neil, giggles; rather a chuckle.)

Chris Kennedy is supine. Why climb the gradus, when the Levelers are controlling the Media. These Progressive Latitudinarian "Who's To Say-ers" and Huff Puffers, who could not name a precinct captain let alone a precinct worker and yet have self-absorption to rail against Politics as Usual. They are Cliffs Notes readers of literature and Life.

I live two blocks away from a very effective Neil Steinberg Monster - Illinois State Representative Kevin Joyce. He does not 'need' to kiss babies, because he has seven of his own. Joyce does legislation for people of the 35th District. He does legislation on Autism Education, Sex-Offenders and Career Criminals, Workplace Safety for the Tradesmen, Pro-Life Issues, and Care for the Elderly as Joyce Chairs the Committee on Aging.

Kevin Joyce attends every wake, baptism, funeral and benefit that his schedule allows as well as coaches football** for St. Xavier University. With seven children ranging in age from twelve to eighteen months, Kevin Joyce and his bride Krista would have more on their hands than any two young people could ask for, but Kevin Joyce is a Monster.

I saw the Monster last night dragging in the Little Tykes vehicles and he asked me how my kids were doing. ( Huff!) "Monstrous! ( Puff!)He should be about the State's business!"

Click my post title and see for yourselves!

*Monster–noun 1. a legendary animal combining features of animal and human form or having the forms of various animals in combination, as a centaur, griffin, or sphinx.
2. any creature so ugly or monstrous as to frighten people.
3. any animal or human grotesquely deviating from the normal shape, behavior, or character.
4. a person who excites horror by wickedness, cruelty, etc.
5. any animal or thing huge in size.
6. Biology. a. an animal or plant of abnormal form or structure, as from marked malformation or the absence of certain parts or organs.
b. a grossly anomalous fetus or infant, esp. one that is not viable.

7. anything unnatural or monstrous.

–adjective 8. huge; enormous; monstrous: a monster tree.


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

Origin:
1250–1300; ME monstre < L mōnstrum portent, unnatural event, monster, equiv. to mon(ēre) to warn + -strum n. suffix

Related forms:

monsterlike, adjective


Synonyms:
4. fiend, brute, demon, devil, miscreant.

**
From Neil's Chuckles:

Chris Kennedy's non-candidacy reminded me of a line from another of politics' tantalizing what-ifs, Minnesota senator Eugene McCarthy, who was running for president in 1968 when he said:

Being in politics is like being a football coach. You have to be smart enough to understand the game and dumb enough to think it's important.

Yeah, that Gene McCarthy was some grid-iron great. Ignorance never stops a Progressive.




http://www.suntimes.com/news/steinberg/1722088,chris-kennedy-senate-not-running-081809.article

John McCain: Neil Steinberg Praises John McCain

My buddy Neil Steinberg, of the Chicago Sun Times along with legendary colunist Bob Novak, Pulitzer Prize winning Political Cartoonist Jack Higgins, Fran Spielmann, and the great Sports Departmemt - less Mariotti of course, are the only true Chicago voices that sinking paper has kept on.

Neil Steinberg is a patriot and an independent voice who honors Veterans, Law Enforcement and caring committed citizens. He writes about how people approach their jobs and offers insight to the heart behind their hands. Steinberg is free of the smarmy doctrinaire cant that saturates the prose of too many of in his profession. He is very much like John Kass, but for his Ohio roots and the editorial tether that limits his column space.

Here are Neil's thoughts on the candidates for President and he is especially poignant in his consideration of John McCain - like McCain, Steinberg is a Straight Talker.

N.B. - I will highlight, what I believe to be some pearls from Neil Steinberg - emphasis my own.

Give the Republicans credit. Just when they seemed determined to stake their presidential hopes on Mitt Romney, a pretty-boy plutocrat feverishly sculpting his beliefs to mirror political fashion, or Mike Huckabee, a snake-handling preacher offended by scientific knowledge, up pops John McCain, like Lazarus risen from the grave. He smiles, brushes the dirt of his recent political burial from his shoulders, and assumes his place as front-runner.

