“What kind of Catholics do they think we are?."

“What kind of Catholics do they think we are?."

That question was thundered at the recent National Prayer Breakfast in Washington D. C. by Knights of Columbus Carl Anderson.  The question was rhetorical.

President Obama has said that he was quite a poker player in his Springfield days.  I don't know about that Obama Bio Nugget, but I have lost piles dollars playing poker myself.  I 'invested' more than enough years ago in a personal Solyndra of waste.  Like me, who wears his heart on his sleeve, face, and shirt-front, has a tell - a tell is a signal to other players. Many times a tell goes unnoticed for many hands, but eventually jumps up.

President Obama's tell with regard to faith and liberty screamed out last May when his NLRB Chicago team declared that St. Xavier University was not a religious institution. As Vice President Biden once said over hot-mic, " It is a BFD!"

In November, Cardinal George and then Cardinal Designate Dolan of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops sat down with the Springfield Kid and his three-card monte HHS Contraception Mandate shill Sec. Sebelius. The Tell was picked up, but not really obvious until Shill Sebelius, a Vichy Catholic herself, punched down the HHS Mandate. It is a supreme hypocrisy and threat to religious freedom.

Catholics and They are at war.  No kidding.

The rhetorical pronoun "They" refers to the current White House, Democratic National Committee, Planned Parenthood, ACLU, Southern Law and Poverty Center, Academia, Hollywood, and the Media.

Catholicism by state -There sure are many Catholics.

Rank	State	%[30]	Largest denomination
1	Rhode Island	63	Catholic
2	Pennsylvania	53
3	Massachusetts	44
4	New Jersey	39
5	California	37
6	New York	36
7	New Hampshire	35
8	Connecticut	34
9	Texas	32
10	Arizona	31
11	Illinois	30
	Louisiana
	North Dakota		Lutheran
14	Wisconsin	29	Catholic
15	Nebraska	28
16	Florida	26
	New Mexico
	Vermont
19	Maine	25
	Minnesota
	South Dakota		Lutheran
22	Colorado	24	Catholic
	Hawaii
	Montana
	Nevada
	Ohio
27	Iowa	23
	Maryland
	Michigan
30	Washington	22
31	Indiana	20
	Kansas
	Missouri
34	Wyoming	18
35	Idaho	15	LDS
	Oregon		Catholic
	Kentucky		Baptist
38	Virginia	14
39	Georgia	13
	Oklahoma
41	Delaware	10	Methodist
	North Carolina		Baptist
43	Alaska	9
	Arkansas
	South Carolina
	Tennessee
	Utah		LDS
48	West Virginia	8	Baptist
49	Mississippi	7
50	Alabama	6

We pretty much know what "they" think Catholics to be: Lock-step voting demographic, close-knit tribal white blue collar ethnics, homophobic breeders, slow-witted, unsophisticates easily cowed by their betters, and    sheep of patriarchal undemocratic autocrats.

Supreme Knight Carl Anderson summed up the American spiritus mundi 2012 brilliantly -

The spirit of our age is profoundly secular.
And secularism accepts religion – if it accepts it at all – only on its own terms.
Under this view, religion is subordinated to the political interests of the secular state.
And it is precisely this subordination of religion to the state that the First Amendment seeks to prevent.
Let us be clear: we value religious liberty not only because it protects our personal autonomy.
We value religious liberty because of the goodwhich religion brings into the life of the individual believer and into the life of our nation. Carl Anderson National Prayer Breakfast 4/19/2012 ( emphasis my own)

"They" have the stage, the microphone,the camera, the White House, the Justice Department and a sea of ink.

We have the Nicean Creed, seven sacraments, at least eight years of Catholic schooling, which trumps 12 years of a public school education, a rich history of commitment to liberty for all of our neighbors, and for the first time in decades a group of courageous, generous, thoughtful and patriotic American Catholic Bishops standing for first principles - the sanctity of Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.

What kind of Catholics do they think we are?

Here in Chicago, the great work of Cardinal Mundelein, who was the first prominent American to condemn Hitler, who Americanized Catholic Education, who reformed the Chancery Office, built the largest American Catholic seminary at St. Mary of the Lake and hundreds of schools is all but ignored.

The role of Bishop Bernard Sheil who fought for real American Labor with John L. Lewis, educated parolees without state funding, operated the largest sports and vocational network for youth -The Catholic Youth Organisation ( CYO) which gave opportunities away from the streets for all races creeds and colors.  Sheil who?

Instead, you would think that Saul Alinsky actually mattered in the lives of people.

