Boy, That Trump ? Huh? The Cheerleaders Are in a Snit.

Heidi Stevens is in a snit. That Mr. Trump has really gone and done it.  Once again, the Orange Man has insulted the Banana Republic on Lake Michigan, its Mayor, its County Government, Ja'mal Green, Pastor Pfleger, Eric Zorn, Cardinal Cupich, Neil Steinberg, WTTW, the afflicted, the non-Heterosexual, the non-Caucasian, the un-legal Dreamers, the non-Biking Divvy mockers, Weiners Circle Hotdogs and Brendan Reilly.

Do not get the cheerleaders upset, Dude!

Trump had the audacity to Hope to say,      "What the hell is going on in Chicago?"

No, he didn't! He did. He went there. Now, he got this right back in his face!

Trump has asked the same question before, and he's not alone in wondering. I get the same question from friends and family who don't live here. (And a few who do.)

What's happening in Chicago is this:

• The Grant Park Music Festival just got underway, which marks another year of free, world-class music under a Frank Gehry-designed open air pavilion where friends share a bottle of wine, couples enjoy a picnic and kids twirl around on the grass, shoulder-to-shoulder, like we do things in the city.

• New artwork is popping up along our stunning lakefront bike trail. (Our mayor named 2017 the year of public art.)

• Chicago Public Schools just let out, so some of its almost 400,000 students are flooding our enviable parks and playgrounds*.

• The Cubs are losing again. Chicago Pride Fest is this weekend.

Now, take that, Mr. Orange-hair, size 38 and up pants wearing Mr. Guy!

Heidi Stevens grew up in Chicago's suburbs,  like Chicago's Mayor and most of Chicago's columnists and TV anchors, so she knows this city on-the-take like one of Nels Algren's poker pals - warts and all, she knows this city.  Sure, we have grade school kids gunned down at end of school parties, but we have tender-hearted and caring Chicago values folks who know that thousands of the people of color are being tortured at this very minute in Homan Square and are not terribly concerned that Ja'mal Green and Forrest Claypool feed off of Chicago's dying husk.

And we have a devastating level of gun violence, which is what Trump and others are really asking about. It's a scourge on our city.

• New artwork is popping up along our stunning lakefront bike trail. (Our mayor named 2017 the year of public art.)
• Chicago Public Schools just let out, so some of its almost 400,000 students are flooding our enviable parks and playgrounds.
• The Cubs are losing again. Chicago Pride Fest is this weekend.

And we have a devastating level of gun violence, which is what Trump and others are really asking about. It's a scourge on our city.

So what? Other cities are worse, says Heidi.

• Chicago isn't even close to the deadliest city in the United States. On a per-capita basis, according to The Trace, Chicago isn't even in the top 10. New Orleans, Cleveland, Atlanta, St. Louis, Oakland, Cincinnati, Miami, Philadelphia — they've all got us beat.

• That makes the deaths here no more palatable and no less urgent. But Chicago is America writ small.

• Our gun violence, our racial tensions, our education funding, our income disparity, our aging infrastructure, our efforts, however clumsy, to coexist with people who don't look like us, worship like us, speak like us, live like us — none of it is unique to Chicago.

• We're grappling with it all in 237 square miles. America's grappling with it in 3 million or so. Not in every city and town, but in plenty.
• It benefits no one to divide and polarize us. We're all Americans.

• If you want to know what the hell's going on here, swing by for a visit. On any given day, it's a beautiful, messy, breathtaking display of humanity's best and worst.

• Just like America.

 So, there.

Here's what's happening in Chicago, Mr. Tangerine Mean CNN Andy Cooper Pooper President:

• Rahm Closes Ohio Street Underpass and Ignores Questions ( Because of Hi-Jinks on the Beach)
• Rahm and Rauner Fail
• Pop Taxed
• Chicago Black Flight
• Tiger Woods Gets Land - In Your Face George Lucas-Hobson!
• Obama Library Will Close LSD

Speaking of the Arts!

•       Small Theaters Ban Theater Critics
•      Corey Feldman is Back!
•     Where to watch Ru Paul's Drag Race

So, we have that going for Chicago and the LGBTQ Community appropriated the letters  I.A, P & K ( and more!) *in celebration of Pride Week, which appropriated Pride and dropped the Gay, for some reason.

Chicago is a Banana Republic and Heidi Stevens, the Chicago Tribune, former President Barack Obama, the Resistance, Valerie Jarrett, Chicago City Council, Cook County Government and Hollywood are still upset because America is still not a Banana Republic. 

Here is the Butcher's Bill that helps pay for this secular, global urban Banana Republic: 

 June to Date

Shot & Killed: 55

Shot & Wounded: 223

Total Shot: 278

Total Homicides: 61

Week in Progress (6/18 – 6/24)

Shot & Killed: 10

Shot & Wounded: 47

Total Shot: 57

Total Homicides: 14

Year to Date

Shot & Killed: 292

Shot & Wounded: 1360

Total Shot: 1652

Total Homicides: 313

Tell Him, Heidi Stevens!

Take that President 1% Size 38" and Up pants, Iowa Rally Slap Chicago Guy!

*LGGBTQQIAAPPK? The categories of human sex and gender expression and identities they could represent is likely infinite. If that acronym looks a bit absurd, it speaks to the absurdity of thinking there are a few isolated “sexual minorities” while the rest of the human race is “normal” and fairly similar. The truth is the level of diversity in our sexual lives as human beings means we are all sexual minorities. As accepted and culturally understood identity categories continue to arise, this will become more and more apparent. Perhaps the “queer” community is, in fact, becoming more accurately described as the community of people who acknowledge the diversity of human sexual and gender expression and seek to be open to exploring that diversity within themselves and the culture at large.
Lyla Cicero has a doctorate in clinical psychology, and focuses on relationships, sexual minorities, and sex therapy. Lyla is a feminist, LGBTQIAPK-affirmative, sex-positive blogger at UnderCoverintheSuburbs.com, where she writes about expanding cultural notions of identity, especially those surrounding gender, sexual orientation, motherhood, and sexuality. Follow her on Twitter @UndrCvrNSuburbs.

Wallace Stevens and Ron White - Stays Against a Tide of Stupid: Jane Fonda, Dildos and Dick Durbin

Then Judah said to Onan, “Sleep with your brother’s wife and fulfill your duty to her as a brother-in-law to raise up offspring for your brother.” But Onan knew that the child would not be his; so whenever he slept with his brother’s wife, he spilled his semen on the ground to keep from providing offspring for his brother. What he did was wicked in the Lord’s sight; so the Lord put him to death also. Genesis 38 8-10

There should be no shame in the vibrator game. Heidi Stevens- Chicago Tribune 

          The next time you have a thought... let it go. Ron White

Guess I'm just a crusty old so-and-so.  I read in order to soak up the goings-on, the go-getters and the Grace giving goodness of people on this earth, but often find myself stewing in the bile coughed up by the truly stupid.

Were the world in the capable hands of Ron White things might be just a little more whole some, giggle-giving and affirming that God loves us. T'aint so.

God has given us free-will and too many columnists like Chicago Tribune's Heidi Stevens, Mary Schmich, Eric Zorn and Rex Huppke to wade through to get to John Kass.

Then, from the Merchandise Mart, the Chicago Sun Times thickens the fairway with weeds like Michael Sneed, Lynn Sweet, Mark Brown and Neil Steinberg, in order to play through to reports by Tim Novak.

This morning, instead of averting my eyes like my soul thunders for me to do, I went and read Heidi Stevens' chirpy ad for dildos.  Jane Fonda's frank sex toy talk opens the door for a generation -  Mother of God! Really, this is a regular column written by a nitwit who acts as the culture guardian of suburban women and metrosexuals.

Get this!  "Seventy-nine-year-old Jane Fonda is doing for vibrators what 44-year-old Jane Fonda did for aerobics videos: mainstreaming them.

And not a moment too soon. . . .The new season of her critically acclaimed Netflix series, "Grace and Frankie," co-starring Lily Tomlin, sees the two women launch a business selling sex toys for women. If you happen to drive down Vine Street in Hollywood, you might see a giant billboard of Fonda and Tomlin holding ribbed, purple objects under the words "Good vibes" — in case there was any confusion about what they're holding.  And if you watch "The Ellen DeGeneres Show," you may have happened upon Fonda unveiling a vibrator on daytime TV. (Take that, "The View"!) . . .

