Pope Exonerates Jews For Crucifiction: What About Gefilte Fish?

(Newser) – Pope Benedict would like to be clear: the Jewish people as a whole were not responsible for the death of God's only son. The pope makes the sweeping exoneration in his new book, Jesus of Nazareth, excerpts of which were released today. In it, Benedict presents a biblical and theological analysis that explains why such an interpretation—which has been used for centuries to justify the persecution of Jews—is not true.

The statement isn't exactly a new one for the Vatican, which in 1965 released a document that firmly stated Jesus' death couldn't be attributed to Jews as a whole. But Jewish scholars welcomed the pope's argument, noting that the faithful are more likely to read commentary than old church documents, and saying it would help fight
anti-Semitism.

The great Lenny Bruce might have been to blame for perpetuating that hateful canard when he revealed that a note was found in a basement -

Lenny Bruce once said that all his life all he ever heard from gentiles is "The Jews killed Christ." Bruce said he never really believed it until, one year, he bought a house in Lake Ronkonkama, NY which is on Long Island. On the day he moved in, he went down to the basement to clean up. Behind an old bookcase he discovered a note. Bruce read it. It said, "I did it" and it was signed "Morty."

Nevertheless, to quote Mr. Bruce, " We are all the same, schmuck!"

Yes, we are.

Pope Benedict reiterated the two thousand year late exoneration and that should end that historical and theological blame game once and for all.

I have but one beef with Jews - Gefilte Fish. Good Lord! After the Holocaust, Jews turned the desert that was Palestine into a Garden of Eden -alive with orange groves and trees and universal sanitation! They found water where none was to be had.

How can the people of the One True Living God, the folks who brought not only monotheism to mankind, but also the first genuine codification of moral and social law and articulated Justice for widows and orphans throughout civilization, the poetry of the psalms, and most of all dietary sense and sensibilities to Mankind explain Gefilte Fish?

I have eaten pig's ears ( fried 'Listeners'), smoked pig's feet (crubeen), yards of tripe, calves brains, crawdads, snails, locusts, haggis, boudain, smelts, eel, Buffalo carp, chicken feet, and seaweed and all with some gusto.

I know a guy who would eat the crotch out of a mortally slow 'coon that had been hit by a Jimmy on I-57 in August, but he turned his nose up at Gefilte Fish ( געפֿילטע פֿיש).

In my goyish understanding Gefilte Fish is shredded or ground carp, whitefish, pike, or mullet that is mixed with eggs, onions matzoh meal and either stuffed into the skin of a fish, or formed into balls or logs.

There are two distinct varieties and I have tried both: one is sweet because sugar is added to the mixture, or peppery. The varieties identify either the Galitzianer ( the sweet) who originated from Galicia and settled in Ukrainia, Poland, Germany, and Austria, the Litvak ( peppery) from the Duchy of Lithuania.

The Gefilte Fish is often served with a jelly schmaltz concoction.

The Jews have a rich bountiful banquet of belly busting wonders! Bagels, Blinnys, Kugel, pickled roots and vegetables that are God affirming - Abraham put the knife in me for a Kosher Green Tomato!

What Jews do with a leg of lamb would make a Greek weep with envy! Stews with raisins, nuts, and figs, Only a Jew can smoked a salmnon! Soups,God Bless You! The Jews invented Fish and Chips with Salt and Malted Vinegar and captured the hearts and minds of Welsh, Irish, Scots and Brits!

But Gefilte Fish? After centuries of abuse, perhaps this was your exploding cigar of cuisine? Here, Goychik, try this! Man, it would gag a maggot.

Okay, we had that one coming.

American Naval Power Fades, While America Stares at its Navel.

Last week, pirates attacked and executed four Americans in the Indian Ocean. We and the Europeans have endured literally thousands of attacks by the Somali pirates without taking the initiative against their vulnerable boats and bases even once. Such paralysis is but a symptom of a sickness that started some time ago.

So warns novelist,journalist and historian critic Mark Helprin* in a recent essay that parallels the disturbing announcement by the Iranian Navy that Iran will build a permanent naval base in Syria

Just two days after two Iranian warships reached the Syrian port of Latakia via the Suez Canal, Friday, Feb. 25, an Iranian-Syrian naval cooperation accord was signed providing for Iran to build its first Mediterranean naval base at the Syrian port, DEBKAfile's military and Iranian sources reveal.

The base will include a large Iranian Revolutionary Guards weapons depot stocked with hardware chosen by the IRGC subject to prior notification to Damascus. Latakia harbor will be deepened, widened and provided with new "coastal installations" to accommodate the large warships and submarines destined to use these facilities.


Iran has much to celebrate, DEBKAfile's military sources report. It has acquired its first military foothold on a Mediterranean shore and its first permanent military presence on Syrian soil. Tehran will be setting in place the logistical infrastructure for accommodating incoming Iranian troops to fight in a potential Middle East war.


According to our sources, the "cadets" the Kharg cruiser, one of the two Iranian warships allowed to transit the Suez Canal, was said to be carrying were in fact the first construction crews for building the new port facilities.

Two more events were carefully synchronized to take place in the same week.


On Feb. 24, as the Iranian warships headed from the Suez Canal to Syria, Hamas fired long-range made-in-Iran Grade missiles from the Gaza Strip into Israel, one hitting the main Negev city of Beersheba for the first time since Israel's Gaza campaign two years ago - asDEBKAfile reported on that day. Tehran was using its Palestinian surrogate to flaunt its success in getting its first warships through the Suez Canal in the face of Israeli protests. The Iranians were also parading their offensive agenda in deploying warships on the Mediterranean just 287 kilometers north of Israel's northernmost coastal town of Nahariya.

The second occurrence was a contract announced by Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov for the sale of advanced Russian shore-to-sea cruise missiles to Syria. The Yakhont missile system has a range of 300 kilometers and skims the waves low enough to be undetected by radar. DEBKAfile's military sources take this sale as representing Moscow's nod in favor of the new Iranian base at Latakia, 72 kilometers from the permanent naval base Russia is building at the Syrian port of Tartous.


The Russians are willing to contribute towards the Iranian port's defenses and looking forward to cooperation between the Russian, Iranian and Syrian fleets in the eastern Mediterranean opposite the US Sixth Fleet's regular beat

However, the United States Fleet Sixth Fleet is sending two warships to monitor the situation in Libya. A chartered ferry removed a few hundred Americans from Tripoli last week, while British, French, Italian and Russian vessels carted their citizens out of harm's way.

The spin from the White House holds that its determinations were based upon the safety of the US citizen -nothing safer than a ferry.

America removed the Captain of the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise, because he helped boost morale on that deployed warship in harm's way with bawdy video. The Navel Gazers won. America's debate about anything is controlled by Navel Gazers, if not fools and grifters.

An American writer of great talent Mark Helprin understands our national folly. Americans will self-examine and hair shirt for months about an unpopular or PC utterance by anyone and wholly ignore, in an instance, a calamity of historic proportions - see 9/11. It took no time at all for Americ's belly-button watchers like Noam Chomsky, Ward Churchill and half of Hollywood to blame America for the twin towers attack by Islamists.

