Chicago Can Not Have a "Discussion" on Race, Unless It Includes the 1904 Meat Packers Strike

(Meatcutters in Chicago 1904 were proud and skilled workmen and they were causing the Packinghouse owners problems.)

Yet again Chicago is being challenged to another discussion of Race.  This particular discussion should result in a Federally funded lump sum payment to African Americans or a continued discussion of race.

“In the effort to uphold white supremacy at every level down to the neighborhood, Chicago — a city founded by the black fur trader Jean Baptiste Point du Sable — has long been a pioneer. The efforts began in earnest in 1917, when the Chicago Real Estate Board, horrified by the influx of southern blacks, lobbied to zone the entire city by race.”    talented writer quoted in Sun Times Editorial 

I disagree, respectfully - not 1917, Msr. Coates; rather 1904.

No serious discussion of race can or should take place in Chicago without its starting point - the 1904 Stockyard Strike.

Chicago has never recovered from the Meatpackers Strike of 1904. Though engulfed by flames in 1871, Chicago rose from its roots again like an oak forest on steroids. The Pullman Strike, put down by George Custer's replacements, Illinois Yellow-legs and Pinkerton's goons, was as nothing compared to what lay ahead on the tracks.

Chicago's steel tentacles pulled cattle, hogs, sheep and any other hoofed hide that could be tanned, eaten, rendered or husbanded to a vast yard owned by sharp men of business. The amalgamation of tanners, packers, renderers, and shippers had cheap, disorganized and willing pool of people to labor, bleed, and exploit - Czech, Irish, Lithuanian, Polish, Russian, Westphalian, Belgian, Prussian, Bavarian, Norwegian, and Swedish.

Some of those immigrants had skills as carpenters, millwrights, metal workers, coopers, cart wrights, and teamsters; most had no skills other than brute strength. Today they would be called Caucasian, though very few had passed through The Caucasus to get to America.

On July 12, 1904, a strike was called by the Amalgamated Meat Cutters and Butcher Workmen (AMC) whose President Michael Donnelly announced the strike.

The causes of the strike ranged from low wages to the excessive pace required while on the job. The strike lasted for nearly two months and included rioting and murder with few periods of peace. The strikers used tactics such as demonstrations and parades while the packers responded by hiring strikebreakers. Although factory conditions were unchanged, the strike had many far reaching effects on the city of Chicago, the union, and the nation as a whole. . . . The Amalgamated Meat Cutters and Butcher Workmen played a major role in the strike. It was a giant organization and employed both skilled and unskilled workers, a circumstance often resented by skilled workers.(Halpern 32) Though unity was not one of the union's strong points, the union did give workers some sense of it, which was vital when the strike finally began. The main protagonists of the strike were the common laborers, the skilled and unskilled butchers of the Chicago packing plants. The workers, now somewhat organized, demanded higher pay and an end to the relentless "speeding up" of the packing progress. The typical laborer at the time of the strike was foreign, unskilled, worked long, hard hours, and was paid less than twenty cents an hour. The strikers were also very violent which resulted in numerous murders and riots. ("Strikers Firm" 2)

( Bow-tied Frank Curry was Hired by Armour, Swift and the smaller packing interests to bring African Americans to Chicago to break strikes)

(Frank Curry brought hundreds of men and women up from the south into caldron of labor strife - the race card would played later.)


(Chicago Police escorted Curry's strikebreakers ( black men and white men) to the yards) - south of Bridgeport - Irish Canaryville and the Eastern European Back of the the Yards)

The murders and riots were in reaction to the bringing of strikebreakers, mostly African Americans from the South and hired goons* to agitate and incite violence. Chicago Tribune archived articles from the period of the strike - roughly July through September 1904 bear witness to the actions and motives behind those acts.

 The Striking workers lived in and around the Stockyards - their descendants still do.

 Trolleys were hired to take strikebreakers to work

Strikers waited for scabs

Scabs came to Chicago in meat-packing rail cars and they were from all races.


( Strikers and their families starved)


The violence brought home to the heart of readers the intense frustration felt by the strikers and their families and the malice and greed that Chicago's leading families were willing to orchestrate in the name of profit. 8,750 strikebreakers, mostly miserably poor blacks, were lured with promises of a better life in Chicago and train fare to this abattoir of the human heart. Strikers and their families were in fact starving despite the effort of Strike relief Committees and the sympathy for strikers crossed state lines. However, the need to feed the greed was greater than articulating an agreement with the AMC. The owners intended to break this strike and they succeeded.

After a unanimous vote to maintain the strike, AMC President Michael Donnelly announced the strike ended on Sept. 9 1905 - 59 days after the strike was called.  Jane Addams and Dr. Cornelia De Bey helped to break the strike. That is another antipathy working people of Chicago developed after the 1904 Strike was broken - a complete mistrust and low regard for public reform icons.

The resulting antipathy between multi-cultural,lingual, and religious Caucasians and the strikebreaking African Americans would play out for next one hundred and two years in Chicago. The nature of race relations would always be reduced to the simple 'color of a man's skin' equation by people with the luxury of not being close to the conflict.

The descendants of the strikers would recoil from relations with the people who came North in the hope of a better life. They were shoved into combat with people themselves the victims of exploitation and those who profited by that combat. Those same descendants, one hundred and two years later, continue to be at odds with one another. The strikers descendants moved away as the Black Belt expanded to Berwyn, Cicero, Maywood and the southwest sides - places that since the 1904 strike have been branded as single-mindedly racist, unlike neighborhoods far removed from killing floors on the south side. The Armours and the Swifts and their co-industrialists did well by the strike and became clean with wealth, while the strikers and the strikebreakers were set at odds with one another and continue to be.

The horrific race riots of 1919 were confined to battlefields of Back of the Yards and the Black Belt. The fight for fair housing from the 1940's through the new Millennium mirror that combat zone. Dr. King marched in Marquette Park, where the descendants of the strikers lived and not in Highland Park where the people who prospered by that broken strike. South side white ethnic neighborhoods continue to be referred to as 'racial hotbeds' as recently as last week in the Chicago media. Blacks continue to be pitted against ethnic whites and exploited for political and economic gain.

Maybe, some talk about the causes and consequences of the 1904 Meatpackers Strike should preclude any 'Let's talk Race' challenge. Go and avail yourself of my sources listed below.

