Footpads to Flash Mobs - Chicago's Diet of BS Made Media Morbidly Obese

This is how Mary Schmich of the Tribune wants Chicagoans to understand the nature of a beating meted out by a score or less of vigorous black youth. Just like the photo above, for all the readers in Lake County.

Flash Mobs is a cute name. It is an adorable way to describe the pummeling of victims by a score or less of hardy youths enjoying an outing in the Gold Coast, Streeterville, Northwestern Campus, River North, or even the Bean. Flash Mob is the latest Chicago Media serving of Blatant Sophistry (BS). PC is the Old Country Buffet of Blatant Sophistry.

Mary Schmich is copping the plea in this morning's Tribune: When a news story omits race, do we really know any less? Well, gosh yes, Mary! Where would the Lenard Clark beating by white thugs have gone without the sauce of race? Gee whiz.

As an editor pointed out when I asked about it, the crimes don't appear to be racially motivated. There's no sign the criminals picked victims because they were of a certain race. They picked them because they had certain stuff.

"People see it as a media conspiracy," he said of the decision to leave out their race. "It's a media quandary."

Here's the quandary, for editors, for cops, for all of us:

Race alone doesn't predict or explain behavior. Just because this mob was young and black hardly means that all young, black people in groups are a violent mob. Knowing the race of these attackers is no form of protection.

It is not a quandary for cops, Mary. They arrest people in the act of committing crimes, or via the eye-witness report of the victim. Leave the cops out of this. The Media have spun this - meme -"The rampant corruption, racism, and brutality of the Chicago Police have created this situation" Nope. Meme not working there, Mary.

Chicago's media is the Mickey D's of journalism with one or two exceptions. Blatant Sophistry is only one serving on the Political Correctness Nutritional Pyramid: Blatant Sophistry; Identity Politics; Group Think; and Secularism are the Four Food-for-Thoughtlessness Groups. At Mickey D's a tubby child can whale-out on Three Big Mac 'N Cheeses, Super-Sized Fries and a Mega Pop. In Chicago, one can read the Tribune, Sun Times, or watch Channels 2,5,7,9 and 11 and sate one's self with Noggin Larding news and opinion.

Flash Mobs are what Chicago paper hat journalists are calling squads of black kids doing a beat down on victims -usually 'goofy-looking' white folks, in the words of the early flash mob who nearly beat Ryan Rusch* to death at Beverly Park in 2007.

The Chicago Media helped create the climate, which I have called the Thug Comfort Zone in this blog, in which beneficiaries of 'identity/grievance/entitlement politics' feel very comfortable doing anything. Ironically, more black people have suffered to a greater degree than any other demographic. Black kids get shot, raped, beaten, set-afire, robbed, and force-fed insect repellent - anybody remember Ryan Harris and Little Girl X**? Thought not.

Instead, the Chicago media has done a rhetorical flash mob on law enforcement, the justice system, the courts and especially police officers as human beings.

Subsisting on a diet of BS is not good for people. Like Mickey D's gobblers, morbid obesity is the outcome - Fat Heads.

In 19th Century Chicago "footpads" were the flash mobs. They were gangs of jackrollers who beat and robbed victims. Back then the victims were drunks and fools wandering about the Levee. Today, a victim is usually . . .anybody. In the 19th Century, footpads were generally lazy, ignorant, unskilled, and savage wastes of DNA. Today, Chicago beat down artists ( Flash Mobbers)are identical to their Chicago antecedants. The only difference is that today, the PC Media interviews the mothers of the criminals for more heart-tugging BS calories.

There are BS free reporters and journalists. One of Chicago's best is Natasha Korecki who is so adept at fending off BS, that she covers the Blago Trial. Ms. Korecki is a solid reporter. She was a guest on WTTW's Weekin Review, last Friday.

Natasha Korecki of the Chicago Sun Times nearly had the panel on Chicago Week in Review hose capuccino through their schnozzes when she said that race was the key factor in the 'flash mob' phenomenon. Give it a look:

Watch the full episode. See more Chicago Tonight.

*

The diminutive eighth-grade student of St. John Fisher School had just left his cousin’s house and was walking through the park when the teens attacked him, hitting him on the head and kicking him. After Rusch fell, the teens continued to attack, leaving the bloodied Rusch in a seizure.

One of the juveniles later told police that they had attacked Rusch because he was a “goofy-looking white boy” – something that originally prompted police to investigate the incident as a hate crime.

http://www.southwestobserver.com/news/neighbors/conviction-beverly-park-beating-12-33


**On January 9, Girl X was found raped, beaten and poisoned in the seventh-floor stairwell. She was unconscious and foaming at the mouth, her panties shoved down to her knees. Her T shirt had been used to strangle her, and gangster-style graffiti was scrawled on her abdomen in black ink. While the country focused on the case of another brutalized child--this one a privileged little beauty queen in Colorado--public outrage over the comatose Girl X was at first virtually nil.



0n a hot July afternoon in 1998 the mostly naked body of 11-year-old Ryan Harris was found in an isolated backyard in Englewood. She'd been missing for a day. Her face was battered and covered with blood, her mouth stuffed with a pair of underpants. A folded leaf was in each nostril.



Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,985957,00.html#ixzz1OgVcQxyJ

Michael Moriarty, Sergei Rachmaninoff and James Joyce

“She sat at the window watching the evening invade the avenue. Her head was leaned against the window curtains and in her nostrils was the dusty odor of cretonne. She was tired.” James Joyce -'Eveline' from The Dubliners

Eveline or Evvy, refused to escape and buried her White face in the common-place -lace curtains, dust and a timorous obligation to the familiar.

In this very short story by James Joyce, the reader gets dragged into the soul-less commonplace that is Eveline.

She is a middle class woman in love with a a manly, kind, adventurous and alive man named Frank. Frank is leaving dear old dirty Dublin for Buenas Aires and wants to take Evvy with him. She refuses. She stays musty and dusty. Get these final lines -

A bell clanged upon her heart. She felt him seize her hand:

"Come!"

All the seas of the world tumbled about her heart. He was drawing her into them: he would drown her. She gripped with both hands at the iron railing.

"Come!"

No! No! No! It was impossible. Her hands clutched the iron in frenzy. Amid the seas she sent a cry of anguish.

"Eveline! Evvy!"

He rushed beyond the barrier and called to her to follow. He was shouted at to go on but he still called to her. She set her white face to him, passive, like a helpless animal. Her eyes gave him no sign of love or farewell or recognition.

Old Jim could work a pen.

Another fine writer is my frequent e-mail pal, Michael Moriarty. This actor, musician, journalist and courageous defender of the unborn lives in Canada and is working on an autobiographical musical composition. This musical biography may be a Confessio like St. Augustine's or an Apologia ala John Cardinal Newman. We shall see, or hear.

Nevertheless, Mr. Moriarty wrote a touching remembrance for Exit Stage Right. Like his musical composition the essays are titled The Haunted Heaven. In the passage that I provide today, Mr. Moriarty explores the coming of the Holy Spirit through the music of Rachmaninoff. Here is the passage by the Russian composer refered to in Mr. Moriarty's essay -

Rachmaninoff!

What a Virgil, Sergei Rachmaninoff, to lead me into the Haunted Heavens of Life!

Then to be reintroduced to the Russian giant by a divinely gifted genius named Olga Kern!!

She is now ripping into the last movement with all the simultaneous speed, strength and sensitivity she can summon up with the same oceanic brilliance she has mustered throughout this virtual monster of a piano concerto.

Russian composers and Russian musicians will play a monumentally large role in my life as the years pass. The first of course was the vibrantly impassioned Russian genie, Sergei Rachmaninoff.

He and his Haunted Heaven entered my life before I could even talk.

To this day Rachmaninoff's protean lyricism seems unsurpassed by anyone.

He and his music became a virtual umbilical cord to my infancy's ecstasy.

His melodies are only the beginning of his abandon to whatever muse God chose to both plague and adore him with.

Oceanic is the only adjective that seems sufficient.

Unlike Eveline in Joyce's tale, Moriarty plunges into the waves.

Michael can work a pen.


http://www.online-literature.com/james_joyce/959/

Lo, He is With Us Always - Authority at Kean Gas on 111th & Talman in Morgan Park

NB - Gas Prices are are now $ 4.39 for regular - that was last year's photo.

Matthew 28: 16 - 20
16 Now the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them.
17 And when they saw him they worshiped him; but some doubted.
18 And Jesus came and said to them, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age."