. . .And yet the fleet has been made to wither even in time of war. We have the smallest navy in almost a century, declining in the past 50 years to 286 from 1,000 principal combatants. Apologists may cite typical postwar diminutions, but the ongoing 17% reduction from 1998 to the present applies to a navy that unlike its wartime predecessors was not previously built up. These are reductions upon reductions. Nor can there be comfort in the fact that modern ships are more capable, for so are the ships of potential opponents. And even if the capacity of a whole navy could be packed into a small number of super ships, they could be in only a limited number of places at a time, and the loss of just a few of them would be catastrophic.

. . .The United Sates Navy need not follow the Royal Navy into near oblivion. We have five times the population and almost six times the GDP of the U.K., and unlike Britain we were not exhausted by the great wars and their debt, and we neither depended upon an empire for our sway nor did we lose one.

Despite its necessity, deficit reduction is not the only or even the most important thing. Abdicating our more than half-century stabilizing role on the oceans, neglecting the military balance, and relinquishing a position we are fully capable of holding will bring tectonic realignments among nations—and ultimately more expense, bloodletting, and heartbreak than the most furious deficit hawk is capable of imagining. A technological nation with a GDP of $14 trillion can afford to build a fleet worthy of its past and sufficient to its future. Pity it if it does not,

Here is the Syrian point of view -

Syrian Defense Minister Lt. Gen. Ali Mohammad Habib soon put him right on the "cadets' outing." At a ceremony in honor of the Iranian Navy Commander Admiral Habibollah Sayyari, Habib said: "Iranian warships' presence in the Mediterranean Sea for the first time after 32 years is a great move that is going to cripple Israel." Empasis my own.

America needs to straighten its spine and look to our interests around the world. Let Hollywood take care of Dafur and African AIDS for the time being. Iran will have a naval base paid for by Russia in Syria. Israel needs a friend - Israel needs Americans. Americans telling Washington to keep America's Navy strong and present in the world will be a good start.

Americans need to ignore the Navel Gazers and look to our Navy.



*

Born in 1947, Mark Helprin was raised on the Hudson and in the British West Indies. After receiving degrees from Harvard College and Harvard's Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, he did postgraduate work at the University of Oxford, Princeton, and Columbia. He has served in the British Merchant Navy, the Israeli infantry, and the Israeli Air Force. He was published in The New Yorker for almost a quarter of a century, and his stories and essays on politics and aesthetics appear in The Atlantic Monthly, The New Criterion, The Wall Street Journal, Commentary, The New York Times, The National Review, American Heritage, Forbes ASAP, and many other publications here and abroad. Senior Fellow of the Claremont Institute for the Study of Statesmanship and Political Philosophy, Fellow of the American Academy in Rome, Member of the Council on Foreign Relations, former Guggenheim Fellow and Senior Fellow of the Hudson Institute, and Adviser on Defense and Foreign Relations to presidential candidate Robert Dole, he has been awarded the National Jewish Book Award, the Prix de Rome, and the Peggy V. Helmerich Distinguished Author Award, 2006, among other prizes. Translated into more than a dozen languages, his books include A Dove of the East & Other Stories, Refiner's Fire, Ellis Island & Other Stories, Winter's Tale, Swan Lake (With illustrations by Chris Van Allsburg), A Soldier of the Great War, Memoir from Antproof Case, A City in Winter and The Veil of Snows (both with illustrations by Chris Van Allsburg), The Pacific & Other Stories, and Freddy and Fredericka.

http://llphfreedom.blogspot.com/2011/03/iran-to-build-permanent-naval-base-in.html


http://www.anti-semitism.net/syria/iran-to-build-permanent-naval-base-in-syria-real-americans.php

Punish Faith - Gay Agenda

Children are not, in the words of the US Supreme Court in Wisconsin v. Yoder, 406 U.S. 205 (1972), “mere creatures of the State".

Civil unions in Illinois had one very short honeymoon. Wildly ecstatic though that be -gay folks are mad again. To rev-up the bile of breeder folks, Faith needs a tune-up and Manya Brachear of the Tribune is more than compliant especially if Catholic Doctrine, Leadership or Catholics can be on the receiving end of some nonsense. Front page, GLBTQ agenda is gunning down Catholic and Lutheran social service agencies that handle adoption and Manya is pulling the trigger this morning with her breathless announcement that the State of Illinois is "investigating" Faith.

Not really, even ABC's Chuck Goudie could handle this investigation - Gay couples, joined in civil unions, cannot adopt a child. No news flash. Desire meets Doctrine -no contest.

Children who have lost or were abandoned by their biological parents have been the focus of Catholics and the Catholic Church in Chicago ever since it seemed that sidewalks might be better paths to a destination than wading through mud and maybe cholera might not get tramped on the carpets along with Chicago goo.

The first Chicago orphanages, the Chicago Orphan Asylum and the Catholic Orphan Asylum, opened their doors in 1849 in the aftermath of a cholera epidemic. By 1890, there were 12 orphanages in the city. They split along Roman Catholic and Protestant lines. Chicago had no Jewish orphanages until the 1890s. Until then, Jews tried to send orphans to institutions in Cincinnati, but some Jewish orphans lived in Protestant orphanages in Chicago. Almost all “orphans” in nineteenth-century Chicago orphanages had one parent living. They were places that single-parent families in financial crisis could safely keep their children. A few of them, like the Home for the Friendless, were gigantic, housing hundreds of children at a time.

Children were cared for by people of Faith. There were no doubt active and fulfilled homosexuals among Chicago's pioneers. However, due to the historical milieu and contemporary mores they no doubt celebrated their their difference with much less gusto and public displays of affection, than do Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender and Questioning citizens today.

An active lesbian, Jane Addams, co opted the work of faith-based charity, by attacking the largest of these homes like the Home for the Friendless and secularized child care on a very small scale.

The largest orphan institutions were run by Catholics and the by the 20th Century became the standard for care of children without families - by the 1940's Angel Guardian alone cared for 1,200 children. In the 1970's the work of Jane Addams found fulfillment in the establishment of a State run agency the Illinois Department of Child and Family Services (DCFS) and forced the closing of Illinois orphanages, including Angel Guardian in 1974.In 1975, Sister Rosemary Connolly kept up the fight and reconfigured Angel Guardian to become Misericordia Home - for special needs children. In the city of Chicago, Father James Close energized Mercy Home for Boys and Girls that had been established in the Loop by Fathers Campbell and Mahoney as a home for Working Boys - this expanded through the depression. Children were cared for by people of faith. Faith and Deeds bring 'capacity building' = not coalitions or news ink.

Father John Smyth a giant of a man with more heart than a continent and more balls than a bowling alley, expanded the 1880 Bishop Feehan established Maryville Academy, in Bridgeport and later in Des Plaines. Father Smyth received almost no money from Archdiocese, but used his political genius for pulling dollars from charitable donations raised by himself with dollars matched by the State.

The State, DCFS pumped their charges - children- into Maryville Academy. DCFS paid politically clouted Directors triple figures and larded the staff with more bureaucrats. Maryville was directed by Father Smyth a big good-hearted . . .patsy for the power players. Agenda jumps at opportunity - Jane Addams was all about opportunities take credit for what others had built. That is Progressive thought.

Power is what it is all about. Charity is trumped by a bureaucracy in the moused out rhetoric of do-gooder tax pirates. DCFS worked tirelessly with the media in the early 1990's to undermine the work of Father John Smyth who personally took on the work of caring for troubled children - the ones left in the bureaucratic cracks, alone, friendless, unloved - like the old hippie mantra -Somebody Else's Troubles. DCFS flooded Mercy Home for Boys and Girls

"Familiaris Consortio" (The Role of the Christian Family in the Modern World) by the late Servant of God John Paul II. In it he wrote: "The right and duty of parents to give education is essential, since it is connected with the transmission of human life; it is original and primary with regard to the educational role of others, on account of the uniqueness of the loving relationship between parents and children; it is irreplaceable and inalienable, and therefore incapable of being entirely delegated to others or usurped by others...”

