March 23rd,National Rally for Religious Freedom: If It Were Up to Planned Parenthood, This Little Gent Would Never Dunk a Twinkie

Occupy an hour. Join Cardinal George and many more Catholics, including your humble correspondent, at Federal Plaza and object strongly to Planned Parenthood's Triumph of Will and Planned Parenthood's President's HHS Mandate. It is that important.

Our religious liberty is at stake.

This will be a national protest

Nationwide Rally for Religious Freedom
Friday, March 23, 2012 Noon – 1:00 pm
Federal Plaza, 50 W. Adams Street , Chicago



Six Things Everyone Should Know About the HHS Mandate 1. The mandate does not exempt Catholic charities, schools, universities, or hospitals. These institutions are vital to the mission of the Church, but HHS does not deem them "religious employers" worthy of conscience protection, because they do not "serve primarily persons who share the[ir] religious tenets." HHS denies these organizations religious freedom precisely because their purpose is to serve the common good of society—a purpose that government should encourage, not punish.

2. The mandate forces these institutions and others, against their conscience, to pay for things they consider immoral. Under the mandate, the government forces religious insurers to write policies that violate their beliefs; forces religious employers and schools to sponsor and subsidize coverage that violates their beliefs; and forces religious employees and students to purchase coverage that violates their beliefs.

3. The mandate forces coverage of sterilization and abortion-inducing drugs and devices as well as contraception. Though commonly called the "contraceptive mandate," HHS's mandate also forces employers to sponsor and subsidize coverage of sterilization. And, by including all drugs approved by the FDA for use as contraceptives, the HHS mandate includes drugs that can induce abortion, such as "Ella," a close cousin of the abortion pill RU-486.

4. Catholics of all political persuasions are unified in their opposition to the mandate. Catholics who have long supported this Administration and its healthcare policies have publicly criticized HHS's decision, including columnists E.J. Dionne, Mark Shields, and Michael Sean Winters; college presidents Father John Jenkins and Arturo Chavez; and Daughter of Charity Sister Carol Keehan, president and chief executive officer of the Catholic Health Association of the United States.

5. Many other religious and secular people and groups have spoken out strongly against the mandate. Many recognize this as an assault on the broader principle of religious liberty, even if they disagree with the Church on the underlying moral question. For example, Protestant Christian, Orthodox Christian, and Orthodox Jewish groups--none of which oppose contraception--have issued statements against the decision. The Washington Post, USA Today, N.Y. Daily News, Detroit News, and other secular outlets, columnists, and bloggers have editorialized against it.

6. The federal mandate is much stricter than existing state mandates. HHS chose the narrowest state-level religious exemption as the model for its own. That exemption was drafted by the ACLU and exists in only 3 states (New York, California, Oregon). Even without a religious exemption, religious employers can already avoid the contraceptive mandates in 28 states by self-insuring their prescription drug coverage, dropping that coverage altogether, or opting for regulation under a federal law (ERISA) that pre-empts state law. The HHS mandate closes off all these avenues of relief.

Six More Things Everyone Should Know About the HHS Mandate 1. The rule that created the uproar has not changed at all, but was finalized as is. Friday evening, after a day of touting meaningful changes in the mandate, HHS issued a regulation finalizing the rule first issued in August 2011, “without change.” So religious employers dedicated to serving people of other faiths are still not exempt as “religious employers.” Indeed, the rule describes them as “non-exempt.”

2. The rule leaves open the possibility that even exempt “religious employers” will be forced to cover sterilization. In its August 2011 comments, USCCB warned that the narrow “religious employer” exemption appeared to provide no relief from the sterilization mandate—only the contraception mandate—and specifically sought clarification. (We also noted that a sterilization mandate exists in only one state, Vermont.) HHS provided no clarification, so the risk remains under the unchanged final rule.

3. The new “accommodation” is not a current rule, but a promise that comes due beyond the point of public accountability. Also on Friday evening, HHS issued regulations describing the intention to develop more regulations that would apply the same mandate differently to “non-exempt, non-profit religious organizations”—the charities, schools, and hospitals that are still left out of the “religious employer” exemption. These policies will be developed over a one-year delay in enforcement, so if they turn out badly, their impact will not be felt until August 2013, well after the election.

4. Even if the promises of “accommodation” are fulfilled entirely, religious charities, schools, and hospitals will still be forced to violate their beliefs. If an employee of these second-class-citizen religious institutions wants coverage of contraception or sterilization, the objecting employer is still forced to pay for it as a part of the employer’s insurance plan. There can be no additional cost to that employee, and the coverage is not a separate policy. By process of elimination, the funds to pay for that coverage must come from the premiums of the employer and fellow employees, even those who object in conscience.

5. The “accommodation” does not even purport to help objecting insurers, for-profit religious employers, secular employers, or individuals. In its August 2011 comments, and many times since, USCCB identified all the stakeholders in the process whose religious freedom is threatened—all employers, insurers, and individuals, not just religious employers. Friday’s actions emphasize that all insurers, including self-insurers, must provide the coverage to any employee who wants it. In turn, all individuals who pay premiums have no escape from subsidizing that coverage. And only employers that are both non-profit and religious may qualify for the “accommodation.”

6. Beware of claims, especially by partisans, that the bishops are partisan. The bishops and their staff read regulations before evaluating them. The bishops did not pick this fight in an election year—others did. Bishops form their positions based on principles—here, religious liberty for all, and the life and dignity of every human person—not polls, personalities, or political parties. Bishops are duty bound to proclaim these principles, in and out of season.

E. J. Dionne - A Sure Sign That President Obama is One-Term Barry

If you want to know how you are doing in life, take a look at the people with whom you associate - they are a pretty good barometer of just how you are doing.

My friends and family tell me when I have worn bronw shoes with a black suit, consumed too much garlic, or allowed my eyebrows to grow handlebars. Solid criticism is always a sign of good friends. My family has absolutely no inhibitions about signalling my vanities, foibles and savageries - thank God.

President Obama has more fawning bootlickers from the media around his Florsheims than any single public person since le Roi-Soleil . . .no, not Leroy . . .Louis XIV. An adept is E. J. Dionne.


Eugene Joseph Dionne - E. J. never fails to climb on the thighs and backs of squad mates, Chris Matthews, David Brooks, Butch Maddow and Rev. Al to give a solid shout-out for President Obama about anything and all things. Today, spunky Eugene takes on the Catholic Bishops of America.

President Obama can not unscrew the pooch that he Progressively pleasured last month with his HHS Sebelius Choice and Abortion Mandate that requires every religious institution to provide pills and rubbers to all and sundry.

Under pressure, Obama announced a compromise on Feb. 10. It still mandated contraception coverage, but religiously affiliated groups would neither have to pay for it nor refer its employees to alternatives. These burdens would be on insurance companies.

The compromise was quickly endorsed by the Catholic Health Association. Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the president of the bishops' conference, reserved judgment but called Obama's move "a first step in the right direction."

Then, right-wing bishops and allied staff at the bishops' conference took control. For weeks, Catholics at Sunday Mass were confronted with attacks that, at the most extreme, cast administration officials as communist-style apparatchiks intent on destroying Roman Catholicism.

You think I exaggerate? In his diocesan newspaper, Cardinal Francis George, archbishop of Chicago, wrote: "The provision of health care should not demand 'giving up' religious liberty. Liberty of religion is more than freedom of worship. Freedom of worship was guaranteed in the Constitution of the former Soviet Union. You could go to church, if you could find one. The church, however, could do nothing except conduct religious rites in places of worship -- no schools, religious publications, health care institutions, organized charity, ministry for justice and the works of mercy that flow naturally from a living faith. All of these were co-opted by the government. We fought a long Cold War to defeat that vision of society." My goodness, does Obama want to bring the Commies back?