I heard this gospel twice in the last two days. It is a reassuring and commanding nostrum from the Risen Christ, to the eleven of the Apostle line-up. Judas did the Dutch Act, after selling the Boss out, remember.

Yesterday, I listened to this gospel during Tom Roeser's magnificent send-off at St. John Cantius Catholic Church on Chicago Ave. and Sangamon on the north side of Chicago. The place was packed and con-celebrated by seven priests. The liturgical music was transcendentally beautiful, unlike the more pop culture ditties embraced by licensed liturgists at too many parishes.

The gospel matched the music. You have been chosen by Christ to use His authority to make disciples of all nations.

Authority comes from the Latin word auctoritas
derived from the word auctor - "planter-cultivator". The word meant to augment or making greater by adding on to something.

I raise money at Leo High School, because I have been give the authority to do so via the Archdiocese,the Mission of Leo High School, the President for Institutional Advancement, the Alumni of Leo High School and the 501(c)3 standing of the high school with the Office of Catholic Schools. The money I raise, by that collective authority, adds on to Leo High School supplementing tuition costs, new programs, meeting utility increases, adding to the campus.

Our authority comes from a greater authority. We are told to do something with that authority. Tom Roeser defended the unborn, the canon of Catholic doctrine, the Bill of Rights, and the canons of taste and wit. God rest this merry gentleman. Tom's spirit and soul will not rest long be assured.

Today, after Mass and hearing this same gospel, I hiked my way to Kean Gas on 111th & Talman for a 20 oz. Dark Roast. Kean Gas is one of the very last family owned, full service gas stations in Chicago. Jimmy and Roli Kean have managed to preserve something of value in this Blackberry world. They hire young guys to check the antifreese, wiper fluid, oil, tires, wash windscreens and windows as well as pump gas.

This allows drivers an opportunity to pop in for coffee and pastries from Wolf's Bakery on 95th Street, chat and pick-up items forgotten on the last visit to County Fair Foods. Kean Brothers Gas helps keep us human in a small but vital way. Kean Gas is an urban Salon.

This morning, I bragged up the Leo Track team with young Jack Leiser, who's old man Tom is contemporary of mine and a rock-ribbed Leo Man. Jack jumps out to service people at the pumps. " Man six State Titles and with only six kids." You may say.

We were joined in short-order by Joe Murphy, another Leo Man and member of St. Cajetan Parish, whose sister teaches at St. Walter's Parish. Joe and I talked near his truck, from which he services air-conditioners. Joe works with many of the CPS schools. We talked about the Leo banquet last April and the impressive turn-out of young African American Alumni shepherded to the event by Mike Holmes, Mike Anderson, Mark Lee, Curtis Cooper, Ken Mason and Noah Cannon. These Lions have helped make the biggest increase in freshman enrollment at Leo in years.

While we were gabbing, Bill Letz another Leo Alumnus, teacher, coach/referee and soon to be retired pipe-fitter stopped at the air-pump with his ten speed. He spotted the knot of coffee fueled gabbers, " The Old Kean Country Store . . .!" Spot on, William! Human contact, communication and following the commands of the gospel . . .with colorful language and the occasional sexist trope, mind you.

Which brings me back to authority.

Murph asked me to have Mike Holmes, Leo football coach and director of admissions, give him a call to set up a parent meet and greet to let parents at St. Walter's know about the success and value of Leo High School. I assured Joe that Holmes would call him Tuesday night at the latest, as I have jury duty on Monday. In mid-chat a very old gentleman approached us.

" I started my car after church, but now the engine will not shut off. Can any of you gentlemen help me?"

This guy had a serious auto-problem and it is a Sunday. No auto shops are open.


Jack Leiser only checks fluids and pumps gas. Joe is a skilled building engineer. Bill Letz a pipe-fitter. I read books and shoot off my mouth for a living.

Jesus, we're sorry sir.

Joe Murphy whipped out his cell-phone and tried to call a guy who fixes cars in Merrionette Park. Murph reached the guy, but he was at his place in Michigan. Then, Joe remembered, "Pep Boys! They are open seven days a week, sir. They do a great job and will give you fair shake. They are on about 130th & Cicero."
The poor man needed a higher authority than a gas pump, engineer, pipefitter, flannel mouth educator, but he came to the right place. Joe Murphy knew.

The old gentleman thanked us and took his still running old Ford west on 111th Street.

It believe the Gospel authority message was fulfilled. It was as easy as getting coffee at Kean with good people.

The Only Way a Republican Can Win The Presidency - Get Smart About Real Labor

Dorothy Rabinowitz has written very sober warning to any Republican with the tripes to run against Barack Obama in 2012. President Barack Obama has been a lousy President, in my opinion, but he is a very formidable politician with more money than he needs, and an adoring corporate media that has cashed in its integrity for investment in Green Energy Initiatives. Green Wall Street has gone the way of the Dodo bird, but engineering firms (they always seem to be Sierra Club members), lawyers, and venture capitalists - with heart-breaking sincerity and moral weltanschauungs continue to pump millions of dollars in the Obama 2012 Campaign in the hope of Cap'nTrading, stop oil drilling, kill coal, fund Rube Goldberg automotives, build windmills, and rake in some profits -all for a Greener Planet.

Ms. Rabinowitz writes,"The Republican who wins will have to know, and show that he knows, that most Americans aren't sitting around worried to death about big government—they're worried about jobs and what they have in savings."

Correcto! However, the GOP, especially in my home of Illinois, has a propensity for blowing its own toes off. In the last Illinois gubernatorial race, the GOP candidate Bill Brady used all of the rhetorical force that swept Democrats out of the Congressional House of Representatives in November and lost to Rod Blagojevich's Lt. Governor Pat Quinn. The GOP had only one candidate in the big field for governor who understood that all labor is not SEIU and that was Dan Proft. The tasseled loafer Illinois GOP refused to support Dan Proft and opted for small-business, pro-life, anti-union zealot Bill Brady.

Pat Quinn campaigned like a blue collar guy and now governs like a Trotskyite from Berkley. Bill Brady did all of the hot-button Tea Party razz-matazz and got himself beaten by Pat Quinn. Pat Quinn wrapped himself up as the savior of the working man. I voted for Quinn, God help me.

Pat Quinn was elected because the skilled trades and not radical leftists of SEIU got out front for Quinn. Brady blew his toes off by attacking unions -all unions. The GOP would not know a working man if the guy were three feet away fixing his toilet.

Public Service monster unions ate up labor in the last forty years with the rhetorical teeth of Marxist Andy Stern's One Big Union bullshit. Join Us or Die!

Sadly, too many skilled trade and industrial unions played ball with SEIU. However, SEIU is no friend of labor.

The GOP tags all unions as corrupt and evil - Stupid as well as false. Take a look at Wisconsin, while public service unions need to have the reigns tightened on them, Gov. Walker and the GOP managed to alienate blue collar trades people in the bargain. These are people who are doubly burdened by SEIU tax-aholic degenerates. They reap not the benefits that suck up tax dollars and are vilified and threatened by the GOP as well.

A Republican for President must get union smart and play fair with the American working man.

This candidate should spend a month or more with business agents, apprenticeship officers, and apprentices in some of the American industrial and skilled trades unions.

Go home with a young guy who is paying for his classes, working with journeyman, paying a mortgage, maybe even private school tuition and municipal, county, state and federal taxes that eclipse his income, before he pays out in pension, medical, grocery, utilities, and tries to top off the used car he drives to and from the job.

Take a look at what it costs out of pocket to earn a salary that is touted to be inflated by the very media that demands greater tax-burdens.

The GOP, in Illinois and across America, pays lip service to the memory of Ronald Reagan. Reagan won over blue-collar votes, because he took the time to understand blue collar values. The working man is not a fan of abortion for example. The tasseled loafer Republican, like Illinois' U.S. Senator Mark Kirk, is abortion friendly.

The Tea Party is not a right wing conspiracy, but a genuine national voice of frustration aimed at the pompous and smug voices that have hogged the pulpits and microphones for too long.

Barack Obama will win the White House again in 2012, unless some candidate has the tripes to learn about real American labor and give voice to their concerns. Attacking unions is stupid as well as incorrect.

Presidential Proclamation–Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender June Pride Month: Seven Brides for Seven Sisters/ And Vicey Versa?

There was a particularly rosy sunrise this morning as I made my way to the Man Cave that is Leo High School.