The Gay Agenda demands that everyone cower before its lifestyle -any disagreement, or even mere 'live and let live' is intolerable. Gay agenda politics does not seek acceptance or tolerance.

Gay Marriage is the goal. In the way of that goal is the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church does not recognize same sex . . .sex - let alone marriage. That will not change. Some silly priests might nuzzle up to the Gay Agenda, but the Church will not cave in on this issue. Allen and Albert are not going to go halves on a baby and neither will Tina and Toni. If every one were homosexual, it would be a Gay old world and we would finally achieve Zero Population growth - now that's Progressive!

In today's Chicago Tribune, the always hilarious Manya Brachear - The Seeker - roots out a self-fulfilling investigation on Gay Adoption. Catholic Charities is among the faith-based adoption agencies that denies Allen and Albert, or Tina and Toni from adopting a child. The Church holds that a mother and a father should adopt a child.

Manya slants the heartbreak to the bosom of the homosexual couple who might be denied the joy of parenting with the stamp of approval from Catholic or Lutheran adoption agencies and turns to always Progressively dependable ACLU and DCFS -

"Social intervention such as adoption laws and practices inevitably reflect their communities," said Kendall Marlowe, a spokesman for DCFS. "Illinois as a state has grown on this (gay rights) issue as evidenced by (civil union legislation). Adoption law and practice should reflect the values of the people of Illinois."

Therefore, Catholics and Lutherans have not 'grown' and the agencies that care for children controlled by their unevolved dicta are hurtful and uncaring and must be punished - no State funding! Strip!

The kids be damned! Get on the right side of history! If we can not agree that sex between gents, or gals is human evolution, punish the tree dwelling louts!

They did it Boston!

Religious agencies in Illinois are the not the first to grapple with how to balance discrimination laws and doctrine. In Washington and Boston, Catholic Charities ended a combined two centuries of foster care and adoption services when it could not comply with state anti-discrimination laws after the approval of same-sex marriage.

Ecce Homo! -the Progressive Field Marshal for all agenda politics on this hot issue in Manya's Seek piece and make war offering:

Benjamin Wolf of the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois, an attorney who represents juvenile state wards as part of a court-monitored consent decree with DCFS, said limiting the pool of prospective foster care parents because certain religious traditions believe same-sex relationships are sinful is irresponsible when children are in need.

"We don't know for sure if a loving lesbian or gay family turned away from a discriminatory agency is necessarily going to go to another agency because of the disruption and harm caused to them," he said.

The religious institutions' policies might send a hurtful message to the large number of children in the foster care system who landed there after suffering neglect, abuse or rejection because they were gay, some experts say. Marlowe said 240 children out of more than 15,000 in the foster care system currently identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender or questioning.

Anytime someone uses 'hurtful' my neck hair shoots to the skies! Rock-solid hypocrisy is kicking down your door, Hickey!

Old Ben really means, "Screw the kids; Gays demand and must have!" Whatever they want.

Good luck.

PBS - The Return of Masterpiece Theatre and Your Host - Charlie Sheen

" Good Evening. I'm Charlie Sheen and welcome to the return of Masterpiece Theatre - it takes a Masterpiece and you are looking at one! I wish to thank the Corporation for public Broadcasting and viewers like you - taxpayers with your ugly wives and ugly kids. I'm on a quest to claim absolute victory on every front.I'm proud of what I created. Why wouldn't I be? I exposed people to magic. I exposed them to something that they otherwise would not see in their boring normal lives. And I gave that to them! Tonight - the first part of the ground breaking yet haunting Classic Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! .

Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! is a 1965 exploitation film directed by Russ Meyer, who also wrote the script with Jack Moran. It stars Tura Satana, Haji, and Lori Williams.
The film features gratuitous violence, sexuality, provocative gender roles, and campy dialogue. It is one of Meyer's more boldly titled and unflinchingly exploitative films; however, there is no nudity.

Our story features three thrill-seeking go-go dancers—Billie (Lori Williams), Rosie (Haji), and their leader, Varla (Tura Satana)—encounter a young couple in the desert while racing their sports cars. After killing the boyfriend (Ray Barlow) with her bare hands, Varla drugs, binds, gags and kidnaps his girlfriend, Linda (Susan Bernard). On a desolate highway, the four stop at a gas station, where they see an old man (Stuart Lancaster) and his muscular, dimwitted son, Vegetable (Dennis Busch). The gas station attendant (Mickey Foxx) tells the women that the old man and his two sons live on a decrepit ranch with a hidden cache of money. Intrigued, Varla hatches a scheme to rob the lecherous old man, who uses a wheelchair.Dying is for fools. Amateurs." And now Part 1 of Faster Pussycat, Kill, Kill,Kill




"Resentments are the rocket fuel that lives in the tip of my saber."
"I've got magic. I've got poetry at my fingertips.I wanted to watch 'Jaws' on the ocean in the dark and be afraid. It's been a tsunami. And I've been riding it on a mercury surfboard. I'm still alive, which is pretty cool.[I was] bangin' 7-gram rocks and finishing them because that's how I roll. I have one speed, one gear ... go!I mean, what's not to love? Especially when you see how I party. Man, it was epic. The run I was on made Sinatra, Flynn, Jagger, Richards all of 'em just look like droopy-eyed armless children. What's the cure, medicine to make me like them? Not gonna happen. I'm bi-winning. I win here, I win there. Now what? If I'm bipolar, aren't there moments when a guy like crashes? You borrow my brain for five seconds and just be like 'Dude, can't handle it! Unplug this bastard!' ... It fires in a way that is perhaps not from this terrestrial realm. I am on a drug, it's called 'Charlie Sheen.' It's not available 'cause if you try it once you will die. Your face will melt off, and children will weep over your exploded body.

Do join us next week Part II of this gripping saga."

This series was underwritten by Mobil (which later became Exxon Mobil). After 25 years of support, the series added the funder's name to its title. ExxonMobil ended its sponsorship in 2004, and the series remains without a corporate sponsor. The show is currently funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and by contributions to various PBS stations from, as PBS puts it, "Taxpayers Like You".

About Jody Weiss - Any Major Dude With Half A Heart Will Tell You

Many of my neighbors serve as Chicago Police Officers. Superintendent Jody Weis has had a personally lucrative albeit disasterous tenure. Today was to end his contract - what should the man do?

ANY MAJOR DUDE WILL TELL YOU

I never seen you looking so bad my funky one
You tell me that your superfine mind has come undone
CHORUS:
Any major dude with half a heart surely will tell you my friend
Any minor world that breaks apart falls together again
When the demon is at your door
In the morning it won't be there no more
Any major dude will tell you

Have you ever seen a squonk's tears? Well, look at mine
The people on the street have all seen better times

CHORUS

I can tell you all I know, the where to go, the what to do
You can try to run but you can't hide from what's inside of you

Well, he did run . . .that was gratuitous.

Steely Dan: Walter Becker and Donald Fagin had fingers of the pulse of this conundrim some time ago.