What kind of Catholics do they think we are?  The types of Vichy Catholics* they create, it seems to me, are acceptable, fund-able and suitable for high and low public office. If a Catholic gets money from Planned Parenthood, or Personal PAC, more importantly accepts that money to push abortions that is what they think Catholics should be.

We shall see in November.

* A term that I heard first from the late Chicago genius and Renaissance Man Tom Roeser - it equates the public Catholic  who demands every, if not most, social agendas that conflict with Catholic teaching and doctrine with the pro-facist French who helped the Nazis round up Jews and enemies of freedom.  Simply, any self-stated Catholic who admires and defends abortion, homosexual marriage, and pretty much every DNC secularist plank in the platform. AKA Catholics for Obama 2012.

Schmich and Awwwwww! Pulitzer Howitzer Mary Schmich Fires at Mitres

   

To say that the Catholic Church is not a democracy is to state its very nature: for Catholic believers, it is the institution founded by God to implement His will on earth. For those who believe this, it is the end of the discussion. If you do not believe this, why be interested in what the church thinks or says about anything?

An interesting aspect of these discussions is the way selective interpretations of the Second Vatican Council – which the Association of Catholic Priests, for example, claims as its principal inspiration and motivation – are employed to consider matters relating to the church as though to a political party. John Waters Irish Times April 20, 2012

The sisters are stunned by the news, sad, weary, worried.

And, for public purposes, they are mostly silent. . Pulitzer Possessor Mary Schmich

It seems nuns got stunned when Pope Benedict XVI and the lads in Pope City told Catholic Nuns here in the States that they are on the wrong side of issues, as far as the Church teachings are concerned.  Some nuns prefer the Progressive, NPR, DNC, and Secular doctrines which demand abortion, that women be ordained priests and the call for a general absolution of all same-gender sexual dalliances.  Not a huge head-scratcher that, let alone a stunner. 

Navy S.E.A.Ls shoot Osamas and Somalii pirates without a reference to the M.K. Gandhi rules of engagement. I am sure that if some S.E.A.L.s were stunned to learn that killing is their vocation, they would be referred to the H & R folks at GreenPeace.

Not stunning.

I was no where near stunned with the news that Chicago Tribune columnist and Brenda Starr narrator Mary Schmich won a Pulitzer.  Mary Schmick was cited because  "Schmich's stories resonated with readers and won over the Pulitzer jury, which cited her "wide range of down-to-earth columns that reflect the character and capture the culture of her famed city."

Okay.

I always thought that of Mary Schmich as the Kathy-half of the Tribune's Eric & Kathy Show - Eric Zorn being the Eric half - you know, those e-mail terms of endearment and just plain NPR fun engagement?

Mary Schmich grabbed a Pulitzer.  God bless her.

President Obama grabbed Nobel Peace Prize after his apology tour and beer summit with a cop, because "Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future." I am not stunned when a no bid contract to a Canadian rail car company that buys wheels made in China gets a limited bit of attention, while Chicago media  wets its britches over the dead blond kid with the sport coat flipped over his shoulder, because the guy who punched him dead has Clout DNA.

The Chicago Tribune editorial board and its columnists like Eric Zorn and the always laughable religion writer Manya Brachear are firing shots at Catholics in order to keep our heads down and mouths shut.  Manya produced an idiotic report of faux outrage and a possible tax-suit against Peoria's Catholic Bishop Jenky who preached about the continued war on Faith from the Obama regime.  Manya hooked up with Huffington Post columnist and veteran Democratic operative who happens to be the regional head of the Anti-Defamation League and no less a goofball than the Rev. Barry Lynn, a mainline Bill Moyers approved parser on matters of Faith and government.

When Manya's dribblings were laughed to depths of the Trib's cyber pages, the deep thinkers trotted out a Pulitzer howitzer to fire at mitres!

Schmich and awwww!

I am only stunned when I bring home left over carrot cake from Gibson's and open the fridge to learn that it escaped my son's gullet.

Stunned nuns are a whole nuther kettle of smelt.

Let's see who's stunned . . . "Please don't quote me," one Chicago nun said after she shared her feelings Friday. "Please don't quote me."  Stunning.

Yet, again!  "It's not cowardice," said another, asking not to be named. Un-named stunned nuns.  