Sources: 
  Further reproduction prohibited without permission.All primary sources.

HUNDREDS COME TO BREAK STRIKE
Chicago Daily Tribune (1872-1963); May 2, 1904; ProQuest Historical Newspapers Chicago Tribune (1849 - 1985)

STRIFE ATTENDS PACKERS' STRIKE.
Chicago; Jul 13, 1904; ProQuest Historical Newspapers Chicago Tribune (1849 - 1985)

RIOTS AT YARDS; SEVEN MEN HURT
Chicago; Jul 18, 1904; ProQuest Historical Newspapers Chicago Tribune (1849 - 1985)
pg. 1

WORKERS STONED BY MOB OF 5,000.
Chicago Daily; Jul 22, 1904; ProQuest Historical Newspapers Chicago Tribune (1849 - 1985)

STRIKE IS ENDED; MEN SURRENDER.
Chicago; Sep 9, 1904; ProQuest Historical Newspapers Chicago Tribune (1849 - 1985)  N.B. - read Strike us Ended. very carefully

  

Let The Farce Be With Us! Rahm's Death Star Zaps Ol' Dan'l Burnham.

 Members of Chicago Bureau of Revenue 2015?

For now, at least, Emanuel is promising not to devote taxpayers money to a museum that will house Lucas’ formidable collection of artwork and film-making memorabilia if Chicago wins a heated competition with Lucas’ home town of San Francisco.
 Spielfogel said the Star Wars creator, who is married to Chicago businesswoman Mellody Hobson, will be offered a long-term lease for $1-a-year. But there will be no taxpayer subsidy, unlike the $30 million in annual support the Chicago Park District provides for 11 other museums on park land. ( Emphasis: The FORCE) 

In a City far, far from reality and long. long from history comes this latest tale of Super-Egos riding the backs of Helots* ( dull, hard-working, religious family centered taxpayers and home owners) until they go the way of those little sand critters in monk outfits from the first Star Wars movie.

Parking?  Remember Parking? That was a common feature to neighborhoods. The automobile was means of conveyance for workers and their families which was afforded a place in front of their homes on the paved streets of this city free of charge near the residences, but with a modest tax on streets designated and zoned for commercial use.  Automobile drivers are not loved and barely tolerated.

Five acres of public parking on Chicago's lakefront and south of Soldier Field are being offered to a Hollywood mogul and his Chicago businesswoman domestic partner: George Lucas and Mellody Hobson.
Mrs. Lucas is a product of Princeton and John Rogers's Ariel Investements (Desiree Rogers/Arne Duncan are Ariel Alumni).

Ariel/Rogers, in the spirit of Michael Sneed, is Thisssss  Close to the Obama White House and closer still to Chicago's City Hall.

Chicago was a city of neighborhoods.

Chicago is being smart-sized into a hipster strip-mall

Chicago is not your grand daddy's Chicago.  You pay to park, you pay to drive, you pay to drink water, you pay-to-play, you pay to ride, you pay to keep lawyers wealthy,  You pay.

What do you get?

• Chicago has the nations most dangerous neighborhoods - I am working in the Tops (#1.) in America. Proud top do so.
• Chicago has most Bed Bugs!
• Chicago ranks fourth in the nation as the most unliveable based upon these determinants 
• Most Corrupt City Government in America!

1. Violent crimes per capita from the FBI’s 2011 Uniform Crime Report
2. Average unemployment rate between 2010 and 2012
3. RealtyTrac's 2012 foreclosure rate for the city
4. Income taxes
5. Property tax rates based on median real estate taxes paid and median home values in 2011 per the U.S. Census
6. The change in median home prices between 2009 and 2012
7. Median commute times to work for 2011 based on U.S. Census data
8. Weather - temperature, precipitation, and humidity and 9. -Net Migration

 Property Taxes/Water Taxes/Utility Taxes/Speed Camera Taxes all help keep Helots down and huddled away in their close-knit ethnic, or minority-ignored neighborhoods.  Isolation is the first step in the process.

The property being bartered for Daniel Burnham's lake front parks of the people, for people and by the people of Chicago is where Bear Fans tailgate.  Now, that is going the way of coin ($.25) operated parking meters, because the domestic spouse of an Ariel Investments player made some space man movies that turn carbon foot-prints into role-playing zombies.

* Helots - Helots always could dream of being emancipated, and we know that the Spartan government did indeed sometimes liberate groups of helots. They were known as neodamôdeis and had the right to serve in the Spartan army, which also meant that they shared in the spoils. Former helots are also recorded as rowers.

The system collapsed in the fourth century. In 371, the Theban commander Epaminondas defeated the Spartans at Leuctra, and later, he invaded the Peloponnese, where he liberated the helots of Messenia. The helots of Laconia appear to have been emancipated later by the reformer kings Cleomenes III (235-222) and Nabis (207-192).

Will President Obama Visit Hines VA Hospital During His Fundraising Visit to Chicago?

 


On Sunday, Obama's chief of staff said he was “madder than hell” about the reports regarding secret wait lists.

Federal auditors visited the Edward Hines Jr. Veterans Affairs Hospital near Maywood on Wednesday amid allegations by a socialworker that patients at Hines were kept on “secret waiting lists” so executives could collect bonuses linked to meeting standards for speedy treatment.
Germaine Clarno, president of the American Federation of Government Employees VA Local 781, first told CBS News in a report that aired Tuesday that “employees are coming to me from all over the hospital” with stories about secret waiting lists.

Will President Obama and Dick Durbin pop in to Hines VA Hospital in Maywood and good-news the Veterans?

Remember, this is the very same Commander in Chief who ordered the WWII Memorial closed to Honor Flight Veterans last November in a fit of Progressive political pique this past October.

The question is rhetorical, cynical and moot. The answer to the question above is No. in thunder.

Now, in the last few days, President Obama was shocked of news coming from a government, single payer, health care service operated for the sole care of American heroes - the VA - that women and men who served this nation in uniform were put on waiting lists and many died.  He is mad.

Dick Durbin, no stranger to faux-rage and veteran himself, must be madder than a wet-hen.

Anger aside, Progressive Democrats must look to their priorities.