Cardinal Dolan is more moderate than Cardinal George, . . .

Bring the Commies back? From where? They never left, Eugene. In fact Mao Dunne and Van Jones were a huge part of the show.

Eugene - you are a Lulu! The stinkum has flown from the skunk's tail on this one. It don't go back and requires gallons of tomato juice, Eugene.

Yet, Dionne tries to paint Roman Catholic Bishops as extreme right wing radicals and Tea Party folks - they could do worse, I suppose. Eugene was happy with Van Jones and Mao Dunne, afterall. Not only that, but like Obama, Eugene, tries to tell the bishops what their job descriptions are all about -"And do the most conservative bishops want to junk the Roman Catholic Church as we have known it, with its deep commitment to both life and social justice, and turn it into the tea party at prayer?"

Now, that'll get you spot on the Big Ed Show, Eugene, but it does not translate into common sense. Obama has threatened the very social justice initiative the Catholic Church has conducted in America from the time of Lord Calvert. Obama has pushed and shoved and got no where and now is having his lapdogs toss his hissy fit.

Nope, Eugene, President Obama has made war on the Catholic Church and on religious liberty. He is stuck with that. At least, President Obama has swell folks like Eugene, Mao Dunne, Rev. Al, and David Brooks to assuange the pain coming in November.

2012 South Side Irish Parade Destroys the Narrative of 2009

The Chicago Tribune can not give credit to this community without a return to the narrative that pulled the plug on this tradition:


Here is the Headline and banner South Side Irish Parade returns to its family-friendly roots
Community's St. Patrick's Day event was called off in '09 after violence and drunkenness 350,000 people and 545 arrests?

Violence and drunkenness? There were fights and there were drunks aplenty, but to characterize an event that became a political panderer showcase and a fern-bar bus trip from all over the Midwest is ridiculous.

That said, this year's parade was sensational. There were strollers filled with babies, as opposed to coolers on wheels.

The buses were consigned to a resitricted area. People went to the parade.

I got home from mass at about 12 Noon and the parade was in full form. I parked in my drive way without problem. I surveyed the property of Casa Hickey. No problema. In years past, bus loads of mopes half stiff already would be dumped off on the CSX rail line infron of my house from 6:30 AM - 10 AM. The buses came from Scahumber, River North fern bars, and every abbreviated set of letters before some Mick Name ( D.J. McMopes, T.R. Weinie Wines, Q. T. Mc Toss-Lunch & etc) establishment with a liquor license. They would hail the neighbors with "Lighten up, Dude! Get your Chi-Rish On!"

This year none of that and more so there was a complete abscense of post-boozing detritus. One mope was busted for public pee-ing.

There was not one empty bottle, can or shattered plastic picture. No discarded Solo Cups and no pathetically inebriated hipsters trying to hail a cab in a neighborhood where people take the bus.

James "Skinny" Sheahan affetcted this change and shattered the snotty narrative crafted by a media that had a huge role in making the South Side Irish Parade a feast of all slobs.

Well done South Side Irish Parade Committee and well done neighbors.

John & Tricia O'Sullivan - St. Baldrick's Champs in Bourbon Street Knockout Event Against Cancer!

From 3PM -well after 7PM John and Patricia O'Sullivan of Oak Lawn, Illinois shepherded volunteers and the action in the square ring to benefit families afflicted by Cancer - Kids with Cancer in particular.

The St. Baldrick's Fight for the Cure Event that featured a full card of young heroes from the Leo High School, Boxing Club, the Celtic Boxing Club, and the great Martin McGarry's Gym and Boxing School.

During the action in the ring the real warriors were to be seen on the huge stage above the boxing ring, where volunteer masters of the tonsorial arts sheared the locks of young, old, male and female Cancer Combatants. For hours kids, moms, dads, uncles and pals lined up to have their hair shave off their heads. One gentleman had hair that Willie Nelson would envy. All eyes turned to his sacrifice of hair that seems to have been rooted during the Carter Adminsistration. God bless this guy!

Hundreds of people jammed the massive 115 Bourbon Street facility. In the ring the young boxers from the three clubs went at it hard and fast, referee'd by the great James Kitchen and witnessed by Heavy World Champion Ernie Terrell.

Prize trophies were awarded by Dorothy Brown, Jesse White, Leo Legend Robert W. Foster, and Leo President Dan McGrath as well as other luminaries of the community and political world.

All through this great work, John and Tricia O'Sullivan fought the great fight and our community had their backs.

Thank You Tricia, John, the Newly Bald, the Volunteers, the Boxers, and the great people of the south side.

A Musical Consideration of the Debate on the Obama Mandate

Contraception means No Conception - No Birth.

Miserere means " Have Mercy"


The OCCUPELLA WOMEN'S CHORUS* offered their song "Contraception." These women the dowagers of the A Capella Contraception song stand in as a human metaphor to the agenda itself.


Lord, have mercy.

On the other side, my side, we a have an offering of Allegri's Miserere** representing music long cherished, cared for and preserved. Shucks, its older than Pete Seeger.



I can't speak for you but sure seems that one offering was riginally beautiful presented by serious people and the other a monotone, slapdash, self-absorbed stick-up of an old railroad song.

*

March 5, 2012 (San Diego) -- There’s a new all volunteer female chorus in town with more gigs than they can handle. The “Occupella Chorus” sings familiar tunes, but rewords the lyrics to convey the message of social and economic injustice. A sample is “Occupy Your Mind” sung to tune of “Do Re Mi:” “Occupy your mind today. Learn what’s really going on. Me - an individual, Against a corporation.”


The women are of varying ages and from throughout our region, including East County. Members include daughters, wives, mothers and grandmas who are all members of Women Occupy San Diego. They’ve entertained audiences outside the Civic Center, San Diego Rep and AMSD concerts. The group will be singing in support of women’s rights downtown on March 8 and against nuclear power outside the San Onofre Power Plant on March 11.


“If you’re planning a protest rally -- you better book these ladies while they’re free and available, Anita Simons with Occupella says.

Allegri's Miserere

Allegri's masterpiece was written sometime before 1638 for the annual celebration of the matins during Holy Week (the Easter celebration). Twice during that week, on Wednesday and Friday, the service would start at 3AM when 27 candles were extinguished one at a time until but one remained burning. According to reports, the pope would participate in these services. Allegri composed his setting of the Miserere for the very end of the first lesson of these Tenebrae services. At the final candle, the pope would kneel before the altar and pray while the Miserere was sung, culminating the service.

The idea of using a solemn setting of the "Miserere mei Deus" psalm likely started during the reign of Pope Leo X (1513-1521). Contemporaneous accounts relate the use of the Miserere in this way in the year 1514. The earliest surviving setting is dated 1518 and was composed by Costanzo Festa (c. 1490- 1545). Festa's Miserere was sung in the "falsobordone" style, which is an ancient and rather simple means of harmonizing on traditional Gregorian chant. His setting consisted of nine vocal parts split into two choirs, the first a five-part and the second a four-part, each alternating with the traditional Gregorian plainsong melodies, and then coming back together again for the last verse. Festa's setting was the first of twelve such settings collected in a two-volume manuscript preserved in the Pontifical Chapel archives. Ten more contributors, including Guerrero and Palestrina, are represented in these volumes before the final manuscript of Allegri's celebrated work, following exactly the same ensemble layout as Festa's original work and is likewise in the falsobordone style, closes the collection of twelve.