In Pulitzer worthy balance. Ms. Schmich names an un-stunned nun:

Not all nuns feel that way. Sister Anne Flanagan, who belongs to the Daughters of St. Paul, thinks the Vatican has a point.
"It's a signal of how important religious women are to the ministry of the church," she said. "The Vatican is saying get back on track on some of these issues; don't lose the value of what you're doing for the sake of a dream."
She admits she's in a minority

That said our 2012 Pulitzer Proprietress quotes Sr. Donna Quinn, who is more responsible for media attention than any one nun by with her helping Planned Parenthood murder more Illinois babies and bragging about it. Schmick quotes Quinn from an earlier pronouncement about condemning the Church that houses, feeds and insures Sister Quinn.

As Sister Donna Quinn of Chicago was quoted saying recently, "You cannot put the toothpaste back in the tube."

Now, that's Schmich and Awwwwww with a huge layer of WTF??????????????

You follow?

Me neither.  We don't get stunned much unless we hang around with septuagenarian contrarian nuns and when we find that left-over piece of Gibson's carrot-cake somehow escaped the maw of our twenty something sons and daughters.

Somnia a Delectamentum Canis: Liber per Praeses Baracum H. Obama

My Dad brought home a fifty pound sack of condensed milk from work  . . . he said he found it in a big room full of other neat things that the State bought and left just sitting there . . .waste not; pay not. And so shortly after the snow blizzard of 1967, Dad determined we would eschew the Hamilton Dairy for instant moo-juice.  The stuff had the consistency of Spackle and the color of putty when mixed in a pitcher of ice cold water and with a spoonful of Nestle's Quick it would gag a maggot.

I am certainly not up to the snappy yarns Barack Obama dictated prior to his leap over the Illinois political gradus in the 1990's.  No sir.  Never did have a plateful of pup.

With Lolo [Soetoro], I learned how to eat small green chili peppers raw with dinner (plenty of rice), and, away from the dinner table, I was introduced to dog meat (tough), snake meat (tougher), and roasted grasshopper (crunchy). Like many Indonesians, Lolo followed a brand of Islam that could make room for the remnants of more ancient animist and Hindu faiths. He explained that a man took on the powers of whatever he ate: One day soon, he promised, he would bring home a piece of tiger meat for us to share.”

Dreams From My Father - Bark . . . Barack Obama

Dog Latin

Canis lupus familiaris. That’s dog
in Latin, he’d brag. Too bloody familiar,
she always threw back, resenting his mongrels
who mocked her in their dog thoughts, she suspected,
trailing her as she stomped around finding fault.
They see you as head bitch my darling, he sneered.
Well, someone appreciates me, she’d mutter,
softening for a moment. Then at it again:
When we married I married your bloody dogs.
The barking stopped for weeks after a black fog
stole her spirit, puzzled them into silence.
I have never got anything I wanted
in my life, she cried then. He sniggered. They sighed.
After a month she lifted up her head, smiled:
Well, it should be canis lupus vulgaris.
Tails began to wag. Tongues lolled. Dog breath wafted.

Padraig O'Morain

padraigomorain,blogspot.com/2


Great photo H/T - Creative Minority Report

Ted's as Okay as Jesse - Secret Service Says.

Ted Nugent got a clean bill of health and welfare from the agents of United States Secret Service. Thought he would.

The St. Viator Class of 1967 Alumnus, better known as the Detroit City Mad Man, Bow Hunter, Activist, Guitar Hero, and guy who cares not for President Obama came under the eye of the Secret Service following remarks that he made at the NRA convention last week. Ted said, that he would "dead or in jail" were President Obama to manage to squeak out a win this coming November 6, 2012.

In 2008, while under the watchful eye of the U.S. Secret Service, during the waning days of the GW Bush Administration, Presidential Candidate Obama was verbally threatened with castration at the hands of Rev. Jesse Jackson.
O Tempora, O Mores! - The Times and What We Call a Crime

Some people's words matter under the Obama Regime. Catholics, Mormons, religious Jews and bunches of Christians are suspect, because the Obama regime has attacked Religious Liberty. The HHS Mandate is only the most recent assault. Last May Well, Ted's not a threat. Thanks be to God; evidently neither is Rev. Jesse Jackson.

President Obama's NLRB stripped St. Xavier University of its Catholic identity, in order to make sure that SEIU received its 2008 payback and insure its robust, loud and monied support this 2012. St. Xavier University sits in a heavily Catholic and once traditionally Democratic blue collar neighborhood filled with cops, foremen, nurses, skilled tradesmen, and professionals.

Many Catholics, including your humble servant, worry that the Obama Regime's secular agenda will cause people to choose between their religious liberty and some time in the joint. I might be, what's the word 'nuts'?, but so do some very educated, sophisticated and thoughtful people like Cardinal George and all of the Catholic Bishops of America.