La Lumiere School's 20th Science Olympiad - The Great Bryan Smith: Coach, Teacher, Mentor and Gentleman

Master Teacher - Bryan Smith - ageless, damn him! He's gotta be using Grecian Red!
La Lumiere School: boarding and day preparatory school -Arcadia in Indiana
La Lumiere School in La Porte, Indiana is Alma Mater to Chief Justice of the United States John Roberts, HBO Director and producer Paris Barclay, John Buck Company Principle and Operations Chief Pat Buck, Actor & Comedian Jim Gaffigan and school Headmaster Mike Kennedy.

The school was established in 1963, by Chicago and Indiana Catholic laymen, like Andy McKenna, John Daly, Art Decio, Charlie Comiskey, Aidan Mullet, F. Miller Bransfield, Ed Stephan and Ed Proctor to name a few. It is positively one of the most beautiful places on earth. I lived and taught at La Lumiere School from 1988-1994 with some of the best teachers on the planet -Bryan Smith, Miriam Nasidi, Pete Campbell, Johanna Miller, Father Jay Schultz, Mike Hall, Pat Mulligan, Pat Buck, Chris Balawender, Larry Sullivan and Linda Weigel. It was wonderful.

Bryan and Judy Smith parented Augustine House (dorm) to the east of my dorm Becket House - each housed a family and twenty plus teenagers. Bryan Smith is a Baltimore native and Notre Dame Graduate who has spent his entire teaching career at La Lumiere School. Bryan married Judy Coppens and they became great friends to the Hickey Family.

I know many great teachers and Bryan Smith a biology and science instructor to be the very top of the food chain. Along with Larry Sullivan - Headmaster Emeritus - Bryan Smith possessed genuine academic command and mastery of the classroom. Moreover, Bryan Smith is the man any parent would want serving in loco parentis - Mr. Smith has been Dad to hundreds of brilliant, capable, snotty, ingracious, cooperative, saintly and more than a few kids with my instincts and inclinations.

In October of 1989, my son Conor ws born at La Lumiere during our football defeat at the hands, feet, teeth, ass & elbows of the Bridgeman Bees ( Michigan) and sixteen years later the native son returned to La Lumiere for his junior and senior years of high school. Bryan and Judy again watched over Conor.
# 55Conor Oliver Hickey '08 -Capt. La Lumiere Lakers Football-Center -in two years of play at St. Rita and La Lumiere Conor never muffed a snap, nor missed a block -thank Christ that Conor is his Mother's son!

Bryan Smith initiated and coached the La Lumier School Science Olympiad Teams - in twenty years Bryan Smith's teams have "gone to State!"

They are going again! God Speed Lakers! Go Blue! As always, well done Coach Smith! God Bless Bryan & Judy Smith!

The La Lumiere School Science Team took first place in the Indiana Science Olympiad Regional Competition at Goshen College, Saturday, February 5.

La Lumiere School placed first in 21 of 23 events. In over half of the events where La Lumiere placed first, they also captured second. Headmaster Michael Kennedy commented on the students’ accomplishment, “This exemplary performance, and that of our Regional Championship Academic Decathlon Team, is only surpassed by the outstanding character and commitment of these students. This confirms what many people already know: La Lumiere has the strongest academic program in the area, and this is just one example of our level of excellence.”

The Laker team will compete in the state tournament at Purdue University Calumet on April 2, 2011.

La Lumiere School students compete to qualify for a spot on the School’s Science Olympiad team. Through classroom activities, research and training, the team prepares for district, regional and state tournaments. La Lumiere has competed successfully at local, regional, and state levels for the past 19 years. La Lumiere School’s medal results are as follows:

First Place Medals

Anatomy and Physiology – Adnan Ahmed, Chesterton and Neathie Patel, Chesterton

Astronomy – Neal Patel, Chesterton and Andrew Yarger, South Bend

Chemistry Lab – Adnan Ahmed, Chesterton and Christian Allen, Valparaiso

Disease Detective – Christian Allen, Valparaiso and Anulé Ndukwu, Chesterton

Dynamic Planet – Neal Patel, Chesterton and Michael Spaeth, La Porte

Ecology – Laima Augustaitis, New Buffalo, MI and Mary Catherine Brown, Lakeside, MI

Experimental Design – Kelly Barr, La Porte, Andrew Bartels, South Bend, and Emet Murillo, La Porte

Forensics – Adnan Ahmed, Chesterton and Lucas Tang, Portage

Fossils – Christian Allen, Valparaiso and Anulé Ndukwu, Chesterton

Helicopters – Chong-xin (Dereck) Luo, China and Lucas Tang, Portage

Microbe Mission – Neathie Patel, Chesterton and Lucas Tang, Portage

Mission Possible – Chong-xin (Dereck) Luo, China and Michael Spaeth, La Porte

Mousetrap Vehicle – Christian Allen, Valparaiso and Hans Guentert, South Bend

Optics – Lindsay Ciastko, Hammond and Mackenzie O’Brien, La Porte

Ornithology – Robert Bartels, South Bend and Alexa Hicks, La Porte

Remote Sensing – Neal Patel, Chesterton and Andrew Yarger, South Bend

Robot Ramble – Hans Guentert, South Bend and Ryan Worl, La Porte

Sounds of Music – Lindsay Ciastko, Hammond and Anulé Ndukwu, Chesterton

Technical Problem Solving – Esmeralda Alvarez, Chicago, IL and Jin-uk (Tim) Heo, Korea

Towers – James Caplice, Michigan City and Lisamarie Nappier, Chicago, IL

Wind Power - Lindsay Ciastko, Hammond and Mackenzie O’Brien, La Porte

Second Place Medals

Astronomy – Emet Murillo, La Porte and Marina Walinski, Rolling Prairie

Chemistry Lab – Jin-uk (Tim) Heo, Korea and Esmeralda Alvarez, Chicago, IL

Experimental Design – Robert Bartels, South Bend, Mackenzie O’Brien, La Porte, and Andrew Yarger, South Bend

Forensics –Esmeralda Alvarez, Chicago, IL and Kelly Barr, La Porte

Fossils – Andrew Bartels, South Bend and Emet Murillo, La Porte

Helicopters – Jin-uk (Tim) Heo, Korea

Ornithology – Mary Catherine Brown, Lakeside, MI and Marina Walinski, Rolling Prairie

Protein modeling - Alexa Hicks, La Porte, Neathie Patel, Chesterton and Lucas Tang, Portage

Remote Sensing – Kelly Barr, La Porte and Emet Murillo, La Porte

Sounds of Music – Jacqueline Lange, La Porte and Marina Walinski, Rolling Prairie

Technical Problem Solving – Lindsay Ciastko, Hammond and Chong-xin (Dereck) Luo, China

Towers - Neal Patel, Chesterton

Write it-Do it – Mary Catherine Brown, Lakeside, MI and Jacqueline Lange, La Porte

Third Place Medals

Dynamic Planet – Andrew Bartels, South Bend and Jacqueline Lange, La Porte

Ecology - Robert Bartels, South Bend and Alexa Hicks, La Porte

Write it-Do it – Alexa Hicks, La Porte and Neal Patel, Chesterton
About Science Olympiad

Science Olympiad is a national organization that strives to promote and improve student interest in science and to improve the quality of K-12 science education throughout the nation. Its vision is to:

Create a passion for learning through the organization of tournaments.