President Obama and Senator Dick Durbin will fly in on Air Force One, land at O'Hare, transfer to one of four huge Marine Corps helicopters, fly to Northerly Island, land, limbo up and disrupt downtown, near north, near west, and near south side traffic and hog Lake Shore Drive in order to fill- the coffers with pay-to-playo-ah from Gay Marriage Media Tycoon Fred Eychaner and some Chicago Green Capitalist.*

These are Progressive priorities.

American veterans have single payer health care.  The Veterans Administration Health Services is the new distraction from Progressive priorities,

The Obama Administration Transition Team ( Hope & Change 2008) was warned of serious systemic problems in the VA Health Care Services and those concerns flew in the face of Obama's number one and only achievement - ObamaCare.

Dick Durbin and President Obama will not visit Hines Hospital in Maywood.

They have their Progressive priorities in order.

*Chicago energy entrepreneur Michael Polsky and his wife, Tanya, and media mogul Fred Eychaner will host President Barack Obama when he comes to town next week for fundraisers for U.S. Democratic Sens. Dick Durbin of Illinois and Michael Bennet of Colorado.
The Polskys will hold a pre-dinner reception May 22 at their Gold Coast home. And dinner will be held at Mr. Eychaner's home in Lincoln Park.
Mr. Polsky, who a few years ago donated $8 million to the Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship at the University of Chicago, has been a supporter of Mr. Obama. He donated $25,000 toward Mr. Obama's 2009 inauguration.
Mr. Eychaner, CEO of Chicago-based Newsweb Corp., has donated more than $14 million to political action committees supporting Mr. Obama and Democratic causes.
The price of the reception ranges from $10,000 to $15,000 per person, with the higher price for those who want to co-chair the event. Dinner guests will be paying $17,500 per person. The high prices include photo ops. General admission tickets to the reception are $1,000.
AN OVERNIGHT STAY
I hear Mr. Obama's visit will include an overnight stay. Who knows whether he'll put his head on a pillow at his home in Kenwood, or at the Sheraton Chicago Hotels & Towers, where he stayed two years ago for the NATO/G8 summits.
Mr. Obama's return to Chicago comes on the heels of an April fundraising soiree for the Democratic National Committee.
For that event, he attended the home of Craig Freedman and Grace Tsao-Wu. Mr. Freedman is president of Freedman Seating, maker of bus and truck seats, and she owns Tabula Tua tableware company.
Mr. Durbin is assistant majority leader of the U.S. Senate and Mr. Bennet is chair of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. Mr. Durbin has no serious challenger, but it sure is nice to have a pile of money that only the president of the United States can deliver—just in case.
Follow Shia on Twitter at @ShiaKapos.

 http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20140516/BLOGS03/140519814/polskys-eychaner-will-host-obama-at-fundraisers

Rahm Appoints Panel To Demand Raise in Minimum Wage - 100% Lefties in total Agreement!

From world of Progressive foregone conclusions comes yet another! Progressives scream, "This Can't Wait!"  They get defeated.  They wait. They enlist just the right columnists who will jump when asked, like the editorial boards of all Chicago media. They will wait and then they will shriek, This Can't Wait!" and Behold, their dominance over common sense and common people!

 Rahm appointed a panel of the usual suspects to kick up the volume for coming Minimum Wage bullhorns-

Now, Emanuel is leading the charge for a Chicago-only ordinance that would resurrect some of the same anti-business claims. It comes on the heels of a partial ban on plastic bags that, the Il. Retail Merchants Association has argued, would also raise business costs.

“A Chicago-only increase in minimum wages will have a direct cost to jobs and a direct effect on the number of hours worked by employees at a time when Chicago has a very high unemployment rate. In certain areas of the city, the unemployment rate nears 20 percent,” said Tanya Triche, vice-president and general counsel of the Il. Retail Merchants Association.

Besides Bourman and Burns, the other group members include: Deborah Bennett, senior program officer, Polk Bros. Foundation; Matt Brandon, SEIU Local 73; Ald. Walter Burnett (27th); Sol Flores, executive director, La Casa Norte; Theresa Mintle, CEO, Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce; Ald. Emma Mitts (37th); Ald. Joe Moore (49th); Ald. Ameya Pawar (47th); Maria Pesqueira, Mujeres Latinas en Accion; Ald. Ariel Reboyras (30th); Sam Toia, president, Illinois Restaurant Association; Andrea Zopp, president and CEO, Chicago Urban League; Tanya Triche, IRMA.

Chock Full of the Hyde Park Mafia.   The only other goof missing is Proco Joe Moreno.

Note, Citizen!  Not one member of a genuine labor organization, much less any member of the skilled trades unions.  SEIU is a PAC masquerading as a 'labor' union. Polk Brothers Foundation is in the vaguard of every lefty idea and initiative. In the Big Box Wal-Mart6 fiasco, SEIU pushed Chicago readers abor leaders into the spinning blades of public ridicule in order to 'clear the way' for the easy Alinsky On Ramp paved by Mayor Pot-Holes.

Not one middle class, ethnic, breeder, tax-paying blue-collar alderman ( e.g. Matt O'Shea 18thWard, Jimmy Balcer 13th Ward) . Rather, Alderman Joe "Goose Guts Ethics" Moore who is still strolling beneath the clouds of Progressive Corruption and Walter " Changed Man" Burnett will form the ethical core of the panel.

Chicagoland is exactly like the CNN show piece.   Imagine.

The Seeker Says Secularist Will Select for Chicago Catholics: Archbishop Chosen by Holy Spirit is So . . .Wrong Side of History

The Seeker - The Chicago Tribune's Holistic Spiritualist Manya Brachear-Pashman determined that 'secular forces' will play a key role in the selection of Chicago's next Archbishop.

Manya failed to mention that Chicago's Archbishop Francis Cardinal George spent Mothers Day celebrating the Eucharist with expectant mothers at Holy Name Cathedral and will ordain twelve priests on this coming Saturday. Pretty busy for a guy fighting cancer, ministering to troubled teens, dealing with Pastoral Center bureaucrats and lawyers, managing the largest Archdiocesan school system in America and still answering his phone when guys like me give him a call about some family in need of his prayers and good offices. That's The Seeker!

Manya Brachear warns us unevolved  Friday Tilapia Tasters this - "As much as Chicago's Roman Catholics believe the selection of the city's next archbishop will be guided by the Holy Spirit, experts and history point to other forces, such as demographics and local politics, that help shape such decisions."