Amazing. A genuine war hero, with the courage of his convictions (true, his convictions include humming a hallelujah chorus to George Bush's Iraq war, but nobody's perfect.) And if experience is what we want, McCain has it. Sure, he groveled at the feet of his party's lunatic fringe, cuddling up with the late Rev. Jerry Falwell. But he was just visiting where people like Huckabee live year-round, and, besides, the fringe will always hate McCain for offering a reality-based solution to illegal immigration, a problem that will only grow larger until somebody fixes it. John McCain is the one man on the Republican bench who stands a chance of becoming a president we could all be proud of.

That's a good thing. If, like many, I preferred party devotion to patriotism, I might be reluctant to say that. But I don't. The race is shaping up as a win-win-win situation, a choice among: a) the exciting, inspirational freshness of Barack Obama; or b) the wily, willful effectiveness of Hillary Clinton; or c) the fearless, nimble maturity of John McCain. That's a dilemma to celebrate.

Well said and true Neil. I will be voting for John McCain; I really like and admire Barack Obama and hope that he will become Governor of Illinois; Hillary Clinton is wildly capable - so was Bismark.

John McCain: Neil Steinberg's 'Riot of the Heart' is Important Reading

Chicago Sun Times columnist Neil Steinberg writes from the heart and uses a powerful noggin in support of that organism. Today, again, Neil Steinberg sticks his neck out with commentary on the debate about race, begun when Barack Obama's bat-guano crazy Uncle Jeremiah's bitter and hateful lectures on themes of victimhood and loopy conspiracies sprinted around the media. Barack Obama was in the jack-pot for not explaining exactly how his close and decades-long discipleship to Wright does not, in any way, affect his own view of America.

Like a good politician, Senator Obama changed the subject and deftly avoided answering the question and simultaneously crafting an artificial National Dialogue on Race: Black America ( really, the Victim Cottage Industry) tells everyone else how horrible whites are, have been and shall always be, while the monologues plays out. This National Dialogue consists of the position that White Supremacy makes life hell on earth for black Americans - now, nod with conviction.

Dollar Store black author and showman,Michael Eric Dyson celebrated the Anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King's assassination with this bit of prose:

“Before 1965, King was upbeat and bright, his belief in white America 's ability to change by moral suasion resilient and durable. That is the leader we have come to know during annual King commemorations. After 1965, King was darker and angrier; he grew more skeptical about the willingness of America to change without great social coercion.

King's skepticism and anger were often muted when he spoke to white America , but they routinely resonated in black sanctuaries and meeting halls across the land. Nothing highlights that split -- or white America 's ignorance of it and the prophetic black church King inspired -- more than recalling King's post-1965 odyssey, as he grappled bravely with poverty, war and entrenched racism. That is the King who emerges as we recall the meaning of his death. After the grand victories of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the 1965 Voting Rights Act, King turned his attention to poverty, economic injustice and class inequality. King argued that those "legislative and judicial victories did very little to improve" Northern ghettos or to "penetrate the lower depths of Negro deprivation." In a frank assessment of the civil rights movement, King said the changes that came about from 1955 to 1965 "were at best surface changes" that were "limited mainly to the Negro middle class." In seeking to end black poverty, King told his staff in 1966 that blacks "are now making demands that will cost the nation something. ... You're really tampering and getting on dangerous ground because you are messing with folk then."

Neil Steinberg offers a profound antiphon to the all-too familiar voices in the Media who would verbally nod with conviction over Dyson's pettifogging nonsense:

Of course they had cause ( to riot -infinitive, my own) -- their lives mired in poverty, cramped by lack of opportunity, rubbed raw against racism, and their best hope for change, a man of enormous wisdom and eloquence, cut down by a white racist.

But were they right to do it? I'd say no. Who did they hurt? They hurt themselves -- burned their own community, killed and wounded each other, largely.

Connect that to today. I'm not commenting on the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, personally, because I don't know him and refuse to judge him based on snippets posted by political shills. But his infamous "God damn America" is an attitude not unknown in the black community, where victimhood and bitterness and anger are too addictive for some to avoid.