Cleansing breath - If you watch the View, you are way past worrying about.

Back to vagina vibrating with Heidi Stevens.

"I applaud her," said Lauren Streicher, medical director of Northwestern Memorial Hospital's Center for Sexual Medicine and Menopause. "I've been trying to talk about this on daytime TV for years, and no one will have any part of it."
Fifty-two percent of American women use a vibrator, Streicher said, according to a 2009 study published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine. And women over 60, in particular, need to know about their benefits.
"Sometimes nerve endings aren't as sensitive as they used to be, so what did it for you before isn't going to necessarily do it anymore," said Streicher, who wrote "Sex Rx: Hormones, Health, and Your Best Sex Ever" (Dey St.). "In addition, you have a lot of medical conditions — diabetes, cardiovascular disease, multiple sclerosis — that can cause a desensitization of nerve endings, so there is a need for increased stimulation."

So,  data!   As useful to onanists as the Paul Simon Institute's pre-caste polling.

The social engineers Steicher, Stevens, De Generis and Fonda argue that most women practise onanism - you know - wank, jerk off, jack off, toss off, bring oneself off,  and pleasure oneself - to use the Gone With the Wind trope -fiddle-dee-dee!

Isolated, solitary, all by their lonesome vaginas are liberating!  No masters; No God!  No Problems!

How about guys?  They love to Date Miss Michigan!  I must admit, that the image of Barbarella doing the business trumps that guy, Torrence Ivy, from the Red Line.  Celebrity and all.

A Celebrity endorsement in this Age of Resistance is often just not enough - even for a woman with the woke vagina to sit her business end on the business end of a Viet Cong flak pumper in 1967, is not enough - for a Medill-do columnist.  The Chicago Tribune's go-to academics largely come from Northwestern University - home of Medill-do School of Journalism (unaccredited - n'cest pas), where the Sun Times turns to the Blue Demon Social Justice Warriors of City Hall Connected De Paul University. 

The Sun Times wastes a bunch of space tell us that Senator Dick Durbin had an outpatient heart procedure, whatever that means.  Now, if he had an outpatient brain surgery that would be something!  And fun to watch.

As it is, my bile is up.  When that happens I turn to Wallace Stevens.

I chose The Plot Against The Giant - this delightful poem presents women at their best.  Three clever credits to their gender apply the sense smell, sight and sound to bedevil an ogre that is no doubt like meself.

First Girl
When this yokel comes maundering,
Whetting his hacker,
I shall run before him,
Diffusing the civilest odors
Out of geraniums and unsmelled flowers.
It will check him.
Second Girl
I shall run before him,
Arching cloths besprinkled with colors
As small as fish-eggs.
The threads
Will abash him.
Third Girl
Oh, la...le pauvre!
I shall run before him,
With a curious puffing.
He will bend his ear then.
I shall whisper
Heavenly labials in a world of gutturals.
It will undo him.
Wallace Stevens :

Labials are consonant sounds that require both upper and lower lips in mutual application - POP!

That sure undoes me.

After Fonda, Heidi Stevens and Lauren Streicher, set my bile a bubble, a penis dragging poet put me in fine perspective with touching anything but my soul.

If not Wallace Stevens, I turn to Ron White.



                     

The Problem of the Chicago Voter Outside of the Ensorcelled Circle

Imagine if a Mayor of Chicago, had at one time been a civil engineer and actually read Mary Wisniewski's fine piece of reporting in the editorially awful Chicago Tribune - all crap that Rahm approves.  Too bad a Mayor is not a civil engineer by trade . . . Oh, that's right . . .one (Ed Kelly) was but that was long before Ms.Wiszniewski wrote about crumbling bridges.

Instead, we live in a politics and policy driven Progressive, global, Banana Republic. This is a malicious make-believe palace, a fairy tale world where magical things can happen for an Oh, so very few, including an eight year stay in the White House for a very special lad, or where a little guy can sit on another little guy's lap and tell him that he too dreams of being Mayor.

It is a place where big dreams count as nothing and fortunes trump virtue.

It is a tight ensorcelled circle that welcomes only the approved - the businesses, the banks, the law firms, the real estate wizards, the University and 501(c)3 public policy tax vacuums and the very few people enchanted for windfalls.

Outside of the ensorcelled circle only those with an immediate connection to the source of gold some few benefit with multiple pensions, Shakman exempt appointments, or sinecures beyond  of the vision of  everyone else.

That leaves out millions of Chicagoans and many more Cook County residents.

Outside of the ensorcelled circle people make due, beef about water bills, tax increases, burgeoning crimes against person and property, horrific public schools and worse public servants.

Yet, these same put-upon people vote the ticket every election and every time.

Gun Violence and Police Misconduct keep every eye on flaccid media writers like Eric Zorn, Neil Steinberg, Stephen Chapman and Mary Schmich, or smarmy echo-chamber Orwellians on WBEZ, or WTTW.

Chicagoans nod, sigh and wait for the Cubbies. Sadly band wagon south siders feel a tingle in the thighs over the baby bear and forget 2005 as a time past. Same goes with political villainy.  Chicagoans are too nice by half.

They scratch their heads about

• Forrest Claypool's latest six figure job and pension package
• Suzanne Mendoza's leap from Herbie Pulgar to the Comptoller's chair
• Pat Quinn
• Proco Joe
• Toni Preckwinkle
• Mike Quigley
• Jan Schakowsky

And think nothing about putting an " I'm With Rahm" sign on the their lawns

Chicagoans will always do a neighbor a solid; even if the neighbor works against every fundmental core value you have, makes a ton of money and pension for following orders.

The only thing necessary for the perpetuation of evil in Cook County is for good people to do a solid for Frannie, Billy, Tommy, or any other knucklehead with a government gig.

It is one thing to break wind in the bath tub; it is another thing altogether to bite the bubbles.

Meet the Press - They Do Not Respect You

 Police said the incident began when an off-duty Chicago firefighter began to argue with motorists in the funeral procession who were blocking a fire lane. Police said the argument became “verbal and physical.”
Beal’s family members have said the incident began when an off-duty police officer tried to run one of their relatives off the road. Sun Times Frank Main &Mitch Dudek  

The shooting, which took place three days before Donald Trump's election as president, happened in Mount Greenwood, a largely white enclave heavily populated by police and firefighters on the mostly black and Hispanic South Side. Dueling protests followed, and the groups traded racial slurs and insults; supporters of the police, largely white, made clear those protesting the shooting, mostly black, were not welcome in the neighborhood. Chicago Tribune - Elvvia Malagon

         Kofi Ademola is a community organizer with Black Lives Matter Chicago and has been in                    regular contact with the Beal family since the fatal shooting.

He had not spoken to the family Thursday but reached out to offer some encouragement during this difficult time. Ademola said the family was already grieving when Beal was fatally shot. And now they are dealing with the arrest of Beal's brother Michael, who was taken into custody following the shooting for allegedly tackling with the officer and attempting to grab his gun.
For Ademola, what stood out among the new information was the 911 call from the officer. He said the officer's tone backs up the family's claims that painted the officer as both "aggressive" and "antagonistic." DNAinfo Kelly Bauer and Howard Ludwig

The media comments on a shooting that took place in November.  The accounts of the video released by the lame-duck Independent Police Review Board and soon to be Rahm-reconfigured as COPA, indicate a good police shooting.

Meet the Press!

None of the above reports from today's sources are accurate.  The funeral possession went on without the family Beal - they were weaving in and out of traffic, one vehicle was doing a U-Turn on 111th Street at Troy and then blocked the entrance to the FIRE HOUSE - which dispatches an Ambulance to black and white residents of Morgan Park and Mount Greenwood.

DNAinfo has been disgraceful from the day of the shooting. Only Ed Komenda presented exactly what had happened.

The incident happened about 3 p.m. Saturday near 111th Street and Troy Avenue. Joshua Beal was in a procession of cars returning from a funeral when he stopped in front of a firehouse on 111th Street, according to prosecutors.
An off-duty police officer told Beal that he was blocking access to the firehouse and the confrontation started, prosecutors said. Another off-duty officer in a nearby barber shop joined in on the confrontation, prosecutors said.
A group of nine people approached the second officer and started punching him, prosecutors said.A police sergeant driving to work saw the fight. He got out of his car, drew his gun and said he was a police officer, authorities said.
"You're not the only mother------- out there with guns," Joshua Beal said and waved the gun "back and forth," according to prosecutors. Joshua Beal then pulled the trigger, prosecutors said. It was unclear whether the gun actually fired.
Beal, who was in town to serve as a pallbearer at his cousin's funeral, refused to drop his gun, and he was shot multiple times, prosecutors said. He later died at Advocate Christ Medical Center.
Michael Beal then tried to pick up his brother's gun, prosecutors said.
"F--- you," Michael Beal said, according to prosecutors. "You killed my brother. I'm going to kill you."