I know that I generally fail to consult the Paul Simon Institute on matters theological and take a somewhat dim of the power of Mount Horeb's(WI) Circle Sanctuary dictae in matters ecclesiastical, but I continue to doubt that the late Dawn Clark Netsch's pie-chart bandito Ralphie Martire's Center for Tax and Budget Accountability which drove Illinois off the cliff, or Thundering Dick Simpson's Cut & Paste Political Papers Workshops at Cement City ( UIC) will be determining, much less compelling, factors in the selection of whoever wears Cardinal George's massive wing-tips.

I doubt very much that fatuous Catholic back-sliders like Governor Pat Quinn, Senator Dithering Dick Durbin, Congressman Wee Michael Quigley will be asked to give voice to the episcopal selection recommendations presented to Pope Francis I anymore than the seedlings gifted to His Holiness by President Obama will see the light of day.

The Seeker found a 'source' who offers insight to the debt American Catholics should and must offer bonfires of thanksgiving due to government largess in their lives -

Jo-Renee Formicola, a political science professor at Seton Hall University, a Catholic institution in New Jersey, said while the pope might be aware that the church relies heavily on public funds to fulfill its mission, that's probably a minor factor in choosing George's successor.
"He will make his decision based on what is the best religious, spiritual role that the church can play and the individual is someone who's got to be able to straddle the problems between Catholic Charities and the state governmental structure," she said. "This is not a political appointment. It's a religious appointment."
She said she would not be surprised to see an archbishop who shares Obama's experience of community activism, largely honed in Chicago's Catholic parishes.

Let's see, Prof!  Pope Francis I is at the top of his game. Barack Obama . . .?????? Mmmmmm.  No game. I doubt the Pope will spread the Obama Playbook on the Vatican gym floor in this matter.

I do not understand why in the world The Seeker did not ask Cook County Board President Toni " The Crypt-Keeper" Preckwinkle about the apostolic succession here in Chicago. After all, Toni Preckwinkle was on the payroll at Visitation High School for a brief period of time.

Gee. 

Mayor Prickly, or Toni Preckwinkle? With Whom Would You Share a Pizza and Cold Pitcher of Draft at Vito & Nick's?

Rahm Emanuel can be Prickly*. Polls can be Picky - skewed to serve up just the right conclusion., like every poll conducted by the Paul Simon Institute.  Polls tell us the foregone conclusion to every thing - science, my boy, science.

Now, we helots are treated to a poll conducted to belabor the obvious ( Rahm is just Prickly) and conclude that Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle is sweeter than bear meat.“Right now, Rahm is not connecting. If he doesn’t do that, he’s gonna lose,” McKeon said.
Emanuel is raising campaign cash at a frenzied pace — with more than $7 million in the bank already and former President Bill Clinton headlining a mega-fundraiser next month — in hopes of scaring off serious challengers.
He’d better hope the strategy works, according to the new poll, which measured Emanuel’s support against County Board President Toni Preckwinkle — the challenger City Hall fears most — along with three others: Ald. Bob Fioretti (2nd); Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis and former Ald. Robert Shaw (9th).
Shaw is the only declared mayoral challenger.
If the election were held today, Emanuel would find himself in a horse race.
The mayor would get 29 percent of the vote to Preckwinkle’s 26 percent. The poll shows Lewis finishing third with 10 percent, followed by Fioretti at 5 percent and Shaw with 3 percent. An estimated 27 percent of voters interviewed were undecided.
The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.2 percentage points, higher when the results are broken down by demographic factors. More than 39 percent of respondents were interviewed on their cellphones.Chicago Sun Times - The Progressive Praetorian Guard of Chicago

Rahm is a Progressive, Toni Preckwinkle is a Progressive, Ald. Bob Fioretti is a Progressive, Karen Lewis is a Progressive coached by a Socialist - Jesse Sharkey. They each one of them have the personality of a dial tone.

Former Alderman Bob Shaw is not a Progressive.  So, he's got that going for him.  Bob Shaw is a rascal and that can't hurt. Bob Shaw is a fun guy and very comfortable in his own larcenous skin. The choice in this case would be like choosing a night of succotash and warm milk with Bill Moyers, or cards, a jug, a swell Dame and maybe some family friendly gun-play with Bret Maverick.

My test for political office is always determining the intrinsic worth of a candidate based upon past performance - would I care to spend any time with that person?

Would you -female, gay, Catholic, Unitarian, Agnostic, breeder, affluent, financially challenged, male, sixteen inch softball Alumna/i , homeowner, or homeless - care to nail a few squares from a Vito & Nick's family sized 18" Pizza Supreme and an ice cold pitcher of whatever domestic malted grain beverage is on tap with either Rahm Emanuel or Toni Preckwinkle?

Man, I'd rather have my gums scraped a Parkinson's afflicted orthdontis with dirty fingers and world-class halitosis.

Toni Preckwinkle makes Mayor Prickly seem like Bing Crosby on Quaalude.  The two of them must have spent their childhood happy hours torturing G.I. Joe and Barbie and then matriculated to social studies.

Now, I'd grease up my fingers, face and formal wear over piping hot 360 Degrees of Vito & Nick's with former Ald. Bob Shaw any hour of the day.  I have witnessed the way Bob Shaw treats people far less fortunate than himself and it was according to Gospel I hear read homilized on Sunday's at Sacred Heart Misssion Church, St, Odilo's in Berwyn and St. John Cantius.

I'll take a larcenous rascal with shady history who treats poor, helpless and needy people like they are the most important people on the planet and Bob Shaw does exactly that.  I know he might tweak "opportunity" to his personal gain, because he's tell me so.

I know Toni Preckwinkle and Rahm Emanuel would light a box of kittens on fire, if policy dictates, and that they would not leave a nickel left un-stolen from people of Chicago, Cook County, Illinois and the United States. They are Progressives, Reformers, BGA Approved and Media Protected Foregone Conclusions.

Poll your neighbors, boys and girls.  The Progressive pole will continue  whack us all between the eyes.

Mayor Prickly is the sobriquette coined by Chicago writer and Vito & Nick;'s habitue John Kass.  At first I thought Mayor Prickly was an homage to Jane Austen, William Congreve and Capt. Dick Steele.

Dorothy Brown is a Reformer Made Good - Mr. Blue, Mr. Rose, Mrs. Brown and Long Green!