We see this attitude in Wright's congregation, and its fervid, knee-jerk reply to critics -- we were wronged! Which shows they don't understand that many Americans don't know and don't care about the troubles they've seen, but do notice and do care when somebody trashes our country -- a riot of the heart, as it were. Like the West Side rioters, they only hurt themselves or, rather, they hurt the first black candidate with a real shot at the White House.

Click My post title for Neil Steinberg's fine Column

Steinberg Tweaks Rev. Meeks? Dante, Neil, Dante. Brunetto Latini ?

Brunetto Latini was a GLBTQ civil servant in Florence in Dante's Day. Neil Steinberg reads Dante all of the time. I taught some passages from the Divine Comedy for years and have merely a high school teacher's middling familiarity with Dante. I never would buy a sweatshirt with Dante's Mug on the front, however. Who would?

However, I do remember Brunetto Latini*. Dante tossed folks with whom he had congress from Florence into Purgatory or the Inferno during his epic journey with the Roman poet Virgil through the afterlife in search of lost and beloved Beatrice - who is up in Heaven ( Paradiso) with Beatific Vision -All Three of Him.

Not Brunetto Latini. The poor guy was lumped into the third ring of the Seventh Circle of Hell ( Inferno) with the sodomites - gays.

There are plenty of breeders in Hell as well - folks who cave in to Lust. That is the sexual urge in all of its many manifestations -Diversity is Hell.

Well today, Old Neil goes after Rev. Senator James Meeks, who broke with the Left Coalitions by urging Vouchers for all school children. Contra Progresso! Che Brutta!

Rev. James Meeks has railed against homosexuality - contra natura, as Dante and Virgil and Pope Benedict XVI might say.

Rev. Meeks met with the Illinois Gay Papacy in Closed Session. Neil finds that to be great sport - treats James Meeks like people of the 19th Ward he does, Old Neil. Funny guy.

Damn! I never get invited anywhere. I would have loved to be in the room when the Rev. James Meeks explained to gay activists how his urging the state to continue denying them jobs and housing based on their sexuality, not to mention his firm, oft-stated belief that they'll all be roasting in hell with Satan for eternity, was merely a misunderstanding, now that he needs their votes. . . .The crux is what he is willing to say to the thousands of Salem Baptist faithful every Sunday. If the scales have indeed fallen from his eyes, and he has decided he wants to be mayor so much that gay people should now be judged, not by the color of their sexuality, but by the content of their characters, well, glory hallelujah, he should not whisper it to a few gay leaders, but shout it from the mountaintop to his faithful flock. I would get up early on a Sunday, put on a good suit and go to church to hear that sermon. If it ever happens, I'll let you know.

Neil's tongue tucked tightly to the cheek! Shades of Dr. King to make the sinful soul sing! Neil must be killing himself with laughter directed at all of the ignominious fools us mortal be who are not Neil Steinberg.

Not my cup of giggles. Like most people, I have more than enough grist for the giggle mill with my own personal and public follies.

Satura Lanx! Dante is a pretty good student of human nature and could teach all of us about tolerance. Well not all of us. Certainly not those who puff themselves up as Dante scholars, to be sure.

As I said, I have a middling familiarity with Dante, but full appreciation of literature's ability to make better human beings of us -were we not to use literature as a coffee table book.

Dante admired the genius and the poetic abilities of Brunetto Latini and is saddened to witness the man's torment in the Inferno - it was not Dante's choice to toss Latini in the third ring of the Seventh Circle - that is God's work. Dante has much more in common with Rev. James Meeks than with Neil Steinberg.

James Meeks has a congregation and a constituency.

Neil Steinberg has a column -for now.

* Brunetto Latini- Florentine philosopher and statesman, born at Florence, c. 1210; the son of Buonaccorso Latini, died 1294.

