This Time Last Year - The Journolist; This Year - Let's Get Rupert!

I am never disappointed in the Media, though I am generally appalled by the Media. The Media ( not individual reporters, copy editors, or investigative professionals) tend to be the pampered children of privilege, or protected creatures who spout contrarian opinion to common sense, human dignity, and reality.

The Media are America's collective "the makers of fashion" in pop culture and politics. Would, for example a Lady Gaga be a finalist on America's Got Talent? Likewise, who creates a Congressman Weiner, other than the Media? The Media made academia a safe have for the likes of terrorist and droning gasbag Billy-boy Ayers and his odious Old Lady - Northwestern Law Prof Who Can't Practice Law Bernardine Dohrn. The Media decided that police officers are the universally brutal systemic racist Simon Lagrees of post-Racial America. Bullying is the sole property of the Media.

Last year, at this time, the Journolist Scandal bubbled, but never really boiled with anything like fury. The Jounolist is a cabal of rich, privileged Blue Chip university grad-punksters that the Media graces with license. This Licentious Journo-List played havoc with the truth all through the 2008 election cycle and beyond.

Who are the Jounrolistas? One gent identified this cadre with sharp and witty accuracy - they are largely nerds, dweebs, and gents who are repelled by the thought of conjugal affection with any female. They took particular delight in their attempted ravaging of the Palin Family. Sarah Palin is a beautiful woman who happens to be happily married to a union man and the mother of universally welcomed children. Palins don't abort. Moreso, they breed.

Last summer, Mark Judge, a writer for The Daily Caller ( liberal journalist, attorney, Fox TV News legal analyst, and Leo High School Board Member Tamara Holder also contributes to DC) offered this dandy assessment of the core of journolist ire

Andrew Sullivan’s obsessive hatred of Palin goes far beyond the cynicism of a journalist; there is a kind of primordial spasm of rage against something so marvelously lovely, so downright awesome. It’s like that guy a few years ago who took a hammer to Da Vinci’s sculpting of David. The beauty was unbearable! Palin is an archetype that the left does not know how to contain or control: the hot female jock who also happens to be cool. The left hates good-looking Republican women and jocks, so combining the two is like an exorcist hitting a demon with not only prayers, but water blessed by the Pope.

There’s usually one hot female jock like Palin in every school. It’s a girl who is so stunning that even teachers find themselves staring, yet she is too modest to acknowledge her beauty. She plays it down or changes the subject when someone brings it up. It may be because she was raised with good values, the desire to be humble, but it could also be because she wants to be taken seriously as a jock. Palin is a triple threat: a pretty jock who is also incredibly sexy (pretty and sexy are two different things). In high school she was the kind of girl that the school newspaper nerds – the future Journolisters – despised. Pummeled with so much raw beauty, athleticism and sex appeal – and she’s nice, too, goddamn her – these fearless chroniclers of reality were left sputtering – and seething.

Like the plot of a Tina Fey script, Ezra Klein's Kommandos controlled the Media narrative, until called on it - by the non-Media. That would be anyone or thing that stands opposed to full agreement with AV-Club/'We Are So Much Smarter' Cabal of Gleeks.

The Journolistas howl, "Fox and Breitbart must be behind this bullying! Therefore, let's get some pusillanimous payback!"

Welcome to summer of Rupert. Rupert Murdoch is an Empire of Opinion that runs counter to the Nerdocracy that is the American Media. The American Media has political pit-poodles like Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois who began yapping for Congressional Hearings aimed at Murdoch's problems in Perfidious Albion.

Sen. Dick Durbin is always a contrarian delight, whether he is parsing for Planned Parenthood, calling American miltary folks Nazi's, or trying to make things just a bit more comfortable for our Gitmo guests. If Durbin is for it, I generally feel that it is a really bad idea. Sen Durbin is a Tapioca Bernie Sanders. Any digging at great Federal expense for Murdoch Muddy Water will be a dry well, here in the Colonies. It will probably happen, because Murdoch represents the Yin to the Media's Yang; therfore, the Progressive Pit Poodle will go on his nerdy Fox Hunt.

The Media is a abuzz with the arrest of Titian Tress ed Murdoch Babe*, who was married to the Shrek-like Ross Kemp until his Rainbow Randy Roisterings ( Ross, it seems batted from the other side of plate) were cause for marital infidelity divorce proceeding, much objected to by an openly Gay MP. This homophobic harpy had to go! The Rebekkah Brooks titillation's will take up the balance of summer, until the lady is released.

All in all, the Media is a hypocritical band of nerdy Mean Girl Boys. They will always have a place at the table, until people decide to not accept their nonsense.

http://iowntheworld.com/blog/?p=29858 Get a load of these dweebs!


http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2011/07/transatlantic_heat_wave_temper.html Rupert Agonistes!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/phone-hacking/8639887/Rebecca-Brooks-flame-haired-Queen-of-Fleet-Street-News-of-the-World-phone-hacking.htmlOur Miss Brooks - I know a cohort of lusty males who would vie for this maiden's affections, or as Roofer/Philsopher Eddie Carrol might offer, " I'd take a hard run at her."

Marin 'Ates Rupert! Crikee! 'Ow The Bluddy 'eLL Does Muh,Dock Sleep A' Nigh'?

Rupert and Wendy Murdoch,OMG!

At 76, Murdoch appears to be at the height of his powers. He views Dow Jones, along with the recent launch of the Fox Business Network, as steps in the creation of a globe-spanning financial news powerhouse. Can he do it? The breadth of his ambition could be his Achilles heel - the more dominant News Corp. becomes, the more opposition it tends to provoke. Still, Murdoch has proved time and again that counting him out is a high-risk strategy. --Tim Arango

Forbes Magazine - Top 25 Most Powerful People in Business and Rupert is # 2.

He’s an Australian by birth, and media ownership required American citizenship, something anti-immigration conservatives had no problem awarding when it came to the billionaire mogul. Murdoch became a citizen during the Reagan administration.

Now, as I write this, the Murdoch scandal has taken down the publisher of the Wall Street Journal, Les Hinton, who had been with Murdoch’s News Corp. for decades.

Hinton claimed not to have known that other parts of Murdoch’s vast media empire had engaged in deplorable, illegal conduct.

It was, as they say, news to him.

Carol "Empty Calories" Marin -Chicago Media Icon and Character Dry-Gulcher

. . .Keith Murdoch, who, by 1917, aged just 30, had become a celebrated guest in the power salons of London society. Senior politicians sought his advice: generals entertained him; society ladies fawned on him: yet he knew nothing about war.

Like father, like son. Five successive British prime ministers have courted Rupert Murdoch because of his influence -- and that in turn could only have resulted from his own brutal charisma, combined with his awesome determination to have his way. Moreover, British and Irish journalism owes him a huge debt -- for only his willpower could have broken the toxic stranglehold of the corrupt and villainous print-unions over journalism, in which, rather typically, the National Union of Journalists became the flaccid and weak-willed accomplice of its actual enemies, the printers.

Given the incredible personal might of Rupert Murdoch, and the extraordinary ability of his organisations to create compelling public narratives, I should not be at all surprised in five years' time to see that the horror story of TNOTW will have become a largely forgotten footnote in the history of British journalism. For remember this: mankind does not endlessly relate tales about the truth, but instead studiously opts for tales that serve some particular social function. And of course, almost all modern Murdochian tales serve a very particular purpose indeed; namely, dynastic pride.

Kevin Myers Irish Independent

I wouldn't know Rupert Murdoch if he were buying my dinner at Les Nomades -

" 'Ere, Garçon ! See the well-set up Bloke sitting with the stunner oveh theyah? The 'andsome gent with the Brooks Brothers Outleet spawt-kit 'n the Bass Pro Shop cra-vayt - A tie you'se Yanks call'em. 'Im, the Bloke what 'eld the chay-ah fer iz Sheelah a'fore 'ee set dayun. Good on 'im! I'm buyin' 'is Tucker. Nayow scat, Ya Faht-knocker!"

That would be a nice savings on a fabulous meal, but only a day-dream.