Red-Eye told me about the Civil Union Ceremonies at Millenium Park with Governor Pat " The Gambler" Quinn giving away the Brides (One Size Fits All).

Earlier I read of President Obama's Proclamation ( click my post title)naming June the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender June Pride Month and I immediately thoght of the Johnny Mercer classic June Bride!





JUNE BRIDE
From "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers"
(Music: Gene DePaul / Lyrics: Johnny Mercer)


LIZA
Oh, they say when you marry in June,
You're a bride all your life.
SARAH
And the bridegroom who marries in June
Gets a sweetheart for a wife.
RUTH
Winter weddings can be gay
Like a Christmas holiday.
MARTHA
But the June bride hears the song
Of the spring that lasts all summer long.
DORCAS
By the light of the silvery moon
Home you ride, side by side
LIZA
With the echo of Mendelssohn's tune
LIZA, SARAH & ALICE
In your hearts as you ride
ALL BRIDES
For they say when you marry in June,
You will always be a bride.

LIZA
The day a maiden marries is a day she carries through the years
MARTHA & DORCAS
The Church is full of flowers, bridal showers all passe
ALL BRIDES
The groom's waiting at the altar, here comes the bride,
They're each promising to love and obey.
LIZA
There's madness celebrating
Every bridesmaid waiting
Just to see which one of them will catch the wedding bouquet.

ALL BRIDES
For they say when you marry in June,
You will always, always, always, be a bride.

ALICE, SARAH & DORCAS
In November, the snow starts to fly,
Piling up, ankle-high.

LIZA, MARTHA & RUTH
Come December, it's up to your knee,
Still a bride's a bride-to-be.

ALL BRIDES
January, higher still,
To the parlor window sill.

MILLY
February finds a drift
And the storm that seems never to lift.

LIZA, SARAH & DORCAS
March comes in like a lion, what else?
Still the snow never melts.

LIZA & ALICE
April showers will come, so they say.
LIZA
But they don't, and it's May.

ALL BRIDES
You're about to forget the whole thing,
All at once, one day, it's Spring.

I also remembered this touching movie quotatation in celebration of Brides Everywhere!

. . .I am honored and grateful that you have invited me to your home on the wedding day of your daughter. And may their first child be a masculine child.

L. Brazzi


Presidential Proclamation–Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender June Pride Month

BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA A PROCLAMATION

The story of America’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) community is the story of our fathers and sons, our mothers and daughters, and our friends and neighbors who continue the task of making our country a more perfect Union. It is a story about the struggle to realize the great American promise that all people can live with dignity and fairness under the law. Each June, we commemorate the courageous individuals who have fought to achieve this promise for LGBT Americans, and we rededicate ourselves to the pursuit of equal rights for all, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity. . . The west was won by its pioneers, settlers, adventurers is long gone now. Yet it is theirs forever, for they left tracks in history that will never be eroded by wind or rain - never plowed under by tractors, never buried in compost of events. Out of the hard simplicity of their lives, out of their vitality, of their hopes and sorrows grew legends of courage and pride to inspire their children and their children's children. From soil enriched by their blood, out of their fever to explore and be, came lakes where once there were burning deserts - came the goods of the earth; mine and wheat fields, orchards and great lumber mills. All the sinews of a growing country. Out of their rude settlements, their trading posts came cities to rank among the great ones of the world. All the heritage of a people free to dream, free to act, free to mold their own destiny.

Oh sorry, I mixed up that last bit - it was not President Obama. That was Spencer Tracy Narrating the movie How the West Was Won.

Rep. Anthony Weiner with Frankie Yankovic and His Yanks!

The most energetic little guy in Congress with the look that a dachshund gets just seconds before he realizes that he is not a member of the Leo High School 6 Time State Champion Track Team at the point of impact with a 1968 Buick Electra has gotten his Wurlitzer Upright ensnared in the zipper of Twitter.

In order avoid gratuitously sophomoric play with euphemisms like Gen. George Armstrong Custard Chucker, The Bologna Bassoon, Tony's Meat Whistle, The Weighty Weiner Walloper, Wedding Tackle, Major Manchowder,The Ole Kidney Cracker, Elmer's Glue Gun, The Bald Bishop, Duke Feelgood, and The Jolly Plowboy, ad infinitum , let's turn to music.



Progressive Pompadoodle Dandy! Click my Post title for a prose tune by the Great Johnny Kass - "I Tug the Line!"

Tales of the South Side: Bub's Murtaugh's Silk Blue Jamies

Bub's Murtaugh loved sea-food. Lent was a year round feast for Bubs. He ate pickled herring on toast made from good sweet Lithuanian bread for breakfast; fried clams and oysters for lunch in the cab of his Graffiti Busters truck; a snack of perch and slaw after work; and Bubs polished off a whole broiled monkfish with lemon butter in his Mom and Dad's home near Durkin Park in St. Bede's parish.

Last year, Bubs' Dad laid down next to his wife and mother of Bub's in Holy Sepulchre Cemetery on 111th Street in Worth Township. Bubs began seeing a lady. Bubs never had a wonderful sense of sight, but Cupid's arrow struck deeply in some muscle of Murtaugh's anatomy.

Against the canons of morality of Holy Mother Church, Bubs invited the woman to move in with him. The woman in question was of dubious virtue and Bubs had but little himself. She was a drop-out of Emeryk Zajack's Bartender Academy on Archer in Garfield Ridge and worked at the Swap-a-Rama in Alsip, where she met Bubs when he was buying Cook County Campaign Buttons for his collection.

After a few months, the . . . woman with whom Bubs shared his abode became as wearisome as the endless loop of NCIS and Law and Order(Sam Waterson only) reruns on cable. Bubs began stopping 'for a short one' longer and at less familiar venues. Bubs' roomy suspected that her relationship with Mr. Mutaugh might go the way of Emeryck Zajack's Academy for her. Perhaps, Bubs was trading up. Most disconcerting and morally reprehensible, but customary in the no-man's-land of unsanctified concupiscence.

One evening Bubs called home to his paramour and says, "Honey, I have been asked to fly to Canada with my supervisor and several of Toni Preckwinkle's cousins for fishing. We'll be gone for a long weekend.

This is a good opportunity for me to get that promotion I've been wanting so could you please pack enough clothes for a 3 day weekend. Also, would you get out my rod and tackle box from the attic?"

Made sense, Bubs loved his fish and walleye and Northern were always nice.

Bubs asked in the sweetest of tones, "We're leaving at 4:30 PM from the County Yard on Doty and I will swing by the house to pick my things up.. 'Oh! And please pack my new navy blue silk pajamas. Hey, you get to free-range cable all you want and I stocked up on Happy Cossack from Kenwood."

Though enchanted by days of Shopping Networks and Vodka Rickies, the Zajack Bartender Academy Aspirant Emerita thinks this sounds a bit odd, but, being the good "friend," shall we say, she does exactly what the homeowner asked.

Following the long Canadian Idylle Bubs came home a little tired, but, otherwise, looking good. The sore thumbed and vodka marinated Mistress welcomes Bubs home and asks if he caught many fish?

The Cook County Would Be Pensioner says, "Yes! Lots of Walleyes, some Bass, and a few Pike." He said, "But why didn't you pack my new blue silk pajamas like I asked you to do?"

The now home-secure Zajack Academy Washout replies, "I did, they're in your tackle box".

This south side saga originated with Max Weismann of the Center for the Study of Great Ideas

Meme: The Holy Septalogue for Atheists, Dummies, and Progressives

Hours before Memorial Day, Tom Roeser returned to Christ. Tom was a brilliant original thinker among a throng of 'Wait, Wait -Don't Tell Me!' group thinkers. Group thinkers are the readers of Cliff's Notes for Life or Redaction Graphic Novels. Cutting edge.

Across the pond of our continental east, lies the island nation of my forebears. The insular Irish are recovering from economic disaster and cultural vaporization. The Irish are Euro's - chock full of PC. The Irish pews are empty and the Mass Rock now has PC mold. During and after the Famine, the Faith kept the people resilient. The Faith is now Meme'd as the Sex Scandal of Cassocked Buggers and Croziered Cover-ups.
RTE -Raidió Teilifís Éireann or Irish PBS crows doctrines from its secular pulpit - just it it does here in Yankland.

Against this tide of slick imbecility is writer Kevin Myers of the Irish Independent. Mr. Myers is a witty, well-read, principled and courageous social critic, not unlike Chicago's angelic curmudgeon and 18th Century Man Tom Roeser.