Ted Nugent spoke his mind and was visited by the Men in Black.

Jesse Jackson's mouth is as perpetually in motion as a Duck's Rump and he went on another tax-payer freebie to chat up NATO and chow down on rows of eats, foreign and domestic, with Illinois's Planned Parenthood-owned and operated Governor Pat Quinn.

Facta Non Verba - Deeds not words.

I Don't Get It - The Hooker Stiffers Want to Journey to the Center of Ted's Obama-Mind? Yet, Jesse Jackson Threatened to Geld the Chap

Tim McCarthy IS the U.S. Secret Service. The Hooker Stiffers and Ted Nugent Inquisition another thing entirely.


The Father of the Hot Mic - Rev. Jesse Jackson has been eclipsed by the younger, more vigorous and elocutionally challenged Rev. Crown Heights Al Sharpton.

Old Hot Mic Jackson is an adept mentor to VP Joe (BFD) Biden and President Bark . . .Barack ("Be Patient Vlad") Obama.

Ted Nugent is a guitar-hero whose hot-licks has been lost on chicks for decades. The guy can pull some strings - guitar and power-bow. Ted Nugent, like the great Hank Williams, Jr., is on the Fightin'Side of Rachel Maddow and the lisping lightweights on MSNBC. Ted's Ok.

He was not Hot Mic'd but spoke, maybe a bit too strongly, about his low regard for the President and opined that were the President to somehow eke out a re-turn gig as Chief Executive, Ted might be imprisoned, or even dead. Millions of Catholics also worry about going to the Joint for the Faith. Death? Quid nunc?"

Nevertheless the Secret Service has been sic'd on Ted Nugent. The St. Viator Alum and Amboy Dukes frontman on Journey to the Center of Your Mind gets the hot lights by the I Forgot My Wallet guys.

I personally know a score of Secret Service agents and hold them in the highest regard, One, Tim McCarthy*, sacrficed himself in the line of duty and is one of only four agents to do so while guarding the President.

Tim McCarthy and most agents go above and beyond the call of duty. The current handful in the news are a disgrace. Going to a hooker, let alone stiffing one?

The Secret Service are now grilling Ted Nugent, but they gave Rev. Jesse Jackson a pass?

He actually threatened, then Presidential Candidate Barack Obama with castration over a hot microphone.

WASHINGTON - In a vulgar tirade caught on tape by Fox News, the Rev. Jesse Jackson said he wanted to "cut his [Barack Obama's] nuts out" and he accused the fellow Chicagoan of "talking down to black folks" by giving moral lectures to African-Americans, source said Jackson's shocking quotes were picked up by a hot mic before an interview on health care in Fox's Chicago studio last Sunday

No Ted Nugent, Jesse be. Diferent Strokes for Different Folks!

I get it. We all do . . .good and hard.

Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/item_2IKMVtS3vzxRvoAAxZ0ZGL#ixzz1sUNX4nTb

*

McCarthy was raised in the Ashburn neighborhood of Chicago. He graduated from St. Denis Grammar School and Leo Catholic High School and then attended the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and was a member of the Delta Tau Delta fraternity. He graduated in 1971 with a Bachelor of Science degree in finance and joined the United States Secret Service shortly thereafter

Smile! We Are ALL on Rahm-DidYou Camera! The Brake Jobs to Follow Are on You Too!

" I am going to Federalize all school cameras, Rahm. Just kidding, Bro."


Some people want to know exactly who is the private source for infrastructure up-grades in Rahm's Baby Chicago Urban Center. You is. Rahm's not going to hit up his brother and the Hollywood Crowd for Chicago. Nor is going to wet-his beak with

Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flo... $5,602,356 0
California Hospital Association $20,700 1
Pfizer $9,201,771 15
Pacific Life $2,507,838 0
Zignego $3,000 0
Southern Wine and Spirits $852,060 0
California and Nevada Credit Union ... $67,230 4
International Association of Machin... $12,662,976 31
Merck $6,021,759 10
Habush, Habush & Rottier $120,900 0

Because he's saving them to wall paper his White House Dreams.

Nope. Rahm's Private Sources is Us Helots.
Yep, only last week we heard more about the Bombardier Boondoggle handled by serial job-jumper Forrest Claypool. He was more worried about Bus and train drivers taking a Pee Break, than he was about Bad Brakes. Claypool's New Rail Cars! The same group of deep thinkers wasted millions on Chinese train-wheels that don't work. Thank Forrest Claypool - just put it on our bill. Can't Wait!