A notary by profession. Brunetto shared in the revolution of 1250, by which the Ghibelline power in Florence was overthrown, and a Guelph democratic government established In 1260, he was sent by the Commune as ambassador to Alfonso X of Castile, to implore his aid against King Manfred and the Ghibellines, and he has left us in his "Tesoretto", (II, 27-50), a dramatic account of how, on his return journey, he met a scholar from Bologna who told him that the Guelphs had been defeated at Montaperti and expelled from Florence. Brunetto took refuge at Paris, where a generous fellow-countryman enabled him to pursue his studies while carrying on his profession of notary. To this unnamed friend he now dedicated his "Trésor". After the Guelph triumph of 1266 and the establishment of a new democratic constitution, Brunetto returned to Florence, where he held various offices, including that of secretary to the Commune, took an active and honoured part in Florentine politics, and was influential in the counsels of the Republic. Himself a man of great eloquence, he introduced the art of oratory and the systematic study of political science into Florentine public life. He was buried in the church of Santa Maria Maggiore. Among the individuals who had come under his influence was the young Dante Alighieri, and, in one of the most pathetic episodes of the "Inferno" (canto XV) Dante finds the sage, who had taught him "how man makes himself eternal", among the sinners against nature.

Brunetto's chief work, "Li Livres dou Trésor" is a kind of encyclopedia in which he "treats of all things that pertain to mortals". It was written in French prose during his exile, and translated into Italian by a contemporary, Bono Giamboni. Mainly a compilation from St. Isidore of Seville and other writers, it includes compendiums of Aristotle's "Ethics" and Cicero's treatise on rhetoric. The most interesting portion is the last, "On the Government of Cities", in which the author deals with the political life of his own times. The "Tesoretto", written before the "Trésor", is an allegorical didactic poem in Italian, which undoubtedly influenced Dante. Brunetto finds himself astray in a wood, speaks with Nature in her secret places, reaches the realm of the Virtues, wanders into the flowery meadow of Love, from which he is delivered by Ovid. He confesses his sins to a friar and resolves to amend his life, after which he ascends Olympus and begins to hold converse with Ptolemy. It has recently been shown that the "Tesoretto" was probably dedicated to Guido Guerra, the Florentine soldier and politician who shares Brunetto's terrible fate in Dante's Inferno. Brunetto also wrote the "Favolello", a pleasant letter in Italian verse to Rustico di Filippo on friends and friendship. The other poems ascribed to him, with the possible exception of one canzone, are spurious.
New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia

19th Ward Blog Responds to Neil Steinberg's Slur of Mt. Greenwood Residents

People who lead good lives, care for their children, their elderly, their property, their community, and many, many people outside of their neighborhood do not deserve the cheap and cavalier insults of a columnist like Neil Steinberg.

19th Ward Blog's editor and publisher Pat Guest responds: 'Neil Steinberg is an irresponsible hateful little man. Read his outrageous column in today’s ( Oct.29th 2008)Suntimes.'

That was about the nicest way of putting things. In bit of reverse satire Neil 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?”

'You' meaning racists. Cheap and cowardly. Hey, that's not an altogether unfitting logo of the Sun Times! Well, it ain't cheap - $.75 still means something to people who work for a living - like the people in the Mount Greenwood Community.

Ass -In Two Parts: Terry Rauf the American Anus!

Imam Pastor Terry Rauf -The Perfect Ass! An Autre Ass !

Don't be deceived because people know what a matzo ball is and you can check into fancy hotels now. Ostracizing the outsider because he's different and someone who belongs to his faith once did a bad thing can still work against Jews, too.

Neil Steinberg!

I shot Kean Coffee through my nose when I read Chicago Sun Times practiced hypocrite Neil Steinberg prosing about breaking bread with autre people - when, in fact, Neil dined with me and autre South Side helots with buon gusto and in no time at all called his lunch mates racists and anti-semite Aryan Nation goons on the pages of the Sun Times. Neil was JOKING!

I remembered what my sainted Pappy always told me -"Goof, an ass always has two parts." Hypocrites have two faces - the one they pose to you and the one they tell everyone else what they really think of you. Neil Steinberg believes that everyone in the 19th Ward is racist and candidate for the Aryan Brotherhood, but would not put him off of his lunch on another man's dime - of course.