Where there is original thought given voice there is hope. Last week I read two insightful criticisms by Mr. Myers of group thought - one on Aggressive Feminism and the other on the daffy Arab Spring ( Arab Spring was developed by NYT's Tom Friedman, or fed to him by NSC Samantha Power to remind us that the Mideast all of us helots that 'Just Like" Prague in 1968). In both cases, Kevin Myers links the atheist Darwinian Richard Dawkins' Selfish Gene - Meme. Meme is the hot word tossed out by hip tossers and poseurs in print and on the air-waves.

Meme one writer states, "A meme is an idea that behaves like a virus--that moves through a population, taking hold in each person it infects."

Thus, Casino Gaming cures Budgetary Cancers; Marriage Can Be Legislated; Racists Don't Hope.

Kevin Myers is especially brilliant in taking down the goofy notion (meme) called the Arab Spring. This is the current group thought in currency among readers of the New York Times, Salon, listeners of NPR and viewers of PBS.

However, what makes the Arab Spring meme so fascinating is its sheer power. Consider Prague, home in 1968 to one of the finest symphony orchestras in the world and to one of the greatest ballet companies in Europe, with many lively schools of philosophical and literary debate.

I must have missed this somehow or other, but is there a Cairo Symphony Orchestra? A Syrian National Theatre? A Saudi Ballet Company, whose quite Diaghilevian brilliance, alas, is largely concealed by the ballerinas' burkas? Is there an intellectual ferment in Yemen about the role of the welfare-state in a post-Marxian neo-Hegelian dialectic? Does Kuwait resound to the chatter of female students discussing the maternal rights of lesbians? Are gays in Algiers preparing their first wedding ceremony, to be conducted by a transsexual rabbi?

Now that is one solid palate cleansing gulp of insightful original thought. The Meme crafters or the Selfish Genes in popular culture and print have succeeded in underminng Faith. Why understand human behaviorin the light of Faith? The Meme Doctors tell us that the Koran and New Testament are alike. Don't bother reading the Koran, trust us.

Imagine, if you will, Carol Marin objecting to the patriarchal hierarchy of the Imams,with the same vim and vigor that she castigated the Catholic Church for not ordaining women. Would Carol's noggin be receptive to stones and boulders of Islamic critics?

Current Memes demand that we accept on faith that !. Gay couples and married couples produced the same number of children, after all homosexuality is Gay! Think not? Homophobe!!! All convictions are the result of coerced confessions. Coerced Confessions are the result of torture; All Convictions must be paid off in millions of dollars/



Mosaic Law? Shucks we got these here Memes and there are only seven.


Aaron Lynch described seven general patterns of meme transmission, or "thought contagion":[16]

1. Quantity of parenthood: an idea that influences the number of children one has. Children respond particularly receptively to the ideas of their parents, and thus ideas that directly or indirectly encourage a higher birthrate will replicate themselves at a higher rate than those that discourage higher birthrates.
2. Efficiency of parenthood: an idea that increases the proportion of children who will adopt ideas of their parents. Cultural separatism exemplifies one practice in which one can expect a higher rate of meme-replication — because the meme for separation creates a barrier from exposure to competing ideas.
3. Proselytic: ideas generally passed to others beyond one's own children. Ideas that encourage the proselytism of a meme, as seen in many religious or political movements, can replicate memes horizontally through a given generation, spreading more rapidly than parent-to-child meme-transmissions do.
4. Preservational: ideas that influence those that hold them to continue to hold them for a long time. Ideas that encourage longevity in their hosts, or leave their hosts particularly resistant to abandoning or replacing these ideas, enhance the preservability of memes and afford protection from the competition or proselytism of other memes.
5. Adversative: ideas that influence those that hold them to attack or sabotage competing ideas and/or those that hold them. Adversative replication can give an advantage in meme transmission when the meme itself encourages aggression against other memes.
6. Cognitive: ideas perceived as cogent by most in the population who encounter them. Cognitively transmitted memes depend heavily on a cluster of other ideas and cognitive traits already widely held in the population, and thus usually spread more passively than other forms of meme transmission. Memes spread in cognitive transmission do not count as self-replicating.
7.Motivational: ideas that people adopt because they perceive some self-interest in adopting them. Strictly speaking, motivationally transmitted memes do not self-propagate, but this mode of transmission often occurs in association with memes self-replicated in the efficiency parental, proselytic and preservational modes.

Behold! The Meme Septalogue!
Memorize and repeat after me: Thou shalt have no God other than Meme.

The Loss of Tom Roeser -Chicago's 18th Century Man.

This great photo captures the essence of Tom Roeser and I believe that it was taken by his friend and colleague Cal Skinner.


The 18th Century was the age of Teach the Pirate, Jack Ketch the Executioner,Samuel Mason the Highwayman, Edmund Burke the Statesman, Alexander Pope the Poet, Joseph Priestly the Scientist, Locke the Philosopher, Handel, Bach, Mozart and Vivaldi.

It was a conservative age that ended in republican revolutions -only one succeeded. The American Revolution balanced Jefferson's wild-eyed republicanism with Adams, Hamilton, and Madison's principled Federalism.

It was the age of Giambattista Vico whose Scienza Nuova was the script for conservatism. Vico help that truth gets around - to employ my south side vernacular.

Man begins history as a vulgar brute grunting, hitting, and killing as a form of expression. As man signs and grunts with greater clarity, human understanding begins - stay away from my meat, or get clubbed and eaten. Gotcha! This is where Man employs tropes and metaphors in a less than aesthetic poetry, but truth will be communicated.

Eventually Man achieves what Vico called ragione tutta spiegata fulfilled reason in which reason and right combine to provide not only political, economic and religious stability, but fulfillment and reverence for beauty, majesty, and purity. Then along comes our age - Who's to Say, I was Born This Way, Deal With It.

This is the advent of what Vico called the human Ricurso, or the return to grunts (MSNBC, Charlie Sheen, Lady Gaga, Glen Beck) and signs ( Global Warming, Lean Forward, Lock and Load and You Betcha). The Ricurso is the recurrence of the Savage's trope -Listen to me, or I'LL KILL YOU!

The true conservative reminds us of the joys and liberties of the Republic, in order to avoid the savagery of anarchy and despots. It is an 18th Century concept.

Tom Roeser was a true conservative -politically and theologically. His life warned against the Roads Most Travelled -group think.

Tom Roeser was an original thinker who stood upon the texts and traditions that best preserved what is best in our politics and in our Faith. Though Catholic, Tom Roeser was a catholic (universal theologian).

Tom Roeser was God's watchdog and fearless intellectual combatant. Tom never once said that he had all the answers. Rather, he pointed all of us in the direction of where the right answers were to be found.

Tom Roeser disagreed, but always welcomed debate; even with singularly disagreeable people, all were invited to Tom's feast.

A giant has exited and pygmies have taken the stage.

Chicago has lost an 18th Century Man. God help us. Thanks for for your stewardship, Tom. See you in Church!

Leo High School Wins Its Fifth Class A and Sixth IHSA State Track Final

In the entire history of the IHSA the only Catholic/Private school to win a track & field title is Leo High School.

Leo has won five Class A State Track Championships and one Class AA Title.* Leo High School has no track. Leo Lions tain in the school.

Today, Coach Ed Adams and the Leo Lions did it again.

CHARLESTON, Ill. — Bruce Gray didn't want to leave the track Saturday after completing the 100-meter dash. Instead, the Leo senior stared anxiously at the scoreboard, waiting for the race results at the Class 1A boys state track and field meet.

After a push in the final 20 meters, Gray paced around during a short delay while the photo finish was reviewed.

"I didn't know where the finish line was," Gray said. "I just wanted to finish."

Gray's surge led to a rare first-place tie with Peoria Christian's Jon Hutchison. Both finished in 10.79 seconds. The tie helped Leo edge Harrisburg 42-41 for the 1A title.

"We haven't had (a state title) in a few years," Gray said.

Leo's first state title since 2003 can be credited to a strong showing in the relays.

Aided by another strong finish by Gray in the 400 relay, the team that included Andre Patton, Theodore Hopkins and Denzel Tucker took second (42.95), just ahead of Winnebago (42.96). Leo junior Rueben Blackwell was second in the 110 hurdles (14.83) and Gray added a fifth-place medal in the 200.

Leo's 800 relay team of Patton, Hopkins, Tucker and Gray finished runner-up (1:29.31) to Walther Lutheran's Cole Evans, Tyreese Russell, Andre Cooper and Sean Cotton (1:28.12).