The Rahm DidYou Camera ordinance states that speeders going 6-10 miles an hour over the posted Schools and Parks Speed limits can expect a $35 ticket and those going 11 or more miles an hour over the same will get an openning bid of $100.Can't Wait!

Rahm's Robo-Revnue All Seeing Eyes will blink with laser speed between the hours of 7AM to 7PM, or ( now, get this, citizen) until the parks close. Ever drive north on Western Ave. from Blue Island? Well from 119th Street to 83th Street one had better take the pooches off everything but the brake. You got St. Walter's, and the big old park behind and along that school; Kennedy Park just north of 115th Street and then St. Cajetan's to the Beverly Art Center which house Plaid Academy and other little schools at 111th, followed by Clissold Elementary, Cresent Park, and we are not even close to 103rd Street let alone the east west streets. Revenue$$$$$$$$$$$$$. Can't Wait!

Ever go north on Loomis from 79th Street through Englewood? Grammars schools aplenty and Parks up the ying-yang! Sherman, Ogden, Hamilton Parks. Are Boulevards considered Parks? Bet they are. Going either west, or east on 55th/ Garfield Boulevard between the lake front and Midway, buckets of dough. Can't Wait!

What the ordinance doesn't point out is that there are many places where three, four or even five schools and parks fall within the same one-eighth-mile radius. While the city took some of those overlapping zones into account, under the approved scenario, it is still possible the mayor's plan could cover nearly half the city.

Aldermen will be notified where the cameras will go in their wards but won't be able to block them. Alderman blanched at the idea of giving up local control. They have long enjoyed wide latitude to approve or deny projects within their wards.

Your car brakes are going to get the work-out of a lifetime and you and the Midas Man are going to get very close. Baby Needs a New Pair of Shoes, Drums and Pads! Can't Wait!


I don't know how many little guys will be saved by Rahm DidYou Camera, but you got did. Drive like a fatman walks. Can't Wait!

This is ObamaCare that won't be voted away in 2012.


http://maplight.org/us-congress/organization

What’s a Shiatsu?

Brookfield.

Turning to the News- This just in! Obama Eats Dog

“With Lolo, I learned how to eat small green chill peppers raw with dinner (plenty of rice), and, away from the dinner table, I was introduced to dog meat (tough), snake meat (tougher), and roasted grasshopper (crunchy). Like many Indonesians, Lolo followed a brand of Islam that could make room for the remnants of more ancient animist and Hindu faiths. He explained that a man took on the powers of whatever he ate: One day soon, he promised, he would bring home a piece of tiger meat for us to share.”

You are what you eat!

In the words of his 2009 Hit of the same name -

Mm, mmm, mm!
Barack Hussein Obama
If Just live -not in a fog
Sit right down and have some dog!

Mm, mmm, mm!
Barack Hussein Obama
Mitt Romney's Dog was on a Roof
My horse just died now have some Hoof!

Mm, mmm, mm!
Barack Hussein Obama

The hits keep happenin'!

HT - Pundit & Pundette.com

A Snob Dealt With - It is all about me, afterall.

Above all, I never knew a man of letters ASHAMED OF HIS PROFESSION. Those who know us, know what an affectionate and brotherly spirit there is among us all. Sometimes one of us rises in the world: we never attack him or sneer at him under those circumstances, but rejoice to a man at his success. If Jones dines with a lord, Smith never says Jones is a courtier and cringer. Nor, on the other hand, does Jones, who is in the habit of frequenting the society of great people, give himself any airs on account of the company he keeps; but will leave a duke's arm in Pall Mall to come over and speak to poor Brown, the young penny-a-liner.

That sense of equality and fraternity amongst authors has always struck me as one of the most amiable characteristics of the class. It is because we know and respect each other, that the world respects us so much; that we hold such a good position in society, and demean ourselves so irreproachably when there.

Wm. M. Thackeray - The Book fo Snobs: CHAPTER XVI—ON LITERARY SNOBS


Snob - great word and useful. Snobbery, comes from a condition recognized, if not discovered in 18th Century Britain and cataloged by William Makepeace Thackery.

Thackeray was born in Calcutta, India where his father was member of the East India Company which had its own colonial army, distinct from the regular crown forces. Thackeray's Pa, like any good public servant in colonial service vigorously looting the natural and human resources of another civilization, died of diseases brought on by his luxurious position in civil service - drink, gluttony and God knows what else.