Thus, in all matters where hypocrisy must out - politics, religion and journalism - the Ass dominates - face front; both ways.

Consider Re. Terry Jones and Imam Rauf - what being an ASS is all about.

Catholics Can Be Elected. We May Elect One Governor of Illinois Next Go Around

Friday is the day politicians enjoy as a news memory hole. TGIF! Friday was the day that Gov.Pat Quinn chose to meet with Cardinal George and nine other Illinois Bishops. He pretty much tossed the meet-up away until he shot his mouth off to the very talented Sun Times political reporter Abdon Pallasch. Quinn parsed the chat.

Everyday is Friday for too many Chicago columnists and editorial boards.

The Chicago Sun Times is now trolling for on-line subscriptions; therefore, a web-reader can only grab a snatch of what their out-front propagandists have to say. No way I'm popping out nickels to read with care and cut and paste for grist to mill.

The Chicago Sun Times has great reporters ( Natasha Korecki, Abdon Pallasch, Mark Konkol, Tim Novak, Chris Fusco, Fran Spielman, Maureen O'Donnell, Rick Morrisey) and a pretty good columnist in Mark Brown. The balance of ink-slingers is . . . pre-fabricated, or processed food for thought.

The editorial and commentary quality may improve in the coming months when more thoughtful and engaged investors give the substance a good look-see.

Neil Steinberg offers another in his phalanx of snotty columns aimed at the breeders and church-goers - Catholics. He wonders if Catholics can still be elected.

Steinberg's Lazy-Susan wit attempts to spin the bowls of anti-Catholic bigotry in to the Catholic Bishops of Illinois, when one might expect that anti-Catholic bigotry comes from another quarter. Clever, Lad! I read snatches of Steinberg, because the whack-a-mole Verison-funded tin-cup pop-up blocks the passages. Snatches were plenty for me; not clever.

The spiel is Steinberg defends Governor Pat Quinn, who attended thirteen years of Catholic schooling over the bishops who are charged with defending the Faith. Quinn is vassel to Terry Cosgrove a multi-purpose coalition Gay/Planned Parenthood Boss.
Quinn is also a governor whose Catholic education is at odds with his obligations to Personal PAC and Progressive Identity.

Click my post title for Catholic Teachings on Sexuality, Human Identity, and Marriage. You really need to do some Progressive parsing to ugly it up.

My Catholic Faith ( not for everyone and tough to live up to) is 2,000 years old and has withstood Goths,Moors and Vikings. It's greatest peril arose in the late Middle ages when comfort and riches politicized the faith and practices of Christians universal. Bishops and Popes and Kings and Emperors played politics and things went bad.

The pews got kind of empty, because religion and politics became toxic and sexual abuses of all sorts ( simony, usury, nepotism, & etc.) permeated the institutional Church. The Church reformed itself and people who no longer cared much for the smells and bells, rigors of authority and patriarchal pastoral priesthood took it on the heel and toe and became Lutherans, Baptists, Presbyterians, Methodists, and for the more secular appetites Unitarians. We still have Popes and bishops, but in America Kings and Emperors were shown the door. We have Presidents, Senators, Congressmen, Governors, Mayors and State Legislators, as well as judges. It gets complicated.

In the Middle Ages and into the Renaissance, bribery was up-front. Families could purchase the Papacy and even the odd nation-state. Some American families ( Kennedy, Rockefeller, Bush, Dodd, and Daley) can and do purchase power with the help of PACS. In order to make the political landscape more Rainbow-hued and Abortion friendly these Families and PACS purchased Pro-life Catholic politicians. Coalition building is not possible on Rock of Peter.