"Everybody came out and ran their hearts out," Cotton said. "I just tried to run (the anchor) hard and hold off Gray."

 

*Boys Track & Field
Season Class Titles Place Won Lost Tied Coach
1980-81 A 1 Bro. John O'Keefe
1982-83 A 3 Bro. John O' Keefe
1994-95 AA S 1 Ed Adams
1997-98 A S 1 Ed Adams
As Chicago (Leo)
1999-00 A S 2 Ed Adams
As Chicago (Leo)
2000-01 A S 3 Ed Adams
2001-02 A S 1 Edward Adams
2002-03 A S 1 Edward Adams
2003-04 A S 2 Edward Adams
2004-05 A S 3 Edward Adams
2009-10 1A S Edward Adams

A Special Relationship(s) - The Heat's Dwayne Wade and Coach Jack Fitzgerald

Dwayne Wade is a Superstar athlete - one of the giants of the NBA. Jack Fitzgerald is a high school and small college basketball coach - a legendary journeyman mentor who graduated from Leo High School in 1969, returned his alma mater and learned the craft from Tom O'Malley. Tom O'Malley was one of Jimmy Arneberg's boys. Arne was coached by Brother Francis Finch and the great Vince Dowd.

This is a Leo chain of being.

Dwayne Wade never attended Leo High School but he was mentored and coached by Jack Fitzgerald at Richards High School.

Dwayne Wade understood that he was helped by a man who understands not only the game, but the reasons put everything, heart, mind and body into any effort.

Dan McGrath wrote another wonderful portrait of two men brought together by a spirit much larger than their ambitions and wants. Click my post title for the full New York Times story.

Any of us who have watched our children play sports or tiptoe through a dance recital or blow the fluegelhorn in a concert could empathize with Jack Fitzgerald on Tuesday.

He viewed the Game 4 telecast of the Bulls-Miami Heat Eastern Conference playoff finals from a quiet table in a South Side pub, and a nosy reporter tried to be unobtrusive as Fitzgerald agonized. Dwyane Wade is not his son, but Fitzgerald has paternalistic feelings for the Heat’s All-Star guard, the best player and one of the best kids he worked with during 27 years and 444 victories as a high school coach in the Chicago area.

“It’s hard to watch,” Fitzgerald said. “I get a little pit in my stomach, the same way I did when I was coaching.”

The pit felt like a bowling ball on this night as Wade struggled, missing seven straight shots at one point, including an uncontested breakaway dunk.

“He’s just not in the flow,” Fitzgerald said quietly, his stoic demeanor concealing his inner turmoil.

Jack Fitzgerald would never admit to being a great man and that is his greatness. Jack Fitzgerald helped Dwayne Wade become the fine young man he is, even though he is an NBA Superstar. The hands that help are guided by a spirit of very old and willing hands going back generations.

And Palms Before My Feet: Leo Boxers Eat With George Foreman

This donkey needs a shave, a shower and a financial bail-out - too blessed to fail.

Where do I begin? Hours ago!

It was a stormy day outside of Leo High School. Within it was cheery and warm with anticipation of the upcoming evening's fete at Harry Caray's on Kinzie with two-time Heavyweight Boxing Champ, 1968 Olympic Gold Medalist, Minister of Christ, Entrepreneur, and philanthropist George Foreman.

While winds and rain buffeted 79th Street, Leo High School was warm with academic, athletic shoulders to the wheel and much anticipation. The Big Shoulders Fund and the Boxing Brokers invited Mike Joyce's Leo Boxing Team to share steaks with George Foreman at Harry Caray's. Not only that, but the Track Team was heading down to the State Meet.

Leo's track team departed for the IHSA State Track meet at 11:30 AM. Track coach and Leo AD Ed Adams handed me a key to a vehicle. Off they went with shouts of beefy good-fellowship and God Speed.

At 5 PM, Asst. Boxing Coach Marquis Ball arrived and we inspected the nicely decked-out squad of boxers - Shirts and Ties all. Marquis offered to drive and I handed him the key. Me and the boxers followed the big Leo Alumnus and future Chicago Police Officer out to the motor pool. The vans were gone. There was one of a trio of 22 passenger bus into which this key fit and worked - it was a real pig -last used by the track team in April. With a cloud of white smoke, we wandered away from the warmth of Leo High School toward cold steel and glass of the Loop. Nice ride on the Dan Ryan Expressway.

Marquis pulled in front of Harry Caray's and handed the key to the young Mexican American Valet. We were greeted and directed up to the George Foreman Event. This dinner is prelude to tonight's charity boxing night at Chicago's House of Blues -BBF The Broker Boxing Foundation.

George Foreman charged up to greet us and warmly pressed the flesh with the Leo Boxers. "Come on up and let's get our pictures taken!" We all all got into the ring with the most menacing and happy man on the planet. I put my tiny dukes up with the Champ and the camera man, Mr. Nixon the event's chairman, snapped a shot.

No sooner had I stepped away, than the sober and serious baby-faced Marquis Ball, a man in the image and likeness of George Foreman softly whispered "Transmission's shot.The bus is stuck."

I went down to the lobby and the manager told me, "The bus will not move."

Thanks be to God! We were here anyway. Think Mule. Call for a tow. I did. Call for a limo to get the guys back to Leo. The manager contacted a service. Done. Hickey you are one get-it-done Donkey. Steak Time!

Nope. No sooner had I eyed the fried ravioli cascading over Marquis Ball's plate, than I got a call from the Towing Service. " I'll be there at 7:30 you gotta ride with me - Oh, and it's cash only because my boss has the truck with the card swipe."

No Sweat! I went down to the Harry Caray ATM and took out . . . limited to $ 200. The tow was going to cost $ 245 minimum it will be more believe it Esse. Well I had close to a yard on me - $ 84 and change.

The manager again. " Mr. Hickey, the limo will cost $ 145 minimum in cash." Do the math, Mule. Back to the ATM - command;English;Yes to $2.00 Fee; Receipt? You Bet! Mercifully, the ATM though limited to maximum take-out of $ 200 allowed me to extract another two yards from my checking account and there was enough in the balance thanks to my modest 2010 Tax Return.

Another phone call. "Mr. Hickey, you gotta come along with me in the tow to tell me where to place the bus. I'll be there soon."

Marquis and the boxers would return to Leo, having sated themselves with steak and spoon vitals, and take the limo home.

At 7:35 the tow truck arrived and shook hands with my shipmate Rico, a Puerto Rican kid from Pilsen who now lives in Evanston and drives for a towing company in Skokie.

We had a great talk on the way south about boxing, being a kid, Roberto Clemente High School, Leo High School, and thanking God that at least the bus arrived in front of Harry Caray's.

We put the bus in the lot north of 79th Street, because it was pouring rain and there were no other vehicles in the lot. I paid Rico and duked him $25. I was getting soaked . . .by the rain. The tow was more than fair.

I opened the padlock on the gate of the faculty lot on Sangamon, crossed over to Leo and went around to east entrance and let my self into the school vestibule and waited. By the time the Limo with the kids and Marquis arrived, it was 9:45 PM.

The kids all had autographed pictures of themselves with George Foreman. I got a hot one of the team with George and the actor Martin Klebba - he is the dwarf from Pirates of the Caribbean. This one will belong to the school.

God is good.


This donkey knows.

THE DONKEY
G.K. Chesterton

When fishes flew and forests walked
And figs grew upon thorn,
Some moment when the moon was blood
Then surely I was born;

With monstrous head and sickening cry
And ears like errant wings,
The devil's walking parody
On all four-footed things.

The tattered outlaw of the earth,
Of ancient crooked will;
Starve, scourge, deride me: I am dumb,
I keep my secret still.

Fools! For I also had my hour;
One far fierce hour and sweet:
There was a shout about my ears,
And palms before my feet.

Blago II : Epilogue - A Quinn Martin Prodcution

Rod Blagojevich, the now removed Governor of Illinois, serial gate-crasher, lout, lay-about, whiner, buffoon, pistachio pitch-tool, and political plantar's wart is set to testify.

Cool.

I remember on a website called Chicago Sports Fan on the 620 Score there was a post called Blagojevich: Epilogue A Quinn Martin Production and I laughed my ass off . . .well not literally, it still follows me around.

I connected immediately. Blago is a Quinn Martin Production. Pat Quinn? Nah.