Pa Thackeray left his infant son and handsome young bride a pile of loot to take back to Old Blightey. The boy was a 1%-er and to that manner born, became a self-absorbed waster who ended his brilliant career Cambridge University due to blowing all the Crowns, pounds and guineas Pa ripped off in India.

The now destitute young Bill, an amiable young chap accustomed to fine food, good wine, snappy attire and company above his station realized that his sins and misdemeanors were not because of his childhood without a Dad to guide him onto Honor's path, nor an intrinsic evil, nor the blame of anyone but himself and his vanity which made him a SNOB.

A Snob, Thackeray diagnosed to be anyone who meanly admires mean things. Mean is the opposite of honorable, or virtuous living. One is mean if one envies, hates, or ignores his fellow man in general. More specifically it can be identified in the decisions and attitudes taken in life that Balkanize human society.

Thus, if someone were asked to meet another person and eventually introduce that person to one in his, or social circle and had explained that 'She is a lawyer, school board board member, an exquisitly beautiful, sweet-tempered and great hearted woman who appears regularly on FOX television as legal analyst, only be answered with 'I Hate Fox and never watch it; No; not interestested' - that person might be a snob.

If you were to ignore the very fine writing, wit and considered opinion of, say Don Rose, because that worthy holds very radical views on justice, law and politics, you might only be a snob, but a dope who misses out on the chance to engage a truly honest and clever person who challenges your assumptions.

If what you hold to be the really important - be-all-and end-all - anythings that can be answered with an honest and firm " Well, so what." (statement not a question) You are a snob.

Thus,
" I only watch Public Television!" So What.
" I do own a television!" So What.
" It is spelled Xoyndare, but prounced Corriander Uh,huh.
" I never watch NPR!" So, What.
" I won the Pulitzer!" So, What. So does Eugene Robinson.
" They Call Me Mr. Tibbs!" So What
" I shared a pearl onion with Edgar Buchanan!" So What.
" I never had an Abortion!" I am a male.
" I never cut my own grass!" So, What.
" Did I mention my Dinner with Andre . . .Dawson?" So What
" I am the War on Women!" So, What.
" I'm South Side Irish!" So What.
" I'm as God Made Me!" Me too and her and him and them over thar - So What.
" Groucho told me . . ." So What.
" I never wear under wear!" Please, do.
" This my Uterus!" This is Blade Saxon, Baby!
" I never watch the Simpsons!" So, What.
" I drink only imported beer! So What.
" I know Bill Kurtis -personally!" So, What.
" I'm an Atheist; Honest to God!" So, What.
" I only attend Tridentine Latin Mass!" So What.
" I'm Billy Dec!" So, What.
" Summer's Eve is about empowerment, changing the way women may think of the
the brand( of Douche), and removing longstanding stigmas…” SHUT UP!!!!!!!!!!!
" I never vote straight ticket!" So What.
" I live in Beverly!" So What.
" I went to Colgate" So What.
" I'm Sodium Free!" Pat Hickey, your servant.
" I brush with Colgate!" So What.
" I made it on my own!" So What.
" I have tertiaty cancer!" Sorry. God keep you and So What.
" I'm Vegan!!" So What.
" I married Mitt Romney!" Hi, Ann.
" I'm Chris Matthews!" So What!

Did I mention that I am the author of two books, hundreds of articles, book reviews an essays and a blog?

EVERYBODY, NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So, EFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFING What!

No One Was Dressed Like Bishop Walsh at Chicago's Comic Con

On Saturday it rained and was pretty crumby in general and I had wanted to do some walking with a particular young lady. Plans for a day in Lincoln Park and a visit to the Conservatory, or the Peggy Notebaert Whatever, were out of the question.

Using what nominally passes for brains, I read that there was a Comic Book Convention at McCormick Place - C2E2. I love McCormick Place, or the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Whatever. I am also the press, in manner of speaking. I brought by credential letter from Chicago Daily Observer and purchased a ticket for the young woman whom I intended to keep dry.

We parked very close to the North Entrance and entered the vast warehouse of conventions past and to be. Walking with us were Star Wars, Star Trek, Doctor Who, Captain America, Incredible Hulks, a score of Green Lanterns, Harry Potters and Battle Star Gallacticans of every rank, solar system and moral compass.

At the registration and press desk I was asked by a tough looking fifty something Babe, " What're you decked out as, Honey?"

