Just Asking - Was Dave in the Army, or was she Diane? Harry was no Barry.

St. Francis was a wild kid, before he transformed from a free spending boozer with a taste for French fashions - Giovanni di Pietro di Bernardone was called "Frenchie," or Francesco by his Dad and  pals:

 No one loved pleasure more than Francis; he had a ready wit, sang merrily, delighted in fine clothes and showy display. Handsome, gay, gallant, and courteous, he soon became the prime favourite among the young nobles of Assisi, the foremost in every feat of arms, the leader of the civil revels, the very king of frolic. But even at this time Francis showed an instinctive sympathy with the poor, and though he spent money lavishly, it still flowed in such channels as to attest a princely magnanimity of spirit.

He shed his expensive French garments some time after he got out of the army, having been a prisoner of war and a victim of fever, when he had a vision of becoming a Prince dedicated to Our Lady of Poverty, whom he said that he was 'betrothed,' went on a pilgrimage to Rome, tried to give money from goods that he stole from his father to a beggarly priest, only to have the gift refused and hid from his father's wrath in a cave, emerged from that cave after a few weeks and was hooted and howled at by his friends, family and neighbors as a madman.

Francis had transformed.

He had transformed from a vain, pampered and selfish boy into a man.

He was not the same person who went into the Army of Assisi to fight the Perugians.  Francis was no longer Giovanni di Pietro di Bernardone, but not Frances.  He was gender specific, transformed to be sure, but still the guy his mother birthed.

Today, transformation is tightly and politically defined as sexual and born of desire to be someone else - Chasity to Chaz and Bruce to Caitlyn.   Drag Queens are no longer spotlight vamps belting out "See What the Boys in the Back Room Will Have" at the old Empire Room, they are our neighbors.  That is the current meme, anyway.  Personally, the only Trans-persons, I have encountered are Col. Pritzker and the coterie of prostitutes who throng at 74th and Halsted in Englewood.

Col. Pritzker helped the Leo Alumni re-Dedicated the grave site of Medal of Honor recipient John Fardy, before his gender reassignment surgery.  Col. Pritzker is a highly decorated retired Army officer of the 82nd Airborne.

Of the male drag queen hookers on Halsted,  one beat up the Alderman of the 17th Ward a few years back.

Yesterday, it was announced that President Trump, as commander-in-chief, reversed the executive order of President Obama, as commander-in-chief, executed June 2016 lifting all bans on transgender personnel:

“Effective immediately, transgender Americans may serve openly,” Mr. Carter announced, on June 30, 2016. “They can no longer be discharged or otherwise separated from the military just for being transgender.”
He said that the Pentagon would cover the medical costs of those in uniform who wished to undergo gender transition, and that it would begin a yearlong training program for service members on the changes.

It appears that the issue was economic and required a solid 'civil rights' coating of rainbow paint to equate sex and gender with the 'color of a man's skin.'

The administration achieved many if not all of these goals. It’s been most successful in the arena of gay and lesbian rights. Obama signed into law an expansion of the hate-crime statute to include crimes motivated by antigay bias. He ended “don’t ask, don’t tell” and, more recently, lifted the ban on transgender people serving in the military. He issued an executive order barring federal contractors from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. He personally endorsed marriage equality in May 2012 and refused to defend the Defense of Marriage Act, the law signed by Bill Clinton that denied federal benefits to same-sex couples married in states that recognized such marriages, thereby easing the way for its invalidation by the Supreme Court in 2013. And when the Court took up the question of same-sex marriage directly, the Obama administration supported the claimants, and Obama’s solicitor general, Don Verrilli, delivered an impassioned argument for why the Court shouldn’t defer recognition of same-sex marriage as a constitutional right. A federal bill barring employment discrimination against LGBTQ people has not passed, but there the blame lies with Congress. (emphasis my own)

The issue is and was whether a person in the military, let's say someone who accepts n appointment to a Military Academy, or enlists as a gender specific person, decides to change genders, will the government be required to  pick up the costs.

According to multiple sources, the price of basic genital reassignment surgery (or genital reconstruction surgery) for a man transitioning to a woman ranges from $7,000 for a simple orchiectomy and vaginoplasty to $25,000 for orchiectomy and the more complicated colovaginoplasty. This is often, but not always, followed up by breast augmentation, which can run anywhere from $5,000 to $10,000. That’s a total average high of $35,000, but estimates for the two procedures combined have ranged from $10,000 to upwards of $50,000.