I woke up to another of Carol Marin's poison dart masterpieces tossed at the back of the neck of a wounded prey - this time it is Rupert Murdoch. Carol kicked the late and lovely Lura Lynne Ryan during George's trial, actually just before the Kangaroo Court Ruling for no other reason than malice and to exercise her iconic power. Carol destroyed the lives of Mary and Chris Fogarty by accusing them of being an IRA hit team. Rupert Murdoch is no Jerry Springer, by all accounts. Carol brought out the heavy-guns, Harry Potter and the ghost of Royko, to lend her empty intellectual calories some weight in her latest too-too-bitchy offering - Well, that's Carol in this City! Rupert Murdoch will be fine.

His tabloid empire across the pond has been interestingly assaulted by the world media. The same hypocrites who unsealed Senate Candidate Jack Ryan's divorce files to ensure that back-bencher Barack Obama ran against nutty Al Keyes for US Senate, who outsourced help to unearth dirt about Governor Palin's tenure and personal life while Governor of Alaska, who Jounolista'd it up across America to assassinate character as ordered by the Politico-Bureau, are all trying to chip away at Rupert Murdoch, while praying that some Deus Ex Machina will descend to give him am ideological come-upance.

I look at the world and its players and try and consider the sources concerning who is criticizing whom - Carol is consistent. I know only one person who has ever met Rubert Murdoch in person and that is Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist Jack Higgins. Jack said that he was very nice. Jack also works for the Chicago Sun Times. I respect Jack Higgins and I understand Carol Marin.

More so, Rupert Murdoch is married to Wendy. Rupert will be fine.

Belly Achin' - No Futures in Bacon

The Chicago Mercantile Exchange butchered Hog Belly Futures yesterday. The cleaver came down on trading of this wonderful commodity at the closing bell - Friday July 16th in the Year of Our Lord 2011.

The closing had been expected. Trading in pork belly futures had dropped to nearly zero in recent years after the meat industry became integrated and used fresh pork bellies instead of frozen ones to make bacon.

Pork bellies, as the name indicates, are cuts of pork that come from the underside of the hog and are made into bacon. Demand for pork bellies and bacon increases in the summer when tomatoes ripen and people make bacon-lettuce-tomato sandwiches.

Because pork production peaks in the autumn, the frozen pork belly contract was created as a way to give pork companies a means to cover the cost of storing, or freezing, pork bellies until the following summer when they were thawed and processed into bacon, said long-time Chicago trader Bob Short,

"The name sounded attractive. Nobody knew it was bacon. It made people laugh," Short said.

Though Bacon is with us yet, one more historical item has been consigned to the Orwellian Memory Hole and Hog Belly Futures will go the way of carburetors, Conestoga Wagons, Zippo Lighters, Black Jack Gum, CTA Transfer Tokens, Coal Chutes in architecture, and historical sensibilties.

However, a young Korean American genius by the name of Bernard Moon* writes a Blog Silicon Moon which features his poetry. I found his Ode to Bacon most fitting.

Ode To Bacon
Bacon, oh, bacon
You wonderful thing!
The tigers and lions
All rise and sing!

The grease that comes
From your rich loins
Are an unequal sum
To millions of coins.

Breakfast, lunch, dinner
Teatime, bartime, late night too!
Every meal is a winner
And more enjoyable with you!

Wrapped on scallops,
Or in Korean stew
Nothing makes me gallop
More than you!

Clogging my arteries and veins
With your beautiful juice!
You drive me insane
Like a bull cut loose!

No matter how filthy you originally are
No care to what Vincent Vega thinks
Bacon is the shining star
That kicks the ass of sausage links!!

Bernard Moon

Joseph Addison might gripe that Brother Moon's line might not scan elegantly - could not pass the finger test, and old poetry scansion cranks might agree; however them lines is finger licking Okay!

Read more Bernard Moon poems by clicking my post title.


*

Bernard Moon
Co-founder & CEO of XS Groupe
I'm Co-founder & CEO of Vidquik, a new easy-to-use web conferencing platform, and Co-founder of XS Groupe, an online luxury private sale site. I was previously at a private investment firm, the Lunsford Group, which was involved in real estate, healthcare and other industries. I was Co-founder & VP of Business Development of GoingOn Networks, a social media platform for companies, and also led our product development where BusinessWeek recognized us in their "Best of the Web" list. I co-founded a couple other startups, raised over $50 million in venture capital, and love to help other entrepreneurs as much as possible.

I'm active on a few nonprofit boards, such as the Shih Yu-Lang Central YMCA, which serves the Tenderloin district in San Francisco, and Liberty in North Korea (LiNK).

I grew up in suburban Chicago, and attended Wisconsin (Go Badgers!) and Columbia University. I have a strong interest in public policy, which is what I studied during graduate school, and why I did the Coro Fellowship, a post-graduate leadership development program. I have lived in Springfield, IL, St. Louis, MO, NYC, Hong Kong, Seoul, San Francisco, and now reside in Palo Alto, CA. I enjoy writing and exploring various topics, so I maintain a blog about my random thoughts and write op-eds for various technology blogs, such as VentureBeat. I love to travel, eat, ski, play basketball, and watch our twin girls grow.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/breaking/chi-cme-shuts-down-iconic-pork-belly-futures-market-20110715,0,2388573.story

Unsolicited Assesment of the Character of This Blogger

There was an exchange of opinion in the commentary section of these postings concerning my lineage, ancestry, and inclinations -civic, amorous, and otherwise. These offerings violated taste, wit and concern for the winsome hearts of ladies everywhere. Nevertheless, this exchange between two worthies might clear up any and all misconceptions regarding the character and deportment of your humble servant.

His handsome face and rich attire had appealed to their admiration, his cool daring and the way he had handled the bully of the town had won their respect.

"I tell ye what, boys," a burly miner remarked, "he ain't no slouch, ef ye hear me squeal, but did enny of ye ever see him afore?"

'I did," a grizzled old prospector offered this of the paragon Prolific Hickey" I know'd the villain over in Custer Park, 'bout Twenty Seven yar ago."

"An' what war his record thar?"

"All white;- a chief— free with his dust, his dukes, and his derringers, jess as it'd suit ye; an' clear grit down to hard-pan."



"I thought so— he looks it. An' that kid o' his'n (Conor Oliver Hickey)! I sw'ar he's a whale! the little feller came ridin' in on thet thar hoss, an' a-singin' out Lord, boys, so like's 'f he meant business, an' when I reckon he did, ye could a-knocked me down with a chaw o' tobacco, I war so 'mazed like."

"Same here, pard."

"And here."

. . .& etc. as like encomiums poured on!

Debt Duel - Obama v. Cantor - Progressives v. Everyone Else

" Stupid Bush. . . . Stupid Congress . . . This is a Big Deal . . . Joe! Wait up, Joe!" ( Photo from Gateway Pundit)

“The meeting ‘ended with the President abruptly walking out of the meeting,’ Cantor told reporters after the session,” per the New York Daily News. "I know why he lost his temper. He's frustrated. We're all frustrated."

The New York Post: “Angry Obama walks out on debt-limit talks.”
The Hill: “Obama warns Cantor: 'Don't call my bluff' in debt-ceiling talks”

Roll Call: “As news broke late Wednesday that Moody’s Investors Service was mulling a downgrade of the U.S. government’s triple-A credit rating, Congressional leaders emerged from a ‘tense’ White House meeting that ended abruptly after a heated exchange between President Barack Obama and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.).”

The Wall Street Journal: "Moody's Investors Service said it was reviewing the government's top Aaa bond rating for a possible downgrade, citing the ‘rising possibility’ that the government's $14.29 trillion borrowing limit won't be raised soon enough to prevent the U.S. from running out of money to pay its bills."
Stu Rothenberg’s take: “Fundamentally, the two parties are fighting over values, not dollars. … [I]n reality, what we are witnessing is nothing less than a fight over the role of government. And it is much harder, if not impossible, to “split the difference” on these kinds of matters of opinion.”

In sum, here it is . . .
Who wins?

Low Ceilings Are Intimate, Warm and Good for Americans

High Ceilings are scary.

"We're running out of time," Geithner told reporters after a private lunch meeting with Senate Democrats. Chicago Tribune - I'll just bet that such urgency to raise the national debt ceiling didn't put them off their feed.