Improve the quality of K-12 science education throughout the nation by changing the way science is perceived and the way it is taught (with an emphasis on problem solving and hands-on, minds-on constructivist learning practices).
Celebrate and recognize the outstanding achievement of both students and teachers in the areas of science and technology.
Promote partnerships among community, businesses, industry, government and education.

Kalends of March - We Got Nones and Ides Coming Up!

One of the mythical founders of Rome - Romulus (he and his brother Remus were raised by wolves and went all Cain and Abel on one another) - devised the first Roman Calendar ( Kalend - has the prosaic meaning of 'account book, or ledger after all The Rent is Due and The Rent Is Too High!). Julius Caesar revised the Roman Calendar that was used all up to St. Gregory which took into account the liturgical year.

As an English teacher, one of my favorite duties was to teach sophomores the great Shakspearean Tragedy/Historical play Julius Caesar. "Beware the Ides of March!" Bad happens on the Ides! And it do! The audience in Shaspeare's time understood the terms Kalends, Nones and Ides. Our times things get far to goofy and oh, so delicate with language.

The Roman calender was set up like this - Kalends was the first day then the subsequent days were counted back from the Nones and the Ides.

March 1: Kalends; March 2: VI Nones; March 3: V Nones; March 4: IV Nones; March 5: III Nones; March 6: Pridie Nones (Latin for "on the day before"); March 7: Nones; March 15: Ides Rent Due, Hickey!

The Romans were great organizers - roads, governments, book-keeping, grain futures, and census taking. Romans became high minded only after crucifying and slaughtering any and all opposition. The Roman Army was a marvel of organization and discipline and that pretty much kept the Calendar going well beyond the Renaisance. Our Bic shaver and pen toss-it-away attitude shapes what passes for culture, and goof-ball academics and lazy teachers have dumbed down our kids to this current point in history where language does everything it can to become void of shared meaning. Really? Words have meaning and reference actions and their results.

Facta Non Verba -Deeds Not Words! Nothing could be more true, than that - unless Noam Chomsky and his army of his "Yes-Butters" gets the say-so.

Last night, I helped my daughter Clare with her notes on literature and concentarted on the disctinction between metaphor and simile - Simile uses 'like' or 'as' in refernce to something - in order to makes sense of a teenage boy's gluttony we might say, "Conor eats, like he's going to the Chair." That requires and understanding of Metaphor or implies comnparison - The Chair used to mean execution and a condemned man was give a 'last meal' and thus, he ate with gusto.

'What's gusto,Dad?" Gusto, my dear comes from the Latin word for 'taste' -'gustus past particple. De Gustibus Non Est Disputandum There is no accounting for taste.

"My test is tomorrow, Dad, dial it back! I just got to know simile and metaphor."

Yes, the rent is Due!

"What are you talking about? God!!!!!"

The Last Oscar - Sappho's Curse

I fully intended to ignore the Oscars last night. Best intentions to the wind! Following a delightful phone chat with the woman I love in which she described the performance of the Merry Widow by Chicago's Joffrey Ballet she attended Sunday afternoon and the conclusion of a disappointing parody of Donny Brasco by the Simpsons on FOX 32, I surfed south to Channel 7 - Oscars.

The two hosts a tall gawky dark- haired babe and some monosyllabic monotone teen heart-throb gushed some nonsense about the Oscars. The tall gawky babe gushed out "It's been a great year for lesbians, not just in general, but in movies!"

Well, hell, I'm a lesbian!

From Sacheen Little Feather to Mack the Dyke - Oscar You come a long way baby!

(Click)

And the Hollywood Swingers worry that geese get corn stuffed down their gullets to make fois gras? Cor Blimey! - my Homage to The King's Speech!

I took the woman I love to see both The King's Speech and True Grit and both were exceptionally good films. My daughter Nora saw Black Swan and said that it was really creepy. The last ballet movie that I went to see was at gun point - my late wife Mary twisted my ear all the way into the movie theatre in Marycrest Shopping Center in Kankakee to see Shirley McClain and Ann Bancroft kick the $hit out of one another.

There was a movie about how wonderful lesbian parenthood happens to be starring two actress who happen to not be lesbians. I witnessed the raising of children by lesbians and empirically speaking the kids were not alright - I taught one poor kid adopted by lesbians and he was a train wreck ( dope, violence, suicide attempts, and many trips to rehab); same thing with a relative who happens to be homosexual and her life-partner - they were lesbian pioneers and adopted a kid as early as the 1970's and that poor boy did not end well, God love him. It seems to me that gay/lesbian lifestyle is just that -not a way of living as a family. Much in the same way that an unmarried man and woman can not artificially declare themselves parents. I read an article last week beefing that such patronizing might be akin to Black Face minstrelsy Here's more hair shirt nonsense for Hollywood to chew on -

When compiling research for this post, there was an abundance of information and analysis chronicled about gay male characters who had been honored by the Oscars but less so about lesbians. This discrepancy is probably due to more gay male characters having been written and, more paramount, having been featured in films that garnered distribution and viewership. Hollywood’s sexism is no secret and that bias infiltrates queer representations as well. This is not to say that gay male characters have fared much better fates than their lesbian counterparts. Most if not all of those representations have also been largely troubled as well. But here I’d like to focus more specifically on the issue of lesbian representations at the Oscars as to avoid losing my point by ignoring issues of intersectionality.

Why does this even matter? Aren’t the Oscars just, to quote Lindsay, “the ultimate pageant of Hollywood hegemony?” Aren’t homo award show enthusiasts generally relegated to the ranks of fashion correspondence and even then that’s only gay-male-inclusive? In many ways, yes, that is true. The Oscars are driven by capital and the problems that accompany forces capitalistically driven. But the Academy Awards do matter in their potential to serve as a vehicle for visibility, empathy, and insurance towards cultural relevance. If more lesbians’ and other queer folks’ stories are told, respected and honored, it will be easier to combat attitudes that drive institutionalized bigotry and ignorance. People make sense of their lives and the lives of others through art, including and especially movies and media. If stories aren’t told with sensitivity and accuracy then prejudiced representations of them will prevail.

Whoa there Hoss! Intersectionality?

Well, Lock Arms and Cross the Selma Bridge! No one wants homosexuals to be unhappy - that is their business. Happiness is very hard work. Live with your mate! Get the job you want. But same sex couples will not partner up and give birth. It will always be artificial. That's nature -not nurture.

I rented Winter's Bone - that was a great movie about a heroic whote trash girl fighting to keep her family together in contemprary Ozarks America. It centered on breeders and wildly dysfunctional they be - Meth Head dad, Crazy Mom, Criminal Uncle and Hillbilly Mafia cousins. However, the core element was natural preservation of the family. Not sex. That film, Winter's Bone was the best picture and there was no way that Hollywood would honor it beyond a nodding nomination or two.

Hollywood is no longer a reflection of America - it is an artistic plastic mold toy maker - like the gizmos at the Museum of Science and Industry.

This year it was cranking out plastic lesbians.

I am Distressed and I Just Can Not Appreciate Fashion

This is Tres Chic Fahionista John Galliano (Hey, we used to splash Dago Copper in Harvey Wall-Bangers!) seamstress and Jew-baiter and a hop-head. Get a load of this beauty!

I wonder if he ever took it into his to make money? Of course, silly, Galliano's fabulously wealthy.