The woman who resembled every third person in line for kielbasa and kapusta at Bobak's on Archer noted my standard-issue middle-aged Joe College attire - pressed chinos, open collar blue button-down oxford cloth shirt under a V-neck Allan pain Shetland bedecking a frame of tightly muscled and nicely defined homo erectus to which I replied, " A 19th Ward, close-knot ethnic helot, my good woman."

She gave me the twice-over, " Nice. Should be hit at every booth. NEXT!"

In we strolled. The largest Fantasy Exhibition C2E2 features artists, entertainers, writers, comic fantasy game producers, used comic (graphic novels, or whatever)vendors and toy sellers. There was a big section dedicated to autographs from Fantasy Icons and actors. The biggest names that I noted were Sean Astin -RUDY! and Val Kilmer. Val Kilmer is a very good actor, who played the ultimate Western Icon - Doctor James 'Doc' Holiday in the movie Tombstone. Sean Astin played Rudy who triumphed over size and ability with heart to play a few downs at Notre Dame, thanks to Dan Devine.

Kilmer and Astin were lonely. There were massive lines to see - actors who played roles in Doctor Who, or whatever. I did not get it. I asked one of the security guards shepherding costumed autograph seekers, "what gives? Val Kilmer is a great actor why is he not choked with supplicants?"

" He was not on Doctor Who, or whatever."

Riddle solved. Val Kilmer played a real flesh-and-blood heroic person. Sean Astin played a real and still breathing, though under legal scrutiny, hero. The two fine actors represented flesh and blood historical folks and not the Fantastic.

This was the largest exposition of Fantasy and I had been exposed.

We arrived at McCormick Place at about 2:30 and pressed through the throngs and phalanxes of Storm Troopers, Wizards, Caped Creatures and stuffed leotards of every size and shape with the heavy percentage going to the morbidly obese.

My guest and fellow traveller is diminutive, sylph-like damsel and she was a terrified within this press of flesh as a three-year old with her hung-over Mom and Aunt Tootsie on Black Friday.

This was a Fantasy Feast! Fantasy helps the young make sense of this earth and world. The earth we can not do much about, but we can make a world by drawing things to us and with the Grace of God it is people. Fantasy can also be a sanctuary from hurts, slights, and horrors. Like meditation and prayer it can be a tool to create the world as it should be and how we might like it to be and get us to act better.

Fantasy should be taken in sparing portions, like food, drink, meditation and prayer.

Val Kilmer and Sean Astin put in time on the chairs with professionalism and stoic charity, from what I observed. They are two very good guys it seems. The Dr. Who, Gallactican, or Marvelous actors, I could not see for the throngs of devotees. Kilmer and Astin played and represented people who actually had drawn breath and were ignored by the Fans of Fantasy.

The day before I turned eleven, I was sitting in my desk along with my classmates at Little Flower Grammar School at 80th & Honore eagerly awaiting my copy of the Treasure Chest. Treasure Chest was a comic book published in Ohio and distributed to Catholic Grammar Schools. It featured games, puzzles and stories about heroes of American History and the Catholic Faith. We read about Dr. Tom Dooley, a Navy Doctor helping Vietnamese refugees tortured and threatened by Ho Chi Minh, Capt. John Barry of County Wexford -The Father of the US Navy, Elizabeth Seton, Brother Edmund Rice, Mother Cabrini, Father Francis Duffy and Wild Bill Donovan, Enrico Fermi, Casimier Pulaski, Madame Currie, Gregor Mendel, Mother Auley, Carroll Family of Maryland and of course JFK, always drawn and illustrated by a guy named Joe Sinnott. Funny how memory works much like fanasty.

After several hours with the Incredibles, Hulks, Star Ship Troopers, Wonder Women, Green Lanterns and the Fantastic hundreds, it was time to take the escalator back to the ground floor and the North Parking Lot. All through the day, my thoughts and associations turned to the woman at registration - Tough babe;Bobaks, Kielbasa, Peirogi, Kapusta, Stuffed Cabbage!!!!

My love and I eschewed the food court fare and motored to the fantastic Warsaw Inn Polish Buffet at Cermak & Mannheim. We talked about Fantasy, Whimsey and WTF? witnessed that day.
I had read wonderful article written by Jillian Melchior for The Daily on Thursday, April 12, 2012 about Bishop James E. Walsh ( click my post title) which we placed into perspective.