This entire shabby saga has been soup for nuts. Blago was kicked out of a very prominent post-South Side parade parties decades ago. Everyone goes to this Morgan Park worthy's party, but Blago was not invited. He did not go there for the fun, fellowship and free feed; Blago gate crashed in order to gnaw on the rumps of the likes of Neil Hartigan, Bill Daley, Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, Al Gore, John Kerry ( South Side attendees all) and captains of labor, church and industry.

Everyone but everyone knew Blago to be exactly the man he is today. That's politics, kids.

The Blago saga has had no real light shined upon since Rep. Jim Durkin tuned up Roland Burris.

This has all been a tedious drama, not a comedy. It reminds me of the Old 60's TV shows The Fugitive, Twelve O'Clock High, The F.B.I., and The Invaders, all broadcast on ABC that always had a pretentious Act I, II, III and IV - and the Epilogue.

All four Acts of this sociopathic mirror gazer Blago have been Epilogue

Act I - The Primary - Money, Vanity and Fear Give Illinois Blago over Paul Vallas

Act II - The Governorship 1 & 2 - The Looting of Illinois & PACE for Grannies

Act III - The Impeachment and Fitzy- Starring Roland Burris - need I say More

Act IV - WLS, Trial One, Survivor and Pistachios

The Epilogue, or denouement ( DE new Mon) as we Francophiles like to toss about, was the resolution of the alleged drama in which David Jansen shook off the hay from the farm work he did as a doctor on the run from the one-armed guy. Blago has more explanations about his many one-armed guys, than the Vitalis-ized David Jansen could ever dream of.

All Four Blago Acts are Epilogue - This Has been a Quinn Martin Production!!!!!!



*QUINN MARTIN
US Producer
Born Martin Cohn. Born in New York City, New York,
U.S.A., 22 May 1922.
Died, in Rancho Santa Fe, California, 6 September 1987.

Leo High School Boxers to Meet George Foreman and The Big Shoulders of Chicago

The Big Shoulders Fund of Chicago has boosted thousands of inner city kids up through the financial ropes and put them toe-to-toe with success in Catholic Schools. You can not get into the ring without some help.

The Big Shoulders Fund was started by a 79th Street guy by the name of James O'Connor. Jim O'Connor was the CEO of ComEd, when it did not hammer citizens with utility bills. Jim O'Connor was the man who built the nuclear power plants that generated cheap, affordable power to Illinois citizens in Chicago and northern suburbs. Jim O'Connor wanted kids from 79th Street, 63rd Street, 55th Street, along Archer Ave., North Ave., Milwaukee Ave., and Irving Park Road to have the opportunity to attend Catholic Schools. Catholic Schools prepared Jim O'Connor to become a successful, caring and giving citizen.

The Big Shoulders Fund works year round to scare up funds, assist schools with budgeting plans, leadership plans and operational efficiency. The Big Shoulders Fund is the cut-man for the Office of Catholic Schools.

Tonight, the Leo Boxing Team will attend a dinner honoring George Foreman and the George Foreman Foundation at Harry Caray's restaurant. Most of our boxers have never been to Harry Caray's. In fact, many of these kids never really see much of Chicago beyond the few square miles that comprise their neighborhoods and Leo High School.

Leo High School is on 79th Street a few blocks east of Jim O'Connor's boyhood home on Marshfield Street. Jim O'Connor knows Leo High School. The Big Shoulders Fund has helped Leo families meet the costs of an education at this school, since the early 1990's. Thanks to that commitment and support, Leo High School makes a difference in the lives of young men. One method of life preparation outside of the classroom is the Boxing Room on the school's second floor. This facility was built with the help from State Representative Mary Flowers, Irish Boxing Trainers Martin and Oliver McGarry, Mexican American Middleweight and contractor JC Gutierrez and attorney, Leo Alumnus, Advisory Board Member, Hall of Fame Inductee and Leo Man of the Year 2011 Mike Joyce.

Since 1999, Mike Joyce has trained Leo High School boxers to fight in the methods developed by Constantine "Cos" D'Amato -the peek-a-boo approach style of boxing, where the hands are placed in front of the boxers face for more protection.

Protect yourself in the ring and in life. Cos D'Amato trained Floyd Paterson,Jose Torres and Mike Tyson. Mike Joyce trained thirteen Golden Gloves champions, the captain of Team USA, Lamar Fenner and Superheavyweight Thomas Hayes. Leo Boxers also became the scholar/athletes any school would envy. Boxer Eder Cruz is Leo's 2011 Gates Millennium Scholar.

A man who came from a tough environment, boxed for America and won the Gold Medal in Mexico at 1968 Olympics, and won two Heavyweight Championships, turned his life over to Christ and helped others develop the life worth living - a life of giving.

George Foreman has the shoulders to match the Big Shoulders Fund and those of Jim O'Connor. Tonight ten Leo Boxers will have the opportunity share their life stories with people who know what life is all about - James O'Connor and George Foreman.

Leo High School Graduation at St. Columbanus May 21, 2011

Gates Millenium Scholar Eder Cruz and Principal Phil Mesina outside of St. Columbanus Catholic Church.
Soon to be members of the Leo Alumni Association
Leo Teachers and Urban Heroes All!
The Gunny -VP Frank Wilson with Ms. Silva and Ms. Latifi
The Prize

Leo High School not only endures, it thrives. Established in 1921, Leo High School's first student registered was Francis O'Neill Class of 1930. On Sunday May 21st at Chicago's St. Columbanus Catholic Church the 82nd Class of graduates received their diplomas from Principal Phil Mesina, Vice Principal Frank Wilson and President for Institutional Advancement Dan McGrath ( Leo '68).

Chicago Tribune columnist and Wittenberg College's greatest field-goal kicker Fred Mitchell addressed the graduates - his theme " Let No One Else Define Your Life." The young men coming out of St. Columbanus with a Leo Diploma, were not defined by their freshman entrance scores, the neighborhoods where they lived, the dollars in their family accounts, or the denomination of Christian church in which they were baptized - in fact one or two young men are Muslims. In four years, they learned to meet the odds and better resourced foes. It matters not that Leo has no track, its track team left all the wealthy suburban and private schools in the dust at Friday's IHSA Track Sectional with a score of 110.3 with their nearest competition scoring 87 points. It matters not that Leo High School's facility is eighty-five years old and land locked in Gresham on 79th Street without a tree-lined campus. What happens inside this school is a miracle.

Eder Cruz 2011 is a Gates Millennium Scholar. Eder's classmates Josiah Jones and Edward Vaughan the Salutatorian and Valedictorian will both attend University of Illinois with scholarships. Denzel Tucker, one of the toughest and finest young men it has been privilege to know, will go to Ferris State College in Michigan. Denzel is one of the State Track qualifiers, a boxer, a student leader and a gentleman to the backbone.

These fine young men and their classmates were served by genuine urban heroes. The faculty of Leo High School is comprised of veteran Catholic school war-horses like the legendary Pete Doyle who served as an Irish Christian Brother in the '60's, Principal in the '90s and the new Millennium, the spiritual link of thousands of Alumni to the school's traditions and mission, Leo's utility man Mike Holmes ( Football Coach, Admissions Director, Dean of Men and community activist/broker) Bob Schablaske, Joe Check, Ed Adams, Dr. Milt Kobus and The Gunny - Vice Principal Frank Wilson, USMC (ret.) who developed Leo's Freshman Academy. There is also a maniple of young men and women who patiently and commandingly direct the studies and deportment of proud and at times 'willful' young men - Aurora Latifi, Margarita Silva, Jon Crotty, LaDonna Hill, Noah Cannon, Kaitlyn Curta, John Lattiere, Nick Masciola, Christine Meany, Melinda Monge, Robert Sills, Bill Tomaka, Gloria Jones and Velma Smith.

Two Leo Alums, Dr. Jack O'Keefe and Denny Conway came out of retirement and volunteered to coach and tutor Leo upperclassmen to improve ACT scores. The school's scores were raised by 2 full percentage points over last year thank to these men.

Supporting all of these good people are the 8,000 + Leo Alumni. The Leo Alumni pumped hard needed dollars into scholarships for Leo families and into operational costs. More importantly, Leo Men are present at every event the school hosts and our guys know who exactly is backing their efforts and who will have their backs in the years to come.

Leo High School is blessed with young men who are making the school stonger -


Meet Darnell Harris of the Class of 2014. Darnell leads the freshman class with a GPA (unofficial prior to final exams mind you) well above 3.Something, plays basketball and was Leo's Student of Month for April. He is flanked by President Dan McGrath and some guy from Little Flower.