Gov. Pat Quinn has placed himself outside of Catholic teaching on Abortion and Homosexual Marriage. Were I, as a Catholic teacher, to offer my personal convictions that a teenage boy should occupy his hours in front of computer screen in his locked room gratifying himself in front of images of naked babes with - " It is your Civil Right to pursue your Happiness," I think that I might be called to task and account fro my exercise of conscious. Likewise, were I inclined to fulfill my goatish instincts . . .too disturbing to catalogue. Happiness is not

You see Happiness, from Aristotle through Santayana, has very little to do with carnal desire. In fact Dante, as orthodox a Catholic moralist as one may find in a layman, takes Thomistic (St. Thomas Aquinas) morality to poetic task in the Divine Comedy. I believe that Neil Steinberg has loudly and often touted his love of Dante.
Dante would toss Catholic politicians who take coin and votes to promote abortion and secular homosexual doctrines into the jaws of Satan - like Judas Iscariot, Brutus and Cassius. Allegorically speaking, of course.

Catholics can and should be elected to office. Here in Illinois we may begin to do so again.


http://www.suntimes.com/news/steinberg/9524518-452/is-it-still-ok-to-elect-catholics.html

We Americans Sure Love Our Prisons! I'll Say and Then Some

Hey!  Neil Steinberg says "Americans LOVE Prisons!"

You Bet, Johnny !!!!!God, I Love Prisons!!!  

 Our criminal justice system is crisscrossed with all sorts of get-tough laws inflicted by showboating politicians — we not only have more prisoners but our sentences are longer than anyplace else on earth. Mandatory minimum sentences, though long decried, still tie judges’ hands and ship drug offenders away for decades. Ludicrous “three-strikes” laws were intended to jail hardened criminals. But felons can and do receive 25-year-sentences — longer than Breivik got for murdering 77 people — for shoplifting a candy bar. California burglar Norman Williams got a life sentence for taking a jack from a tow truck. . .l .The chance of America changing its outlook here are small. We are a frightened country — with some 270 million guns in 40 percent of the U.S. households, mostly for “protection.” We want criminals to suffer, and aren’t willing to think about the cost of that mindset. That they do things differently in Norway — well then, Norwegians must be strange. The whole world is strange. Only we are normal. Only we do things the right way — the only way — they must be done. 

All of that, folks,in one huge pull and Neil has only two hands and uses both most vigorously! Ought to be blind at that pithy pace and potency.

Neil Steinberg is really pissed at us, again.

Undeterred, Chicago's Aloysius "Ears" McKenna ( at the wheel) and Terry "Fats' Bulfin appreciate the opportunity to engage in senseless and bloody gun-play, causing disturbances with misdemeanor reckless conduct and rowdy teenage flash-mobbing on the Magnificent Mile or in and around the Gold Coast, as well as working on home-made Ham radios and fixing up old Fords.

Yes, sir!  We Americans love our prisons!  Dick Durbin ordered up one for Illinois Melon Capital Thompson Ill and folks in deep downstate Love them some Tamms!

Neil notes that Race is the Place for Scab Picking - Why do Americans Love Them Some Prisons?

Race has to be a factor. More than 60 percent of American prisoners are black or Hispanic, double their presence in the population, and the criminal justice system operates differently for law-breakers who are white and have resources than those who are of color and don’t.

Like the legendary Cap Streeter,  Blago, Tony Rezko, Stuart Levine, Roger the Hog, George Raft, Paul Muni, Jimmy Cagney, Drew Peterson, Al Capone, Spike O'Donnell, Danny Edwards, Gov. Dan Walker, and of course. Ald. Larry Bloom, 

Then, there are our beloved sexual predators (6-60,blind crippled or crazy) Lotharios and Sapphos who number in the scores of thousands -incarcerated and paroled.

http://www.isp.state.il.us/docs/5-622.pdf

Prisons? Man I'm nuts for 'em! Fill 'em up some more!

We Love our prisons - a French word.  The Brits call it Gaol.  I call it Lovely! Still Neil has a point . . .no not the one on his shoulders . . .

In Frog prisouns  a gent in a snappy poilu get up brings flowers to babes doing time.
http://www.suntimes.com/news/steinberg/14738297-452/we-americans-sure-love-our-prisons.html

Crains's Chicago Business and Greg Hinz Smear Sheriff Dart and Former Sheriff Sheahan and the 19th Ward in Two Smarmy Paragraphs.