Ed Komenda wrote that accurate account on November 8th and has not written about the Beal shooting since - Howard Ludwig, Kelly Bauer, Joe Ward are the compelling narrators.

The Tribune uses 'dogwhistle' racism and race baiting.

Has a black or Hispanic Community ever been referred to as an enclave?  Is Boystown an enclave?
Might Hyde Park be an enclave?  What is the diversity of Chinatown?  Mount Greewood is a neighborhood and black people live there next door to white people.

Enclave's etymology from the French for 'enclosure' and the Latin root word clavis offers a dog whistle to sensitive ears.  Clavis or 'key' suggests locked up, violent and hostile.  Shucks, link up Google's images for enclave and it jibs with Neil Steinberg's smears.

We get it.  The story of what actually happened on November 5, 2017 at around 3 PM on the north side of 111th Street in Mount Greenwood has yet to be told in the Chicago press, dissected by Phil Ponce on WTTW, or smirked about on WBEZ.

The core of the story is lost in the feathers and boas of 'compelling narrative.'

• 60's style racism
• Tweets from high school girls
• Ja'mal Green's political future
• Pastor Pfleger's grift box
• CPUSA and REVCOM
• Racism, racism and more racism

No an idiot who violated traffic laws with easy contempt, was confronted by people who are not idiots. A fight ensued.  Police officers announced them selves and pulled service weapons when the idiot was 'unresponsive' to police orders. The idiot pulled a gun on the announced police officers who returned fire.  The idiot died, God be good to him, and the press, Ja'mal Green, Black Lives Matter, REVCOM and Pastor Pfleger did the rest - Oh, and Kofi Ademola wants in too. 

Meet the Press!  With contempt. 

Neil Steinberg! Words that People Say Really Matter, Because They Often Match What People Believe And Do.

 

    The darkness drops again but now I know
    That twenty centuries of stony sleep
    Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
    And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
    Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born? William Butler Yeats, The Second Coming

 Obviously, you want Obama elected — the nation will soon realize what it has done, the pendulum will swing the other way — your way. At long last! Ausgerechnet jetzt!
Persuasive stuff. But if I know you — and I do — about now you’re asking yourself: “Hey, wait a second. This guy’s a Jew. Why would a Jew be looking out for the best interest of the Iron Fist of Righteous White Anger, Mount Greenwood Corps?” Neil Steinberg Chicago Sun Times 2009

The immediate snotty crack above followed a series of Sun Times columns by other like-minded writers who hate cops and white Catholics in general that spouted pretty much the same lie. I live in Morgan Park which, like Mount Greenwood, gets grouped in a collective that the media call Beverly or the political landscape of the 19th Ward - home to largely white Catholic, government employees, teachers, nurses, tradesmen, some well-to-do folks, cops and fireman. Many black Americans live very well in this neighborhood as well. I used to meet black gents like Doc and Stewart up at Keegan's Pub having a drink and  a horse-laugh with their paler hued neighbors. Now, Keegan's  is Barney Callaghan's and a younger crowd attend the same salons. However, when I read Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun Times (without paying for either mind you), one might think that folks spent  all of  their time chasing Eliza over the ice flow on the Ohio River, as the poor child attempts to find the Underground High Speed Railroad. Nope.

Well, Monday was Halloween!  A very nice time for kids and their parents.

Trick, or Treat!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!   Note there is no question.  The implied meaning Treats without your windows getting soaped, your front porch egged, or worse. The tricks have gone the way of merry at Christmas time.

We still love Christmas, Hanukkah, or Yule tide, but the concept of being merry in our age could get a some poor slob locked up and wearing a Velcro dinner jacket on the fourth floor of the local hospital,

I glanced at the Sun Times this morning and saw that Neil Steinberg had a scold for people Neil deems stupid - anyone not Neil Steinberg.

He echoes William Butler Yeats's dismissal of 'polite, meaningless words'

People just say stuff.
Such as “How are you?” when they couldn’t care less how you are. And “I’m fine” when they’re not. It’s expected, the grease that society slides forward on. Hardly worth noting.
When it comes to politics, however, this just-say-stuff habit is more worrisome. Then the grease can send our nation skidding off of a cliff of toxic nonsense and paranoid fantasy. Politicians make promises that they can’t possibly deliver. They air claims that can’t possibly be true, that directly conflict what they just said a day or two ago. And their followers, well, follow, saying things they neither mean nor think about.

Yeats meant what he said about the people he met and knew before they 'changed; changed utterly' by British firing squads.  They were the same people, only dead and honored for their deaths in 1916.


Several days ago, Steinberg wrote a piece that was standard if you back Trump you are a racist Cro Magnon, honeyed with William Butler Yeats.

As terrible as the election of 2016 is, it is also only the beginning. Clinton might win — I hold out hope she will win, unless of course she doesn’t. But that won’t be the end. Somewhere, a sharper, slicker, more disciplined, more palatable version of Donald Trump — Donald 2.0 — is being assembled. Some Marco Rubio-caliber fraud is staring hard at himself in the mirror, liking what he sees, and cooing, “Next time, it’s your turn baby!” The rough beast awakes and slouches toward 2020 to be born.

I used to read and like Neil Steinberg.  Then I learned that his words did not match the guy. Where I come from, that is a problem.  Neil might have been well-served taking a graduate course in regular folks.  But, back to the nub. Neil is on a Yeats kick.

He and so many 'journalists, politicians, anchorpersons, bankers, oligarchs, academics and  hacks are worried that Trump might win on November 8th - I don't worry, nor do I believe that he will get by stacked decks.  Steinberg says stuff all of the time and he believes it.  He hates Trump and the people voting for him with the same passion as he hated people for not worshipping at Obama's 2008 Greek Temple. He goes Orewellian Big Brother on them with great regularity.

 

  Then, Neil decides to really gin-up the Two Minutes Hate on the specific people who might back Trump and nail us good:

Such as? Abortion. “Abortion is murder,” the anti-abortion crowd claims. You hear it all the time. First, that’s incorrect. Since murder is a legal term, and abortion is legal and thus it is by definition not murder. What they mean is “Abortion should be murder.” Except they don’t mean that either, as you can demonstrate by replying, “Oh really? If it’s murder, then for how long should the murderers go to jail?” And the answer is “umm.” We can translate that grunt as “OK ‘abortion is murder,’ is just something we say because it sounds powerful and more compact than, ‘I want to force my religion on you while dragging gender roles back to the 1950s.'” Admittedly quite a mouthful.

Quite a mouthful.  You know what they say about people who talk with their mouths full?

Two words - Nuremberg Laws, numb nuts.

Nuremberg Laws and Roe v. Wade. Hitler murdered Jews and Planned Parenthood murders babies.  See, nothing on my teeth and gums.

Words matter and people mean what they say, even if they use Yeats.

Neil went through a Dante period that was equally shallow in 2008-'09. During his Inferno Days,  Neil had lunch at Kens on Western Ave. around the time when Mr. Steinberg's conduct brought public humiliation on him and his tenure as an employee, much less a columnist was doubtful.  Blood under the bridge.  No one forgets a kindness like a guy who believes that he is Emile Zola.   I took Neil Steinberg to Jackie Casto's Ken's on Western Ave. for lunch, where the talented word-sculptor chatted with a thick number of folks who live here, including cops, fireman, school teachers. the Mayor of Evergreen Park, two writers from Beverly Review and a number of Leo Alums who had attended the Veterans Observance.

Generally, when one breaks bread with another person some kind of bond of mutual grace and respect surfaces - not so with too many columnists.  A few months later, Neil smeared the people he lunched with to make a snotty crack about the stupid people who did not vote for and worship Obama in 2009.

Hell, I didn't vote for Obama in 2008, or 2012, because I firmly the believe the man has limited mental capacities - he has yet to disappoint me as our first Ted Baxter President.