It was not long before Allegri's Miserere was the only such work sung at these services. With its soaring soprano parts (sung for centuries by castrati) and compelling melodic style, the work enjoyed almost immediate popularity. So impressed was some subsequent pope that the work thereafter was protected and a prohibition was placed on its use outside the Sistine Chapel at the appointed time. Chapel regulations forbid its transcription; indeed, the prohibition called for excommunication for anyone who sought to copy the work. In spite of this, by 1770 three copies were known to exist. One was owned by the King of Portugal; another was in the possession of the distinguished composer, pedagogue, and theoretician Padre Giovanni Battista Martini (1706-1784); and a third was kept in the Imperial Library in Vienna.

It is here that the first tale contributes to the mystique that has come to surround this work. The copy in the Imperial Library was brought to Vienna by Emperor Leopold I (1640-1705), who, having heard of the piece from dignitaries visiting Rome, instructed his ambassador to the Vatican to ask the Pope for a copy of the work for performance in the royal chapel. The Pope eventually obliged, but when the work was performed in Vienna, it was so disappointing that the Emperor believed he had been deceived, and a lesser work sent to him instead. He complained to the Pope, who fired his Maestro di Cappella. The unfortunate man pleaded for a papal audience, explaining that the beauty of the work owed to the special performance technique used by the papal choir, which could not be set down on paper. The Pope, understand nothing of music, granted the man permission to go to Vienna and make his case, which he did successfully, and was rehired. In fact, it is this elaborate performance technique, including improvised counterpoint, first employed soon after the work was written, that has been approximated in a recent recording by A Sei Voci on Astree.

The next famous story concerning the Miserere involves the 12-year-old Mozart. On December 13, 1769, Leopold and Wolfgang left Salzburg and set out for a 15-month tour of Italy where, among other things, Leopold hoped that Wolfgang would have the chance to study with Padre Martini in Bologna, who had also taught Johann Christian Bach several years before. On their circuitous route to Bologna, they passed through Innsbruck, Verona, Milan, and arrived in Rome on April 11, 1770, just in time for Easter. As with any tourist, they visited St. Peter's to celebrate the Wednesday Tenebrae and to hear the famous Miserere sung at the Sistine Chapel. Upon arriving at their lodging that evening, Mozart sat down and wrote out from memory the entire piece. On Good Friday, he returned, with his manuscript rolled up in his hat, to hear the piece again and make a few minor corrections. Leopold told of Wolfgang's accomplishment in a letter to his wife dated April 14, 1770 (Rome):

"…You have often heard of the famous Miserere in Rome, which is so greatly prized that the performers are forbidden on pain of excommunication to take away a single part of it, copy it or to give it to anyone. But we have it already. Wolfgang has written it down and we would have sent it to Salzburg in this letter, if it were not necessary for us to be there to perform it. But the manner of performance contributes more to its effect than the composition itself. Moreover, as it is one of the secrets of Rome, we do not wish to let it fall into other hands…."
Wolfgang and his father then traveled on to Naples for a short stay, returning to Rome a few weeks later to attend a papal audience where Wolfgang was made a Knight of the Golden Spur. They left Rome a couple of weeks later to spend the rest of the summer in Bologna, where Wolfgang studied with Padre Martini.

The story does not end here, however. As the Mozarts were sightseeing and traveling back to Rome, the noted biographer and music historian, Dr. Charles Burney, set out from London on a tour of France and Italy to gather material for a book on the state of music in those countries. By August, he arrived in Bologna to meet with Padre Martini. There he also met Mozart. Though little is known about what transpired between Mozart and Burney at this meeting, some facts surrounding the incident lead to interesting conjecture. For one, Mozart's transcription of Allegri's Miserere, important in that it would presumably also reflect the improvised passages performed in 1770 and thus document the style of improvisation employed by the papal choir, has never been found. The second fact is that Burney, upon returning to England near the end of 1771, published an account of his tour as well as a collection of music for the celebration of Holy Week in the Sistine Chapel. This volume included music by Palestrina, Bai, and, for the first time, Allegri's famous Miserere. Subsequently, the Miserere was reprinted many times in England, Leipzig, Paris and Rome, effectively ending the pope's monopoly on the work.

I Have Absolutely Nothing to Add. . .To This.

The idiots of the Southern Law and Poverty Center ( one huge Hate Group in itself) are now targeting the Manosphere. BTW - ever a get a look at those mopes?

To the Right -SLPC President Richard Cohen

and always Left - his Wingman Mark Potok

The so-called “manosphere” is peopled with hundreds of websites, blogs and forums dedicated to savaging feminists in particular and women, very typically American women, in general. Although some of the sites make an attempt at civility and try to back their arguments with facts, they are almost all thick with misogynistic attacks that can be astounding for the guttural hatred they express. What follows are brief descriptions of a dozen of these sites. Another resource is the Man Boobz website (manboobz.com), a humorous pro-feminist blog (its tagline is “Misogyny: I Mock It”) that keeps a close eye on these and many other woman-hating sites.

Get a date losers.


Heavens! Now, to the heavenly.



well maybe I should add. . .We have Jan Schakowsky and Sheila Simon. What the Fluke?

Italian politician Nicole Minetti -Nicole Minetti (1986, Rimini) (26 years old) is a former showgirl and dental hygienist who became a politician under Berlusconi.

Minetti's mother is an English dance instructor and her father an Italian businessman. Minetti worked for a while as a dancer on Colorado Cafe, a comedy-variety show on television. She then went on to train as a dental hygeinist.

Two Aussie's Talking European - President Obama Can't Speak Austrian; how about Australian?

I think when you spread the wealth around it's good for everybody.
Barack Obama

Q Sonja Sagmeister from a little country, Austria, from Austrian Television. Mr. President, you said you came here to learn and to listen. So a quite personal question -- what did you learn from your personal talk with the European leaders? And did this change in a certain way your views on Europe and its politics?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: It's an interesting question. I had already formed relationships with many of them. Some of them I had met when I traveled through Europe before my election. Some of them I had met because they came to Washington after the election. This is the first time I've been in a forum with so many of them at the same time. . . .It was also interesting to see that political interaction in Europe is not that different from the United States Senate. There's a lot of -- I don't know what the term is in Austrian -- wheeling and dealing -- and, you know, people are pursuing their interests, and everybody has their own particular issues and their own particular politics.

White House Transcripts: April 4, 2009
NEWS CONFERENCE BY PRESIDENT OBAMA (emphasis my own)




Give a man a gun and he can rob a bank. Give a man a bank and he can rob the world.---Unknown
Huge Ht to Elias Crim of the Great States of Texas and Indiana

As Rare as Hair on a Bowling Ball, Yet, One Can Be A Catholic Democrat and Not Planned Parenthood's Chattel

Governor Pat Quinn as seen from Above


"I find it outrageous that anyone in a position of public trust would trample on the conscience of people of religious beliefs," Ray Flynn (D) former Boston Mayor and President Clinton's Ambassador to the Vatican

I like that Ray. You mean anyone like

Illinois governor Pat Quinn, Senator Dick Durbin, or anyone endorsed by and accepting of Personal Pac's Terry Cosgrove's approval?


Ray Flynn ain't no chattel and he is a Democrat. My former State Representative Kevin Joyce was no one's chattel. Congressman Dan Lipinski (D. 3rd), my Congressman, is like Ray Flynn for the most part. Chattel* is a great word.


* Chattel (n.):Middle English chatel property, from Anglo-French

First Known Use: 14th century

1. an item of tangible movable or immovable property except real estate and things (as buildings) connected with real property

2. slave, bondman

Rabbi Stands with Catholics - Thanks Cousin!