For women transitioning to men, the initial costs can be higher, and the choices more complicated. Some estimates lower-end cost of a metoidioplasty—a procedure that “frees” a hormone therapy-enlarged clitoris from the body for use as a phallus—at $2,000. That said, there are estimates of more complex metoidioplasties, as well as procedures that add testicles and involve full phalloplasties that top $100,000. Often double mastectomies, ranging in cost from $15,000 to $25,000, and sometimes hysterectomies, which run from $7,500 to $11,500, are performed.

These are the low-end figures.  The best guess-timate lies in the neighborhood of  $130,000 per gender re-assignment. Bradley/Chelsae Manning has his/her's.

The media is dead -set against the Trump Order.  It's a Trump order.  Some have raised Harry S. Truman's Executive 9981 ordering the end of racial segregation ( black/Japanese) in all military units, Non-Active Duty Navy Seals living post surgical lives, tales of hard-charging Alpha Male buddies who are now soccer moms, to pump up the Resistance on this issue.

I do not believe that this is a Selma moment, again.

Francis stopped being Giovanni. Col. Pritzker was not Jennifer when he finished jump school at Fort Bragg. Bruce Jenner won the Decathalon, but Caitlynn is not getting in the blocks.  Pfc.Bradley Manning sold military secrets and Chelsae got out of the stockade in May.

"Give 'Em Hell Harry," commanded an artillery battery loaded with Micks, not a Baptist's favorite gang, but learned about them,

. I have the Irish Catholic Battery but they seem to like me pretty well and I'm satisfied if I don't blow up with to many worries that I'll have a good Btty. I hope the best in the Brigade. The one that does the best work here gets to fire the first shot of the Brigade at the Hun. I shall do my very best to win the honor although I may fail to get it as there is hot competition. You've no idea the experience I'm getting. I've seen most everything and done most everything in this man's army since August 5 and now I have attained my one ambition to be a Battery Commander. If I can only make good at it I can hold my head up any way the rest of my days.
I'd give most anything to see you. I hope also that Hinde's[23] prophecy is true. But of course we can't come home until we do a thorough job over here. Please keep writing and remember I love you always.
Harry
Capt. Harry S. Truman
Bty D. 129th F.A.

Truman did what FDR was afraid to do - he ended racial segregation in the services.

President Obama did what policy wanted and floated on the breeze.

 The Nobel Prize winning 44th President made traditional marriage a parlor game for semiotic totalitarians, "When I became president, same-sex marriage was legal in only two states. Today it's legal in 37 states and the District of Columbia."

What a guy!

Barry was no Harry.

James jumped at Fort Bragg and Jennifer own the biography.  That is a fact.  Might not be the truth, but it is a fact - today.

Put me in the Q category.

Sweet PR for Wee Mike Quigley - Collusion of the Media with American Oligarchs

"A byproduct of Quigley’s membership on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence — and its investigation of Russian meddling in the 2016 election — has been to raise the national profile of the North Side lawmaker, who has become a frequent guest on cable shows discussing the probe. "-  Lynn "Sweetheart of the Clown Rodeo" Sweet: Chicago Sun Times

When was the last time Lynn Sweet did a puff PR piece, wrapped as news, for any Illinois member of Congress, other than spotted cows and incestuous cousins of the Progressive Cook County Democrats?

Dan Lipinski? Only when he was a super-delegate for the Democratic Convention and threatened to cast his vote for Bernie Sanders.

“As a Democratic member of Congress, I have a vote at the Democratic National Convention as a superdelegate. Before the Illinois primary I told Democrats in the 3rd District that I decided that I would pledge my vote to whichever candidate won the district,” Lipinski told the Sun-Times in an email.

Bernie whupped Hillary here in the 3rd District , during the Illinois primary.  Sweet tried to toss sand in Illinois Speaker Mike Madigan's eyes, for not coming through for HRC - the choice of the Cook County Banana Republic.

Pete Roskam?  Only to to shill for the laboriously obnoxious Cheri Bustos and toxic Illinois Personal PAC- aka Abortions R Us.

WASHINGTON — Seeing cracks in once solid GOP suburban Chicago turf, Democrats are promising to give Rep. Peter Roskam, R-Ill., his biggest race since he was first elected in 2006.
“There are at last count 22 different people looking to take him on,” said Rep. Cheri Bustos, D-Ill., on the recruitment team for the national Dem House political shop, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

Nope.  Only the lumps and loonies of the IVI-IPO Mikva Challenged Young Pioneer Progressives machine get kindness - Daley, Durbin, Obama, Quinn, Preckwinkle, Dart (formerly 19th Ward - currently?  Not so much), Schawosky, Deb Mell, Bobby Rush, Danny Davis and Dave Orr are all Lynn Sweetie Pies.