I say, "Good Morning,: because I mean that I hope everyone including Neil Steinberg has a very good morning.

Neil Steinberg is a semiotic totalitarian - he and his circle know what meaning is and they will tell us.  He gets caught up in all of that clever Jacques Derrida deconstructionism that journalists employ to white-out events, words, deeds and meanings. Poetry works for semiotic totalitarians.  Me and the neighbors tend to be prosaic.

When I say " Get the @#$% off my porch,"  I don't mean come on in and set a spell.

Career Grifter and CPS Boss Forrest Claypool's Trail of Slime Pointed Out by Juan Perez!

The Chicago Tribune's Juan Perez, Jr. is asking the questions about the Rula Lenska of Progressive Chicago Politics, that I have asked for years.  My heart is warmed.  Mr. Perez has a nice set of teeth. 

Forrest Claypool, the Rula Lenska* of Chicago politics,  has had one helluva run!  For decades this fading beauty has been treated to quality moisturizers, Dior Air-Flash foundation, blot & powder and just the right blush on those apple cheeks, by the stooge propagandists at WTTW, ABC 7, NBC5, and . . .oh, what the hell CBS2.

About the time Rula Lenska was bombarding the TV airwaves hawking  Alberto Culver products and stunning millions of Americans into raising the question " Just Who IS Rula Lensaka?"  Forrest Claypool was brushing the Saluki moss from the back of his grey worsted Brooks Brothers and insinuating his way into the corridors of power on La Salle and Clark between Washington and Randolph.  Soon, Chicagoans were saying, " Just Who IS Forrest Claypool?"

No one seemed to have the insight, or the gumption to say," He's a grifter and damn well-practiced one, Rubes."

Nope, we are too nice.  We swallow anything, because our news papers and electronic media is as much a part of the political anatomy of Chicago, as the 14th Ward Regular Democratic Liver, Bacon and Onions Boosters.

Forrest Claypool oozed into Chicago Power Politics with David Axelrod, Judson Miner,  and Rahm Emanuel.  They helped Abner Mikva and Michael Shakman remove the City That Works' political limbs, leaving a Progressive torso that requires much more monetary sustenance, than the once functioning apparatus had ever dreamed of stealing.

The old time political crooks never stole everything.   Progressives do.

Progressives are loyal only to power and those who bring more power to the table. Claypool is master of the game. He requires short memories and no interested inquiry on the part of people who should know better.  Do any Progressive a favor and a politician will soon find a six inch blade where his kidneys once functioned.  The political landscape is littered with corpses of once trusting and effective public servants.

Claypool gets appointments via his network.  If he runs for office, he generally gets his ass handed to him - County Board President and Cook County Assessor. He did manage to squeak by Ted Lechowicz  and grab a comfy seat on the county Board

He has been appointed

• to Cook County Board of Appeals
•  as Deputy State Treasurer
• Mayor Daley's Chief of Staff
• Head of Chicago Parks
• CEO CTA
• CEO CPS

Succeeding where?  Rula Lenska has more chops.

Now, with digital media some people begin to ask " Who Exactly IS Forrest Claypool?"  Even the always pliable Chicago Tribune has turned its blind but gimlet eye on Forrest Claypool and his modus operandi.

The inspector general for the Chicago Board of Education says his work has been obstructed and duplicated by a better-funded arm of CPS chief Forrest Claypool's office, according to a report that lays out a political scuffle between the legally mandated watchdog and the mayoral-appointed administration.

In his report, Nicholas Schuler accuses auditors for Chicago Public Schools of "significant interference" with his investigation into the alleged theft of tens of thousands of dollars worth of CTA fare cards by a district employee.

A "parallel investigation" of that case by CPS' Office of Internal Audit and Compliance last year "compromised a criminal investigation by prematurely alerting a main subject, and sowing fear and confusion in the minds of key witnesses," Schuler said in his report, which was sent to Claypool and the school board. 

Auditors also contacted Cook County prosecutors in an effort to inject their department into the inspector general's fare card investigation, Schuler's office said. He said "very troubling issues remain" with other investigations being undertaken by the auditor's office.

Gee, who'd a thunk?  Carol Marin? Jay Levine? Neil Steinberg?  Mark Brown? Jamie Kalvan?

No one worried too much when Rahm made Claypool the CTA Boss and got Rev. Pfleger to do a politcial hatchet job on the Presidentod Amalgamated Transit Workers Local 308, or about Bombardier contracts, or the Ventra Card Boondoggles. Why should WTTW worry about the fighting Progressive beaten by Joe Berrios, when he took over CPS, after Triple B sold the store to SUPES?

Forrest Claypool pads himself with dollars and silence afforded by trhe compliant media.  Now, that same padding is getting shredded. Lookee H'yar!

The district's internal audit team is led by Andrell Holloway, who previously worked with Claypool in a similar role at the CTA. The unit has received significant funding increases since Claypool took office.

CPS budgeted a little more than $958,000 for the audit department in 2015. This year, the budget for Holloway's office is roughly $4.4 million, not including up to $14 million worth of consulting contracts that he manages. 

This year's budget for Schuler's office is about $2 million, relatively unchanged from recent years. The office perennially asks the school board for more money and staff.
"I think there's a fundamental disagreement, at some level, about the importance of the IG's office," Schuler said in an interview. "I've been told that at the end of the day, nobody's going to stand in our way. We're free to do what we can. But I see that as something different than a wholehearted embrace of the inspector general's function and the idea that there's going to be independent and transparent investigations. CPS declined requests to interview Claypool and Holloway about Schuler's report." (emphasis my own)

Forrest managed to drag poor old Frank "The Mailroom Guy" Clark -former CEO of ComEd into the bed of Claypool's making

Frank Clark, the school board's president and a mediator in the dispute, said Holloway's unit needed more firepower after "not meeting even the minimal obligations of an internal audit department."
"Of course he would like more people," Clark said of Schuler's office. "That could be said for almost every office in central office. But it's unrealistic."
CTA and CPS, like Chicago Park District all seem to have the same players and same grift.  The IG's concern now is the connection between Claypool's CTA Boss-Time and his CPS Boss-Time.
Schuler's office concluded the CPS employee "participated in a criminal conspiracy" in which he would steal transit passes from his office, then distribute them to accomplices who sold them on the black market.
Schuler's investigators believed the employee, who has not been charged with a crime, took at least $72,700 worth of transit passes over about seven months.
The CPS employee was fired in November, according to Schuler's report, which said Holloway's audit department conducted an "improper separate and parallel investigation" into the theft.
Schuler's office said the audit team "disregarded repeated requests … to refrain from simultaneously and separately investigating the matter."
According to the report, Holloway and other members of his team instructed one person interviewed by the IG's office to contact the audit department about the investigation, and conducted separate interviews that Schuler said "prematurely alerted" the suspected employee.
"This investigation implicated a subject who had been hired from the CTA," said a summary of Schuler's investigation.
"Thus, so as to avoid the mere appearance of any impropriety or undue influence on any investigation into the theft of CTA transit passes purchased by CPS, Internal Audit clearly should have stepped aside and let the (IG's office) — the statutorily independent investigative body — undertake its own investigation," the report said.

The IG's investigation applies the Bounty to the slug trails going back to Claypool's Boss-time at CTA and his Boss-time for the children at CPS.

Schuler's office concluded the CPS employee "participated in a criminal conspiracy" in which he would steal transit passes from his office, then distribute them to accomplices who sold them on the black market.

Schuler's investigators believed the employee, who has not been charged with a crime, took at least $72,700 worth of transit passes over about seven months.
The CPS employee was fired in November, according to Schuler's report, which said Holloway's audit department conducted an "improper separate and parallel investigation" into the theft.

Schuler's office said the audit team "disregarded repeated requests … to refrain from simultaneously and separately investigating the matter."
According to the report, Holloway and other members of his team instructed one person interviewed by the IG's office to contact the audit department about the investigation, and conducted separate interviews that Schuler said "prematurely alerted" the suspected employee.

"This investigation implicated a subject who had been hired from the CTA," said a summary of Schuler's investigation.
"Thus, so as to avoid the mere appearance of any impropriety or undue influence on any investigation into the theft of CTA transit passes purchased by CPS, Internal Audit clearly should have stepped aside and let the (IG's office) — the statutorily independent investigative body — undertake its own investigation," the report said.