It's a cozy little place with subdued lighting and a low ceiling, creating an intimate feel. We were directed to our seats by a pleasant hostess and attended to by a very nice waitress who was attentive and perky. . . ..

Review of a Pub Restaurant

One can not beat a joint that features 'attentive and perky' waitresses. Nor, should one scorn a low ceiling. A lovely woman called my attention to the ceiling phenomenon. As in all things, it takes a woman to address most subjects that do not involve my next meal, episodes of Rawhide on ME-TV, or other less savory instincts. We were passing yet another in the endless and genuinely un-appealing McMansion Developments -homes with very high ceilings - when she lectured me on the psychology of architecture. What follows is what I drew from the lesson.

Too many Americans have fallen into debt by building or re-configuring homes with high ceilings - the boorish and Yup-Scale McMansion -over-priced, over-mortgaged, and over-head ceilings that require more and more adaptors to the wonderful painting idiot-sticks in order to paint the ceilings, or a complete scaffold construction. My son Conor can stand in the living room and apply colonial white to the ceiling with a simple hand-held roller, while Pater Familias Hickey splashes and slathers on egg-shell to the walls in our simple Helot warmth of the Chicago Raised Ranch.

Ever attend a gathering in such a high ceiling-ed home? Guests scatter to cluster in little groups in the primordially human attempt at safety, welcome and warmth. Lessons of the Cave and the Follies of the Temple. I worship at the Catholic Mass of Scared Heart Mission Church where I am tightly packed in with fellow communicants longing to escape the attention of Cantor Terry McEldowney's commentaries. It is old-world worship of intimacy and community rooted in our peasant pasts.

George W. Bush raised the debt ceiling eight times during his two terms and saddled poor President Obama with debt that he feels impelled to excede. President Obama, like that low-brow scoundrel President GW Bush love high ceilings - it keeps the guests at bay.

I say keep the debt ceiling as low as Media Integrity.

Robert Reich Calls Debt Ceiling Debate "a Game of Chicken" - Americans Respond

Former Clinton Secretary of the Labor(NAFTA) Robert Reich calls the debt ceiling impasse - A Game of Chicken.

ROBERT REICH On Why The Wildly Partisan And Theatrical Game Of Chicken Will Miraculously Vanish -- Until 2012
McConnell’s plan would allow the President to raise the debt limit. Congressional Republicans could then vote against the action with resolutions of disapproval. But these resolutions would surely be vetoed by the President. And such a veto, like all vetoes, could only be overridden by two-thirds majorities in both the House and Senate – which couldn’t possibly happen with the Democrats in the majority in the Senate and having enough votes in the House to block an override.

Get it? The compromise allows Republicans to vote against raising the debt limit without bearing the horrendous consequences of a government default.

No budget cuts. No tax increases. No clear plan for deficit reduction. Nada. The entire, huge, mind-boggling, wildly partisan, intensely ideological, grandly theatrical, game of chicken miraculously vanishes.

Until the 2012 election, that is.

I no longer trust Channel 9 WGN Weather guru Tom Skilling to tell me the weather forecast, as Amiable Tom has been off his game for some time. Speaking off their game, Financial Rainmakers like Bob Reich, Timmy Geitner and the absent Austin Goolsby cry chicken all the time - America goes on economic Def-Con Six Crisis Mode every time Chris Matthews,Big Ed and everyone else in MSNBC clown car get a memo from Green Energy ( GE) boss Immelt.

Minnesota's Progressive Governor refused to allow his State a Walker Moment and rubbed the Legislature's nose in Dog Food for Grannies and Ecomonic End of Days! No Rapture. The bridges still are up and the State Cops are still pulling over Cheesheads, Hawkeyes and FIPs who get over-served at the Little Red Wing Eye-Opener Pub. The only thing that is down is the Lotto.

I say, Leave the Ceiling where it is!

Other Americans like these lusty young chaps should introduce Robert Reich to the real game at stake here in this our Republic!



Bob is cut!

Com Ed is On It! Imagine if it were a Government Agency.

Monday's brief but bold storm knocked out power all over Chicago Metro Area. A buddy of mine in Morton Grove, the Marathon Pundit his own bad self, John Ruberry, has been doing the 19th Century/21st Century morph -burning candles and using the old palm-messenger device ( which must be re-charged at a library or Starbuck's with power) to keep up on his reading and writing.

The storm knocked out power in the 18th & 19th Wards from 79th Street North to 109th Street south and roughly from Ashland east to Pulaski west. Power was restored by 6 PM on my block between 107th & 108th Street on Monday. Imagine the loss to families in the costs of spoiled meat and other groceries from family stockpiles in the deep freezer. More significantlty, were another gully washing downpour rain upon us, the sump pump has no power.

In all nearly 800,000 customers were without power - multiply that by four ( your basic husband;wife; three kiddies) and that is a crowd of folks.

By this morning, power has been restored to all but about 100,000 customers. That is pretty damn good work.

I know a bunch of Com Ed workers, most significantly the great Gino Ford who coffees up with me at Kean Gas most mornings - no sign of Gino the last three days; that boy has been up the pole, or in the bucket doing his Electrical Voodoo that He Do So Well!

This morning, I got over to Leo especially early and witnessed a parade of utility vehicles -Bucket Lift Rigs of all sizes and shapes and by my estimate there had to be forty, or more vehicles parading west on 79th Street. The odd thing was that they were all from Punta Gorda, FL. ComEd jumped on the crisis and brought in teams from neighboring states,

I found this press release issued from Com ED on July 11th.

ComEd currently has approximately 480 crews in the field and is requesting assistance from all available resources, including contractor crews and assistance of crews from neighboring states. It also has enlisted additional staffing to manage the large volume of calls experienced by the customer call center. Customers also can visit ComEd.com to report outages and follow us on Twitter to obtain restoration information.

“We recognize that power outages disrupt the lives and businesses of our customers,” said Anne Pramaggiore, president and chief operating officer, ComEd. “ComEd crews are working hard to restore service to customers affected by the storm as quickly and safely as possible.”

The powerful storm began moving through the ComEd service territory around 6:00 a.m. and departed by 9:30 a.m. Most damaging to the ComEd system was intense lightning, with high winds as a factor in causing extensive tree damage and bringing down power lines. The resulting outages are more difficult and time consuming to restore as they involve attention to more individualized equipment.

The largest number of outages is located in the company’s northern and western regions. ComEd is working with municipal officials and businesses to provide ongoing updates to them regarding restoration efforts.

ComEd’s restoration process begins with damage assessment, this process enables the company to determine hardest hit areas and factors into restoration times. The company then prioritizes outage restoration to ensure public safety first such as police and fire, then hospitals and other critical customers. Next, ComEd restores feeders, which allows us to return power to large numbers of customers at one time, followed by smaller service restorations and individual outages.

Public safety is paramount during storms and ComEd encourages the public to remember to take the following precautions:

This is great attention to customer service and public safety. We beef about utilities and their cost hikes - I know I do.

However, I was really impressed this morning by number of trucks and command vehicles brought into the Chicago area to fix the power outage. No one can say that Com Ed is not doing everything in its power to restore power.

That power lies in the hands of Gino Ford and guys and girls in the 480 bucket truck crews. Imagine if the utilities were in the hands of the government.

Welcome to Port Au Prince, Illinois.

Great job Com Ed!

Joel Kotkin's Warning to the GOP ( The Party That Blows Its Own Toes Off) -Stick up for the Middle Class

. . . under the first African-American president the employment rate for black men now sits at a record low since the government started measuring the statistic four decades ago.

This recovery has been particularly parlous to the middle class, of all races. Despite the massive stimulus, small businesses — the traditional engines of job growth and upward mobility — have barely gotten off the matt. Indeed, according to a recent National Federation of Independent Business survey, they are now more likely to reduce payrolls than expand them.


Many blue-collar and middle-class Americans are becoming increasingly pessimistic about the future and their children’s chances for achieving their level of well-being. Middle-age college graduates, who supported Obama previously, increasingly have shifted from the administration. Even the young seem to have lost their once fervent enthusiasm. After all, they are seeing their prospects dim dramatically.