Invoking George Washington’s famous letter to the Jews of Newport, R.I., Rabbi Meir Soloveichik of New York’s Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun, one of the foremost Orthodox rabbis of his generation, told a congressional committee on February 16 that requiring health insurance plans to cover contraception threatened “the liberties of conscience” of fellow Americans and “redefined by bureaucratic fiat” the definition of religion itself. He found it appalling that any religious organization — Catholic or not — should be “obligated to provide employees with an insurance policy that facilitates acts violating the organization’s religious tenets.”

In many ways, it is heartwarming to see an Orthodox rabbi standing up for the religious liberties of his Catholic cousins. Many of us felt ashamed when so many rabbis failed to do this in 2010, when the religious liberty of Muslim Americans was challenged during the controversy over building a mosque near Ground Zero. As a minority group that has fought hard for religious equality, and one that rightly takes pride in having received from Washington himself the assurance that religious liberty is an ”inherent natural right“ that cannot be abridged, we should all feel obliged to testify whenever religious liberties are challenged. (Emphasis My Own)

Thanks Cousins!















Read more: http://www.forward.com/articles/152606/#ixzz1oiO6VMHl

Leo Boxers Fight for the Cure - Featured on Fox 32

Leo High Students Boxing Club Looks to Knockout Kids' Cancer: MyFoxCHICAGO.com

Leo High Students Boxing Club Looks to Knockout Kids' Cancer
Updated: Friday, 09 Mar 2012, 9:13 AM CST
Published : Friday, 09 Mar 2012, 9:13 AM CST

By Patrick Elwood, FOX Chicago News

Chicago - We are one week away from our big St. Baldricks FOX Chicago Schools Challenge shave day at 'The Cell.' With more than 75 schools joining us to help conquer kids' cancer, we've already raised $415,000.

Inside the halls and the ring at Leo High School, kids are putting on the gloves to fight kids' cancer.

Leo High School has been around since 1926, a boys Catholic college prep where young boys grow to be strong, community minded young men.

On Saturday at 3 p.m. at 115 Bourbon Street in Merionnette Park, they are looking to deliver that knock-out punch to kids cancer.

The Leo Boxing Club's motivations are real.

The guys under the leadership of their coach Mike Joyce have been planning for this Saturday night for a long time now, getting in shape and growing their hair.

Coach Joyce is a Leo graduate himself and the son-in-law of Muhammad Ali.

Joyce is as proud as he can be of his guys.

He and friend John O'Sullivan are organizing Saturday's boxing matches.

So the sky is the limit here, when the Leo Lion roars like it will Saturday when that bell rings, good things happen.

As the champ himself once said, "it's lack of faith that makes people afraid of meeting challenges, and I believed in myself."

These kids and their coach believe as well.

Rahm Wasn't Bilked in a Day - Took Many Months on the CTA

Let Me Tell All a Story 'Bout Dude Named Forrest/Who Never, Ever Had a Bad Day.
He's got money in his pocket 'n no 'countabilly/ He's President of the CTA!

From the Man Who Never Leaves -Forrest on the CTA

I wonder if Rahm Emanuel's 1st Anniversary as Mayor of Chicago -Urban Center - will be as joyous as one might think it should be. . . prolly nut, as young but cynical Danny McGuinn (3yrs) might opine.

What a year!

G-8 - bagged by the guy in the Oval with only an hour's notice.

CTA wheels from Red China prove a brittle as a CTA gandy-dancer's pee-stream in most Chicago winters.

Governors, Mayors, Cops, Firemen, Catholic Archbishops, City Workers always get lousy treatment from the Chicago Media. However, there are folks the media protects, like they were Lladro pieces. Three come to mind immediately - G. ( "Gimme") Flint Taylor, Andy Thayer and Forrest Claypool are about the Chicagoans who never seem to go away: G is an ambulance chasing Cadillac Commie; Andy Thayer is a speech challenged pan-Activitht Media Goof; Forrest Claypool gets appointed to everything and anything. These unexamined lives are worth living . . .why exactly?


Last April, Rahm appointed Forrest Claypool President of the CTA, when job-jumping, experience unnecessary Forrest, chirped "You don’t negotiate in public. … There’s obviously significant financial problems at CTA, but that’s part of the discussions and negotiations.” Like Bombardier?

Oh. Hell no! Unless it is to tune-up helot CTA workers, Forrest don't meet the press.

. Forrest quickly showed his cost-cutting mettle by denying CTA employees Pee Breaks . . .damn them perks!

Claypool trotted out the new L-Cars from the good Folks at Bombardier Canada on my Birthday of all days! November 8, 2011 not only did I turn 59 years old enough to know better, but "Mayor Rahm Emanuel and CTA President Forrest Claypool today unveiled new 5000-series rail cars. . .
After a successful prototype testing period, the first of 706 brand new, full production model cars will debut on the Pink Line. As more cars continue to arrive, they will be tested internally to ensure all components are operating properly before going into service. “The 5000-series cars provide a more enjoyable ride for customers,” said CTA President Forrest Claypool. “These cars have wider aisles and roomier interiors, electronic destination signs and security cameras in each car for enhanced safety.”

BUT the wheels disintegrate! Shortly, thereafter, the cars were pulled. The new 5 000 Series -Chinese Wheels and all, like their sponsor,Forrest Claypool, remain without any previous experience.

Now, purchase of these fine products with wheels made in Red China were no doubt greassed along the tracks long before Mayor Rahm.

Forrest Claypool owns the 5000 series, unless he cares to divulge the names and wallet sizes of those who made a proper profit along the way.
The media won't be mean to Forrest. In fact, Mike Sneed and Carol Marin will get the poor sad-eyed mope a plate of Lorna Doone's and a big-ass glass of ice-cold Oberweiss, while petting the lad for his troubles brought on by Bosses.

In a real world Claypool would be fitted for a swell-two button Pee Yellow jacket with CTA Wheels for buttons. Instead the Mayor will get the heat.

No wonder Mayor Rahm has 'Coon Eyes.

He's The Man Who Ne'er Leaves, But Always Returns in Some new Capacity

http://www.cityofchicago.org/content/city/en/depts/mayor/press_room/press_releases/2011/november_2011/mayor_emanuel_andctapresidentforrestclaypoolunveilnewrailcars.html
http://www.suntimes.com/news/politics/4915438-418/rahm-emanuel-picks-forrest-claypool-to-head-cta.html

There's a whole bunch here:

https://news.google.com/news/more?q=forrest+claypool+CTA+%26+bombardier+Cars&hl=en&pwst=1&rls=com.microsoft:en-us:IE-SearchBox&rlz=1I7GGIH_enUS268&prmd=imvnsuo&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.,cf.osb&biw=999&bih=579&wrapid=tlif133130686039210&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ncl=dbpcllPVcbLTS6MmIwlxMzpzkS_5M&ei=VCFaT5GIFcqigwewkfGhCw&sa=X&oi=news_result&ct=more-results&resnum=1&ved=0CDcQqgIwAA

Governor Pat Quinn Visits Dr. Quentin Young

Dr. Quentin Young: His patients have included Martin Luther King Jr., Mike Royko, Studs Terkel and members of the Chicago 7 conspiracy trial, but after 61 years in private practice, Dr. Quentin Young is hanging up his stethoscope. Phil Kadner Southtown Star


Last month, Governor Pat Quinn, a rock-ribbed Progressive Christian was suffering from pains in his knees, so he visited the doctor - the eminent Progressive founder of the Democratic Socialists of America.

'What seems to be the problem, Governor? Right Knee? Left Knee? Wee Knee?'

'The left, Doctor, always the Left. The Right is none too good. Wee knee? Didn't know there was one.'

'Of Course. . . .( examine probe, touch and conclude) . . .You're suffering from a disease that we medical experts call "kneeitis",' said the doctor. 'Take it easy for a month or so and above all don't climb any stairs. That puts a terrible strain on the knees'.