Back in Jaunary of 2016. Juan Perez wrote a brilliant study of Claypool's long and slimy trail of grift in public service.

The career grifter has the Winston Strawn attorney Ron Marmer and the mega donor Ron DeNard and all of the old gang in his wagon train.  Now, it's in a tight defensive circle.

Juan Perez is attacking the wagons!  Watch you back, Juan. Bruce Dold has long ridden in Claypool's wagons.

Just who is Forrest Claypool?  He's no Rula Lenska.  Better ask Juan Perez!  Tell it, Son!

Who's A'Scared of the Big Red Scare? The Media Don't Want to Be Old Ernest T.

Milwaukee Burns - here is why.

Flynn(Milwaukee Police Chief) cast blame on some Chicago-based activists representing the Revolutionary Communist Party, who apparently organized young people to take to the streets and march on the then-barricaded District 7 police station, which received a number of threats.
"The (group) showed up, and actually they’re the ones who started to cause problems leading into evening by marching and trying to take over Sherman and Burleigh," Flynn said. "That was about 11:30 at night. We made it to 11:30 in the evening, and we had these characters show up …" The Chicago Tribune

 In October 1947, 10 members of the Hollywood film industry publicly denounced the tactics employed by the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), an investigative committee of the U.S. House of Representatives, during its probe of alleged communist influence in the American motion picture business. These prominent screenwriters and directors, who became known as the Hollywood Ten, received jail sentences and were banned from working for the major Hollywood studios. Their defiant stands also placed them at center stage in a national debate over the controversial anti-communist crackdown that swept through the United States in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Besides the Hollywood Ten, other members of the film industry with alleged communist ties were later banned from working for the big movie studios. The Hollywood blacklist came to an end in the 1960s. History.com

During the late 1940s and early 1950s, the prospect of communist subversion at home and abroad seemed frighteningly real to many people in the United States. These fears came to define–and, in some cases, corrode–the era’s political culture. For many Americans, the most enduring symbol of this “Red Scare” was Republican Senator Joseph P. McCarthy of Wisconsin. Senator McCarthy spent almost five years trying in vain to expose communists and other left-wing “loyalty risks” in the U.S. government. In the hyper-suspicious atmosphere of the Cold War, insinuations of disloyalty were enough to convince many Americans that their government was packed with traitors and spies. McCarthy’s accusations were so intimidating that few people dared to speak out against him. It was not until he attacked the Army in 1954 that his actions earned him the censure of the U.S. Senate. History.com

“Maybe his [Satan’s] greatest achievement in these times has been to make us believe that he does not exist, and that all can be fixed on a purely human level,”  Pope Francis

I can almost hear Eric Zorn in The Chicago Tribune boning up to Change the Subject,"The Hollywood Blacklist, Senator Joe McCarthy, Chilling.  Who believes that Satan is cause of the world's evil?  Come on! Where's the science in that?"

Social Science? Physics?

Milwaukee, like Baton Rouge, St. Paul, Philadelphia and Dallas have been treated to riots, media circus-es, murders and assaults on police officers, because funded, well- organized little devils enthralled with the hammer and sickle and hot rhetoric and sloganeering ventured to those post-Ferguson flash points, with signage, fliers and bull horned cheerleaders from not only the Black Live Matters newbies, but veteran agitators from CPUSA, the Revolutionary Communist Party and International Solidarity Organization.  Reds and the usual useful idiots.






Snopes - a fact countering mill of Occupy,inc. says, don't believe our lying eyes." In fact, Reds are behind the more violent encounters in post-Ferguson America.
 

The American Journalist ( Medill School/Columbia variety) eschews the shoe-leather reporter image, for the Brand Journalist: gone to the finest schools, Miss Lonely, and got used to it; activist with ink and a soul-patch; Glenn Greenwald approved and Howard Zinn washed in the blood of revolutionary martyrs, but still maintain hip and with it ironic lifestyle.

One sure path to journalistic self-immolation is to walk on the wild side of the agreed upon narratives.  For example, when was the last time a Chicago, New York, or BumHump, Iowa journalist connected the dots pointing to Marxist lawyers and journalists involved in the Wrongful Conviction/ Police Torture industries? Never.  You never read a columnist like Mark Brown, Neil Steinberg, Eric Zorn, or Carol Marin question the number of times Judge Robert Gettleman ruled for G. Flint Taylor - judge shopping.

Shucks when was the last time any one of the above mentioned CTU puppet-master Jesse Sharkey's take over of the public service union for the International Solidarity Organization?  Wha?  Whaa?
Atticus Finch
It is unseemly to suggest, much less point out the very real and tangible evidence of organized and well-funded Marxist agenda at work on in our streets, courts, schools and public service unions.  Can't do that; it's called Red baiting.

One can Hillbilly Bait.  One can Evangelical Christian bait. One may Jew bait,so long as it is for the Death of Israel.  One does not need to Catholic bait, because our clergy and hierarchy does a pretty good job sneering at us in the press. But, Red bait.  No way, Jose Stalin.

Progressives (most columnists and editorial board members) tend to view themselves as Atticus Finch. especially activist lawyers who even dress like old Atticus.  Progressives view the rest of us as Ernest T. Bass.
Many of us deemed to be Ernest Ts, do not want to be considered so and we join along with group thought and ape the narratives and end up looking like Ernest T. Bass in a slick panama suit.

The media hides the fact that Reds are agitating the violence.

The potential for a revolutionary crisis lies within the very nature of this capitalist system itself—with its repeated economic convulsions, its unemployment and poverty, its profound inequalities, its discrimination and degradation, its brutality, torture and wars, its wanton destruction. All this causes great suffering. And at times it leads to crisis on one level or another—sudden jolts and breakdowns in the “normal functioning” of society, which compel many people to question and to resist what they usually accept. No one can say in advance exactly what will happen in these situations—how deep the crisis may go, in what ways and to what extent it might pose challenges to the system as a whole, and to what degree and in what ways it might call forth unrest and rebellion among people who are normally caught up in, or feel powerless to stand up against, what this system does. But two points are very important:
1) Such “jolts” in the “normal functioning” of things, even if they do not develop all the way to a fundamental crisis for the system as a whole, do create situations in which many more people are searching for answers and open to considering radical change. The work of building the movement for revolution must be consistently carried out at all times, but in these situations of sharp breaks with the “normal routine” there is greater possibility, and greater potential, to make advances. This must be fully recognized and built on to the greatest degree possible, so that through such situations, leaps are made in building up the movement and the organized forces for revolution, creating in this way a stronger basis from which to work for further advances.
2) In certain situations, major events or big changes can happen in society and the world and can come together in such a way that the system is shaken to its foundations...deep cracks appear and magnify within the ruling structures and institutions...the raw relations of oppression are more sharply exposed...conflicts among the powers-that-be deepen, and cannot be easily resolved, and it becomes much more difficult for them to hold things together under their control and keep people down. In this kind of situation, for great numbers of people, the “legitimacy” of the current system, and the right and ability of the ruling powers to keep on ruling, can be called seriously and directly into question, with millions hungering for a radical change that only a revolution can bring about. RevCom

The riots in Milwaukee prove that but the media wants us to believe that Reds don't exist - just like Satan

WLS Rauners for Rahm and Turns John Kass into Dave McKinney

WLS -AM the Wee 89 decide to clean hours 24 hours after Chicago decided to clean house.

“The Jonathon Brandmeier Show” will air from 9 to 11 a.m. Monday through Friday on the Cumulus Media news/talk station, starting sometime in March. It will replace John Kass and Lauren Cohn, whose final show aired on WLS Thursday.

Brandmeier ? *

Personnel aside, WLS is a Rahm Stooge and deathly afraid of change in Chicago political leadership.

John Kass and Lauren Cohn, who bridged the midmorning block between Big John Howell and Rush Limbaugh at WLS AM 890, have been cut from the Cumulus Media news/talk station.
No reason was cited for the move, but the two were told by WLS program bosses that they were finished after they got off the air Thursday. Their show aired from 9 to 11 a.m. Monday through Friday.

No Reason? Jesus, Feder are you that much of a lamb?  They are gone because Rahm is scared $hitless of John Kass!

Why else would it fire John Kass and Lauren Cohn - two voices for the neighborhoods detested by the Firfh Floor - Rahm Emanuel.

At Christmas Governor Rauner managed to get Chicago Sun Times lemmings on the editorial board to fire Dave McKinney.