In Wisconsin the GOP tried an idiotic dodge to stack the Primaries with Plants and had their asses handed to them. The GOP treats victory like so many Lotto winners - they are broke and worse off after the Big Win.

President Obama has proven himself to be the back-bencher empty suit that many Americans suspected him to be, yet, the GOP is running against President Obama and not for the people his endlessly haughty ineptitudes have harmed.

Instead of treating the patient for skin cancer, Doc Elephant orders a hip replacement. Working to solve the economic undertow destroying the American Middle Class should be the only concern of any Presidential Candidate. Instead, GOP candidates play parlor tricks with social issues. Worse,like the dummies in the Wisconsin GOP, they take pages out of the Progressive Playbook. SEIU/ACORN idiocies should not be a two-way street.

I have been reading Joel Kotkin for years. The guy is a smart and sober observer of social, demographic and political trends. Today in Forbes, Mr. Kotkin offers a stern warning to the Party that Blow Off Its Own Toes:

Of course, not all the blame belongs to the White House. The formerly Democrat-controlled Congress largely ignored the middle class’ concerns over the economy and jobs. Instead they focused on health care — which, according to the Pew Foundation survey, ranks as only a middling concern among voters — and climate change, which ranked dead last among the top 20 issues for the electorate.

Even with the Main Street economy grasping for air, Congress chose to impose new regulations and taxes on the entrepreneurial class. Meanwhile Washington has given huge government support to often marginal green ventures such as Tesla, which is building $80,000 plus electric cars. Such assistance was not extended to the struggling garment-maker or semiconductor plant forced to compete globally largely on their own.

Of course Democrats resort to stirring up class resentments, but their credibility is thin. After all it’s New York Sen. Charles Schumer, not some fat-cat Republican, who remains the financial industry’s designated hitter on the Hill. Instead of chastising the big financial institutions, the administration has largely coddled them. Despite the obvious abuses behind the financial crisis, there have been virtually no prosecutions against what Theodore Roosevelt once identified as “the malefactors of great wealth.”

This has created a class divide large enough to propel a Republican sweep next year. Some Republicans, like former Bush aide Ryan Streeter, understand this opportunity. Streeter argues for the GOP to become more economically populist approach. He calls for an “aspiration agenda” based on policies to spark private sector economic growth and a wide range of entrepreneurial ventures. To succeed, the GOP needs a viable alternative to middle and working class voters who are losing faith in Obama-style crony capitalism but who do not want to replace it with policies focused on enhancing the bottom-lines of the top 1% of the population.

Yet at a time when people are worried primarily about paying their bills and prospects for their children, many Republicans seem determined to campaign on social fundamentalism, something that is already distressingly evident in the Iowa primary race. This may have worked in the past, in generally more prosperous times. Right now what sane person thinks gay marriage is the biggest issue facing the nation?

Neither right-wing ideology nor mindless support for corporate needs constitute a winning strategy in a nation plagued by a sense that the system works only for the rich and well-connected. Only by focusing on working and middle class concerns can the GOP permanently separate the people from the party which pretends to represent them.

Listen hard. Right now, President Obama looks like a lock for a second term.

Villa Rides! Skinny and Houli Live! Ample Parking! July 15th at Jack Desmond's Pub

Brynner and Mitchum!
Skinny and Houli!

Well, in truth, Pancho has not actually mounted a steed in decades - had a little trouble with a pattern of .45 slugs from a Tommy Gun south of the border some time ago, but I digress . . . Pancho Villa has always been one of my favorite Jefes Del Norte* icons and man of singular abilities and motivation . . .that was a tease . . .I'm getting to it! . . . Fine.

Last night, I hit the wake for Ahmad Wali Karzai, took the Red Eye Home in order to help with the debt ceiling mess, clean the gutters again, head back to Kabul and should be back from the funeral sometime Friday afternoon ( skip the repast of course), stop and see Boz at Reilly's Daughter Pub at Midway when I de-plane, drop off my bags Duty Free gifts, and head over to Jack Desmond's Pub for the first live taping of the Skinny and Houli Show which will be broadcast on Saturday at 3 PM. Yep, it's a plan.


You wanna party? We'll party!
The question is rhetorical, but the sentiment genuine. Do Party** (Verb Intransitive: (third-person singular simple present parties, present participle partying, simple past and past participle partied) and all that this portmanteau neologism of lower brows implies

Join us for A Hooley with Skinny & Houli At Jack Desmond's Irish Pub
10339 S. Ridgeland
Chicago Ridge

The Skinny & Houli Show Live! Arriba,Compañeros! Venga Se! Villa Rides!
Friday July 15, 2011
We start taping at 6PM
We're taking our show on the road to hang out at Jack Desmond's, one of our favorite sponsors. Please come on by and join the party.

We need everybody to bring his or her best "Who Cares?" shouts! And we'll bring some surprise guests too!

Don't miss this first ever remote taping of The Skinny & Houli Show
Skinny & Houli every Saturday from 3-4P
WCEV 1450 AM
Skinnyhouli.com
putting real Chicago back in radio

Party, Indeed! Party Hearty! Party Clouded With Slight Chance of Rain!

*

La División del Norte es la formación militar encabezada por Pancho Villa, que obtuvo importantes triunfos en la lucha de la Revolución mexicana. La División del Norte se componía sobre todo de gente del pueblo, rancheros, vaqueros, caporales y otros elementos de la población rural del norte de México. También dio cabida a miembros del ejército federal que lamentaban el asesinato de Francisco I. Madero, por las fuerzas de Victoriano Huerta.
Pancho Villa recibió apoyo de un militar de alta escuela, el general Felipe Ángeles, quien durante la campaña de 1911 a 1914 hacia la ciudad de México siempre fue su asesor estratégico y militar. La División del Norte dominó militarmente el norte del país, lo que permitió a Pancho Villa implantar en esa región una serie de reformas sociales y políticas. Pancho Villa, al mando de la División del Norte, tomó las plazas federales de Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, Torreón, Saltillo, Zacatecas, entre otras. Después del triunfo revolucionario contra Huerta, en Julio de 1914, Villa rompió con Venustiano Carranza.
Venustiano Carranza huyó a Veracruz y desde allí lanzó la contraofensiva contra Villa, con la fuerza militar del general Álvaro Obregón.
Álvaro Obregón logró derrotar definitivamente a la División del Norte, en 1915, en las famosas Batallas del Bajío como son: Batalla de Celaya, Batalla de Trinidad, Batalla de León, en donde Obregón perdió un brazo. A partir de entonces, Villa se replegó a Chihuahua, y la División del Norte comenzó su dispersión, hasta quedar reducida a un puñado de hombres que siempre fue fiel a su jefe Pancho Villa. Ya actuando como el famoso guerrillero del norte llego en 1917 a atacar la población de Columbus, Nuevo México.

**

The use of party as a verb is certainly not limited to frat boys, despite their efforts in the verb's activities, and is older even than National Public Radio.

The first recorded use of this sense is in 1919; by 1922 E.E. Cummings was using it in correspondence: "Have extensively partyed with Er former Heditor." It does not seem to have been terrifically common at first, but by the 1940s onwards we can find a large number of examples.

Most of these examples do not suggest that the word is especially slangy, or even informal. Note, for instance, the juxtaposition of the verb with an overly formal avoidance of a sentence-ending preposition in this quotation: "Los Angeles rockers do not lack for private places in which to party" (Time, 1977). (We must acknowlege, though, the probability that the writer was being arch.) While I don't know when NPR first used it, I don't think that their use should be considered that remarkable.

What is more notable is the distinctly slangy use of party down 'to party energetically', a phrase that first emerges in the mid-1970s and was considered slangy from the start: "Going out to a discothèque, dancing for hours, and having a good time. They say to each other, 'Let's party.' Or--and this is the coolest way of saying it--'Let's party down'" (The New Yorker, 1976). These hipsters were ahead of the game; the term became more widely used in the early 1980s. Another more slangy sense is the noun sense 'a sex act with a prostitute' and the corresponding verb 'to copulate, esp. with a prostitute' ("Wanna party?"), both of which arose during the 1940s and are probably rare on NPR.

While we're on the subject, we should mention party animal 'an especially active reveler', from the 1970s, and party hearty! a rhyming compound from about 1980.