A month later the Governor returned and after a brief examination was found to have recovered completely.

'Can I climb the stairs now doctor?'

'Certainly', replied the doctor.

'Thank Heavens', said the Governor of Illinois, 'I was getting a bit browned off climbing up the drainpipe every time I wanted to go to the toilet'.

The radical internal medicine man and doctor to the evolved smiled and nodded. 'Nature always compensates, when universal government health care gets blocked by systemic racism and capitalism, Governor.'

The gob-smacked Guv had an epiphany brewing, 'twas clear, and the Socialist Sawbones probed on about how Nature sometimes compensates for a person's deficiences. For example', he told the brain-straining Governor, 'if a man is deaf, he may have keener sight, and if a man is blind, he may have a very keen sense of smell'.

'I think I see what you mean', said the Personal Pac acolyte budget busting penman and Christian, 'I've often noticed that if a man has one short leg, then the other one is always a little bit longer'.

'You've noticed that have you? Well, until our next chat, Governor!'

Illinois - you can and must make this stuff up!

*

Quentin Young told Amy Goodman of Democracy Now!, that while an Illinois State senator, Obama was a strong supporter of “single payer”

Barack Obama, in those early days—influenced, I hope, by me and others—categorically said single payer was the best way, and he would inaugurate it if he could get the support, meaning majorities in both houses, which he’s got, and the presidency, which he’s got. And he said that on more than one occasion…. ”

Physicians for a National Health Program

Who is Quentin Young and what is Physicians for a National Health Program? What influence do they actually have?

PNHP claims to be a national organization of 14,000 doctors advocating single-payer national health insurance.

In reality it was long a phonebox size operation run by Quentin Young and a handful of Marxist comrades.

Quentin Young is one of America’s most committed socialists, beginning with his time in the Young Communist League in late 1930s Chicago.

After WW2, into the mid 1970s, Young was closely associated with the Communist Party and was accused of belonging to the Bethune Club (a communist doctor’s club) by a US Congressional Committee investigating the riots at the 1968 Democratic Party convention in Chicago.

In the late 1970s Young was associated with the pro Marx/Gramsci, New American Movement and in 1982 helped found the also Marxist, Democratic Socialists of America-to which he still belongs.

In 1972, in the dying days of the Vietnam War Young led a small radical delegation to Communist North Vietnam.

In 1995 Young attended the famous meeting at the Hyde Park home of former Weather Underground terrorists Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn where Barack Obama was introduced as chosen successor to Illinois State Senator Alice Palmer.

Ask David Axelrod - Is Misericordia Home Really Necessary?

"People with developmental disabilities need places like Misericordia to live fulfilled lives, to live happy lives," said Axelrod. "I've seen it in my own daughter's life, and I want to see that available for many, many others." David Axelrod April, 2011

This year, the Catholic Church in the United States is being told she must "give up" her health care institutions, her universities and many of her social service organizations. This is not a voluntary sacrifice. It is the consequence of the already much discussed Department of Health and Human Services regulations now filed and promulgated for implementation beginning Aug. 1 of this year.

Francis Cardinal George in Catholic New World - February 26, 2012

“The reduction in the number of pregnancies compensates for the cost of contraception,” Sebelius said. She went on to say the estimated cost is “down not up.” Kathy "One Child Policy" Sebelius HHS Secretary March 1, 2012
Bucks, or Babies? Breeders, Wafer Catholics and Bible toting Gun Hugging Rubes say "Babies, Kathy." Sophisticated Secular Progressives shout, "dollar savings of course. No Babies , No Bucks, No Problem and cleaner, Greener Earth."

Misericordia Home is Chicago's place where special needs children and adults have been cared for since 1921. David Axelrod runs the Obama 2012 Campaign - Greater Together. Ironically enough, David Axelrod has a special needs child in the care of Miseridcodia Home and David Axelrod is not a Catholic. This is ironic because Axelrod's candidate and our Chief Executive,President Obama, is at war with Catholics, because the Catholic Church as an institution is powerful, but only remains powerful in so far as it stands for its doctrines. Doctrines can not be sold like a commodity, or Green Future, or Shares in GE, unless of course one happens to be an elected official who calls himself/herself Catholic but promotes any and all agendas that conflict with the doctrines of the Catholic Church.

The Catholic Church as an institution has physical assets, developed through the course of American History via the support of individual Catholics and some friends who admire the good works those assests support - like Misericordia Home.

There are schools, hospitals, and family support centers of all kinds and types.

I am not familiar with a John Dewey Center for Childeless Couples, or a Planned Parenthood Fetus Drop-Off Station, but I know that John Dewey's Hegelian discipuli demand that Catholic Hospitals perform abortions and that Catholics get in line with China's policies toward big families.

Special Needs children are the focus of a new medical paper that is all the rage in Europe. Children born with special needs should be put to death, "in order to spare the mother and other family members a psychological burden" that the child's place as a living carbon foot-print might pose.

Catholics, traditional Catholics, breeders and wafer swallowers,as they are deemed by Catholics for Obama, fear for the future. Catholics for Obama say this:

Is Obama Pro-Life?The answer is “yes.” Looking through the lens of Catholic Social Teaching, Senator Obama has spent his entire career striving for the common good. He supports health care programs that will cover all Americans, a living wage for working families, and solutions that allow distressed families to stay in their homes. And rather than trying to overturn Roe v. Wade, an ineffective strategy for 40 years, Senator Obama will reduce abortions. How? By promoting health care for pregnant women and better infant care, day care and job training. In fact, data has shown that social and education programs actually reduce abortions.

Catholic Social Teaching? Whose? Nevermind. Oh, that one is dated 2008. Could be because there is not a Catholics for Obama 2012 . . .yet.According to this same standard of reason posed by Catholics for Obama - Adolph Hitler was a member of PETA. Loved Blondi, He Did!

Obama Catholics need to tweak that gusher above because President Obama is clearly pro-abortion and not any way near pro-life.

Push has come to shove. Obama will not yield on his Mandate for Contraception and Abortion ( morning after pills for Ms. Fluke)because Planned Parenthood would go all Bill Maher on his butt.

Unless President Obama gets fewer votes than . . . anyone not Obama, the Catholic Church's institutions like Misericordia will close, as will Catholic schools, hospitals, Catholic Charities, any Catholic mission surrounded by bricks and mortar.

I gotta ask, Did David Axelrod actually mean what he said about Misericordia in April 2011? Ask him yourselves, folks.






http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=news/local&id=8093243

http://hickeysite.blogspot.com/2012/03/post-natal-abortion-considered-four.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/29/cardinal-george-birth-con_n_1307749.html

Purim - Catholics and Jews in the Same Boat Against the Tide of Progressive Aggression

I am working on an article for Irish American News with a deadline of March 15th. The article will appear in the April edition of Cliff Carlson's Irish American News (IAN -On-Line: http://www.irishamericannews.com/ and the topic is the war on faith resulting from secularism as the new government Church opposed to any religious belief, Catholic in particular.

I will talk about the English anti-Catholic laws of the 17th Century and how Catholic gentry, desiring to maintain their economic and political status, abandoned the faith.

In discussing the current conflict, I will parallel the Catholic politician, largely Democrat, who needs votes, money and muscle to maintain his/her political power. Last Fall, the pot in Illinois boiled over, when Governor Quinn who signed the Religious Liberty and Civil Unions Bill into law also stood with Illinois Personal PAC - Planned Parenthood's political treasury which supports not only the move to universal government funded abortion and contraception, but also re-constructs marriage.