Do people go bad?  That seems like a pretty juvenile explanation.  Rather, Some people do bad because they have the opportunity to do so and fore sake any and all ethical truths attached to themselves when opportunity patiently awaited arrives to grab it all.  Most people do not do bad things, because of ethical truths which formed them and the moral consequences that civilized society forms out of those truths.

Catholics are obligated to attend Mass on Sundays, Holy Days of obligation within the liturgical year.  Most Catholics go to Mass without consideration of consequences, rewards or punishments.  As my Dad would say, " You join the club' you go the meetings."

My Dad and his brothers were devout Catholics, but they didn't 'work' at it.  They'd pull a Murphy after the Gospels, or Communion - duck out for the car and a meet up at Billy Ellis's Wooden House on 79th & Ashland, or Louie Kotecki's at 77th & Ashland.   Others, like Mr. Blue, would make note of their departures and shake their heads sadly that Veterans and Homeowners could give scandal to good men like themselves. Mr. Blue in particular.  Mr. Blue was a red-lining real estate mogul and a basket passer at the Big Mass.

This was Little Flower Parish through the 1960's.  Monsignor Stephen McMahon* owned real estate thoughout the parish.  He was a CPA and JD as well as an STD.  Tuition was free for parishioners' children at the grammar school and the high school set nominal tuition for parishioners. My senior year tuition in the fall of 1969 was $ 80, including fees.  Mr. Blue also dealt in the real estate.  He was what became know in Alinsky language as a 'block-buster.'

Mr. Blue was head of the League of Decent Chaps and the St. Dominic Savio Self-Satisfied Communion Gulpers and was aforce in the Christian Family Movement and quoted Bishop Pila, "The Church speaks clearly of the duties of family members to one another that build a radiant faith. . . . But the Church doesn't stop there; it also speaks of the relationship between families and the larger culture, the duty of service, working for the common good, welcoming strangers, and giving voice to the Christian conscience. That is the message; you are the messenger". Yes, Yes.

My Dad and his brothers were incorrigibles - they'd smoke Luckies and Chesterfields and make fun of Mr. Blue and the Rubber Pants Gang that hung around the rectory making pains in the ass of themselves and rules for the thousands of parishioners.

Mr. Blue did not like the fact that Monsignor Stephen McMahon, STD, JD, & CPA published a parish directory that identified not only member families, but exact dollar amount 'dropped' in the purple, green, and maroon velvet baskets attached to very long poles and passed through the pews at every Mass. Into those velvet vessels went white envelopes with names of the family. Monsignor accounted for every gift.

Mr. Blue, a Redline Race Hustling Real Estate Mogul, gave far less to parish bucket than Mr. Prendergast, the Kerryman brakeman, who had twenty-one (21) children and lived along the tracks at 75th Place between Wood and Wolcott Streets.  Mr. Blue gave less than nearly every tradesman, copper, fireman, coal yard worker, dairyman, or the white collar salaried helots of Peoples Gas and Bell Telephone.

Mr. Blue was a reformer.  Once Cardinal Cody made war on the old Irish Land barons as he had the New World identify pastors with money in the bank as racist neanderthals.  Followers of Project Renewal, like Mr. Blue who could quote chapter and verse from the writings of the European Society of Catholic Theology.  Monsignor McMahon was Emeritus'd out of power.  Mr. Blue and Cardinal " Louisiana Fats" as he was know throughout the Chicago Church Militant, were thick as thieves.

Mr. Blue succeeded in having the finger-waggin annual Directory, as Blue called it, ended.  Without competition, guess what happend.  Yep.  contributions paled.  The high school was closed, though it had no debt and waiting list of hundreds from outside of the parish, by Cardinal Cody. Race relations nosed dived and real estate opportunities soared.  Mr. Blue was making millions and property values vanished.

Mr. Blue was what we call a REFORMER.

Today, Dorothy Brown is being painted by Don Rose in the Chicago Sun Times ( interesting surnames, no?) as a REFORMER gone bad.  Dorothy Brown is the Cook County Clerk of the Circuit Court starring in Governor Pat Quinn's Street Money to Community Folks Program, now under Federal and State investigation.  Quinn needs Brown grabbing Green. Rose steps in to imply that Brown only grabbed Green after the Emerald Isle Lads lured her with Pots O' Gold.

“She’s one of those cases of a reformer gone wrong,” longtime Chicago political consultant Don Rose says. “She more or less joined forces with the regulars. She got into the big money and lots of patronage … Dorothy, unfortunately, found that politics is not only public service but privately beneficial.”

Rose says one of the main attractions of the job was the number of patronage jobs. As we’ve learned through the decades, the ability to hand out jobs significantly raises your clout rating.

“The clerk hasn’t had to do that much; it’s a moderate-level professional office, record-keeping basically,” Rose said. “I think you hear the legal community complain. It’s a pretty sloppily run office.”

In 2012, following the election to her fourth term in office, Brown stopped accepting campaign donations from employees.

Don Rose says Dorothy Brown was a REFORM-minded nit-wit and incompetent being played by evil Mexican and Irish bandits, “They are out there protecting her. The Burkes, the Berrios’ and the Madigans,” Rose says. “She’s part and parcel of the organization now.”

You see, THE ORGANIZATION is not REFORM. Coalitions are Reform.

I beg to differ, Don Rose.

Mrs. Brown is Mr. Blue - REFORMERS are thieves awaiting an opportunity.  Opportunity knocks but once and that comes after waiting patiently and very loudly for a Cardinal Cody, or a Governor Pat Quinn.


Like mantra of the Christian Family Movement

"Progressive Government( REFORM)  speaks clearly of the duties of family members to one another that build a radiant faith. . . . But the Movement doesn't stop there; it also speaks of the relationship between families and the larger culture, the duty of service, working for the common good, welcoming strangers, and giving voice to the Progressive conscience. That is the message; you are the messenger". and the Message is Opportunity.

Most people do not steal.  Reformers?  Give them the opportunity.