Today, the man who helped Buck Toothed Dave Orr, Cook County Clerk,  make voting easy to hack in 2006, Congressman Mike Quigley (D-himself), who found Borscht  on the Russian Tea Time menu and announced the Ivans in the electoral woodpile!  Quigley was appointed to the House Select Committee on Intelligence by no less a mental giant than Nancy Pelosi.  Wee Mike, who had been Alderman Bernie Hansen's rat-catcher, bag-man, stooge and minion back in the 1980's shaking down real estate and gay bars, has bounded his stumpy legs up and onto greater seats of power -Cook County Commissioner and U.S.  Congressman on such powerful committees as  Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government (FSGG) and the Subcommittee on Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies (THUD).

THUD - total boondoggle!

Lynn Sweet is not concerned that piggy little Mike Quigley has his practiced chubby fingers very deep in the Federal cookie jar, because she knows that Progressive only steal ( make clever investments) out of love for children, elderly Black folks and Dreamers.

You see, Mike Quigley is using his Congressional high stool to unhorse Jared Kushner and quicken the exit of President Trump, before he drains the lucrative swamp that waters Lynn Sweet's NPR, CNN, MSNBC and newtwork face time, as well as the Federal funds siphoned from the streams of plenty to the Cook County Banana Republic.

Instead, Lynn Sweet cheer leads for Team Banana Republic.

The 11-page statement Kushner released through his attorney before he headed to Capitol Hill filled in blanks and put a lot more on the table — such as a meeting now-former Russia Ambassador to the U.S. Sergey Kislyak brokered between Kushner with Sergey Gorkov, the head of a Kremlin-linked Russian bank.
Quigley told me his questions would dive into more than what Kushner offered up in his statement, such as the basic, “Why did you meet with the Russian banker?

”Quigley said there is more to be learned about why Kushner even entertained the notion that he go to the Russian embassy to get a secure line for a conversation. Said Quigley, “You would assume that the Russian ambassador was laughing inside.”

You would assume that Mike Quigley would be worried about some smart, honest and courageous investigative journalist combing through the minutes of the Cook County Board in 2006 and grubby little Mike's paws all over collusion with the Venzuelan Voting Machines along with CPS Czar Forrest Claypool and Dave Orr in collusion with real Russian hacking and vote tampering.

You would assume that, but this is Cook County - The Banana Republic that shakes the federal Trees.
Thud!

Sweet.

Idiot Bicyclists and Bistro Voltaire

 “Men are equal; it is not birth but virtue that makes the difference.” ― Voltaire

  DNAinfo ChicagoThe video shows a bicyclist apparently slowly pedaling into the intersection of Halsted and Roosevelt when a car hits him, sending the man over the car's roof and landing several feet away.
The driver of the car, a 22-year-old woman, stayed at the scene and has not been cited in the crash
Read more at https://www.liveleak.com/view?i=995_1500584271#UeqSxFGsIJCZARVJ.99

“Ice-cream is exquisite. What a pity it isn't illegal.” ― Voltaire


My lovely friend and I enjoyed a superb evening at a remarkable destination - Bistro Voltaire at 222 West Chicago Avenue.  The getting there was like watching Dunkirk on IMAX.

We began our trip to Bistro Voltaire at 4 P.M. on a hot and sticky Saturday, armed with an umbrella for the much threatened rains.  No rain.  I decided to take North Avenue from Oak Park to the restaurant, because Taste of River North was getting under way and the expected traffic at Ohio exit of 94 North would be as thick as creme brulee on hot sidewalk.

North  Avenue is a wonderful ride east to the hipper environs. You travel through Austin and West ad East Garfield Parks, where my Aunt Nellie Shea and her husband Dinny had an apartment until their moves to Heaven and then Humboldt Park.  I turned south at California and we saw old gents playing dominoes in Humboldt Park.  We passed the wonderful Flying Saucer diner run by a brilliant Australian lad named Andy and headed east again at Chicago Avenue heading into Ukrainian Village with its magnificent Churches and Museum and finally the bedroom community of the self absorbed.

These hipper environs are noticeable more by its tattooed and tanned denizens pedaling expensive CEEPO Vipers, or the more modest 6061 BLACK LABEL - PEARL WHITE.  These people want everyone to know that they are alive . . ., at the moment. 

Last week I watched a video (above)  of a graceful idiot imitating a bug on a windshield, in DNAinfo Chicago.

Yesterday, I watched no fewer than four such well-accoutred imbeciles sped through red lights at Chicago and Western , Chicago and Damen, Chicago and Ashland and finally at Chicago and Larabee.  These death defying morons caused traffic, which was not inconsiderable, to buckle and wane in expectation of meeting between force and matter.