Governor Quinn, like Senator Durbin and many other GOP and Democratic elected officials, took the vague tag of Christian, when confronted by Illinois Catholic Bishops led by Francis Cardinal George, Archbishop of Chicago.

Like the 17th Centry Squire Quinn of BallyQuinn Ireland, Governor Pat Quinn maintained his place as a Progressive Democrat. Faith is such a antiquated thing to so many of the evolved affluent, educated professionals free of the ghetto walls of faith. Many such Catholic spawned folks shed the skin of doctrine and catechetical rigors for situational ethics and know that they know better than the Wafer Catholics.

In my article I will feature chats with three very well-educated, sophisticated, articulate, yet to the Progressive very unevolved Catholic leaders. They are churchmen - Father Anthony Brankin, a musician, sculptor and Irish traditionalist priests, Francis Cardinal George of Chicago who has taken more punches from the secular evolved media, academics, and elected officials than Billy Conn in his loss to Joe Louis, and finally an exclusive interview with Timothy Cardinal Dolan of New York, President of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

As part of the protocol, I requested the interview through the Archdiocese NYC Office of Communications and was graced with a call from the Office of Delegate for Health Care - Karl P. Adler M.D. I spoke with Dr. Adler's delightful secretary yesterday afternoon, Ms. Sandy. Ms. Sandy is of Scots-Irish descent and married to Welshman from South Carolina.

Talk about diversity.

Ms. Sandy sent me an article following our chat about the HHS Contraception Mandate by the Obama White House. Her boss, Dr. Karl Adler, has been at Cardinal Dolan's side all through this defense of religious liberty. We talked about faith. I'm a Catholic, by birth and, in my much battered post-middle age, by choice.

Our coreligionists, the Jews, managed to thrive during two thousand years of persecution at the hands of Protestants, Catholics, Muslims, Pagans and,since Hegel, Nietzsche and John Dewey The Progressives. The Progressive Soviets and Nazis fell far short of exterminating God's Chosen People with the blood and hearts of Protestants, Catholics and more than few atheists. The consistent ethic of Judeo Christian culture is and has been genuine love, charity, courage, conviction, and common sense.

From the Jews we Catholics should learn more about conviction, holding onto faith, in order to survive as human beings and especially now as a Church.

Yesterday was the start of the religious Feast of Purim. Ms. Sandy sent this to me.



Office of Delegate for Health Care
Archdiocese of New York
1011 First Avenue
New York, NY 10022


Pat,

Tomorrow is Purim*, well actually after sundown this evening. NYC is a very Catholic town, it is also very Jewish. I read this article and thought of the Jewishness of Catholics the HHS mandate and how Jews came to be called Jews

The Holiday When We Became Jewish

By Naftali Silberberg

What is the significance of the name "Jew"? Where does the word come from and what does it mean?

The word Jew (Yehudi in the Hebrew) is a derivative of the name Judah (Yehudah),Jacob's fourth son; hence calling someone by this name would seemingly imply that the person is a descendant of that particular tribe. However, as is well known, Jacob had twelve sons, progenitors of the Twelve Tribes of Israel, all of whom comprise our great nation. Why, then, is the entire Israelite nation known as "Jews"?

(The conventional answer to this question is that the majority of Jews today are descendant from the tribes of Judah and Benjamin-—the two tribes which comprised the "Kingdom of Judea." The other ten tribes, the members of the "Northern Kingdom," were exiled to unknown lands. There must, however, be a deeper reason for the fact that the Chosen Nation has been called by this name for close to 2500 years!)

Perhaps this question can be cleared up by analyzing the very first individual to be dubbed "Jew." The first instance of this word appears in the biblical Book of Esther, which chronicles the story of Purim: "There was a Jewish man in Shushan the capital, whose name was Mordechai the son of Yair... a Benjaminite" (Esther 2:5).

That's right: the first "Jew" was actually from the tribe of Benjamin!

An objective study of the Purim story reveals that the whole frightening episode was plainly avoidableAn objective study of the Purim story reveals that the whole frightening episode was plainly avoidable. The entire incident was a result of Mordechai's obstinate adherence to a code of behavior which was clearly outdated and inappropriate for the times. Mordechai was an elderly rabbi who yet recalled days – more than half a century beforehand – when the Holy Temple stood in Jerusalem and Torah Law was supreme. His snubbing of Haman might have been condign during that generation. But things had changed dramatically. The people of Israel were in exile. How did Mordechai dare put his entire nation in danger of extinction by slighting the king's favorite minister? Apparently someone neglected to inform this sage that the ability to conform is the key to survival...

Mordechai, however, thought otherwise; and he had a famous precedent supporting his "foolish" actions. Many years earlier, a powerful Egyptian ruler wished to take his ancestor, Benjamin, as a slave. Benjamin's brother Judah wouldn't hear of such a possibility. In what would be his proudest and most defining moment, Judah completely ignored all royal protocol, angrily approached the powerful ruler – who, unbeknownst to him, was actually their brother Joseph – and threateningly demanded Benjamin's release.Judah is the embodiment of the exiled Israelite who must walk a thin line: While he must live at peace with his neighbors, follow the laws and customs of the land, and "pray for the peace of the regime," he has the courage of his convictions to stand up against all the powers that be in order to defend his ideals. In the words of Rabbi Sholom DovBer of Lubavitch, "Only our bodies were sent into exile; not our souls!"

Mordechai "the Jew" was a proud student of his great-uncle Judah. He knew that Torah law forbids a Jew from bowing to Haman (and the statuette which dangled from a chain around his neck), and for him that was the final word. Indeed, Judah's and Mordechai's actions were vindicated as events unfolded--no harm came to either of them as a result of their brave conduct.

Judah is the embodiment of the exiled Israelite who must walk a thin line. Leading by example, Mordechai succeeded in implanting this sense of pride in the hearts of the masses. When Haman issued his decree of annihilation, not one Israelite even considered abandoning his religion in order to be spared death. At that moment, we all became "Jews." Accordingly, the Book of Esther is the first place where our nation as a whole is referred to as Jews.

The name stuck. Because the next 2,500 years would repeatedly test our "Jewishness." Under countless regimes – both friendly and, as was usually the case, hostile – we struggled against friends and enemies who wished to impose their will upon us at the expense of our relationship with G‑d. Again and again we proved ourselves true to G‑d, earning the name Jew through oceans of blood and tears.

The grand story of history concludes in similar fashion as the Purim story: we are here to tell the tale and our enemies aren't... The joy of Purim is greater than any other holiday because it tells the story of the nation who never allowed its soul to be shackled--the story of the Jew.

(empasis my own)

Judah completely ignored all royal protocol, angrily approached the powerful ruler – who, unbeknownst to him, was actually their brother Joseph – and threateningly demanded Benjamin's release - Cardinals George and Dolan and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops have determined to no longer 'go-along-to-get-along. Survival means coniction. This Purim, this Lent, we should try and meditate on what it means submit to royal mandates. In order to live one must be will to object and if needs be take punishment and perhaps death.

Catholics - be like Jews. They don't survive; they live.

The Irish celebrated the outlawed Eucharist on rocks in the wilderness with outlawed priests. Squire Quinn of Bally-Quinn kept his houses, lands, titles, horses and dogs. Call that living?


*The festival of Purim is celebrated every year on the 14th of the Hebrew month of Adar (late winter/early spring). It commemorates the salvation of the Jewish people in ancient Persia from Haman’s plot “to destroy, kill and annihilate all the Jews, young and old, infants and women, in a single day.”

Fight for the Cure With the Boxers of St. Baldrick's - Sat. 3-7 PM at Bourbon Street

Eric Owens vs. Logan Plantz SuperHeavyweights -Really?

