St. Xavier University: Why Robert Gibbs, Now? Why Anytime? Dick Walsh and Americans for Life Will Ask These Question on Thursday Night -October 20

St. Xavier University sits in the middle of Chicago's Catholic Ground Zero - a blue collar, ethnic land of tax-paying helots who still pack the pews every Sunday.

This neighborhood is about to witness a diminished 19th Ward due to remapping. There is about to be enacted an ordinance that takes what little autonomy aldermen still retain - the Garbage Grid debacle, that will lay off hundreds immediately and thousands more up the street, not so much to save pennies, but to chase the middle class out of Chicago.

Catholics keep having children and that is anathema to the Transformative Progressives.

Only a very few months ago, St. Xavier University, in this Chicago neighborhood, was slapped out as a Catholic University by Planned Parenthood's 1st President of the United States, Barack Obama's Department of Labor. St. Xavier University, they determined, should Not be considered Catholic, because non-Catholic students attend and there happens to be a Rainbow of Diversity on its staff.

Not only that, there are too few Sisters of Mercy on its Board.

The Obama Administration, not the Ordinary of Chicago, Cardinal George, determines what is Catholic. Why have a bishops, when Captain Hope and Change is doing pay-back to Planned Parenthood?

To some baptized Catholic Democrats this is a "No Biggie." deal. All the White House wants is for adjunct faculty to unionize. Adjunct faculty are part-timers.

To celebrate this installation of Planned Parenthood's 1st President and his transformation of America, St. Xavier University has invited former Press Secretary Robert Gibbs to collect and pocket $200 a pop (ticket) speaking fees and shill for more transformation.

I am sure that Bahgdad Bob will be . . . Bahgdad Bob.

You can't fault Baghdad Bob, as the gent was known by the White House Press Corps, after all a buck is a buck in this lousy economy.

What is St. Xavier University thinking?

Make nice and the White House* will reconsider? Sisters, Please!

Robert Gibbs was an adept at keeping the Obama Transformation at chameleon levels of transparency.

Here is Gibby, at his best from November 9th, 2009. I have done a kind of intrusive way-back machine and interrupted Gibby's exchange with a reporter (Chip) with the actual Transformation from Jeff Zelney of the New York Times and William Saunders of the National Review.
Okay, set way back dial to November 9th 2009. The White House Press Room - Here's Gibby!!!

. . .Mr. Gibbs: Yes,Sir!


Q Thank you. On the health care bill, does -- the President supports, endorses, whatever you want to call it, the House bill. He's made that very clear. Does he support the abortion funding restrictions in the House bill?

MR. GIBBS: The President, Chip, as you know, went to Capitol Hill to rally support for the bill. That bill is now through the House, which we're quite pleased about. The Senate, once we get budget numbers from CBO, will become -- that will move to the Senate floor. I don't doubt that you'll have a somewhat different bill. That's the way this process works, and we'll iron out differences as they come.

Fast Forward to January 5, 2011, 9:56 am

(

Gibbs to Leave as White House Press Secretary
By JEFF ZELENY
10:30 a.m. | Updated Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary and close confidante to President Obama, said Wednesday that he was stepping down to become an outside political adviser to the president and his re-election campaign.

The New York Times)

Yep, I remember,now; Gibby is working to re-elect Planned Parenthood's 1st President of the United States. Back to 2009.


Q What's his position on abortion funding restrictions?

MR. GIBBS: I think you heard the President in front of Congress several months ago, and we'll continue to make progress.

Q So then he wouldn't support anything like the provision that's in the House bill?

MR. GIBBS: I'm not going to become a negotiator from Capitol Hill -- on Capitol Hill from the podium.

Q Would he accept something that goes beyond what the Hyde amendment does?

Obamacare passes! Now let's see how Gibby did. What Happened:


(

The answer is yes, Obamacare did mark a significant expansion of abortion. It violated one plank of the “Hyde Amendment principles” (Hyde itself does not apply, since Obamacare is funded outside of Health & Human Services appropriations): no federal funding of insurance plans that provide abortions. The state exchanges established under Obamacare will certainly include plans that cover abortion. These plans will receive federal subsidies, thus violating Hyde principles. The meaningless “restriction” in the law is that the subsidies go to the insurance provider, not the individual, and that the abortions are paid for from a pool established by mandatory monthly payments by insurees. And even this restriction lapses if Hyde itself is not renewed (it is subject to yearly renewal).

Beyond this, there are virtually no restrictions on abortion in Obamacare. Funding streams such as those through Community Health Centers were thus unaffected. And while that particular problem was addressed in Obama’s executive order, the order failed to address anything else.

Saunders National Review)

But back to Bob Gibbs 2009-

MR. GIBBS: We will wait to see what health care reform brings.

Gibby resigns and remembers -(Jeff Zelney NYT: “This has been an extraordinary journey, an amazing privilege to serve the country and to serve this president. It’s an opportunity, quite frankly, of a lifetime,” Mr. Gibbs said. “But it’s important to take a step back and recharge, ahead of 2012, when we transition to the task of re-electing the president.”)

Back to Chip's question in 2009

Q So there could be something then in the end that goes beyond current law in restricting abortion funding?