The media harrumphed. Wine buyer partner, Rahm Emanuel loved Rauner's power play.

Twenty fours after Jesus Garcia handed Rahm his wafer-like rump in the election of the Century, Rahm managed to have WLS AM get rid of the only media icon in Chicago' media to tell the unvarnished truth about corruption and hypocrisy in our Progressive Chicago government ( it is progressive Nancy) and especially Highland Park's carpetbagging Mayor.

John Kass' voice must be heard.  We need a Voice of Chicago and not just a Sundance script.

Don't expect Chicago's media critics to rogue on Rahm.  There will be no 'investigative' follow-up.  BGA horse holder Andy Shaw?  Not a squeak.

Where is the immediate and smoking hot media outrage?

Kristen McQueary should be raged! Tim Novak should get out his investigative shovel and Chris Fusco a good Pick!

If I were a Progressive milquetoast like Eric Zorn or Neil Steinberg - better yet, a room temperature IQ like Carol Marin, I might say something like, 'This will have a Chilling Effect . . ."

I won't .  I was brought up right and managed to retain my dignity.

I'll say this in my south side Irish Spanglish - Enough!  Bastantes ya Cabrones! Basta Ya! Ya Basttards!

 Let's go Total Chicago . . . .Chuyistas!

Turn off WLS AM, WLS ABC. Watch NO Disney! Buy No Disney! Make Rahm Sweat!  Make Rauner wish he was Pat Quinn, right about now.  Heat their feet!

I am putting on my trail-dust coated sombrero and bandoleers until April 7th.

 Voy total de Bandit Norte y el Ejército repubican irlandés Flying ala Guerilla hasta que Jesús es el alcalde!

Basta Rahm!  Viva Chuy!  Viva Juan Kass!

* Wow, one has-been tool,Big John, followed by another.

Rahm Emanuel Hates Everything About the American Middle Class,- Just Like Ernest Poole

Imagine devouring every last item at the All You Can Eat buffet at Chi Tung, skipping the tip to the waitresses because it is after all a buffet, and then walking out the door to find a lawyer who will sue that fine establishment into oblivion, because Chinese food disagrees with you.

That is pretty much the mind of Rahm Emmanuel with regard to middle class neighborhood dwellers, and he is not alone. Valerie Jarrett, President Obama, most newspaper columnists and nearly every editorial board member in Chicago ( save Kristen McQueary of Chicago Tribune), WTTW, WBEZ, WBBM, NBC, ABC, and CBS feel pretty much the same way.

In order to destroy the middle class, like every entree on a Chinese Buffet, every aspect of life important to it, as well as the monetary rewards curtailed via taxation, vocational disappearances and personal safety, must be vilified.  The MC must come to realize that they are appalling and believe it.  If you are for traditional marriage, you are a homophobic hater. If you support law enforcement, you are racist. If you are for lower taxes, you are racist and a classist. If you ask a young lady to mind her language in church, you patriarchal misogynist Bible thumper.  If you want better schools, you are just plain stupid out of your mind nasty.  If you want to raise your family with hope for a brighter tomorrow, you will vote, again, for Rahm Emanuel - 'Hey, he's not so bad.'

This is not new stuff  This detestation of the middle class goes back to the 19th and early 20th century Chicago Progressivism,  Did you know that the first Pulitzer prize winner was the son of a wealthy Chicago Robber Baron of 19th Century, Ernest Poole

Mr. Poole would belong to the Occupy Chicago, I Can't Breathe, Don't Shoot Me brand of Progressive spirit that helped launder SEIU's Trotskyite recent history, elect Pat Quinn & Rahm Emanuel and give us Red Light Cameras.

Progressives are well-heeled; Middle Class Breeders have two nickels to rub together. . .for the moment. Ernest Poole was a Progressive pioneer.

Two years out of Princeton, Ernest Poole covered the 1904 Chicago Stockyard Strike as a free-lance correspondent, lived in Packingtown, as the media called Canaryville then, among the striking meat-cutters, drovers and penmen who lived in Bridgeport and Canaryville. Ernest Poole reported all of his activities with the strikers, especially the Amalgamated Meat Cutters President Mike Donnelly, directly to the the approved Chicago social justice queens Dr. Cornelia De Bey and Jane Addams.

These two legendary shake-down artists were deep in the pockets the beef barons Philip Armour, Gustavus Swift, and Nelson Morris, to fund Hull House and other settlement operations, as well as put a lock on control of Chicago public schools and public health.

Ernest Poole, like so many earnest young people born to privilege, was a babbler, a transient dweller among the unwashed and the oppressed, visited poverty and remained among his kind of people.  People with money and juice, drag, connections.

I can not find any primary examples of Poole's work concerning the 1904 Stockyard Strike, but only his own words written decades later in his puff piece Giants gone; men who made Chicago (1943), which I read again yesterday. Poole writes about the Giants of Chicago, Men like his Dad,  Philip Armour, Gustavus Swift, Nelson Morris, Jane Addams and Dr. Cornelia De Bey with same cool-eyed perspective of the five year old girl's opinion of unicorns. The 1st winner of the Pulitzer is a testament to Progressive marrow.

What makes writers like Poole, Studs Terkel, Bill Ayers, President Obama and mouthpieces like Carol Marin, Bruce Dold and Neil Steinberg so enduring is their basic detestation and loathing for Middle Class lifestyle, manners & morals, avocations and thought.

The satisfied mind, the grand old flag, the happy home,the full belly and heaping board, the button-down Oxford cloth o fJC Penny clothing and the Savings and Loans of American Breeders ( Protestant, Catholic, Jew and Uncle Tom AME/Baptist) are the things that matter not to Progressive Zealots and people they shill into public office.

Rahm is a 100% American Progressive

Francis Cardinal George, O.M.I - Chicago's Worker Archbishop

 

Juravit Dominus et non paenitebit eum/
Tu es sacerdos in aeternum secundum ordinem Melchisedech./
Dominus a dextris tuis,/
confregit in die irae suae reges.
(The Lord swore, and will not repent:Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchisedech.The Lord upon thy right hand,shall wound even kings in the day of his wrath.)

Those are some tough words for hymn. The lyrics come form Pslam 110 and the tune from George Fredrick Handel ( Mr. Messiah). This Baroque hymn is sung at the ordination of priests.  I sang with with my pals Mike Kelly, Willie Bigane, Bobby Ryan, Kevin McEldowney, Phil Panatera, Tommy Walsh and other scapegraces from Little Flower Grammar School following weeks of training from Miss Alice Doney and beat downs from high school age choirmasters, like Terry McEldowney.  We got it right for a young guy's First Mass - I think his name was Corrigan.  I remember the beauty of hymn and sense of the sacred that got through to 7th & Grade miscreants aborbed with growing hormones, scatological humor and physically violent pranks.  We were told by Sister Mary Doralese and Sister Mary Gertrudis (RSM) that we were destined to 'die on the gallows. or worse.'  Well, you can't kill a man born to hang.

Nevertheless, our choir carried off the First Mass of a young priest from the neighborhood . . .splendidly. I recall that we were treated to a five spot ($5) each by the father of the priest and that was in 1965 dollars.

I though about the Handel hymn all weekend - every time the Chicago media announced that Francis Cardinal George will end his leadership of Archdiocese of Chicago on Tuesday, November 18th.

I though about the lyrics of Juravit Dominus and how real the words of the Psalm match the tenure of Cardinal George's stewardship of the Church in Chicago.

Cardinal George caught a bum rap from the newspapers, activist priests who play to the OP ed pontiffs from Oak Park to Englewood, gutless elected officials pandereing for more LGBTQ hozanahs and Planned Parenthood lucre and the blow-dried ninnies on Chicago television  I can think of no churchman who withstood more ambush activism and journalism than Francis Cardinal George for speaking the truth.  The truth runs counter to desires and impulses - always.

Cardinal George cleaned up the clergy abuse mess tolerated by his two predecessors, the racial animus inherited from Cardinal Cody's singular role in making Chicago a genuinely 'segregated' city and Cardinal Bernadin's enegetic closing of schools, churches and social institutions.

Even institutions run by the Church follow idiotic policies of goo-goo of State, County and City progressive one-size-fits-all procrustean policy.  Policy is for . . . .persons without the will to good for others.  Sometimes, it is necessary to work things like Catholic Chicagoans - outside of preening policy.