* I  remember authority. The strongest figure of my childhood, stronger than my parents surely, was Father Stephen McMahon, Irish Chieftain Pastor of Little Flower, striding along the sidewalks of his realm with his two huge Saint Bernard dogs. Father McMahon would nod to the children, bow to the women, smile at the men—all of whom greeted him and stepped out of his way as he passed. When I became an intellectual I scorned Father McMahon’s aloofness. I thought a priest should be a pal or a mentor. Now I know that somewhere inside of me I was comforted by Father McMahon’s presence. He secured the boundaries. Everything inside his territory was stable, safe, dependable. That’s not a bad way to grow up. By Donald P. Costello

BitCoin "Super" Trips" on Information Highway! The Tyranny of the Smart Kids and Us Dopes

Uncle Joe was no NHS member himself, but he knew what smart kids can do . . .and how nasty they can be.

I have been hearing about bitcoins, a new cyber-medium-of-exchange, for months without taxing my old brain-pan too much - not unlike the attention I paid to Father Reinhardt Poetzinger, O.S.A. during my 'gentleman's D' engagement with hard science in 1968.   I nod my visceral grasp of the topic and imply "Do go on."
.
That is until I am tested and challenged.

I read up on bitcoins and now know . . .absolutely nothing. I even went to Bitcoins for Dummiers.  The example given to this five year old equates the giving of an apple to me, by a hypothetical Dude, sitting on park bench . . .Eyeing Little Girls With Bad Intent . . .sorry, that is how this old think muscle works . . .HEY, AQUALUNG!!!!!!!!!

Back to it.  The explanation goes on to suppose that the imagined gifting of said apple had taken place.

The apple’s yours!(mine)  I can’t give you another apple because I don’t have any left. I can’t control it anymore. The apple left my possession completely. You have full control over that apple now. You can give it to your friend if you want, and then that friend can give it to his friend, and so on.

So that’s what an in-person exchange looks like. I guess it’s really the same, whether I’m giving you a banana, a book, a quarter, or a dollar bill …

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Oh, Heaven Forefend!

Now, let’s say I have one digital apple. Here, I’ll give you my digital apple.

 A digital apple?  They make them?

Ah! Now it gets interesting.
How do you know that digital apple which used to be mine, is now yours, and only yours? Think about it for a second. It’s more complicated, right? How do you know that I didn’t send that apple to Uncle Tommy as an email attachment first? Or your friend Joe? Or my friend Lisa too?
Maybe I made a couple of copies of that digital apple on my computer. Maybe I put it up on the internet and one million people downloaded it.
As you see, this digital exchange is a bit of a problem. Sending digital apples doesn’t look like sending physical apples.

A bit?   A digital apple?  They make them?

Some brainy computer scientists actually have a name for this problem: it’s called the double-spending problem. But don’t worry about it. All you need to know is that it’s confused them for quite some time and they’ve never solved it. Until now.
But let’s try to think of a solution on our own.

Double spending defeated in one swell foop~! So virtual usury is avoided? No!!!!!!!!!!!!  Mr. Smart guy goes on about virtual ledgers that track gifted digital apples.  I learn that I could be rewarded by as many as twenty-five digital apples!  I could be!  I could be in the starting line-up for tonight's game in he Cross-town Beat-down of the White Sox over the Lovable Losers!  I could be squiring around an SAS team of blond-goddess stewardesses with the toothsome sirens springing for my Surf & Turf at Benny's Chop-House!

I could understand this new economic Ponzi scam as much as I did Green Credits that have all but gone deep into the outhouse well.  I could. . .but I sure @#$%ing Do Not!!!!!

• Bitcoins are now allowable for Political Action Committee donations!
• Notorious 23 year old Dutch Dope Slinger Cornelius Jan " Super Trips" Slomp was convicted in a Chicago court and awaits sentencing for using bit-coins in exchange for gifts of dope.   

I do know that Green Credits somehow have caused my ComED Bill to rocket up another 38% via Save Our Planet Usury!

I do know that if Bitcoins can make a Dutch Kid a Sho'Nuff Gangstah, they can help Barack Obama's handlers manage to make America the oligarchy Progressives demand.

Smart kids are tyrannical little turds.  I speak as a high school teacher of long and vast experience.  I had more headaches and heartbreaks due to NHS facsists and their parents - " Seth should NOT have gotten a mere B+ - spelling is so judgmental; Doncha Think?"  No. Smart kids took home glittering prizes, but did and could not deign to be in a school play, do community service, wrestle, play volleyball, or hit the blocking sleds during Dog Days in August.  They worked on their GPAs.

Now, they do unto us.

Hey, Pilgrim -Read Progressive's Progress! It Will Give You Bunyans

Career Grifter and CTA Appointee Forrest Claypool just could not 'lean' right enough to avoid a photo-up with serial speeder and scoff-law Mayor Coon Eyes, while the daughter of Progressive Nepotism in Chicago Deb Mell works her face muscles ala Dick Durbin -feigned concern masking a cartoon cavalcade playing in the brain-pan.

“Mr. Worldly-Wiseman is not an ancient relic of the past. He is everywhere today, disguising his heresy and error by proclaiming the gospel of contentment and peace achieved by self-satisfaction and works. If he mentions Christ, it is not as the Savior who took our place, but as a good example of an exemplary life. Do we need a good example to rescue us, or do we need a Savior? ”
― John Bunyan, The Pilgrim's Progress: From This World to That Which Is to Come

The above photo from today's Chicago Tribune article offering Chicagoland's mythopoeic star and Red Light Running Mayor an opportunity to avoid blame, offers the face of Progressives.  You get what you vote for when you do back Progressives.  You get a metaphorical knife in the kidneys, if you happen to be an old time Ward healer.  You get betrayed, if you helped them nuzzle up to Power.  You get a daily shower of contempt and economic burden, if you pay taxes and work for a living in support of your wife and children.
Once the government cash cow is thoroughly milked as dry as a Progressive's heart, We all get stuck with bills and the clean-up.

We are all to blame for not laughing Progressives back into the crazy-house of pious secular platitudes and policy scams from whence they spring.  Laugh early, or cry often.

That is the Progressive Chicago Way.

The Demon in the Altarpiece, as well as the Details

This is a stunner.  I was reading last night and took a break.  I scanned some great art pieces on the internet and was struck by this section from Issenheim Artarpiece depicting the joy of angels at the Nativity. The altar piece is a polytych ( many panels) depicting the life of Christ.

One of the angelic troubadours stuck out like Sox-fan at Murphy Bleachers. So, looked up some commentary and found the Foxylibrarian.com - Foxy explained things to me.