Sheriff Mike Sheahan is the only elected official to my knowledge who did not profit from public service. This I know for a fact. I try to avoid getting behind Mike Sheahan in the check-out lines at County Fair Foods, because it is a sure bet that it will take a good twenty minutes of coupon counting, before my groceries get tallied.

Nevertheless, Media Types like Mark Brown, Carol Marin, and hugely unfunny Neil Steinberg take lame-ass shots at Sheriff Sheahan and the 19th Ward.

Here is Greg Hinz attempting out-Neil Steinberg on the Mayoral Race -

But the real question is how much Mr. Dart has cleaned up the sheriff's office, which for a couple of decades has been pretty much a 19th Ward fiefdom. Mr. Dart seems to have done a pretty good job, but then, he was chief aide to former Sheriff Mike Sheahan, who caught lots of flak.

You can bet the sheriff's operation will get a full airing before the mayoral vote. Mr. Dart doesn't need any other stumbles.

Greg another one those EVERYONE KNOWS it is true Craptabulous Columinist Pimp Slaps! Really. Shakman! Greg, Shakman!


Gee, Greg EVERYONE know s that Crain's Chicago Business is in bed with Rahm Emanuel - all of the Smart Money. EVERYONE KNOWS THAT!

Oh, that's right. I am not a columnist. Can't get away with that. I'd like to see Sheriff Michael Sheahan ( ret.) hire Joe Powers and sue Crain's and your sorry ass for defamation of character.
What is the exact statistical breakdown of 19th Ward residents in the employ of the Cook County Sheriff?

Mike Quigley used to wow cocktail waitresses with what passes for his wit with a snotty crack about 19th Ward residents with County Plates. No numbers, just Profiling.

19th Ward profiling is acceptable, because Irish Catholics rarely take people like Greg Hinz, or Neil Steinberg by their rolled lapels, pull them up close for a 'chin wag' let alone for a trip outside and a thorough and salubrious beating. Rarely.

Neighbors, Merry Christmas ! 2017 in the 19th Ward

I am blessed.  I live and work in this wonderful neighborhood.  I live in Morgan Park and work at Brother Rice High School.  Children grow up centered, respectful  and industrious.  This is a neighborhood of families.  It is strong.

The many churches are places where these families draw their strength - Quaker, Lutheran, Methodist, Unitarian, Episcopal, Baptist and very large Catholic parishes nurture what is learned in the home.

A very hateful article by the editor of the Chicago Reader - sponsored by the Sun Times News Group and edited by Jake Malooley, the author of the piece - took the opportunity to stir up race hate for Christmas.

The Chicago Reader is a free press and has been for as long as I care to remember. It's slant is far left of center.

The Chicago Reader is only following exactly what the Chicago Tribune, Sun Times, WTTW, WBEZ and the now dead DNAinfo Chicago have done for decades without challenge.

Why challenge people who are wrong, hateful, bigoted and wildly unfair.

People in this neighborhood are welcoming - that is how journalists ooze into the confidence of people.  They violate welcome.

A very pretty female journalist found welcoming bar stools and chatty drinkers in the saloons of Mount Greenwood, in order to make a case that this neighborhood's vote for Trump was solely due to race hate,

Her editor used her dubious report to do the same,  "No demogorgon roams this netherworld, but a majority of its electorate did back the man who's been called the swamp monster: President Donald Trump. Jake Malooley editor Chicago Reader"

Demogorgon?  Homage to Statius' Thebiad or Dungeons and Dragons?  I think the later, The last pretentious hypocrite to smear the neighborhood is a wife beater.

Neil Steinberg did so after breaking bred with a crowd of 19th Ward people.  After being made welcome he insulted and villainized his hosts as Aryan Nation racists, "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?” Neil Steinberg Chicago Sun Times 2009"

 Steinberg was just joking, when I called him on it and his hypocrisy.  Steinberg is busy equating square dancing with cross-burning this Yuletide.

I have yet to read a news alert that young people from 60655 were stealing Christmas deliveries from UPS, FedEx and USPS routes in Roseland, Gresham, Englewood, West Lawn  or Garfield Heights.