The very earliest use of party as a verb was in the seventeenth century, in Scottish use, where the word meant 'to take the part of; side with'.

http://www.randomhouse.com/wotd/index.pperl?date=19990224

Happy Birthday July 13th 2011 -If This is Your Birthday That Is!

I offer the best on this your Birthday -visual art, poetry, and the incomparable Blossom Dearie -

When You are Old William Butler Yeat

WHEN you are old and gray and full of sleep
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true;
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face.

And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead,
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

One of the best people I know was born on this day! This person is private . . .very, very, very private. Therefore, I offer this heart-felt and sincere Happy Birthday ( I am in possession of your birthday present and it is apropos)!

N.B. If today is your Birthday, and you have no contact, association, or familiarity with me, I hope that your Birthday Present from those who love you will be fitting, fun and fantastic! From me, you get a hearty handclap when we meet, but that about sums up the worth of my gift.

July 13 Cancers have a charismatic personality that complements their gentle soul. They have a fear of change yet understand that it is only through change that they are able to discover their true nature. They realize all experience is a rite of passage toward spiritual transcendence.
Cancer Information
for July 13
You should embrace: Truth, mental toughness, sophistication

You should avoid: Vacillation, foolish choices, disapproval
Friends and Lovers

Despite their intelligence, July 13 natives often choose the wrong people to be their friends and lovers. On the face of it, that's not good, but they may learn lessons that can help them later in life. They love with a true heart yet sometimes feel forced to compromise.

Children and Family

July 13 individuals may spend the major part of their lives trying to come to grips with their background. With their own children, they may experience an early emotional separation. This is because they are likely to encourage youngsters to make their own choices and decisions from an early age.

Health

Good health undercut by poor habits characterizes July 13 natives, who dislike monitoring their diet. Although they usually have an active enough lifestyle to avoid putting on weight, they may be denying themselves much-needed nutrients. It's more beneficial for them to indulge in an exercise program on a daily basis.

Career and Finances

July 13 folks do well in professions where they must deal with people one-to-one. Their magnetism makes them both likable and believable. They do especially well in sales positions. Money matters can be complicated for them. They either spend beyond their means or have trouble maintaining a steady income. Fortunately, the acquisition of money isn't one of their primary aims in life.

Dreams and Goals

July 13 natives have high ideals, and they're anxious to fulfill them. If they can influence others positively through their words or actions, they feel as if their fondest wish has come true.

Join the Pea Party!

President Obama Nailing a Pea Sub! or, Is That a Chicago Style Pea Dog?


"Pull off the band aid. Eat our peas." It doesn't sound like much now, but neither did Remember the Alamo!; Don't Tread on Me!, or Can't I Finish My Waffles?

Sacred Cows and Peas are on the menu as it appears that President Obama will beard the lions of the American Tea Party in the den, man-cave. lair, and cable-ready trailers of Average Guy U.S.A.!

What better way than form his own Pea Party!@ Media Matters, Stalking for America, MSNBC, and Salon.

The Pea Party will be dedicated to symbolically yanking off band aids and gobbling platefuls of peas in solidarity with President Obama.

Taxes are peas - Now Open that Gullet! Peas ain't so bad. Peas are mighty tasty.

I like Peas! In Ireland, I learned to love the wonderful snack treat of Chips and Peas ( French Fries and Peas in a greasy mixed bag doused with malt vinegar and sprinkled with Sea Salt) - that's good eating!

Here is how to eat them peas!

Pat Hickey Pancetta Peas with Mint!


Italian cubed pancetta from Calabria Imports on 103rd Street
2 Cups of frozen peas
1 Cup sugarsnap peas
One big-ass knob of Kerry Gold butter
2 tbsp chopped fresh mint
a pinch of sugar
Ice Water Bath for the peas

Fill the old kettle with water and put in to boil.

Heat a small frying, add the pancetta and cook over a medium heat for 4-5 mins, stirring occasionally until the pancetta is really crisp and golden.

Drain off excess fat on a kitchen roll and set aside.

As the pancetta cooks, place the frozen peas in a large saucepan, add boiling water from the kettle to cover and return to the boil, add the sugar-snap peas and boil for 3 minutes. Then put them in the old ice water bath to keep the peas the proper green.

Drain in a colander then return them to the saucepan, add the pancetta, butter, mint and sugar and toss well to mix. Toss in some Sea Salt and Carck in a bunch of black pepper. Serve straight away.

Pea Party!

Are there Pea Baggers?

Gov. Quinn's Personal Pronouns - WE then, and now, WE are THEY.

That is WE in the picture.

“We're not going back,” he said. “They made a choice. Any organization that decides that because of the civil unions law that they won't participate voluntarily in a program, that's their choice.” PaT Quinn the "practicing Catholic" Governor.

I am a Catholic. I work at a Catholic High School. I go to Catholic Mass on Sunday with Catholics; some are rich, some are barely making it financially. Governor Quinn signed legislation that allowed homosexuals ( Lesbian, Gay, BiSexual, Transgender and Questioning) form a civil bond that gives them legal and insurance rights as couples.

Gay couples want children and they want what the heart wants and they want it now; therefore the two thousand year and change doctrines of the Catholic Church need to sit down and shut up. It's a civil rights issue, don't you know?

Nah. It is a political issue all about money coalitions and votes . . .and that is Okay.

What is not Okay, is the high heaping helpings of bullshit that pass for political talking points and modern journalism.


Catholic Charities which has cared for orphans and foundlings in its many manifestations long before Jane Addams set eyes on her two life companions at the turn of the century can no longer take care of children by placing them in homes of "Couples." Catholic Charities places children in homes of married couples. Married couples tend to be, at the moment, a man and woman. Civil Union couples can be two guys, two girls, two trandsgender-whatchmancallems- or two Questioning Persons of like like gender who just don't know, yet, if they are wired Delta 230V, or WYE 208 European.

Catholic Charities took care of kids who had no family - a Mom and Dad - and helped find families for those kids for more than two hundred years.

DCFS will take care of kids who need homes, now; that should give everyone pause.

Governor Quinn, a practicing Catholic ( I never understood that verbal - either you are a Catholic, or not all the practice in the world won't change that) tossed out the pronouns because he signed the law, after barely squeaking by Catholic Bill Brady who would not have signed the civil union law. Pat Quinn took care of the PACS that matter - Planned Parenthood & etc. Quinn's Personal Pronoun PACS it seems - They are WE and Catholics are the THEY. I am a THEY. I voted for HIM -QUINN.

What's the matter with ME; what was I thinking? I thought Pat Quinn was the working man Governor, because the skilled trades backed him. Civil Unions? Abortions? Pat Quinn was all about working people who go to Mass, because Pat Quinn is a practicing Catholic. We was We then and We are They. We (I) voted for Quinn, but now that I am THEY that is all changed. I don't have any money. Terry Cosgrove of Personal PAC/LGBTQ PACs has lots of money. Terry Cosgrove is a solid WE and I am a solid though impecunious THEY. I now understand the Quinn Personal Pronoun.

I now know what a practicing Catholic is - an elected official who could care less about anything.

Catholics, Lutherans and Evangelicals are THEY . . .now. WE was WE then and I voted voted with WE . . .then.

Abortion and Gay Marriage ( Civil Union the sequal)is WE . . . now. WE ARE NOT GOING BACK!!!!!

Nothing there back here any more, Guv.

Ars Amatoria When the Discovery Channel Came to Keegan's Pub

Me Venus artificem tenero praefecit Amori * P. OVIDIVS NASO
(43 B.C. – 17 A.D.)



An Octopus walks into Keegan's Pub on Western Ave. and says "I can play any musical instrument you like".

Seb(astian) Costin, Keegan's resident Jazz guru and Cat of the 1st Order, gives him a guitar, which it plays better than Peter Bernstein, or Wes Montgomery - Down Here on the Ground!

Celebrated roofer and roué of legend, Eddie Carroll, was amused.

"Wow! Try this!" and Seb rolls over an upright Steinway 88, which the cephalopod mollusc played better than Errol Garmer's . I Remember April.

The Morgan Park Chevalier Eddie Carrol cocked an eyebrow in bemused interest.