Cardinal George found time to counsel Leo students who came from horrible situations (abusive parents, crime addicted families, drug addled parent with legal custody & etc.)  and to call about their progress.  I have yet to pick up the phone to report back to Neil Steinberg, Carol Marin, Mike Flannery and Dane Placko of Fox News 32 on the condistions of an apartment at 40th & Wallace and how a kid manages to maintain a C+ average with running water and a diet of Cheetos.  The kid refused to abandon his little brother and suffered dysfunction, squallor, rats and loneliness.  Cardinal George partnered with Leo and helped - Old School Chicago.   Cardinal George calls about hurting kids all of the time.

Cardinal George is a working man's priest, bishop and Cardinal. An intellectual giant and ecclesiastical scholar of international reputation, Cardinal George never lost tough with the carpenters, electricians, cops, school teachers, firemen, or skilled tradesmen who remain in the Catholic pews of Chicago and who also shooulder the abuse from prentencious asses like Carol Marin, Eric Zorn, Michael Sneed, or Dane Placko with modest good humor.

Cardinal George is a great shepherd and a great guy -Order of Melchisedech notwithstanding.

Cardinal George and Pope Francis Say Exactly the Same Thing - Love Gays; Oppose Redefinition of Marriage

O my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee, and I detest all mysins because of Thy just punishments, but most of all because they offendThee, my God, Who art all-good and deserving of all my love. I firmlyresolve, with the help of Thy grace, to sin no more and to avoid the nearoccasions of sin. Act of Contrition

“We cannot insist only on issues related to abortion, gay marriage and the use of contraceptive methods. This is not possible. I have not spoken much about these things, and I was reprimanded for that. But when we speak about these issues, we have to talk about them in a context. The teaching of the church, for that matter, is clear and I am a son of the church, but it is not necessary to talk about these issues all the time. " Pope Francis I

"Everybody is welcome,"but not everything we do can be acceptable. Not everything I do, and not everything anybody else does." Francis Cardinal George

I missed the part in the Pope Francis interview where he advocates homosexual marriage, a redefinition of marriage, a nod to abortion, or plea for free contraceptives.  However, deep thinkers like Pulitzer Prize winner Mary Schmich and the almost invisible Neil Steinberg are doing hand-stands and hugs over the latest cut and paste job by the social engineers.   

I oppose the idiotic and intellectually insulting Religious Freedom and Marriage Equality bully bill that has gone about as far as the Book of Mormon in making Illinois more like Lincoln and less like Joseph Smith, or Bishop Shiel, but wish all and sundry happiness.  The Civil Union bill was the advent of new dawn in civil and social living until Pat Quinn's ink dried on that legislation; at which point Stonewall became Selma and Illinois just could not wait. 

The Pope said nothing new in the article for the Jesuits run here in the States by America and nothing that Francis Cardinal George has not said at every turn in the twisted road to Illinois homosexual marriage and the necessary redefinition of marriage.  Sex outside of marriage is a sin- gay, straight, or solo.   Sex outside of marriage is not a crime, generally speaking.  The only persons that concern me with regard to sex are my kids and of course old Dad himself . . .as if.

Like I said above, Francis Cardinal George has never once uttered a calumny against any sinner.  Nor, has he ever issued a Catholic  Fatwah upon the heads of LGBTQs ever, or of any sort.  Pope Francis called the priesthood to task about their role as pastors ( read the damn article) and he especially mentioned homosexual sex and abortion within the context of the sacrament of Confession -

"We must always consider the person. Here we enter into the mystery of the human being. In life, God accompanies persons, and we must accompany them, starting from their situation. It is necessary to accompany them with mercy. When that happens, the Holy Spirit inspires the priest to say the right thing.“This is also the great benefit of confession as a sacrament: evaluating case by case and discerning what is the best thing to do for a person who seeks God and grace. The confessional is not a torture chamber, but the place in which the Lord’s mercy motivates us to do better. I also consider the situation of a woman with a failed marriage in her past and who also had an abortion. Then this woman remarries, and she is now happy and has five children. That abortion in her past weighs heavily on her conscience and she sincerely regrets it. She would like to move forward in her Christian life. What is the confessor to do?

Cardinal George explained "I think it's a good examination of conscience," George said outside Holy Name Cathedral, where he had just celebrated a Mass honoring couples married for 50 years. "I also think that he's coming from the viewpoint of a pastor who is close to the Lord and close to the people."

Then we get a Medill treatement of the Cardinal Archbishop's remarks, But George, a vocal opponent of gay marriage, warned that some had gone too far in seeing Pope Francis' interview as a move away from long-held church teachings on homosexuality, abortion and contraception"

Yep, a vocal opponent of gay marriage, just like Pope Francis.

"Everybody is welcome," George said, "but not everything we do can be acceptable. Not everything I do, and not everything anybody else does."

 Hell, I am welcome, even though my thoughts words and deeds can be unacceptable. . .wildly unacceptable. My beliefs are unacceptable to people who demand that I accept the notion that marriage can and must be not restricted to one man and one woman.  Now, what would those Mormons ridiculed in that boffo play think about that?   One man . . .two wives . . . three?  Does Greg Harris' religious freedom bill include Mormon polygamists?  Or, would that cast the LGBTQ community in the role of hot-headed and hysterical bigot?  Must a wife be human?  Some folks worship chicks and ducks and geese what better scurry!  How about a Dutch Wife? Oh, who cares about wives and WHo cares a fig about the Dutch?

Why sailors and members of the news media.

My most desperately wild 'dirty' thoughts are of Matt Helm movie variety; yet, I am thoroughly ashamed of their distracting imposition upon my better angels.  'And I detest all my  sins' including all of the fun ones.

Read the comments in the article concerning this matter in today's Tribune and tell me again  which side spews the real hate.

Cardinal George is No Sun Times Columnist!

 

Cardinal George, Archbishop of Chicago*, past President of the American Conference of Catholic Bishops, internationally honored author and theologian, Oblate of Mary Missionary priest is no newspaper columnist and he certainly is no Progressive member of the Cook County Democratic Party, nor is he any way near a GOP tasseled loafer suburban fence sitter, like Senator Marque Kirque and gubernatorial candidate Bruce Rauner.

How can a scholar of sacred theology expect to reason with a Mark Brown**, an Eric Zorn, a Carol Marin, a Neil Steinberg, or a Proco Joe Moreno and maintain any semblance of moral high-ground? Recently these folks have opined upon the Secular Redemption of Milliken Don James St. James who merely slaughtered his entire family in 1960's served his time in the nut house, deemed clean, was released, advanced degreed, changed his name and lived anonymously among the folks as respected member of the academic community, not unlike Dr. Josef Mengele or other South Americans of post-Holocaust redemption. Columnist love this American Progressive Gatsby narrative. But that is Columnist Theology.

Today, Mark Brown, one of the very few columnists who actually offers a semblance of a fair shake, recounts his 'cordial' exchange with Cardinal George concerning this summer's hoo-ha over Proco Joe and company's outrage in letter form protesting Catholic Campaign for Human Development's (CCHD) decision to no longer fund the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights( ICIRR).

Mark Brown wrote a searing column that burned the fibers of manly hearts that already agree with him on matters relating to same-sex marriage and scorched the muscles of that vital organ in the womanly breasts of maids and dowagers who equate bike repair with non-Euclidean sex and Civil Rights.

Cardinal George found fault with Mr. Brown's column; hence the 'cordial' dialogue.

George expressed his opinion that the funding cutoff “wouldn’t have been an issue if we weren’t in a campaign for governor.”
That confused me a little, because I certainly would have raised the issue whether there was an election next year or not. The cardinal reiterated that his understanding is that some people want to use gay marriage as an issue in the governor’s race.
I suggested it was his decision to halt funding from the Catholic Campaign for Human Development to the immigrant groups that made this an issue. He rejected that assertion, arguing that the leaders of the Illinois Coalition of Immigrant and Refugee Rights in effect cut off funding to their own member groups with the decision in May to endorse gay marriage.

You see, Cardinal; George is not only an episcopal and evangelical leader of the Catholic Church in Chicago, but he also happens to be a Chicagoan and someone who can and does read print.