I can Not appreciate what passes for fashion, nor chic Anti-Semites. I gotta add more arugula and fois gras into my feed, I guess. Meat and spuds and greens not doing it. Or, maybe that is just fine. Again, I'm conflicted.

Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny - The First Culchie

Irish Prime Minister (Taoiseach) Enda Kenny has been handed a bog that was once the Emerald Isle.

The former primary school teacher has led the center-right Fine Gael party to a historic victory, on course for 75 plus seats and replacing the once dominant Fianna Fail party as the largest group in Ireland's parliament.

Yet at the start of the election campaign, many within his own ranks feared the father of three was a liability who would jeopardize key seats everytime TV cameras shone on him.

After decades of Fianna Fail ( Irish equivalent of the American DNC) governance, Enda Kenny of County Mayo and Fine Gael ( Irish GOP) has been swept into leadership of the toothless and de-clawed Celtic Tiger.

Voters' perception of any new leader almost always improves once they become prime minister and Kenny has so far struck the right notes.

His victory speech on Saturday night was measured rather than triumphalist and in his first major media interview after his win he struck a serious tone, warning people that there would be tough times ahead.

Kenny, whose only government experience in over 35 years in parliament was as minister for tourism and trade between 1994 and 1997, is also fortunate to be starting off from a relatively weak base.

Ireland has been all but mortgaged to European Union. Ireland is as bankrupt as Progressives seem to want America to be. Enda Kenny, a County Mayo Mountain Man, is married to a woman from the equally mountainous County Kerry, father of three,a former school teacher and a team player.

Here in America, many second and third generation Irish Americans, come from Irish Civil War (Irish: Cogadh Cathartha na hÉireann; 28 June 1922 – 24 May 1923) stock - Up Dev! Irish Republicans from Kerry, Cork, Galway, Mayo and Clare. My grandfather, who came to America in 1912, was a Big Jim Larkin, James Connolly Labor Man, who had earned his labor chops on the Liverpool docks, after leaving Castleisland, Co. Kerry, before coming to Chicago's stockyards. He was growing a huge family in Chicago and fighting to organize the Engineers Union, during The Troubles ( 1916-'21) and during the Civil War in Ireland. Lawrence Hickey was a De Valara Republican, as were most Chicago Irish and opposed to the Treaty for the Irish Free State led by Michael Collins -founder of Fine Gael.

During and after the Irish Civil War many, many Irish Republicans escaped death or imprisonment at the hands of Free Staters. The south side of Chicago became loaded with tough Clare, Kerry, Galway, and Mayo men with those dangerous 'dead eyes.' They had killed Brits, Free Staters and Informers. They became Chicago tradesmen, police and firemen, streetcar drivers, People Gas diggers, and proud Americans, after fourteen years of course. They were hotly Fianna Fail sympathizers and imparted that brand of Irish Republicanism that was reflected in the Aran Sweater, Clancy Brother prejudices of their children who voted Democrat.

Fianna Fail's leadership of Ireland has been a disaster. Now, a Mayo man named for a 6th Century Warrior Prince from Galway, who became one of Ireland's greatest monastic saints and mentor to Brendan the Navigator and the peregrine apostles of Ireland who preserved the Christian Faith in Europe during the Dark Ages ( Sts. Finnian,Columba,Ciarran, Jarlath of Tuam), will become the first Culchie* (red-neck) Prime Minister.

The Republican Culchies always followed the big City Dublin, Cork or the more genteel eastern Irish county leaders. Eamon De Valara was a Yank born in New York **whose dad was a Cuban. MSNBC would call Enda Kenny, one of the Tea-bagging, Bible and gun clutchers.

Therefore, Enda Kenny is the First Culchie. Perhaps, the wild bog man will pull the Irish economy out of the bog.




*

The term is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as "One who lives in, or comes from, a rural area; a (simple) countryman (or woman), a provincial, a rustic", a word derived from the remote town of Coillte Mach, County Mayo.[2] Another possible derivation is from the Irish coillte meaning "the wood/forest",[citation needed] to describe people who lived in the woods. A further, simpler, explanation is that the word derives from the word agriCULTURE, highlighting the industrial/agricultural divide between rural and urban populations.[citation needed]
Another potential derivation is an old Gaelic term "cúl na tí",[citation needed] meaning the back of the house. It was, and still is to a certain extent, common practice in rural areas to enter a neighbour's house through the back door, rather than the front (which is for more formal visits). Thus the term cúl na tí or culchie was applied to these people. Also, many city dwellers from Dublin tenements had to work as servants. The servants were not permitted to enter the house from the front but had to use the back door or servants entrance. It became common practice in Dublin to use the term in a derogatory manner. Over time as the numbers of servants dwindled away the term was still kept in everyday use to this very day.

**

No. Name Entered Office Left Office Party
1. Cathal Brugha 21 January 1919 1 April 1919 Sinn Féin
2. Éamon de Valera
(1st time) 1 April 1919 9 January 1922 Sinn Féin
3. Arthur Griffith[2] 10 January 1922 12 August 1922 Sinn Féin (Pro-Treaty faction)
4. Michael Collins[2] 16 January 1922 22 August 1922 Sinn Féin (Pro-Treaty faction)
5. W. T. Cosgrave 22 August 1922 9 March 1932 Cumann na nGaedheal[3]
Éamon de Valera
(2nd time) 9 March 1932 18 February 1948 Fianna Fáil
6. John A. Costello
(1st time) 18 February 1948 13 June 1951 Fine Gael
Éamon de Valera
(3rd time) 13 June 1951 2 June 1954 Fianna Fáil
John A. Costello
(2nd time) 2 June 1954 20 March 1957 Fine Gael
Éamon de Valera
(4th time) 20 March 1957 23 June 1959 Fianna Fáil
7. Seán Lemass 23 June 1959 10 November 1966 Fianna Fáil
8. Jack Lynch
(1st time) 10 November 1966 14 March 1973 Fianna Fáil
9. Liam Cosgrave 14 March 1973 5 July 1977 Fine Gael
Jack Lynch
(2nd time) 5 July 1977 11 December 1979 Fianna Fáil
10. Charles Haughey
(1st time) 11 December 1979 30 June 1981 Fianna Fáil
11. Garret FitzGerald
(1st time) 30 June 1981 9 March 1982 Fine Gael
Charles Haughey
(2nd time) 9 March 1982 14 December 1982 Fianna Fáil
Garret FitzGerald
(2nd time) 14 December 1982 10 March 1987 Fine Gael
Charles Haughey
(3rd time) 10 March 1987 11 February 1992 Fianna Fáil
12. Albert Reynolds 11 February 1992 15 December 1994 Fianna Fáil
13. John Bruton 15 December 1994 26 June 1997 Fine Gael
14. Bertie Ahern 26 June 1997 6 May 2008 Fianna Fáil
15. Brian Cowen 7 May 2008 Incumbent Fianna Fáil
[edit]

Wisconsin -Exploit the Disabled and Kill the Truth

This is the American Working Man?

The news media flooded a video of woman who claimed that Wisconsin budget actions by Governor Walker would 'kill her silently.' As in all things Progressive, the disabled were coached by an 'earnest youth' shouting through a megaphone in a closed room. In order to cloud the issue of public sector unions collective bargaining and the calamitous deficit, the forces at work claiming to champion the working man seem to be students and radicals who never had their hands on the business end of any tool -other than a megaphone.