Donal McBennett from the Isle of Sky - he's no very big and he's awfully shy - throws the creature a set of HEELAND bagpipes.The octopus fumbles about for a couple of minutes without a sound from the bagpipes and the Scotsman wails, "Whut's wrooong, Ken ye no play ut"?

The octopus rejoins, "Play It? I'm gonna screw her brains out once I get her pajamas off!"

Eddie Carroll, the celebrated roofing contractor and swordsman, is mildly amused. "As in all things, roofing and love, first things first." And Eddie alighted from his stool and awed one and all . . .



. . .as is His wont.


*Venus appointed me as guide to gentle Love

Announcing Windsor & Windsor Personal Injury: At Windsor and Windsor - WE look out for you!

My Bride and I are touring the Colonies and establishing branch offices of Windsor and Windsor,PC. The regal cache might not be enough to attract clients, but the time tested use of cowboy hats by personal injury lawyers will lend a certain majesty and rough-hewn prairie surety to every claim the Duchess of Cambridge and I bring to the bar.

May I Willie, Hello I am Kate. This is no boutique firm! We will fight for you.

Windsor and Windsor® is a family business that began on June 10, Year of Our Lord 2011, when a discouraged and almost penniless ex-New York stock-broker walked unannounced into Willie Windsor's tiny office New York. The stockbroker had been injured by falling clients and eventually became disabled, but his application for disability benefits had been turned down by the Social Security Administration.
He threw a challenge at Willie. He said, "I need a guy to represent me who is a genuine expert on Social Security Disability benefits. Is that you?" Willie has always liked challenges — and stock brokers.

As Willie always says, "They do stuff I'd be scared to do once, and they do it every day." So Willie hit the law books. And that was the start of a long, difficult and expensive campaign to expose one of our government's best-kept secrets — the disability benefits available through Social Security. Joined his wife, Willie is fighyting for that stockbroker. There was also that absolutely smashing HBO documentary about Personal Injury Litigators "Hot Coffee" which showed the world just how selfless PI lawyers really are -they are all Princes!

Together we formed Windsor & Windsor®. No problem too big and no claim too small!

Quite so Darling. Allow me to finish up by saying Don't Ever Give Up. We will get you your rights!

If you're disabled and you can't work anymore, call Windsor & Windor® at 1-800-8WINDSOR or contact us online for a free initial consultation. Don't ever give up.

Ask for Willie or Kate, we answer our own phones.


The Sun Never Sets On Your Side! We wear cowboy hats . . .crowns when necessary, mind.


SSD, SSI AND YOUR PAIN
CARDIAC/VASCULAR DISORDERS
MENTAL HEALTH
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
Bipolar Disorder
Major Depressive Disorder
ORTHOPEDIC INJURIES
Leg, Knee & Ankle Disorders and Injuries
Hip Injuries
Arm Injuries
Carpal Tunnel Syndrome
Back Injuries and Diseases
NEUROLOGICAL DISORDERS
SLEEP DISORDERS
FIBROMYALGIA
HEADACHES
BLOOD DISORDERS
DIABETES MELLITUS
AUTO-IMMUNE DISEASES/AIDS AND HIV
CANCER
STOMACH, INTESTINE AND LIVER DISORDERS
PULMONARY DISORDERS/LUNG DISEASES
ACCIDENTS THAT LEAD TO LOSS OF WORK
Workplace Accidents/Workers' Compensation
Car Accidents
Other Accidents/Accidents at Home
WORKERS COMPENSATION NEW YORK
LONG TERM DISABILITY
IF YOU NEED PROFESSIONAL ASSISTANCE IN OTHER AREAS

N.B. = A Tip of the Bowler to the Brothers Binder

Junior Brown - Real Country -Slicker Than Snot on a Door-Knob!

"A lot of people tell me they don't like country music, but they like what I am doing," says Junior Brown.

My daughter Clare and her Mother McAuley/Marist/ St. Iggy pals like what now passes for Country Music. Taylor Swift & etc. Now, Junior Brown, like Hank willimas ( Pere et Fil), Waylon Jennings, David Allan Coe, Bob Wills, Kinky Friedman, Buck Owens and other Genuine Outlaws was the real deal. Lookee H'yar! Guit With It!

It's good to see you baby it's been a long long while
We're both a whole lot older and seen a lot of miles
But thing are different now since the good ol days
And youve been in some trouble
Since we went our separate ways
Well have to say hello maybe some other time instead
Cause youre wanted by the police
And my wife thinks youre dead.

Somebody spread the rumor that you had lost your life
Least thats the way I heard it and what I told my wife
Now here youre showing up again and talk is getting round
And I can see that one of us will have to leave this town
If you think that I want trouble
Than youre crazy in your head
Cause youre wanted by the police
And my wife thinks youre dead.

You never called or wrote me just up and disappeared
Nobody knew what happened
Where you been for all these years
Now troubles what youre lookin like
Cause troubles where you been
And I can see the kind of trouble you could get me in
You better pay attention to every word I said
Cause youre wanted by the police
And my wife thinks youre dead.

So goodbye to you baby Im glad weve got to talk
But Im faithful to my wife and I dont ever break the law
I dont know where youre headed for
But I know where you been
Were reminisced now lets just go our separate ways again
Go find another ex-sweetheart to hang around instead
Because youre wanted by the police
And my wife thinks youre dead.

Beaux Arts - The Mona Lisa of Dogs of Playing Poker

The experiential test of whether this art is great or good, or minor or abysmal is the effect it has on your own sense of the world and of yourself. Great art changes you. -Sister Wendy Beckett

Every artist dips his brush in his own soul, and paints his own nature into his pictures. ~Henry Ward Beecher

The aim of every artist is to arrest motion, which is life, by artificial means and hold it fixed so that a hundred years later, when a stranger looks at it, it moves again since it is life. ~William Faulkner


Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up. ~Pablo Picasso

I have stood in the galleries of emerging artists, the corridors of the heady Museum of Contemporary Art, at the bar of Gallery Cabaret, whose walls adorn the creative genius of local bohemians and sat before the majestic oils of Tintoretto, Cimabue, Giotto, Rembrandt, Monet and Renoir at the Art Institute of Chicago and intoxicated my soul and manly fibers with Man's attempt to arrest God's handiwork.

My late wife Mary Cleary Hickey (1957-1998) dabbled in oils and had mastered coals and water colors and taught hundreds of teenagers to practice human expression at Bishop McNamara, LeMans Academy, and Bishop Noll Institute. She drank pitchers of beer with Ed Paschke, Jim Dine, and local Kankakee, Chicago and Indiana artists. Mary was Bauhaus.

Me? I can appreciate art, but I know what I like and that is Dogs Playing Pool, Poker, Three Card Monte and anything else.

As far as the two and three dimensional visual arts go, this Jasper's eyebrows meet his fore-lock.

I have found the Mona Lisa of my Genre! Dan McManis is my Leonardo! Here is the masterpiece! Voila!




McManis' delicate application of light . . . I am spechless! The kinetic energy captured in a moment unites, once again, the finger tip of God and Man!

I am overwhelmed. I'm gonna fix me a plate full of hash and eggs!

Why Banks Remain Safe in Ireland

Patience is poultice for all wounds. Irish Proverb

Urban Violence with George Sanders - Hug a Thug and 19th Century Ideas Will Not Work

Chicago is plagued with violence and thuggery. Thugs were a plague to the British Empire. The Thug Behram Cult* ultimately was dealt with, but not via community outreach, Ceasfire, Peoples Law Office and Jon Loevy Venture Capital for Convicted Thugs, funded Federal Mandates, or Free T-Shirts.

The British attempted many such programs in colonial India.





*Thug Behram (ca 1765–1840) of the Thuggee cult in India, was one of the world's most prolific killers. He may have murdered up to 931 victims by strangulation between 1790–1840 with the ceremonial cloth (or rumal, which in Hindi means handkerchief), used by his cult. Behram was executed in 1840 by hanging.

Whatever Happened to the "Street Lights Are On!" Parental Ordinance?

Little guys in Morgan Park neighborhood (St. Cajetan's Parish) only seconds away from the dreaded "Street Lights R On!" Ordinance. - Universally agreed upon and universally enforced.