To avoid any confusion, there is a race for governor.  The signer of the hostile and historically damaging Illinois Civil Union Bill, Governor Pat Quinn, lost the May bid to make Same -Sex Marriage the Lincoln Log Cabin for his Reelection, chinking every crack with Progressively pious platitudes.  Quinn is even more unpopular than his enemies who are growing up out of the ground from the dragon's teeth sown by the very forces that own Quinn's political soul - ( SEIU, Planned Parenthood, Dr. Quentin Young, Abner Mikva, the ACLU and Fred Eychaner). We now have Bruce Rauner, a billionaire buccaneer hopping out of Rahm Emanuel's vest pocket as a GOP standard bearer and Bill Daley who gave Rahm his first job.  We have Kwame Raul as a wedge candidate to gobble up Quinn's African American base, if there ever had been such, and a cavalcade gimpy-wimpy GOP dependables.

Now, that is something to confuse one, Mr. Brown.

The Catholic Church has been sanctioned for fire bombing by the DNC, because of its implacable defense of the unborn and traditional marriage.

Cardinal George knows the political landscape and it is hostile.  What passes for an evolved culture in this country finds the Gay Ann Landers, Dan Savage,  to be a sober and thoughtful Catholic voice and it finds the certitude of ethical and moral principles just too mean for a queen. Mark Brown offers his last word on the matter ex-cathedra, or swivel seat, or easy chair in a much less than cordial manner.  Mark Brown wants that to be his column's take away?

The cardinal acknowledged his own characterization of the pope’s comments on gays may have been “jarring,” as I put it, but he said he was frustrated by journalists missing the pope’s point.
“In our culture, ‘Who am I to judge’ means nobody has the right to distinguish right from wrong,” which wasn’t what the pope meant, the cardinal said.
“He was saying that a person who has given up their sinful ways, you don’t judge them. You accept them,” George said. “. . .He started out saying: gay sex is wrong.”
I told the cardinal I never believed for a moment that the pope was changing church policy toward gays, only setting a different tone that was missing from his own approach.
The cardinal expressed frustration that, in the current political climate, Catholics can’t express their opposition to same-sex marriage without being regarded as bigots.
“”When that becomes the criterion for accepting gay and lesbian people, then we’re in the bind we’re in now, which is a real bind,” he said.

No - that is not what a Sun Times reader must take away from the 'coridal' exchange of the columnist and mere Cardinal.  It is this.

"Nobody really expects the Catholic Church to change, only to adapt."

Millions of European Jews were told that very thing. Now, that was some lesson in social evolution . . . very scientific.

* Francis Cardinal George, OMI Education
Bachelor in Theology, University Ottawa
Master in Theology, University Ottawa, 1971
MA in Philosophy, Catholic University America, 1965
PhD in Philosophy, Tulane University, 1970
STD, Pontifical Urban University, Rome, 1989
Career
Ordained priest Oblates of Mary Immaculate, 1963, provincial central region, 1973—1974, vicar general, 1974—1986; coordinator Circle of Fellows Cambridge Center for Study of Faith & Culture, Massachusetts, 1987—1990; ordained bishop, 1990; bishop Diocese of Yakima, Washington, 1990—1996; archbishop Archdiocese of Portland, Oregon, 1996—1997, Archdiocese of Chicago, 1997—; elevated to cardinal, 1998; cardinal-priest S. Bartolomeo all'Isola, 1998—
Career Related
Vice president US Conference Catholic Bishops, 2004—; chancellor Catholic Church Extension University St. Mary of Lake, 1997; member Congregation Divine Worship, Discipline of Sacraments, Congregation for Oriental Churches, 2001—, Congregation Institutes, Consecrated Life, Societies Apostolic Life, Pontifical Commission for Cultural Heritage of Church, 1999—, Pontifical Council Cor Unum, 1998, Congregation Evangelization of Peoples, Pontifical Council for Culture, 2004—, Catholic Commission on Intellectual & Cultural Affairs
Creative Works
Author (pastoral letter): Becoming an Evangelizing People, 1997, Dwell in My Love, 2001
Memberships
Mem.: Am. Catholic Philosophical Association, Am. Society Missiologists
Religion
Roman Catholic
Address
Office: Archdiocese of Chgo Pastoral Ctr PO Box 1979 Chicago IL 60690-1979

** Mark Brown

Brown grew up in central Illinois, graduated from Northern Illinois University in 1977 and then attended the Public Affairs Reporting program at University of Illinois-Springfield, then known as Sangamon State, where he was a Sun-Times intern. Brown worked four years at the Quad-City Times in Davenport, Iowa, before joining the Sun-Times full-time in 1982.
At the Sun-Times, Brown worked mainly as a general assignment reporter specializing politics and government, which led him into investigative reporting. In September 2000, Brown began writing his column, which currently appears Tuesday through Thursday and Sunday. One of his strengths is that he has experience covering not only Chicago City Hall, but also Cook County government and the Illinois Statehouse.
Brown, a third-string high school basketball player, grew up obsessed with St. Louis Cardinals baseball, Chicago Bears football and Bradley basketball. Only Bradley has moved down on his radar, replaced by the Bulls.

Happy Easter, Christ Has Risen! Now, Let's Roll Back the Big Stone Keeping Schools in a Cave

Kids believe only what is taught to them.  Last night 28 kids, most under the age of 18, were arrested on Chicago's Mag Mile for intimidating people and another bunch were arrested following an assault on a woman who asked that the kids put out their cigarettes. I do not believe that the youngsters were engaged in civil disobedience demanding that CPS keep failing schools open, nor were they concerned with the plight of LGBTQ citizens.

From this same edition of the paper, the Opinion section of the Chicago Tribune was thick with opinions on both issues as being fundamental to life on our planet.  The school closings?  I see them them as part of the overall Rahm Plan to shrink the City of Chicago ( services) down to an Urban Center.  Likewise, the abhorrent incivility tolerated on Chicago Transportation systems by the Mayor and CTA Boss Forrest Claypool is a component in this plan.  Why else would a Mayor not do his utmost to light a fire under his appointee to interdict such behavior and provide the necessary police officers at his disposal to correct the situation?  Answer.  It is not part of the Plan.

The Plan includes a $ 100 million dollar loan to gussy up the River Walk, but not seek a loan to hire more cops.

Back to the schools. The closed schools, the largest school closing in American history, are  real estate.

Take a look at who is protesting the school closings ( CTU's Karen Lewis & Jesse Sharkey)  - they worked with Mayor Emanuel to engineer the closings.  Their Red-shirted Dragon Dance through the Loop last week provided Bill Ayers and opportunity to be described as an "elementary school expert' in the Chicago media, as well as swell venue for SEIU to play civil disobedience for cameras without the possibility of arrest.  Tickets were issued.

For the last thirty years Bill Ayers* and the well-camouflaged Mike Klonsky have trained a generation of radicals who now control Chicago Teachers Union through CORE.  Chicago Public Schools have nose-dived deeper into the tax-dollars from the moment the Annenberg Challenge was boarded and looted by Bolsheviks and took command of the Education Department at University of Illinois at Chicago.  Here's a challenge.  How many UICC disciples of Billy Ayers are CPS teachers?

The idea of schools has been entombed in a cave behind the boulder rolled by Ayers and Klonsky.

Schools should reflect the neighborhoods they serve.  Catholic schools most certainly do just that and graduates of Catholic schools, black, brown and white manage to avoid massive arrests on Mag Mile and intimidate passengers on the CTA.

Ayers and Klonsky made small schools (cadres) wholesome to lazy and not very bright editorial boards and columnists.   Schools fail, because they are supposed to do just that.

Chicago is a Catholic city.  No matter how much Eric Zorn, Mary Schmich, Neil Steinberg, Carol Marin, Clarence Page, Dawn Turner Trice, or WTTW try to obscure that fact, Catholics rub up against Baptists, Unitarians, AME, Lutheran, Jewish, Greek Orthodox, Dutch Reformed and atheist neighbors.  Schools should reflect that fact, but they are not allowed to do that.

Christ died on Friday, busted Hell's prisoners out on Saturday, and triumphed over death today, when he rolled back the big rock.

The big rock blocking real schools and the idea of a school is still wedged in pretty deep.   Kids are taught what to fear and given no means to conquer fear.  Behavior reflects what people are all about.


*"Elementary education expert and professor Bill Ayers — who has sparked controversy on the national political scene with his ties to President Obama — was in the crowd in support of teachers.
" 'The assault on public education and abandonment of these communities has to be resisted,' Ayers said." Chicago Sun Times