I love doing sic and fetch for this great school and the magnificent people the school represents.

No Craic Barack Where You're Heading -

After a visit that seemed shorter than Chicago's once fabled South Side Irish Parade, President Barack Obama, the Missus and the Presidential retainers have jetted to Perfidious Albion a day early. Iceland is acting the fool again!

In Ireland, President Obama warmed the cockles of the heart in Moneygall, got a Hurley from the Taoiseach Enda Kenny and was favorably received by throngs of folks.

Here is what is waiting in Great Britain across the Irish Sea:

O'Bama? Oh puh-lease! By James Delingpole Politics Last updated: May 23rd, 2011

1245 Comments Comment on this article

Ah Bejaysus and Begorrah! Oi’ll be swearin’ boi the auld shrine to the Vorgin with the shamrocks growin’ round it next to the hill where Cuchullain slew the Great Leprechaun of Kildare on St Patrick’s Day that Barack Seamus O’Toole Flaherty Joyce O’Bama is the most Irish US president that ever set foot on the Emerald Oisle, so he is, so he is.

Except, when he’s in Africa, of course, when he disappears into the dry ice and re-emerges with a grass skirt and a bone through his nose and declares himself to be Mandingo, Prince of the Bloodline of the Bonga People, Drinker of Cattle Urine, Father of A Thousand Warrior Sons, Keeper of King Solomon’s Mines, Barehanded Slayer of Lions, Undaunted Victim of the Evil Colonial British Empire.

And in the Middle East, where he is Al-Barak Hussein Obama, Protector of the Holy Shrine, Smiter of the Kuffar, Lion of the Desert, Tent-Loving-Aficionado-of-the-Oversweetened-Coffee, Chomper of Sheeps’ Eyeballs, Restorer of the Caliphate.

Etc.

Tony Blair used to do this trick too, his accent mutating from broad Glaswegian to genteel Edinburgh to Mummerset to Estuary to Richard E Grant to Sarf London Grime – often in the course of one Downing Street reception – the better to persuade his target audience that he was their kind of guy. And it is, of course, the hallmark of an unutterable charlatan.

I’ve argued before that Tony Blair and Barack Obama have an awful lot in common. Both are lawyers; both are snake-oil-salesman; both claim to be post-partisan, and Third Way and consensual; both play the acceptable, moderate-seeming public face of a regime chock full of Communists, class warriors, single issue rabble rousers, malcontents, communitarians and eco-loons hell bent on destroying every last vestige of what once made their country great. And both do (or did) the things dodgy political leaders always do when the going gets tough at home and their domestic audience finally wises up to how totally useless they are: they hop on the plane and pose as international statesman instead.

My colleague Damian Thompson appears to be under the impression that Obama is a great guy because he said nice things about the Queen. Look, I think the Queen’s great too, but did it really not occur to my distinguished colleague (and editor) that there might have been a hint of an ulterior motive here? Obama can’t stand Britain (his wife likes us even less): he made that clear enough when he sent back Winston Churchill’s bust and dissed our Prime Minister with those dodgy DVDS. He blames us for what happened to his grandfather during Mau Mau. He doesn’t believe in the Special Relationship. Are we honestly supposed to believe in that during the subsequent year in office, Obama has since acquired such wisdom and insight that he suddenly realises how special we are?

Of course he hasn’t. Obama is just doing now what all bullies and losers start doing when they realise how unpopular they are and that everyone is abandoning them. They suck up to anybody and everybody. They whore themselves piteously before enemies they once considered beneath their contempt. Fain will they fill their bellies with husks that swine eat – but which no man will give them: and serve them jolly well right, too!

By all means let us enjoy watching Obama smarm and grovel and ingratiate himself like some presidential Uriah Heep. But for heaven’s sake let us never give him the benefit of the doubt. He’s a cold fish and would certainly never show any mercy towards us were the roles to be reversed.

Tags: Barack Obama, Great Leprechaun of Kildare, leprechaun, Obama, tony blair, Uriah Heep, Welcome To Obamaland

No MSNBC in Old Blightey?

First BIFFO and Ireland's First Culchie Tea Talkin' the 'Begrudgery of others'

Israel has nothing to worry about Biffo* Obama is talking it over with Taoiseach Enda Kenny.

President Biffo Obama -

I can turn a grey sky blue; I can make it rain whenever I wan it to. I can make it shine on a cloudy day; when it's cold outside, I got the month of may! I can build a castle from a single grain of sand and I can make a ship sail on dry land.

Taoiseach Enda Kenny -

Saying "Haaah" everytime someone says something. That's culchie. Silver mints. A nice bit of ham. TK red lemonade. Saying ahhh after a sup of tay. Giving the dog the wildest baitings. Giving the wife the wildest baitings. Knowing what pubs are on the Limerick Tipperary road. Drink Driving. Grabbing a hould of a bird in Coppers. Diesel. Saying “stall the digger”. Going out specifically to buy petrol. Super Splits. Neat Whisky. Fisticuffs after the dhischo. Drinking neat whicky followed by Fisticuffs after the dhischo. Driving up house prices in Dublin . Quinns. Tractors in a Paddys Day Parade. Laughing at people with clean wellies. Battenburg. Tanora. Tanora with a thick slice of battenburg wrapped up in an Abernethys bread wrapper on the train to Thurles. Tying up jeans with a bit of bailing twine. Buttered biscuits. Diggin Holes. Saying tis too cold to snow. A dinner dance. Tayto Cheese & Onion. Countin money. A stretch in d'evenings. Rubbing their hands together before tucking into their dinner. Pretending to like Harp . Marietta biskits. Drivin inta poholes with the tractor. Spittin in their hands before doing anything manual. A big bowl of stew. Eating sangwiches out of the boot of a car at GAA Matches. Saying someones 'Opened a Book' on something. The smell of silage. Slice-Your-Own Loaf. A bottle of mineral. Fighting with d'neighbours. Puttin on a ganzee to stop them from bein perished. 'The' Hurling and Futball. Bakin n cabbage. Price of calves.. Sayin' things like 'Well Holy God ... will ya look at that.' Dirty number plates so they cant get caught with the speed cameras. The Fear of Change. A nice bit of Barnbrac with a cup a Strong Tay. Drinkin tay off a saucer. Building stone walls. Being starved with the cold rather than with a lack of food. Flowery Spuds. Talking about the stretch in the evenin's. A good blackthorn walkin stick. Shouting 'Yaaahhhhooooooo' when something good happens. The replay of the Sunday Game on Monday. Talkin bout machinery. Sayin' things like 'Arra fer Jaysus Sake' A good read of Buy n Sell. Winnin a turkey at the cards. Scandal, as long as its about other people. A Gud bail a Turf, because dat Centril heatin's only a wemins ting. Wellies. Sponge 'n Custurt. Illegal Parking in Dublin. Begrudgery of others.

Tomorrow off to see the Queen!

Huge hat tip to Talkin' Culchie


* BIFFO - BIFFO Irish slang for a "Big Ignorant Fucker From Offaly" but feel free to substitute you city of choice...
It's especially handy when the BIFFO doesn't know you're insulting him (or her), and even better when they shorten it for themselves and asked to be called "Bif"
Hey Biffo, what's up? What's craic, Biif? Pass the salt 'n vinegar Taytos, Biffo.



http://wapedia.mobi/en/Talk:Culchie

http://hickeysite.blogspot.com/search?q=enda+kenny

Joplin, Missouri - Jesus Wept.

"Et lacrimatus est Iesus"

Last night, at around 6 P.M. a tornado of monstrous proportions destroyed Joplin, MO and killed at least 80 people.

At that time, my daughter Clare was studying for her final exams at Mother McAuley High School this week, Conor was cooking fried rice and chicken, I had come home from the Leo Graduation at St. Columbanus Church on East 71st Street and changed out of my suit and into my eating pants and waiting for the Bulls to lose to the Heat.

The clouds bypassed Chicago.

Our house and those of my neighbors are still standing - today.

This morning, I read of the devastation to Joplin, Missouri. Yesterday's Gospel from John recounted the old doubter Thomas:

Thomas said to him,

"Lord, we do not know where you are going; how can we know the way?"
Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father, but by me.
If you had known me, you would have known my Father also; henceforth you know him and have seen him."

We were told and we forget. Joplin knows. Jesus proved he was Man when he wept for His buddy Lazurus.

President Obama in Dear Old Moneygall - Offaly Nice, I Suppose.