Art historians believe he is the devil, the beautiful fallen angel. He is missing out on the action because, through his own actions, he has been cut off from the glory of God forever, and doesn’t recognize Christ because he has taken human form. The comb on his head is a peacock’s comb, signifying pride. Why he is feathered is anyone’s guess, but representing the devil in this fashion was unprecedented. I’m also intrigued by his strange, spindly, bejeweled fingers at the bow and on the strings, which play the instrument at physiologically impossible angles. He was the most beautiful of angels but now that he is corrupted he has turned a sickly shade of green exactly that of gangrene. He also seems to be developing a wattle.

That is the devil in the details.  You gotta love people who can convey our better angels and include the screw-ups.  That is some chord Old Nick is hitting.

Mary's Month of May - No Matter What the Reds Might Say

The Reds like to march on May 1st. They have the microphones these days and the money to pay for them.

May is the month of Mary - don't cost nothing and no gets arrested, or beaten up, much less killed.  Mary is the Mother of God.  Here in Chicago the usual Che Guevara re-enactors and their political purse puppies will wow the media and march for or against something at the Haymarket Memorial and Union Park on Ashland.  Funny thing is that the same loud mouths never seem to do anything for people in any way, shape or form.

My Grandfather was a Jim Larkin man in Liverpool before coming here and helping organize the engineers.  Jim Larkin was the founder of the IWW that later morphed (roughly1920)into the Communist Party USA her in the States.

By that time, most serious labor leaders shunned the radical idiocies of the Reds and helped create the American middle class that is rooted in Faith.  The Reds demand nonsense and ignorant people step in line behind them.

The Reds and their useful idiots in politics, academics, the arts and journalism can not stomach Faith of any kind in people who actually work for a living. Mary Harris - Mother Jones is a great example.

Those people know that May Day signals the Month of Mary.


May is Mary's Month - here's why.
 

The month of May is traditionally dedicated to Mary in many cultures. May is considered the season of the beginning of new life. Already in Greek culture, May was dedicated to Artemis, the goddess of fecundity. In Roman culture, May was dedicated to Flora, the goddess of bloom, of blossoms. The Romans celebrated ludi florales (literally: floral games) at the end of April, asking the intercession of Flora for all that blooms. This is also related to the medieval practice of expelling winter. May 1 was considered the beginning of growth.
At one time, the custom of having a Mary-month was independent from the month of May as such:
A very old tradition known as Tricesimum (or: Thirty-Day Devotion to Mary; also called Lady Month) was originally held from August 15 - September 14. The exact dates or origin of this devotion are unknown, but the custom is still practiced here and there.
Mary Month, as yet unrelated to a specific period, has been known since baroque times (Sources: Johannes Nadasi; Theophilus Marianus, 1664; J. X. Jacolet, Mensis Marianus, 1724). This devotion was comprised of about thirty spiritual exercises in honor of Mary.
Since medieval times, we have had the combination between Mary and the month of May. Among the earliest witnesses are: Alphonsus X, "el sabio," King of Castille, Spain (1221-1284) with his "Cantigas de Santa Maria" ("Ben venna Mayo"). Here and elsewhere, both Mary and the month of May are greeted, welcomed and celebrated on specific days in May. Later, the whole month of May became the month of Mary. On each day of this month, special devotions to Mary were organized. This custom originated in Italy (for example: Ferrara, 1784). It was spread widely during the nineteenth century, a century well-known for its monthly devotions (Heart of Jesus in June; Rosary in October).

Hate Jews? No Sweat. Anti-Semitism is SALONFAHIG

Meet the Mitford Girls!  They were John Kerry before he learned to love Ketchup!

"The English have no notion of the Jewish danger. Our worst Jews work only behind the scenes. We think with joy of the day when we will be able to say England for the English! Out with the Jews! Heil Hitler![ P.S. please publish my name in full, I want everyone to know I am a Jew hater." Hon. Unity Mitford 

"I'm sure he (Hitler) was to blame for the extermination of the Jews . . ."I'm sure he (Hitler) was to blame for the extermination of the Jews"  The Hon. Diana Mitford, Lady Mosley

The Hon. Diana Mitford, Lady Mosely and her Sis Unity Mitford 

Secretary of State John Kerry went all Donald " Big Whip" Sterling about Israel's need to Judenrein.  Hey, John Kerry is a Vietnam Vet.  Thought I'd get that factoid out of the way.  He is also a Harvard Grad and married the heir to the Heinz Ketchup fortune on second run nuptials and he ran for President and we was a U.S. Senator for many years.

Secretary Kerry said that Israel could become an Apartheid State.  Apartheid is a Dutch word that means ‘separateness,’ and has come to mean any damn thing.  John Kerry, in my C student's opinion, is a dope, not real bright, short of smart and pretty much a dim bulb.  Elected and appointed public office is the warehouse of limited.  There are some exceptions to this canard, but not a whole hell of a lot. Secretary Kerry is smarter than Dick Durbin of Illinois and much dumber than Seator Al Franken of Minnesota. So there you have it.

Now, John Kerry s fronting for the Valerie Jarrett White House. Valerie Jarrett is the Cardinal Richelieu of President Barack Obama's Louis XIII.  Valerie Jarrett is the judge of our National Who's Got Progressive Talent and has selected Samantha Powers, Susan Rice and past mistresses of mayhem as Desiree Rogers and Anita Dunn to chart the path for America.  The trouble being, America has hit a dead alley in a bad neighborhood and the hillbillies behind us have a stalled garbage truck.

Kerry mouths platitudes dispense by people much smarter than Ketchup John, like Noam Chomsky and Cass Sustein.  Sustein is married to Irish OXFAM queen of the United Nations Samantha Powers.

The Chomsky Sustein variety of smart guy, equates Israel's steadfast defence of democracy to facsism, because that plays well in Europe and Europe is really, really, really tired of hearing about the Holocaust and 'blah, blah, blah, get over it already!'  The systematic and diverse European murder of  Jews in the 1940's is now intellectually and socially as interesting as that stupid and boring Potato Famine. Get over it, Paddy! Have you seen Twelve Years a Slave?

Yes; powerful. 

However, there is a real balance in the universe that should make Al Sharpton as accountable for his words and deeds as any owner of LA Clippers, but that is not how some demand things wag.  Me?  I know for a fact that at the very least Six Million Jews* were murdered by diverse continental with Europeans more than a nod from the British Isles including Eire in 1940's.  I also know for a  fact that more two million of my ancestors were starved to death and buried in mass graves like Skibbereen** - been there.  The same mentality allowed Paddy and Hymie to the charnel house are parsing policy today. 