Watch both videos - the first is the poor woman who believes that here Chemo therapy is tied to the issue of collective bargaining; the second one takes place prior to te woman's impassioned screed, when she was coached by the kid in the brown shirt, who also demands that the disabled not meet with State officials.





Card check should begin with our bearded Brown Shirt* with the microphone in the closed office in Madison.

* Jason Glozier with ADAPT - the kid's been busy blocking buses and and Pennsylvania Avenue.

America Needs to Remember Israel - The Scorpions are all around them.

I generally need to be reminded of important things - in order to avoid a basement flooded with sewage, I need to call the Kennedy Brothers Plumbing professionals to rod out my sewer lines. I need to get to the Confession Box and rod out my litany of recent follies, stupidities and vanities. I need to remind my children that I love them.

It is important to have a hygenic home and that requires some forethought and vigilance. It is vital to rein in my proclivity for folly and remember the forgiving God who gave me Life. Most importantly, it is essential to make our children, parents, relatives, neighbors and the many strangers we will encounter on this side of the grass of our capacity for love - our desire and will make others happy, useful and caring.

As a nation, we are neglecting our greatest ally in the world today - Israel. We are all about the social network revolution in Muslim nations, some tolerate our existence and some down-right hate everything America stands for and Israel as well. We are over-serving ourselves via the news media once again with Wisconsin and the Arab chessboard.

A pal of mine, Mark Cohen, reminds me of the many forces working their way against Israel, much like the tree roots that louse up my plumbing with great regularity. Here is a disturbing series of events.
Remember two weeks ago, when Iran sent two warships through the Suez Canal on 'games?' Iran does not play. In fact the I can not think of a playful Muslim anywhere. Rage is all the rage. The Iranian gunboat diplomacy was lost on our CNN,NBC, CBS, AP, ABC & etc. Kevlar heroes with microphones. The Iranian warships were headed for Syria - Iran with better PR.

More disturbing, read this -

MOSCOW: Russia announced Saturday that it intended to fulfil its contract to supply Syria with cruise missiles despite the turmoil shaking the region and the furious condemnation of the deal by Israel.

"The contract is in the implementation stage," news agencies quoted Defence Minister Anatoly Serdyukov as saying.

Russia initially agreed to send a large shipment of anti-ship Yakhont cruise missiles to Syria in 2007 under the terms of a controversial deal that was only disclosed by Serdyukov in September 2010.

The revelation infuriated both Israel and the United States and there had been speculation that Russia would decide to tear up the contract amid the current turmoil plaguing north Africa and the Middle East.

Israel — which is still technically in a state of war with Syria and fears its close ties with Iran — suspects that the shipment is ultimately aimed at supplying Hezbollah militants in neighbouring Lebanon.

The disputed sale is believed to be worth at least $300 million and is meant to see Syria receive 72 cruise missiles in all.

Russia has not confirmed making any Yakhont deliveries to date and it remains unclear when the military intends to fulfil the agreement.

Serdyukov’s comments come amid Russian efforts to preserve its military supply line open to the Middle East despite the revolutions and social unrest currently shaking the region.

A source in the Russian arms exports industry said this week that the fall of the region’s regimes may see the country lose about $10 billion dollars in contracts.

Serdyukov himself confirmed that the unrest may force Russia to give up some of its Soviet-era clients in the region.

"There is a chance we might lose something," the defence minister said on a visit on visit to Russia’s Pacific port city of Vladivostok.

"But I hope that the main weapons and military equipment agreements will be fulfilled," Serdyukov said.

Russia’s sales to Syria have come under particularly close scrutiny because of fears that Moscow may be also be covertly assisting Damascus’ nascent nuclear programme.

The head of the country’s arms export corporation in October denied that Russia had also signed an agreement to supply Syria with its latest range of MiG-31 fighter jets.

But the same agency confirmed in May that Russia was in the process of supplying Syria with a less advanced fighter jet version — the Mig-29 — along with short-range air defence systems and various armoured vehicles.

Russia is the world’s second-largest arms exporter behind the United States and its sales are crucial to the country’s efforts to keep alive a creaking defence industry whose reforms have dragged on for years.

The military this week announced with some fanfare the start of a $650 billion rearmament drive that will add eight nuclear submarines and hundreds of warplanes to the under-equipped force by 2020.

Serdyukov said Saturday that Russia intended to arms its nuclear submarines with the high-tech Bulava long-range missiles whose deployment is being delayed by a series of embarrassing test failures.

But Russia’s last two Bulava launches were successful and Serdyukov said Saturday that the first new missiles would be dispatched to the country’s Pacific Fleet. – AFP

America, Isael is staked out in the sand with too many scorpions around them. Let's try and remember that.

By The way, I called Kennedy Bothers and fully intend to hit the Confessional this afternoon and I will tell the kids again that I love them -in between my usual nagging, grousing and pesterings.

The Beatles Live at the Indiana State Fair 09/03/1964

This is something - The first one is a bit rough but okay



If I Fell has great sound quality.
When there were live bands and no lip-synch'd performances, life seemed better.

This a live show at the Indiana State Fair - watch the Hossier girls - magic.



This one is familiar -



Music is wonderful even with the odd glitch.

Function at the Junction - Shorty Long

Ask me my plans. Do. Better come on, right now! Shorty!


FUNCTION AT THE JUNCTION
Album : Motown Hitsville, USA, Volume 1 disc 2
(Lyrics : Eddie Holland / Shorty (Frederick) Long)
Shorty (Frederick) Long


I'm getting ready for the function at the junction
And baby you'd better come on right now
Because everybody's gonna be there
We got people comin' from everywhere

We got Ling Ting Tong from China
Long Tall Sally from Carolina
We got 007, the private eye,
And he's bringin' all the guys from "I Spy"

Come one, come all, we gonna have a ball
down at the function at the junction
And baby you'd better come on right now

We serving egg foo yung and barbecue
having chicken dumplings and kidney stew
having heap big fun till the break of dawn
gonna shake a tailfeather shoot, it's gonna be a run

Hold a shotgun on the rooster, and dare him to crow
how could anybody sleep when they could get out on the floor

Tell him, tell them, tell one and tell `em all.
Tell `em `bout the function at the junction
Tell `em that they'd better come on right now
Tell `em `bout the function at the junction
Tell `em that they'd better come on right now

Oh the soul brothers, Jitterbugs
Hip cats and fancy hats and
Pretty girls with pretty smiles
All decked out in the latest styles
and Farmer Jim and Guitar Slim and
Betty Boop and ooo-boop-e-doop
and Mohair Sam from Alabam
and Minnesota Fats from Hobo Flats
Breath-takin' Hip-shakin' give it now
Talkin' bout some fascinatin' demonstratin'

They all be gathering here, from far and near
for the Function at the Junction
Brother, you'd better come on right now
Tell `em `bout the function at the junction
Sister, you'd better come on right now
Talkin' `bout a function at the junction
Everybody you'd better come on right now

Best Song of 1968? 25 Miles by Edwin Starr

Just got off the phone with a Leo Alum Class of 1969 - we talked about 'tunes' that stuck. He catalogued some great one La-La-La by the Delfonics; I Thank You by Sam & Dave and Dance to the Music by Sly and the Family Stone.

Here is what passed for the top hits of 1968 -69.