On November 7, 1963, me and my classmates were awaiting next issue in the series about Maryknoll Missionary and Bishop of China James E. Walsh who continued to suffer in a Chinese Communist prison. Bishop Walsh was a super hero who refused to turn the keys of the Church and the Keys of the Kingdom over to Chairman Mao. Bishop Walsh refused to abandon the people he had christened and confirmed in the Faith. Bishop Walsh was a tough guy - he could take it and like it. He took it for a decade and change and was only released from the Reds, when Nixon decided to make nice with Mao.

Val Kilmer or Sean Astin could play Bishop Walsh without make-up.

I watched them take it and like on Saturday.

Fantasy with out a lifeline to reality is drifting in space, it seems to me; anyway, or whatever. Comic books used to represent heroism grounded in reality as well as fanatsy. Today's Graphic Novels? Whatever.



http://www.c2e2.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Sinnott
http://www.maelmill-insi.de/jscbi/TreasureChest.htm
http://www.maelmill-insi.de/jscbi/TreasureChest.htm

Vote the Helm & O'Connor Team for Amundsen LSC -April 19th

Bill Helm gets things done . . .for the people he serves.

LSC's are that important. Here on the far south side, the 19th Ward neighbors ensured that 19th Ward residents were voted to the Chicago Ag School LSC.

LSC's are too often political agenda push-pins for the likes of Mike Klonsky - a devout Leftist.

The Amundsen LSC has two career public servants, men of genuine and tested ability running for that LSC on April 19th.

Though many miles from my neighborhood, Amundsen LSC deserves to have Helm & O'Connor helping out and not some plants from an activist farm.

I have known Bill Helm for fifteen years as man of integrity, intelligence and innovative thinking. Bill is no grandstanding, photo-op celebrity, but a hands-on, set-up-the-chairs and stay-to-clean-up after man who is all about doing the job and making sure others get the credit.

Bill is teamed up with young man named Brendan O'Connor. That speaks loudly for Mr. O'Connor.

Bill Helm makes things happen, for other people. He told me,

The only way to vote is by showing up at Amundsen on Thursday, April 19th, between the hours of 6 a.m. and 7 p.m. If you drive, there is free parking in the lot on Damen, just south of Foster. While it may seem hard to believe, their are actually 7 people running for the 2 spots so this is an election where every vote does count. We think that if we can get 75 votes, the Helm & O'Connor Team will win!!

Helm & O'Connor for Amundsen LSC

William A. Helm has been an active and dedicated member of the community for over twenty five years.His deep sense of responsibility to the community, coupled with his belief that civic engagement can effect positive change, has led him to volunteer his time and talents to many organizations and projects in the neighborhood. Mr. Helm was the former Deputy Superintendent of the Cook County ForestPreserve District. As Deputy Superintendent of the Forest Preserve District, Mr. Helm was responsible for balancing the yearly budgets and after his tenure left the FPDCC with a budget surplus, one of the only local government units to have a surplus rather than a deficit. He is now a Director of Operations for the Illinois Department of Transportation.


A staunch supporter of the Chicago Public Schools and an ardent advocate for sufficient public school funding, Mr. Helm has been an active member of the Local School Council at Amundsen High School since 1996. During his tenure on the LSC, he has successfully leveraged private andgovernmental relationships for the benefit of Amundsen High School and will continue to cultivate those relationships to ensure that every student at Amundsen High School receives quality education.


As a former member of both the Winnemac Park Advisory Council, and Welles Park Advisory Council, Mr. Helm, along with many other dedicated community neighbors, spearheaded fundraising efforts to create play lots for the families and children of the ward to play in and enjoy. He also helped, through the incredible generosity of the Jorndt family (proud alumni of Amundsen High School) to transform
Amundsen’s campus to include
Winnemac Park and JorndtStadium, which is
commonly referred to as the ‘Crown Jewel of Parks’ in Chicago.


Valuing and respecting the vital contributions senior citizens have made and continue to make,in the ward, Mr. Helm has helped plan and organize appreciation luncheons and various events for seniors during the holidays and throughout the year.
What's the single most pressing issue at your school, and what role do you envision the LSC playing in addressing it?
Currently, the LSC is in the process of selecting a new principal for Amundsen High School. Principalselection is undoubtedly one of the most significant and impactful duties required of the LSC. I am committed to selecting a principal dedicated to advancing the quality of education at Amundsen by expanding the IB program and Smaller Learning Communities. I am also committed to opening up the principal selection process by asking for vital feedback from neighbors and the teachers at Amundsen.
What prompted you to run for LSC?
Quality public education is absolutely necessary for a healthy society. Since 1996, I have been dedicated to making Amundsen High School a viable option for parents to send their children to and will hopefully continue to advance that goal. Thank you