Chicago City Council -the Aldermen - know how to pass ordinances that keep fois gras off the the gustatory line-up; end American involvement in foreign war; pad their bank accounts . . .! However, they are especially adept at getting their constituents to stop calling -"What are you doing to save the children?" -(riiiing)'Welcome to the Ward Office! for English Press One, For Tagalog Press Three, all others Press Hold. . . . Press one for Alderman B. Arely There's Ward Office Phone Call Ordinance # A-666 which Levies a Surcharge of $20.00 charged to the AT &T Spanish American War Tax of 1897 - on your monthly Bill, which applies to a special Save our Kids From You Name It in 2012 Budget.' Thank you for Calling and Call Often.'

Little kids are getting mowed down at 3:20 AM while helping bring in the family dog for the night.

http://www.suntimes.com/news/crime/6367389-418/9-year-old-boy-shot-in-head-in-roseland-neighborhood.html

What's City Council to do?

Chicago kids under the age of 12 would have to be in the house by 8:30 p.m. on weekdays and 9 p.m. on weekends, under a curfew crackdown proposed by three South Side aldermen Wednesday to rein in “unsupervised” children.

Public Safety Committee Chairman Michelle Harris (8th) joined Aldermen Toni Foulkes (15th) and Lona Lane (18th) in proposing the revised curfew ordinance, the second in three years to turn back the curfew clock.

Several parents told the Chicago Sun-Times Wednesday that the proposal is just what’s needed at a time when some moms and dads aren’t taking their responsibilities seriously.

“We’re at a point where we have to be more conscious of where our children are,” said Toseima Jiles, 33, of Hyde Park, who has two boys, ages 6 and 5. “When I was growing up, your parents knew where you were, the neighbors knew where you were. ... I think we’re getting away from that.”

But parent Karen Hobbs dismissed the proposed curfew as a case of governmental meddling.

Whatever happened to "Hey, Street Lights Are On!"

Moms and Dads sit out on the porch and watch the kids grab fireflies and play Chase in between the alleys and gangways and when Com Ed hits the switch and street lights go on the little guys are in the house.

This time-honored mandate only required parents and neighbors. Didn't cost nothing.

I Have Absolutely Nothing to Complain About . . . But, This Gent Just Might!

Michael Moriarty reminded me this morning that it is the small blessings that mean everything.

Five people have been injured in the first day of the San Fermin festival, in the race known as the running of the bullsA Spanish Red Cross spokesman said that a total of four people needed treatment by medical staff and one was hospitalised after falling.
Tens of thousands of people packed into Pamplona's main square on Wednesday for the start of the annual event... Sky News London.

Jon Loevy -"cold-cocked him right in the face," As Opposed to . . .? Ambulance Chaser's Video is Equally as Clear as The Cal-Sag After a Flood.

Jon Loevy has made a fortune using the media to help him rake in tax-payer dollars from Thug Happy lawsuits.

Jon Loevy is as responsible for the North Avenue Beach closings, Boystown beat-downs, Anywhere Chicago thug beat-downs, 'crimes of opportunity,' Roseland 24/7, and the loss of revenue at Taste of Chicago, as all of the other bottom-feeding lawyers/activists who use the Sherwin Williams Race Paint in undermining confidence in Law and Law officials ( all cops, some States Attorneys, and the better judges).

If your kids ask why they can no longer ride the CTA and Metra, go to Grant Park, River North, McDonald's, Walgreens, Louis Vitton, AMC theatres, or perhaps with current City Council legislation,stay out in front of the house past 8:30 PM, tell the wee ones, "Jon Loevy needs to make more money, honeys"

Jon Loevy is no dope;nor, is he in any way interested what you Chicagoans think about our City-wide Thug Comfort Zone. Jon Loevy is all about using the media, gutless elected officials, and group-thought do-gooder loud-mouths who seem to subsist on a steady diet of bullshit, to amass more millions.

Get a load of this video that Jon Loevy trotted out for his latest shakedown:



According to the Tribune's Breaking News (click my post title)Lawyer Loevy added with characteristically faux broad shouldered street cred that a police officer bitch slapped his client -"cold-cocked him right in the face."

Can one be 'cold-cocked' from a blow to another part of the human anatomy? From the video one can clearly ascertain that some mischief is afoot.

Police violence?

-". . . cold-cocked him right in the the tender part of the upper arm he did."

Time to Get Serious About Gaza

Some people just can not forget the OJ acquittal.

I deleted a rather amusing though fetid comment concerning my point of view with regards to the Gaza situation and the Second Flotilla. It was rather long and contained a litany of Hamas talking points, interspersed with Progressive language and misspellings, as well some sobering reflections and talking points that I must attend to and assume with regard to my continued carbon foot-printing of Mother Earth. Goats, melons, myself and boys of all ages are out of the question, Sir!

All serious people, the Anonymous scribe noted, are for the Palestinians because the Jews control the Vatican, the Media, The Congress, Texas Rangers, Most of the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders, Cable TV, Carnival Rides, Tin-Pan Alley, Roy Rogers and Dale Evans, Jesse Jackson's Dinning Room Centerpiece, The CTA 49A Western Bus Route, The Flow of the Chicago River, Boystown Violence, Black Flash Thugs, Jon Burge, Wesley Snipes, The Great Taste of Miller High Life, Dewey Kilbride's Dance Shoes, Kankakee ELK Lodge 627, The Millard Fillmore Society, the late Det. Billy Higgins' Bar Stool at Keegan's Pub on Western, Bill Veck's Leg, . . . and the Mormon Tabernacle Janitor Crew

Time to get serious -

Two Hamas Pappys are sitting in a Gaza Strip bar chatting over a pint of fermented goat’s milk, last Fathers Day.

One pulls his wallet out and starts flipping through pictures and they start reminiscing.

"This is my oldest son, he’s a martyr."

"This is my second son. He is a martyr also."

After a pause and a deep sigh, the second Père Hamas says wistfully,
"They blow up so fast, don’t they?"

Seriously. Rockets are not much of a giggle during the mid-day Soaps.

* This is serious -Who is behind the second Gaza flotilla?
JULY 1, 2011 BY GAZAFLOTILLA101 (click my post title for more serious news)

The second flotilla is coordinated by Muhammad Sawalha, a senior UK-based Muslim Brotherhood figure connected to Hamas. Many of the participating organizations can be directly linked with the Union of Good (UoG), a coalition of European charities affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, which in 2008 was designated as a terrorist organization by the U.S. Treasury for transferring funds to Hamas. The UoG was initiated by Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi, leader of the Muslim Brotherhood on a global scale, shortly after the outbreak of the Second Intifada in 2000.

… Other main organizers include the anti-Israel International Solidarity Movement (ISM), as well as far-left socialists from Europe and the United States. Many of the flotilla’s main organizers have stated that its prime aim is to create provocations and harm Israel’s image. … the flotilla is far from being a peaceful, humanitarian effort to support the Palestinians in Gaza. It should instead be seen as a major, pro-Hamas effort to delegitimize Israel by a “red-green alliance” of leftists and Islamists.

Planned Parenthood Branch Drug Test Results

On January 20, 2009, a new day dawns for reproductive health and rights with the inauguration of President Barack Obama, who makes clear his commitment to ensuring access to comprehensive health care for women and their families. With a partner in the White House and allies in Congress, Planned Parenthood renews its efforts to help secure reproductive rights and define health care reform for the 21st century. Planned Parenthood

Q. How many Progressives does it take to change a light bulb?

A. None. Well aren't you the fool! Why change things when you can get a judge to ban them?

Well, there is drug testing in the work place. I suppose that Planned Parenthood has random, but mandatory drug tests. After all, what's Federal mandates but Choice with teeth?

Imagine this - Ariadne Carbunquel, Director of Planned Parenthood Locale calls her staff together.

" Women and Opposite Gender Staff. Last week, each of you contributed a sample of your precious but superfluous essence. These samples were sent to a lab. None of the samples tested positive for drug use of any kind, I am happy to report, but there was a most disturbing finding. ( pregnant pause) This branch has a case of Syphlis!