1. Hey Jude Beatles
2. I Heard It Through The Grapevine Marvin Gaye
3. Love Is Blue Paul Mauriat
4. Honey Bobby Goldsboro
5. People Got To Be Free Rascals
6. (Sittin' On) The Dock Of The Bay Otis Redding
7. This Guy's In Love With You Herb Alpert
8. Mrs. Robinson Simon & Garfunkel
9. Love Child Supremes
10. Judy In Disguise (With Glasses) John Fred & Playboy Band

Two out of ten - Otis and Marivin Gaye - Hey Jude? Number One? Love is Blue? Win The Future! Anything by Bobby Goldsboro????? Honey ????? The wife croaks. "See How Tree the Pig Has Flown! . . . " Where's my gun?

25 Miles Y'all! Much better than War - Good God, Lord!

How to Spot Democrat State Reps Visiting Illinois

Please, don't sing Joe Hill, or Buddy Won't You Roll Down The Line that was real Labor. This is war on your neighbor and call him BOSS.

Oscar's Wilde! Houli's 'da Queen on WTTW - That is Mike Houlihan's Film; not T'other Way Around.

Oscar's Fabulously Wilde about Mike Houlihan's Her Majesty 'da Queen - the Docu-epic about Chicago's St. Paddy's Queen pageant.

Houli's film features of WTTW - of all places!

WTTW-11, Chicago's premier public television station, will debut

Mike Houlihan's engaging new documentary Her Majesty, 'da Queen on Sunday,



February 27 at 4:00 pm.

The 60-minute film is a sneak peek backstage at the annual St. Patrick's Day Parade Queen Contest and captures all the humor, heartbreak, and excitement shared by over 100 young women each year as they vie for the crown. Many of Chicago's most endearing Irish-American personalities are also featured in the film in intimate interviews during the pageant.

Her Majesty, 'da Queen was edited from video shot at both the 2009 and 2010 queen contests. This one-hour program is a prologue to Mike Houlihan's epic documentary Our Irish Cousins, which is currently in post-production. Our Irish Cousins was shot all over the U.S. and in Ireland, and reveals the Irish American experience in all its glory, humor, and spirit.

Pull them Rabbit ears aright and call the kids!

My Alderman Must a Poet, I Pray; Like Bathhouse John, Be Matt O'Shea

On May 16, 2011, Matt O'Shea of St. John Fisher Parish in West Beverly, north of 107th Street, will take the oath as Alderman of 19th Ward.

Matt is a ubiquitous civil servant ( he's all over the Ward 24/7) and nice young man. The toils and troubles of elected officials are the roiling tripes of government -favor seekers, grifters, activists, cranks, crabs, and bust-outs will knock, ring and phone Matt O'Shea interminably. "Matt, I was with you the whole time and I volunteered without anyone's say-so, did you see me over by the Quaker's on Artesian ( the polling place for the 23rd precinct -A Quaker Meeting Hall - no sh . . .kidding) I was there and took off the day from Target - I'm a greeter. Hey, Matty, think I can get a spot that don't need too much heavy lifting? I hurt my back playing ball at D' back in the '80's."

Poetry allows us to tap the shoulders of our better angels -'Wake up, Cherub! Wake the #$%^-up! I require soul massage!'

Read poetry -preferably 17th & 18th Century English poets who imitated the Romans -Dryden, Jonson, Pope, Johnson. Do read Paradise Lost by Milton and pay special attention to the moral and political caveats that thicken Absalom and Achitophel by John Dryden - in this post-Daley epoch.

If not, enjoy minor poets like Ogden Nash or Robert W. Service.

Begin slowly and with, of all things, prose - Read Lords of the Levee by Lloyd Wendt and Herman Kogan (click my post title, please, do) and immerse yourself in the life and sentiment of Chicago's Politician Poet -John Coughlin and his prosaic pal Michael Kenna.

. . .Coughlin and Kenna had men who were beholden to them in every city, county, state and federal office in the city. They controlled the jobs of city workers, including inspectors and the police, and were also, as aldermen, in a position to grant favors to respectable businessmen in Chicago. They could usually count on a routine take of between $15,000 and $30,000 per year, over and above the stipend of $3 per council meeting that they received from the city. Special votes that were purchased bought them in anywhere from $8,000 to $100,000 each, depending on the importance of the matter. The two men went carefully about their business filling the requests that the financiers of Chicago were willing to pay for, such as zoning variances, permits, tax deductions, licenses and other amenities.


However, things didn’t always go smoothly and the two men did manage to get attention brought to them, both personally and professionally. For instance, one of Bathhouse’s pet projects was the construction of a zoo on land that he owned in Colorado Springs in 1902. The zoo featured a refugee elephant from the Lincoln Park Zoo who had managed to lose part of her trunk in a trap door. Princess Alice, as she was called, was purchased by Coughlin and shipped to Colorado, where she caught a severe cold in the winter of 1906. Coughlin suggested that she be given whiskey, which cured his own ailments, and so keepers gave the elephant an entire quart, which quickly cured her cold. After that, Princess Alice acquired a serious taste for the hard stuff and began searching the zoo looking for visitors with flasks. She would beg for drinks from them and when whiskey was given to her, she would sip it daintily and then go off somewhere and pass out.

Epics that he penned included titles like "She Sleeps by the Drainage Canal", "Ode to a Bathtub", "Why Did They Build the Lovely Lake So Close to the Horrible Shore", "They’re Tearing Up Clark Street Again" and others. It was later revealed though that John Kelley, a reporter for the Chicago Tribune, was the actual author of many of Coughlin’s poems, which he read regularly at city council meetings. But only Coughlin would have taken credit for a terrible song that he wrote called "Dear Midnight of Love", which was performed for the first and last time at the Auditorium Theater in October 1899.

The Dear Midnight of Love has a chorus that lilts -

Dear Midnight of Love.why did we Meet?
Dear Midnight of Love, your face is so sweet.
Pure as angels above, surely again we shall speak.
Loving only as dove, Dear Midnight of Love.

Now, how could such a heart and soul as this not do the public will?
Poetry -Blithe Spirit - Bird You Ain't!


http://www.prairieghosts.com/graft.html

Nancy Wilson - The Midnight Sun

Composed by Lionel Hampton and Sonny Burke in 1947 this became most linked to Ella Fitzgerald with Tasty lyrics by Johnny Mercer, but Nancy Wilson does a great version here

Your lips were like a red and ruby chalice, warmer than the summer night
The clouds were like an alabaster palace rising to a snowy height.
Each star its own aurora borealis, suddenly you held me tight
I could see the Midnight Sun.

I can't explain the silver rain that found me--or was that a moonlit veil?
The music of the universe around me, or was that a nightingale?
And then your arms miraculously found me,suddenly the sky turned pale,
I could see the Midnight Sun.

Was there such a night, it's a thrill I still don't quite believe,
But after you were gone, there was still some stardust on my sleeve.

The flame of it may dwindle to an ember, and the stars forget to shine,
And we may see the meadow in December, icy white and crystalline,
But oh my darling always I'll remember when your lips were close to mine,
And we saw the Midnight Sun

Hey, Take Obama White House Seriously . . .No Really .

Now, would that be Ben Gay Zee, Lybia, or Toe Brook, Lybia?

I was so pleased to know that President Obama calmed the Middle East, in particular the protesters in Libya, by touting Gay Marriage. Now, if Gays marry and have children, this troubled planet will weep no more.

Someone prank called Governor Walker of Wisconsin; the Obama White House is much more task in hand - they prank themselves and the globe. Well at least they did not put an 'A' after the 'L' - small blessings.