These two dreadnaughts will touch gloves and each other. My pal Eric Owens will graduate this Mother's Day from Leo High School. Big E is off to college in the fall well-armed with the Leo Spirit of Giving. Our guys from Mike Joyce's Leo Boxing Club will square off with Celtic Boxers, Marty McGarry's Boxers and many, many other great amateur and pro talents all on the same card to knock-out cancer.

Come on out Saturday for a full afternoon of sport, fellowship, food and fun at the most generous venue on the south side 115 Bourbon Street. There is not a weekend goes by, that 115 Bourbon Street does not help sick kids, suffering families and causes that really matter.

If you can't join us go to the donation website for St. Badrick's Right Cheer!
https://www.stbaldricks.org/donate/event/7780/2012

Or, dial them up at (888) 899-BALD extension (2253)and make a handsome drop. make it is handsome as Tommy Zbikowski of the Baltimore Ravens and the Sqaure Ring of the Sweet Science.

Make it as handsome as Dicky Eklund who is always ringside for anyone, especially kids, who can use a powerful punch of aid.




Event St. Baldricks Fight for a Cure A Good Time for a Great Cause

Saturday March 10th 3:00-7:30

115 Bourbon Street 3359 west 115th street

Open bar, buffet, raffles, headshaving, St. Patrick's Day queen and court, music and live boxing

Featuring boxers from Leo High School, Celtic Boxing Club, McGarry Boxing Club and Southside Knockout

$25 Donation

All money raised goes to the St. Baldricks Foundation which is the largest fundraiser for childrens cancer research

If you can not attend and would like donate please visit www.stbaldricks.org and search Fight for a Cure

For more info please contact Trish O'sullivan 708-536-0003


Click My Post Title for a Great VIDEO


DONATE On LINE - I did - it is THAT simple.

http://www.stbaldricks.org/events/donorlist/7780/2012

It's a Progressive Thing - Did Obama Put the Blocks to Rahm in Order to Make Nice with Putin?

Finally! Some me time. . . . thought them Hebes . . .Israelis. . . would never leave. Ted Kennedy is still dead, or I could trot him out for some poll juice. . . Putin won . . .go figure. . . Hey! Think I'll give Rahm a call and wind him up . . . yeah, I'll call Rahm!- Thoughts of B.H. Obama on 3/5/2012 - mid-afternoon EST.


"A riot is the language of the unheard." Jeremiah Wright Pastor Emeritus

Thing is Rev. a riot is always a planned activity and no one throws an activity like a Lefty.

Well, everybody hears Andy Thayer, all the time, and no one asked to; yet, G-8 has gone the way of Riverview, The Eastland, The Stockyards, and the Olympics.

Now, how did this come to pass? Here's my helot's musings over cold soup in my office at Leo.



1. Let's see, now - Bad Vlad Leroy Putin wins the Russia Super Monday Take All by a beardful.

2. Russkies ain't happy being Syria with snow. Vlad busted the Occupy Red Square kids - God Bless'Em right after the polls closed.

3. Obama needs to look strong for NATO after caving in on defensive missiles a few semesters back. You know. . .Poland and the Czechs? Vlad might give Obama some sugar on that one and boy does he need - Syria, Muslim Bros., still Gitmo, Apologies and dead Jarheads. Bin Laden is about useful as Old Teddy, these days. Gotta bring something to NATO,maybe some Soviet Sugar.

4. Obama has gotten about as much mileage out of Rush Limbaugh and Ms. Fluke and Catholics still find Obama as contemptible as Radio's Sidney Greenstreet of Airwaves. Cardinals George and Dolan have their dukes up, yet. Catholics and then them other religionists . . .Jews here and there.

5.The Israelis are gone and are never happy after a visit with Jerry Wright's altar boy. Waiting at the back door and what not. Calypso Louie call that one, last year?

6. David Axelrod always says allow no crisis to go unrewarded - who better to reward than the current Occupy 1600 Dude! Cancel the Party! No G-8! However Chicago still gets a face full of Andy Thayer's lithping loonathy all week come May. Call a Preth Confrenth!

Therefore, Obama muses, Rahm gets a tune-up. No G-8; Keep the NATO with my blessings!

I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin... the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered Jeremiah Wright, Pastor Emeritus

Not a word about God, Jews or Garlic Eating Big -nosed Eyetalians.

Mmm + Mmm + MmmmmmmmmmmmSpeak on
it, Rev! Oh, that's right. You did. Plenty.

Shoot, check out Camp David!

Gale Sayers - Discipline, Dress, Self Esteem, Health and Happiness at Leo High School: A Studied Carelessness Requires Great Care

Gale Sayers # 40 1965
Gale Sayers Citizen in 2011 with Mrs. Townsend Miss Adams and Miss Hamp of Leo High School

A cravat was the forerunner of the modern necktie. It consisted of a strip of immaculately white starched linen about 12" by 60" that was wound around the throat several times and tied. To achieve the "studied carelessness" of the creases in his cravat, Brummell reclined in his chair as if he were being shaved and wound a cravat around his neck. Then lowered his chin, ever so slowly, until the starched linen wrinkled to perfection. If one wrinkle was too deep or too shallow, the cloth was thrown aside. Once, when a visitor saw Brummell's valet carrying an armload of lengths of tumbled white clothes as he descended from his master's dressing room, he asked what the man was taking away and was informed, "These are our failures, sir." Cravat knots could be simple and casual like the Mailcoach or complicated. Brummell was famous for his cravat worn in a waterfall.

Georgian Men's Fashion

NFL legend Gale Sayers* of the Chicago Bears never did a touchdown dance. In one game, he scored six touchdowns and after each courteously handed the ball to the Referee. " I wanted them to know that I had been here before. . .and that I was coming back."

Today our dred locked and Viking maned mesomorphs are indistinguishably the same with antic finger points upon a tackle, or frantic dancing in the endzone. They play to the camera alone.

Gale Sayers never made near the salary of a taxi squad NFL player today. However, he is and remains a legend.

Mr. Sayers has no drug, gun or assault charges against him, nor doe she have creditors pounding his doors. He and his bride of many decades Ardi conduct charitable work in the inner-city as a well as employ people in business. Mr. Sayers dresses with the simple dignity and singular virtue that marked his career on the football field. Through the Gale Sayers Foundation, Gale Sayers mentors the young men at Leo High School, as well as the many younger boys and girls on the West and South Side of Chicago.

Gale Sayers continues to look remarkably like he did when he signed with George Halas. We want our young men to model themselves on a man like Gale Sayers, who happens to reflect the very same image cast by Leo Legends -Bob Foster, Jimmy Arneberg, Jack Fitzgerald, Tony Parker, Dr. Stafford Hood, and Mike Holmes.

We have a dress code and code of discipline. They are ideal and tight. Daily life is anything but that - life is prosaic, messy and quotidian. Too many of our students come from tough family and economic circumstances. In fact, many of our young men arrive here at Leo High School shortly after I get my broad manly rump into the chair. More so, we have a tough time getting some of them to get home for the day's end. Believe it or not, and this is something we try to impress upon our hard-working teachers, for most students the happiest hours of their day are spent within the walls of this old Catholic high school.

Our discipline problems are very few and they become the Molehill Mountain for us -"Tuck in that Shirt! Where's Your Belt? Take off that Hoodie! Those Aren't Uniform Shoes! Your Hair is Extreme."

Now, this being Leo, with its rich history of manly manly miscreance ( think Bill Nelligan, or the late Tom Foy)there are the odd crap games and the occasional Marlboro Light incidents, some tardiness and a bit of back-sass. Nothing in the way of a public school, or Leo circa 1968.

Dress Code and general comportment are standards that this school holds up with its rock-solid Catholic orthodoxy as ideals and expectations the student is obliged to meet - to the very best of his ability.