My son lives in Wicker Park, as do many young people brought up with Old World values in the un-hippest of neighborhoods and continue to live accordingly.  These young people know what it means to not receive participation trophies, how to wait their turns, have deference for other people and how not to spark a confrontation with their elders and betters.

Living among them are tattooed and tanned spawn of Montessori, Lab and Liberation education.

Free to form, do what they may with creative intensity and speak their little minds.

There were no speeding ninnies observed from Oak Park to Sacramento along Chicago Avenue, it was only at the boundaries of Wards run by Proco Joe Moreno and Brian Hopkins that the Clay-brained people emerged.  Always aboard a most expensive set of wheels

Our Lady Blue Divvy bikers tended to their slow pace and themselves.

Once we found on-street parking on Chicago Avenue, we took an amble to the Brehon Pub and caught the pivotal 8th Inning of yesterday's W over St. Louis.  My lady had scrumptious baked pretzel as a pre-prandial salivation for the delights awaiting at our 5:30 P.M. reservation.

Opened in 2010, Bistro Volatire is top of the charts.  The music is an exquisite combination real jazz, jazz Manouche, Edith Piaff, Michel Le Grande and Ray Charles.  The walls are festooned with image of Western literary giants, save the bothersome portrait of career bullshitter Studs Terkel - Volatire, Balzac, Victor Hugo, John Dos Passos, Hemingway, Ezra Pound, Gertrud Stein, Virginia Wolf, Joseph Conrad, Guy de Maupassant, James Joyce and Eugene O'Neill.

The lighting is perfect, the seating cozy-comfortable and the service wonderfully attentive, friendly and pure Chicago homespun at its best.

Our server, James, was a Dubliner and student at UCD enjoying the freedom of our city and working the fresh markets in the same neighborhoods that are home to the Morons sur les bicyclettes of our trip here.

The menu is simple and inviting .  We both had the Bistro Salade of crisp and chilled Romaine and endive lettuce, bacon, and  a poached egg over a Dijon mustard vinaigrette.

After sampling the driest of white wines and settling on the Chardonnay, the birthday girl ordered the Vivaneau - Red snapper over spinach and parsnip puree.

My only disappointment was they were out of swordfish and I opted for the wonderful steak au poivre.  You can not miss this.  The Frittes (fries) are seasoned with garlic and pure love of Man.   I could cut the steak with a spoon.

Knowing that my lovely guest was celebrating her birthday, the wonderful manager sent over the lady's favorite cocktail Kir Royal and a candle topped Profiterolle ( a pastry puff stuffed with gelato and covered in a sinful chocolate sauce.  I got more than few spoons of it.

Bistro Voltaire is the ideal  romantic evening, special dinner treat that will put you in solid with the one you love.  Get there before James returns to his studies in economics at University of Dublin in September.  He is a great entry to the superb entrees at Bistro Voltaire.

I took I 94 to the Ike home - no bikes.

Trapped by Happiness? Have a Cold One in a Very Cold Place

The Coldest Beer in Chicago - tap your own. 

Mellow out. Enjoy the benefits of Christianity without the pain, as Mustapha Mond encouraged the mellow folks of Huxley's Brave New World. 

Have a cold one.

I like beer as much as the next twenty or thirty guys, but where I like it best is in a chilled glass and a warm place.

Long a draft beer man, I have quaffed, sipped, guzzled and turk'd pilsners, lagers, ales and stouts from every vessel but a beautiful woman's boot.  She wouldn't come across with the footwear, for some reason.



Beer from Boots, Dunkels, Dimpled Pints, Solo Cups, kegs,  bottles or cans is wonderful.  Unless it is a really bad beer. These would gag a maggot, but I was more than happy to pound them down once they were chilled to a frosty 42 degree,  Then, and only then, were they potable.

The after effects were crapulous - From the Late Latin word crāpulōsus, dating back to 1530-40. See crapulent, -ous: 1530s, "sick from too much drinking," from Latin crapula, from Greek kraipale "hangover, drunken headache, nausea from debauching." The Romans used it for drunkenness itself. English has used it in both senses. Related: Crapulously ; crapulousness.

That was unwise.  Where such drinks were consumed was determined as much by the initial selection of drink - , broke, underage and furtive.   The fewer nickels in the palm determined the caliber of the content consumed.  The younger the dumber and always sneaky.  We drank under the stars in alleys, burned out grocery stores on Ashland Avenue, in Dan Ryan Woods, at Rum Valley on 79th at the viaduct on 2200 West.