After a moment of sober reflection Ms. Medea Tueur-d'enfants chirped happily, "Thank Goodness! I am sick to death of Merlot."



This touching tale was redacted from musing of Houston Attorney and NFL great Eddie Burke.





http://www.plannedparenthood.org/about-us/who-we-are/history-and-successes.htm

Common Sense on Israel from Kevin Myers Amid Hamas Hysterics

Chicago's own lisping dipwad ISM's Kevin Clark recently stooging for Hamas.

Gaza is Lefty Never-Neverland. Israel is Lefty Jolly Roger commanded by Chaim C'hookThe Flotilla(s) are the Lefty Lost Boys/ Faeries/Mermaids and Redkins. Gaza is being treated to a full script by Leftist activists for earnest ninnies that makes Palestinians the Redskins of the Wild Mideast.

Chicago has provided the enemies of civilization with talented and protected mopes like Kevin Clark a pan-activist ( Gay/Anti-War/Pro Hamas/Redskin) who helped get Rachel Corrie killed by an IDF bulldozer. This same mope encouraged a bunch of young idiots to toss fale blood on Catholic worshippers at Holy Name Cathedral.

Ireland which for the most part has contributed no small number of robust and steel-eyed foes of cant and nonsense in the world of letters and public life, but recently has become a Leftist playground for the bored and famous. Kevin Myers, a later-day, Swift skewers his countrymen for playing patsies to terrorists.

. What is it about Israel that prompts such a widespread departure from common sense, reason and moral reality? As another insane flotilla prepares to butt across the Mediterranean bringing "aid" to the "beleaguered" people of Gaza, in its midst travelling the MV Saoirse, does it never occur to all the hysterical anti-Israeli activists in Ireland that this is like worrying about the steaks being burnt on the barbecue, as a forest fire sweeps towards your back garden?

I took part in a discussion about the Middle East last weekend in the Dalkey Books Festival. It was surreal. Not merely was I the only pro-Israeli person in the panel of four, but the chairwoman of the session, Olivia O'Leary, also felt obliged to throw in her three-ha'pence worth.

Israeli settlers on the West Bank were on stolen land, she sniffed. Palestinians in their refugee camps had title deeds to the ancient properties. The UN had repeatedly condemned Israel. Brian Keenan, who was held hostage by Arab terrorists for four years, then detailed Israeli human-rights abuses, to loud cheers.

Israel -- and its sole defender on the panel (is mise)[that's Irish for that's me] -- were then roundly attacked by members of the audience. But what was most striking about the audience's contributions was the raw emotion: they seemed to loathe Israel.

But how can anyone possibly think that Gaza is the primary centre of injustice in the Middle East? According to Mathilde Redmatn, deputy director of the International Red Cross in Gaza, there is in fact no humanitarian crisis there at all. But by God, there is one in Syria, where possibly thousands have died in the past month.

However, I notice that none of the Irish do-gooders are sending an aid-ship to Latakia. Why? Is it because they know that the Syrians do not deal with dissenting vessels by lads with truncheons abseiling down from helicopters, but with belt-fed machine guns, right from the start?

[translation my own]

Irish Spring/Arab Spring - same soap.

Read the whole piece -click my post title.

Our Irish Cousins - A Film by Houli and Your Chance to be Maecenas

Gaudeamus igitur
Iuvenes dum sumus.
Post iucundam iuventutem
Post molestam senectutem
Nos habebit humus . . .

Vivat nostra civitas,
Maecenatum caritas
Quae nos hic protegit.

Ah, those golden days of student life - Das Korps Burschenschaft; arguing Maughman's proclivities toward the randy rump and his prose portraits of attractive harridans - Somerset's rivals for Cupid's dart after all; Expressionism, Neue, Sachlichkeit, Agitprop; stern walks with Herr Professor Doktor Boethius Reifsneider on Untersuchungen über die Deutlichkeit der Grundsätze der natürlichen Theologie und der Moral - I held in favor of Old Kant, while Mein Her Doktor took a Hegelian turn; gallons of Rhenish and kegs of bierr in Heidleberg Englebrau earthen vessals -sans covers, naturliche! Sweaty combat in the courts of Mensur, being an adept mit der Korbschläger! The Marburgers, Damn Their Eyes! Ah, the schmiss and post sanguinary the kiss of the Miss with the Cherry Lips! Merry Magdelena and busty Bertilda! After a good festering heal, to swagger about the Strasse and catch the look of envy of mein "Korpsbruder" Meister Hickey,Such a Scar! Aus gezeichnet!




This reverie betokens my thanks to the patrons of my ease, delights, romances, combats and dissolute roisterings! My patrons! Those who paid my way!

Uncle Dan's Clout!
Local 25,Building, Theatres and Amusements Janitors Union!
Gateway Trucking!
Mr. Lee's Clothing!

I left the university debt free! My Maecenas Universal!

The Point, Hickey?

Ah, Yes! Here I am slashing about with the Korbschläger of memory when I should be thrusting with the Stoßmensur of rigid reason.

Be a Patron of the Arts! I am. Having invested my widower's mites to two fine films produced by Michael Houlihan (Her Majesty Da Queen and Our Irish Cousins, please, allow me to explain the benefits of being a film producer.

You put some jack into Houli's movies and he puts your name in the credits for all the world to see - not that that is important; but, having one's vanity stroked is nice. You can go to your grave knowing that you have boosted the Beaux-Arts!

For as little as $25.00, cash money, you become a modern Maecenas. The full throated roaring of Gaudeamus Igitur by your humble servent as an undergradute ended with words of praise to Ocatvian's Parton of the Arts and the State - Gaius Maecenas.
It is a noble and patriotic thing to be a patron - invest in Houli's latest film!

Here's How!

Become one of the producers
of our new film, Our Irish Cousins.

IT'S TAX-DEDUCTIBLE!, just like church!

Kick in as little as 25 bucks and your name could appear in the final credits of the film with other significant donors like
those on our honor roll listed here.
Send us $100 and we'll send you a DVD of "Her Majesty, 'da Queen", the prologue to Our Irish Cousins, which recently aired on WTTW, Chicago Public Television, and a copy of the book that started it all, Hooliganism Stories.

Click my post title for the direct link. Gaudeamus igitur
Iuvenes dum sumus. . . .

Barack's Big Bus Backing on Biden?

"You should not have any doubt about is that Barack Obama, he is on your side,. . ." Vice President Joe Biden to the NEA

Must have been some loco weed in arugula, there Joe. The New York Post offers this nugget for brain push-ups:

"I don't think there's any doubt Obama is going to pick him as his running mate. The president is in trouble and [Vice President Joseph] Biden doesn't bring anything to his ticket.
"The president will call him up later this year and say, 'Andrew, you have to do this for the good of the country.' What's Andrew going to say, 'No?' "
Cuomo, who saw a flurry of predictions last week in the wake of the gay-marriage victory that he'll run for president in 2016, has repeatedly refused to discuss the possibility of higher office.
He wouldn't comment either on Powers' prediction, but a source familiar with his thinking half-jokingly said this when asked what action Cuomo would take if Obama called to offer him the nation's No. 2 position: "He won't answer."
Former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown earlier this year also predicted that Obama would pick Cuomo to replace Biden, who he claimed would be named by the president to replace Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.
"He's a big name, a big-state governor, and a Democrat who is taking on the issue of public-employee salaries and pensions. Plus, he looks good," Brown said of Cuomo.
Cuomo wouldn't have to resign as governor to run for vice president, although many voters would likely react negatively since he could be leaving office just two years into his four-year term.


Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/that_the_ticket_5XPTo4YnZCqdLnKm3JXKBK#ixzz1R8uwLiKA

Joe this is a BFD! Unemployment!

If Barack is with you, better check the rear views; just ask Crazy Uncle Jeremiah, Wright, Grammaw, Officer Jim Crowley, Desiree Rogers, PJ Crowley, Louisiana, Israel . . .the Public Schools of Chicago, Catholics, Border States, Real Labor, . . . Joe Biden ( developing): for a list of Who's Under the Bus click my post title - there's always plenty of room under them wheels.

Happy Birthday America - Give Me the Simple Life by Ella Fitzgerald The Statue of Liberty of Song