Many times, home life impacts with this. Last November, President Dan McGrath (Leo 1968) explained to our Alumni at a meeting that one of our young men was receiving amny detentions for being out of uniform. Dan also remarked that this young guy wore the same shirt and pants for the last three weeks. Upon some delicate investigation, President McGrath learned that the family was in dire financial trouble, the Dad out of full time work taking handyman jobs and the Mom working at two minimum wage stores and only getting the hours available. Their lights were turned off, hence the unlaundered attire.

Our guys immediately raised about $400 in cash to help get the young man some new clothes and to help the family get the lights back on - several volunteered to find the Dad some meaningful employment.

That is one kid out of scores more.

Leo High School is working on a plan to combine neat, simple and manly dress with a code of virtuous conduct that reflects the individual packaged within.

Do clothes make the man; no, but that speak loudly of he is all about.

I'll try and report more articulately on this topic in the weeks to come. It is an easy thing to set-out a dress, or disciplinary code; it is another thing altogether to make it attractive given our goofy culture. Gale Sayers worked himself without mercy in order to present a 'studied carelessness' on and off the field - he made it look so easy.

Taking a hard look at the life of Gale Sayers and how he presents himself is a damn good start.




*

Halfback >>> 6-0, 198
(Kansas)
1965-1971 Chicago Bears
Gale Eugene Sayers. . .Kansas All-America. . .Exceptional break-away runner. . .Scored rookie record 22 TDs, 132 points, 1965. . .Led NFL rushers, 1966, 1969. . .Named all-time NFL halfback, 1969. . . All-NFL five straight years. . .Player of Game in three Pro Bowls. . .Career totals: 9,435 combined net yards, 4,956 yards rushing, 336 points. . . NFL lifetime kickoff return leader. . .Born May 30, 1943, in Wichita, Kansas

http://www.georgianindex.net/tailors/tailor.html

WOW. . .I Coulda Had a G-8!

“Hello Rahm . . .good and you? Listen about your request for the help with G-8. . . I’m kinda stretched at the moment. . .how about this. . .cancel all those rooms booked for the 17th- the 19th . . .I’ll have it here . . .that navy base whatchamacallit.
Look . . .at least I won’t get any of it on my Campaign . . .that is all this important. . . . Rahm . . .Rahm? Valerie! Get Bill Daley on the line.”

Advanced Style or Gummers With Money

"This is who we should strive to be." from Chicago Tribune's Barbara Brotman

Few things escape my notice; that does not mean that I fully grasp their sense to some, nor their essential worth to me.

I dress reasonably well. Still the aging Joe College Look - Outlet Brooks Brothers or knock-offs. Subdued, yet grace-worthy, if I take the time to have daughters or companion to give me the once over.

This morning the Chicago Tribune's Barbara Brotman offered this New Export to the Midwest her daughter's gushing approval for a documentary on Stylish Women - photo above and the filial accolade. Here's more -

Admirers have been wearing down their exclamation point keys posting comments.

"I utterly adore these women ... they so ROCK!"

"OMG. They are so cool!!!"

"This looks GREAT! So excited to be an old lady!"

Among their fans is Tavi Gevinson, Chicago fashion blogger and editor-in-chief of the online magazine Rookie. A 15-year-old student at Oak Park and River Forest High School, she occupies the opposite end of the fashion age range, but has linked admiringly to the Advanced Style website. She joined Cohen in hosting a party for the Advanced Style women in New York during Fashion Week in September.

"I'm inspired by them, and I admire that Ari doesn't make them into a novelty, or talk about them like they're precious or cute," she said in an email. "Some of them have style you might call cute, but their ideas and personalities are so important when he writes about and photographs them, and they all seemed so present and lively at the party."

Cohen began the project when he moved to New York from the West Coast five years ago. "All around me were these incredible women who were so dressed up and, more important, were active — going to the opera, working, getting their groceries," he said.

Is it just me? I think all of these women have natural beauty and sport wonderful features. That said, I think their get-ups would sicken a billy goat raised on razor blades and broccoli.

Does age demand that one don glassesthat Harry Caray might deem garish, dye hair the color that Bozo thought extreme, and eschew the wooden, or peg-leg entirely, like the blue-hair second from right above? Is the sombrero a necessity for a night out with the grand kids at Billy Dec's, or Stations of the Cross?

Here is Nancy Kwan a contemporary of the ladies sporting the Dick Tracy look above:



Same age, wildly different approach to 'what works.' Though fourteen years my senior, I'd take a hard run at Nancy Kwan. Nothing is sexier than basic black and pearls.

Wrong -On So Many Levels - My Life as Me.

Each day provides its own gifts. Marcus Aurelius


Trader Joe's is nice. There is one in Oak Park on Harlem just a bit north of Lake Street. This is an exoctic country for me.

On Saturday, the woman I love needed to return to Trader Joe's as she had been charged twice for a pound of coffee. As a member of the superior gender this chic, lovely and thrifty woman kept hold of the receipt; something this impulse shopping Pater Familias fails to do. I have a cabinet full of unused Billy Bucks in $1 and $5 dollar denominations, because I invariably forget to bring those cost-cutters along with me on my many trips to pick up items needed and the cart load of "Ooooooo,Eddy's Lime Bars, Pan Color Pepper Crushers, Exotically Flavored Triscuits, and cheeses of Iceland." One day, I shall break the bank of the Baffes Family - eight legs of lamb, a week of porterhouses, Oberweiss Milk, and a gallon of designer olive oil.

Miss S, who is a frequent subject of my musings, but demands in no uncertain threats to leave her name out of my present and future pages, actually consults the receipt upon return from shopping and conducts a complete and thorough audit of purchases.

Saturday, she assessed Trader Joe's for the twice-priced coffee and while she presented the receipt to managers all and sundry, I parked the car in Mega-level lot and went up to Lake Street. I bought a hideously wonderful stuffed toy for my two-year old pal Emmett and met Miss S back at Joe's.



We returned to my car and pulled out on Harlem and headed north one block turned right and I told Miss S. about my purchase, " Emmett is gonna love it. It is a butt-ugly rag doll of some kind of monster . . ."

Miss S. Was delighted, "Where is it?"

"Jesus Chri. . ."

"Please."

"Sorry."

" Did you place it on the trunk, like you did with that wine we supposed to bring to Steve and Susan's last week? That went crashing onto the pavement, requiring another purchase? DO NOT swear or utter another mot juste from your arsenal of obscenities, please. And do calm yourself; it is not the end of the world."

"Close though."

Cowed and craven, I obeyed this tiny woman and the Illinois traffic dictates of sense and sensibility and right turned my way back to the chock-filled parking venue available at Trader Joe's."

First level - nothing.

"Did you park on this . . .?"

Second Level - ditto slowly pacing each parking spot and scanning with a hunter's eye for the plastic vanity bag with the Monster Doll.

Third Level

"Why did you not just place the bag in the front here with you?

Second Level Redux - I got out and belly-crawled under a few SUVs and Volvos. Nope.

Level One Yet Again!

Miss S. remained dignified and silent, fully cognisant of the boiling over of the once cheery good will and avuncular intent to make a child's day now a roiling pot of male peccadillo's souped up and ladled out. Remember, J.M. Barrie never created the Island of Lost Girls. I do. . . well, sometimes.

Details are made to be attended.

With the resignation and realization that fifty-nine years of such events as this, I determined to give the field to my folly this day and return better suited to the mortal combat involved in buying a two year old a surprise.

" I'll grab one of them monsters later in the week."

" That's nice."

Everything that exists is in a manner the seed of that which will be.
Marcus Aurelius