With legality, the settings improved and could chart our rise from impecunity to working class and eventually burgher middle class.  We drank where we were moist comfortable, biker bars, dives, slop-shutes, holes in the wall, lounges, discos, pubs, clubs and scenes. " A tavern chair is the throne of felicity," growled Dr.Samuel Johnson. Felicity and courtesy reign together,

To me a great place to have a beer, or any beverage, is in a friendly, unpretentious inviting, warm and welcoming licensed premise that attracts people from all walks of life.  Keegans Pub ( now Barney Callaghans) at 10618 S. Western hosted such a clientele.  I  noted in December, 2008:

The Great Mount Greenwood Southwest Observer a wonderful neighborhood website offers a recent poll of Local Pubs and Watering Holes.
County Armagh's and Now Chicago's Own Bernard Callahan's Keegan's Pub is ranked at the top of some very fine Saloons here in the 19th Ward.
Keegan's Pub
10618 S Western
Chicago
773-233-6829
Keegan's Pub is headquarters to a group of wits, workers and wunderkinds that could body slam any Mensa Chapter west of Alexandria, Egypt in its best day and serves the most laboriously crafted 'pint of plain' - Guinness this side of foamy brine.
Get thee to Keegan's soak up some laughs, nuanced analysis of the day's events and the creamy goodness of that Old Black Magic brewed at St. James's Gate Dublin.

There was a jukebox available for customers, but commanded for level and intensity by the bar staff and  if Black Dog appeared to induced the same psychological effect upon an intoxicated patron teh volume was adjusted accordingly.  Dark wood and black leather furnishings added to the Irish Pub look and feel, as well as walls decorated with Padrig Pearse's Poblacht na héireann proclamation, photos of writers, rebels and neighborhood reprobates.  Conversation was key.

Most great watering holes, saloons, taverns, Cervecarias and Piwiarnias are poor man's clubs. Richard M.  Daley killed off most of Chicago's great clubs of this kind in favor of hipster haunts and scenes with music at Wagnerian levels of discomfort and banning chat entirely. You can't talk you drink more. More Revenue.  Move-on!

Today in DNAinfo Chicago I read about the coldest place to quaff a beer.

LOGAN SQUARE — The latest bar to join the neighborhood has serious do-it-yourself vibes.
Logan Square's first "pour your own beer" taproom, on the ground floor of the "L" luxury apartment building at 2211 N. Milwaukee Ave., debuts to the public Saturday. . . .The way it works is customers will be given a card when they walk in, which they will enter into a slot above their chosen beer or wine tap. The bar is offering a rotating selection of roughly 40 beers and 10 wines on tap along the back wall, decorated with city grid maps. 

Using Pour My Beer technology, iPads will measure the ounces and tabulate the cost of each beer, eliminating the need for traditional bartenders or servers. Staffers will be stationed near the wall to assist and give suggestions.

For folks who don't want to go the do-it-yourself route, the taproom also a small traditional bar tucked in the corner, where customers can order beer and cocktails made with locally-made spirits from bartenders.

The beer selection will rotate as the seasons change. Right now, summery beers like Empirical Brewery's Up Cork Passion Fruit Pale Ale and 21st Amendment's Hell or High Water Watermelon Wheat Beer are the focus.

"Our goal is to put as many different beer brands through these taps as possible," said Enarson, who added that lineups will be posted on the taproom's Facebook and Twitter pages in advance.

This will be a hit.  Beer that tastes like grapefruit, apples, watermelon and passion fruit has its fans, "I’m getting huge onion and garlic nectar, coffee ground  for sure, sage, and a trace-hint of  fecal too. Also exotic hops."

I was getting, " This is a nice beer."

 The IPA drinkers who scorn un-hoppiness and embrace global happiness will market-drive this venture.

Maps of City Grids bespeak the death of neighborhood and soul-less spirituality that is the culture in the driver's seat.  Rahms city grid for garbage collection was nail in Ward autonomy's coffin.

Here soma-like IPA's with alcohol contents exceeding  ABV 8% tapped from cold-steel panels will be self-yanked, avoiding a chat with the barkeep.

This will be a hit with our gotta have it now demographs and avoid the frustrations of having to wait one's turn, until Master Tap-tun arrives to serve the center of the universe.

As I said, this Logan Square venture will be a sure fire hit.  That is sad to me. Cold beer in a warm place seems preferable.

When yanking your own beer pull, you will not need to leave your comfort zone,  "I get overripe Velvetta, cheesiness, Parm, and tangy on the palate. It’s a little bit of Slim Jim."