On Halloween thousands of residents strolled with their children along the 111th Street business route.  Last week they did the same for Santa's Visit - all sponsored by local businesses and Aklderman Matt O'Shea.

No violence , as in Hyde Park.

No hate.

Christmas lives here every day, unless a few reporters manage to misquote and misrepresent the good people of this neighborhood.

Merry Christmas, everyone and everyday!

Merry Christmas, Maya and Jake!

The Divine Comedy of Steinberg's Shallow Mind -'Why Abortion Frenzy?' Read More Than Dante's Cliff's Notes, "Sprite."

Sun Times "Sprite" Neil Steinberg has the giggles - the rubes and helots are upset about the renewed anger over abortion. It brings out the Sprite ( "Hey, It's a Joke!") in Neil.

The sprite in me is tempted to focus on something, anything, else -- bottled water, what SHALL we do about it? -- but the abortion issue seems to be heating up in a way beyond the flap of a prominent Catholic school conferring an honorary degree upon a president who supports a woman's right to end her pregnancy.

According to the latest polls, suddenly more Americans call themselves "pro-life" than "pro-choice" -- 51 percent vs. 42 percent -- a dramatic shift from just last year, when 50 percent were pro-choice and 44 percent pro-life.

What does this mean? Well, I suppose if you are pro-life, it means the nation has had an unexpected moral reassessment. As if waking from a dream, it gazes down and suddenly sees the blood on its hands, and recoils in moral horror.

For a gent who flashes Dante, like a Visa Gold, Steinberg might have . . .might have, mind you, . . .realized that Dante ( the 13th Century Italian poet) was disgusted by the Catholic Church that turned secular during the late Middle Ages. This is the Catholic Church trotted out by the American Media and Progressives as the Scarlet Whore of Babylon - the one where priests became political hacks and stooged for the secular powers.

Yep, old Neil, it seems is pie-tin deep reader who does not drink too deep from the Pierian Spring ( that's an allusion there, Son!).

Well, Neil, Old Dante's epic takes a dim view of a Church that turns a blind eye - like our hot-topic PR Driven University taking up real estate in Indiana.

Except the soul divine.
Place in this Heaven is none; the soul divine,
Wherein the love, which ruleth o`er its orb,
Is kindled, and the virtue, that it sheds:
One circle, light and love, enclasping it,
As this doth clasp the others; and to Him,
Who draws the bound, its limit only known.
Measured itself by none, it doth divide
Motion to all, counted unto them forth,
As by the fifth or half ye count forth ten.
The vase, wherein time`s roots are plunged, thou seest:
Look elsewhere for the leaves. O mortal lust!
That canst not lift thy head above the waves
Which whelm and sink thee down. The will in man
Bears goodly blossoms; but its ruddy promise
Is, by the dripping of perpetual rain,
Made mere abortion: faith and innocence
Are met with but in babes; each taking leave,
Ere cheeks with down are sprinkled: he, that fasts
While yet a stammerer, with his tongue let loose
Gluts every food alike in every moon:
One, yet a babbler, loves and listens to
His mother; but no sooner hath free use
Of speech, than he doth wish her in her grave.
So suddenly doth the fair child of him,
Whose welcome is the morn and eve his parting,
To negro blackness change her virgin white.

Canto XXVII


Yep, them Old Timey Popes and Bishops got a good tune-up from Dante. Progressives ( Huge Sanger Fans) like to pick at scabs and keep the bleeding going . . .except when it comes to a person's Right to Murder a Kid -Reproductive Health Issues and such.

Dante excoriated ( kicked their fat asses in poetry so to speak) Popes and Bishops and corrupt clergy, because they kissed-up to politicians and turned a blind eye to abortion and every other manner of sin.

It is much more honest to just come out and say that you hate Catholics and their Church. H.L. Mencken would have done that and I believe that he often did so.

Neil, you little Sprite, it is easier just to bad mouth people you don't like and then you can toss that heavy Italian poetry - for all the good it seems to do for you.