Obama in Moneygall, Today. As real as he gets.

You might call Monday the fun day of President Obama’s Europe tour.

The president will spend an hour in the Irish town of Moneygall, where it is believed his great-great-great grandfather grew up. The town has excitedly anticipated his arrival, with people waiting hours in line for tickets to Obama’s speech there. The local newspaper, the Ofally Independent, put out a special edition Friday in which the paper dubbed itself “The Obama Independent.” (Moneygall is in a county called Ofally.)

“This is a homecoming of sorts for President Obama. He’s very excited to see this small town in Ireland from which he has roots, and we’re very much looking forward to seeing some of the people of Moneygall and making a stop there,” said Ben Rhodes, one of Obama’s top national security aides.

Obama, who arrived in Ireland Monday at 9:29 a.m. local time (4:29 a.m. in Washington) will also give a public speech in Dublin, highlighting relations between Ireland and the United States.

Offaly Nice -

President Barack Obama's Irish eighth cousin toured either side of the tiny village of Moneygall, picking out pavements to be repaired and houses to be repainted in preparation for the visit of the most powerful man on Earth.

With a population of just 300, the residents will be heavily outnumbered by the US president's own entourage when Obama returns to his Irish roots in May.

The village is bisected by the old Dublin to Limerick road, where part of the old homestead of Obama's Irish ancestors still stands. Moneygall has become a tourist trap two months before Air Force One touches down in the Republic.

Henry Healy, accompanied by officials from Offaly county council, was helping to spruce up the village for Obama's arrival. Since the president announced on St Patrick's Day that he would visit Ireland in two months' time Obamamania has been building in this quiet corner of the Irish midlands. On Friday night the locals held their first public meeting to discuss the trip.

Healy, who traces his family links back to the president's Irish ancestors, the Kearneys, was a guest of Obama when he was sworn into office in Washington DC. The president's great-great-great grandfather (on his mother's side) is said to have been born in Ireland. "Our family connection is very distant but … we do share the same lineage," said Healy. "Our ancestry is shared by the Healy and the Kearney families way back to 1761. Sarah Healy would be five-eighths grandmother of Barack Obama. I still think it's sort of surreal to say you have some connection to the president of the United States. "

Healy said the Obama connection had brightened up the lives of Moneygall's people at a time of national economic hardship. "When the primaries started in 2008 our village wasn't like the rest of Ireland. We were not talking about recession or doom and gloom. We were talking about the American presidential campaign all the way from Iowa to the White House. It was a massive boost to our morale in these dark times."

No US presidential visit to Ireland would be complete without a photo of him supping a pint at the bar. JFK, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton have all been snapped by the world's cameras knocking back beer amid cheering Irish locals. Inside Olli Hayes's bar on Main Street Obama memorabilia dominates the walls, with framed pictures from his presidential campaign, paintings of the first black US president and the latest addition, a cast-iron bust of him at the end of the bar.

"I hope nobody lifts that up one day and hits me on the head with it like they did with the bust of Queen Victoria in that murder on EastEnders," jokes Hayes.

Another stop on Obama's Moneygall tour will be Templeharry Anglican church, just over a mile outside the village. It was here that Church of Ireland minister Stephen Neill unearthed Obama's roots in 2007. Inside the church, built around 1800, Neill produces the dust-laden parish record books which he used to trace Obama's lineage to the village.

"We have the baptismal records which include the Kearney relatives and back in April 2007 it transpired that this lineage related to Barack Obama through Falmouth Kearney, who emigrated to America. So on these pews, inside this very church, the president's antecedents on his Irish side worshipped here on a regular basis."

Obama's links to the Church of Ireland also stretch further south to Kilkenny city, where another branch of the family claims a connection to him. Jane de Montmorency Wright said she had traced Obama to the former Anglican bishop of Kilkenny, John Kearney. "The president's ancestor was a bishop here in Kilkenny city where he is buried in St Canice's cathedral, so there will be plenty for him to see," she said.

Hayes and Moneygall's other 299 residents are expecting droves of other Americans to follow in the president's footsteps. A few hours earlier two couples from Chicago, the base from which Obama launched his presidential bid, turned up to have their pictures taken outside the bar.

• This article was amended on 29 March 2011. The original referred to President Barack Obama's Irish cousin (eight times removed). This has been corrected.

Leo High School Track Team ( The School Without a Track) Blows Away the Field at Lisle Sectional

Leo High School is the only Catholic High School and the only non-public high school to have ever won a State Track & Field Championship in the history of the IHSA.

Leo High School has no Track. The sprinters, hurdlers, high and low jumpers relay teams and shot putters all practice within the walls of Leo High School.

Yesterday, while Cardinal George and Father Pfleger made nice after putting Leo High School in the middle of their tiff for nearly three months with a narrative of troubled school, the Leo Lions of the Track Team, coached by Ed Adams and Pete Doyle, blew away all competition at suburban Lisle Sectional -

LISLE SECTIONAL
Leo 110.5, Westmont 87, Lisle 85, Walther Lutheran 80, Francis Parker 44.

All through the constant media bombardment of unvarified slanders and slights about Leo High School from March 15th, when CBS 2's Jay Levine set the nasty tone that Leo High School was struggling to stay open and through Father Pfleger's canard on the Tavis Smiley NPR gabfest with Cornell West that Leo is 'literally failing' this school kept its head up and its eyes on the best interests of the young men it serves. N.B. While the puffed-up Tavis Smiley sells his book at St. Sabina's today, the Leo High School Football Team and other student volunteers will be distributing groceries to our neighbors at Leo Alumni Fields -Facta Non Verba.

Leo Alumni poured in support and foundations like Cashel, Clare, WP & HB White, The John Buck Company, Irish Fellowship, Bidwill, Barney aand the Brach Foundations kept faith.

Leo Graduating senior Eder Cruz was the only Catholic League representative and one of 31 Illinois Gates Millennium Scholars.

The Leo Track Team does not need a track and Leo High School does not need a Lone Ranger savior.

Leo Lions Feed the Hungry - Saturday May 21 at Alumni Field

The Leo High School Football players and other student volunteers, along with this well-fed impulse grocery shopper and President for Institutional Advancement Dan McGrath, will distribute bags of organic fruit, vegetables, juice and heart healthy canned goods to our neighbors tomorrow morning between 11 AM and 1PM at Leo Alumni Field.


Alumni Field is located on the south side of 79th Street between Sangamon Street and Morgan.

While some Chicagoans might wait for the Rapture, the young Lions will be taking care of their neighbors.

Leo High School was named for the Pope of the Working Man -Leo XIII - and established by Cardinal Mundelein in 1926. Since then, thousands of Leo Men have served their God, country, families, and their neighbors as leaders and doers.

Our guys maintain that tradition. I have been writing about the great Bishop Bernard J. Sheil who founded the CYO and was a tireless voice for Catholic Action. Here is what Shiel was all about - doing for others.

These guys are doing alright for themselves as well. Here are some of the Leo Class of 2011 College Placements:

Below are the current list of students who have been accepted into colleges with proof of an acceptance letter:

Josiah Jones-University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Northern Ill. and University of Ill. at Chicago.

Eder Cruz-Valparaiso University, Marquette University, Iowa State, St. Louis University, Bradley University, University of Alcorn, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Hope College.

Andre Cail-Illinois State and Northern Illinois.

Brendan Mahan-DePaul University

Rueben BlackWell- St. Norbert College, DePaul College, DePaul University, Alcorn State, Central State and University of Arkansas Pine Bluff.

Andre Patton-Iowa State, North Carolina Agricultural & Technical State University, University of Missouri, University of Memphis and Northern Illinois.

Edward Vaughn-Georgia Tech, Purdue University and University Of Illinois at Urbana Champaign.

Joshua Cooper-International Academy of Design and Technology.

Denzel Tucker-Ferris State University and Hamline University.

Lawrence Littlejohn-Utica College and Johnson & Wales University, Grand Canyon University, Columbia College, Nazareth College, Sage College of Alabama, College of St. Scholastica.

Anthony Morgan-Western Illinois and University of Illinois at Champaign Urbana.

Justin Douglas-Kentucky State.

Aundra Wright-University of Illinois at Champaign Urbana and Bradley University.

Fred Montgomery-Robert Morris University.

Derrius Hendrix-Bowling Green State University and Southern Illinois University Carbondale.

Delexis Jackson-Robert Morris University.

Joshua Gilbert-Tennessee State University.

Fact Non Verb, Gents!