The same creeps with inflated resumes and college transcripts who managed to help many Romanian, Ukrainian, Lithuanian, Estonian, French, Austrian and Arab people get their Jewish neighbors shot, gassed, looted, starved and tormented in the 1940's - people like Edward Duke of York, retired Kind and Duke of Windsor and of course Diana and Unity Mitford - the Der Sturm cover girls.

I recall the wonderful indictment of Leftist Progressive ( John Kerry et al) anti-semitism by the Dutch writer Leon De Winter.  It was when idiots in Chicago like Kevin Clark and Andy Thayer were ginning up support from Palestinian Gaza Gang in prelude to the Illinois Gay Marriage legislative push that De Winter challenged the OXFAM ACLU Peoples Law Office anti-Semites with this - Gaza is not occupied by Israel - it is Judenrein!  That's Jew Free, don't you know.  The left ignores facts in arguments and increases the volume of howlers in its bleachers.

Anti-Semitism is fashionable because Progressive is fashionable, or Salonfahig, as Goebbles used to say to the charming Mitford sisters.

*

**

Tales of the South Side & Billy Corgan: Barks Coleman's Childhood Home for Sale

By Bob Goldsborough
Special to the Tribune
7:48 a.m. CDT, April 28, 2014
The four-bedroom, raised ranch-style house in west suburban Glendale Heights where Smashing Pumpkins founder and frontman Billy Corgan spent much of his preteen and teenage years has been listed for $175,000.
One of the most successful rockers ever to come out of the Chicago area, Corgan, 47, now lives in a massive vintage mansion on Lake Michigan in Highland Park.
But for close to a decade -- from 1977 until he graduated from Glenbard North High School in Carol Stream in 1985 -- Corgan hung his hat in his family’s 1,531-square-foot house in Glendale Heights.
Corgan’s father, blues and rock guitarist William Corgan Sr., and stepmother, Penelope, paid $49,000 for the house in 1977, according to public records. After the couple divorced in 1983, Corgan, his brother and his half-brother all continued living in the home with his stepmother, according to court records.
After graduating from high school, Corgan moved to St. Petersburg, Fla. for a brief stint before returning to Chicago and proceeding to form the Smashing Pumpkins. In 1986, Penelope Corgan sold the house for $80,000 to . . . 

I deserve a big old spank for not giving Chicago rock retiree and celebrity pain-in-the-ass his props, yesterday! Well, I was busy and that is certainly no excuse.  The Chicago Tribune posted the above article on the front page, because Billy Corgan's "childhood' home is on the realtor's block.

How about that? Well, did you know this ?

Driving home from Leo High School yesterday, I took a turn west through the old neighborhood along 76th Street.  I noticed a for sale sign on former the home of Terry "Barks" Coleman. Barks was the son of button accordion genius Maurice " Mossie" Coleman who immigrated to Chicago during the Irish Civil War from northwest County Kerry.

Mossie Coleman was a pathologically taciturn gentleman, who closely kept his own counsel, but otherwise spoke volumes when his huge fingers danced on the buttons of his vintage Salterell  Le Bouebe with like of Joe Shannon,  John McGreevy,  Eleanor Neary,  James Keane,Sr, Frank Thornton, Jimmy Neary, Maida Sugrue and the great Terry Teahan at Hanley's House of Happiness on 79th Street, AOH's Cannon Hall on Halsted and at every Ceile in Chicago.

Mossie worked as a stationary oiler/fireman at the old Audy Home which was a very good trade and bought the Georgian two-story home at 76th & Wood Street in 1955. Mrs. Coleman worked as a waitress at the Beverly Woods Banquet Hall in Morgan Park on the weekends and raised the four boys Terry, Austin, Brice and Maurice, who later went by Maurey eschewing the Turkey bird*cognomen.

Terry was my age and pal'd it up all through grammar school and into high school.  Terry became "Barks," in 6th Grade when he came to school each day with a nasty chest-deep cold and emitted massive Barks when he coughed and annoyed the perpetually annoyed Sister Doralese, RSM.  " Barking, Barking Barking Terry Coleman! Ye'll bark yer last on the next go round, my fine man! No room in the TB home for the likes of ye?" She was as pretty as she was nice.

Barks has that name, like every young person who grew up on the south side and a handle attached by dint of signal flaw, physical, ancestral, or moral to his/her presence on earth.  Barks fit Terry Coleman like a glove, or cheap pants.  He will carry that name into eternity.

Barks learned button accordion from his father and transferred his talents and skills to the Farfisa Mini-Organ in 1966 and played with a local garage band at dances, block parties and beer summits in the abandoned house Ronnie Graff and Al McFarland discovered over by Lindbloom High School.  Barks Coleman was in demand as a musician and was picked up by Cyrcul Jerques - 
Five neat guys from Little Flower, Tommy More and St Sabina's parishes - That's Barks at the keys in the greaseball shades.

 Barks could do all the requisite organ and piano riffs to the best tunes of 1960's. He could Paul Revere, Young Rascal, Wilson Pickett, Vanilla Fudge, Kingsman and Steppenwolf with the best of them.

His old house is up for sale, just like Uncle Fester of Smashing Pumpkins. 

* "In the South side of Chicago, the term "turkey bird" is often used to describe a person who was born in Ireland. Although both my parents were Irish American, my father was a "turkey bird," while my mother was born in the United States. My siblings and I often affectionately referred to our father and his Irish-born friends as "turkey birds." Neither my father nor his friends ever took offense to this term and, in fact, used the term themselves to define a person’s exact roots. Recently one of my brothers was at a family party and started to discuss the origin of this term with a nephew (whose father also was born in Ireland). A woman, who is not of Irish heritage herself, but whose husband was born in Ireland, overheard the conversation and took great offense to the discussion. From where did this term originate? Is this term used throughout the United States? Has the nature of this term changed? Is it now considered offensive? Was it always offensive and my father and his friends just had thick skins?"  Kathleen Klinger

The Benefits of Optimal Testosterone, or Not.

Recent studies indicate that males are differnt from girls.

Post by Chris Horton.

Welldone, Men!~


Chris Horton

• Birmingham, Alabama