As we know for sure from William Saunders-

For instance, one loophole left open by the EO involved the high-risk pools. In fact, HHS would have directly funded abortion thereunder but for the protests of pro-life advocates. But HHS’ initial decision came as no surprise. As both the Congressional Research Service and the pro-abortion Center for Reproductive Rights pointed out, there was no legal restriction against HHS approving such funding since neither the law itself nor the executive order forbade it.

Another loophole left unclosed by the EO is the meaning of “preventive care,” which must be covered by all private insurance plans under the new law. The government can define it to include abortion. If so, every insurance plan — not just those on the state exchanges — would have to cover it. This is a hole wide enough to drive the proverbial truck through.

Finally, one thing we know from court decisions in many circuits is that unless abortion is expressly prohibited, courts will read it into laws providing for health-care services.

In short, Obamacare marked a decisive pro-abortion shift. Representatives who voted for it should not be surprised if their constituents hold them accountable for doing so.

Yet, Gibby got giggles to Chip's question in 2009-

MR. GIBBS: Chip, I wish we were having this conversation as the last part of this process, but as your network and others have pointed out, there are miles to go before we sleep.

Back to Jeff Zelney's article in the New York Times -a quote on Gibbs' departure from Planned Parenthood's 1st President's Transformative Administration:

(“Robert, on the podium, has been extraordinary,” Mr. Obama said, declining to answer questions about who he intends to hire for any position. “Off the podium, he has been one of my closet advisers. He is going to continue to have my ear for as long as I’m in this job.”) You may say, Sir.

The long sleep. Abortion, Euthanasia and more attacks on Catholic institutions are getting voice from Robert Gibbs, by invitation from St. Xavier University.

For Christ's sake, wake up.

Americans For Life, led by Dick Walsh, a Lion for the Unborn, will be outside of St. Xavier University to question the University's decision to invite Planned Parenthood mouthpiece in purple.

I am going to get off of my comfortable rump and join them. Click my post title and Occupy your hearts and minds with the link to Americans for Life.




* Also three ago - Obama ordered Georgetown University to cover up all crucifixes -

Obama requested no crucifix in sight before he spoke at a CATHOLIC university?
http://www.catholic.org/politics/story.p…

I cannot figure out which is worse...the stupidity of the university..or the arrogance of obama..


either way...this is very disturbing

You think?

http://blogs.suntimes.com/sweet/2011/10/robert_gibbs_speaking_at_chica.html

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/05/gibbs-to-leave-as-white-house-press-secretary/

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/briefing-white-house-press-secretary-robert-gibbs-11909

http://www.nationalreview.com/critical-condition/250356/obamacare-and-abortion-facts-william-l-saunders

http://blogs.suntimes.com/sweet/2011/10/robert_gibbs_speaking_at_chica.html

Thank You, Mr. President! May We Have Another Slap? St. Xav's Thanks Obama Administration for Stripping Its Catholic Identity -and They Helped!

Notre Dame positioned itself as the gelding Catholic University, not only when it invited Planned Parenthood's 1st President of the United States to parse and get an Honorary Degree, but more so when it sic'd the cops on an elderly priest and others for saying a rosary for the unborn.

Not to be outdone, Georgetown University, purportedly a Jesuit University, took down the crucifixes and covered IHS with a shroud to please Planned Parenthood's 1st President of the United States.

Last April, Planned Parenthood's 1st President of the United States had his Labor Department strip Chicago's St. Xavier University ( the oldest college in Chicago) of its Catholic identity, because there were not enough Mercy Nuns on the Board.

That was done in order to clear the path for adjunct instructors, like Planned Parenthood's 1st President himself, to organize into a union.

In response, St. Xavier University invited Planned Parenthood's 1st President of the United States's former Chief Parser - Bob Gibbs.

The Catholic Church is anathema to Planned Parenthood's 1st President of the United States, because the Catholic Church refuses to say that Abortion is Ok and that Homosexual Marriage is not acceptable. Abortion and Homosexual Marriage is not Ok.

It is OK with too many politicians, who only get Catholic when it is St. Paddy's Day and they need to press the flesh, Vatican II cupcake clerics -priests who preach on Sundays about Gary loves Barry. or "Who's To Say" and goofy old nuns who work for Planned Parenthood, Hamas, and anything but their vocations.

Get this nonsense - St. Xavier was stripped of its Catholic Identity;yet, it will bend over backwards to help the very White House that has it in the cross-hairs



Robert Gibbs speaking at Chicago's Saint Xavier University Thursday. By Lynn Sweet on October 17, 2011 2:55 PM | No Comments
WASHINGTON--Former White House press secretary Robert Gibbs hits Chicago on Thursday, to speak at
Saint Xavier University, 3700 W. 103rd St. Tickets are still available.

Gibbs, who is advising the Obama 2012 re-election campaign headquartered in Chicago, will be back behind a podium earlier in the day, in a press conference Saint Xavier is arranging. 9emphasis my own)
Gibbs joined the Obama operation during then state Sen. Barack Obama's 2004 general election campaign for the U.S. Senate. He is now on the speaking circuit and is a top surrogate for the Obama team.

Tickets for the 7 p.m. Gibbs talk start at $20. From Saint Xavier: "A limited number of $200 priority tickets are available, which include priority seating and admission to an exclusive post-lecture wine and cheese reception with Gibbs. Tickets may be purchased online at www.sxu.edu, keyword: voices or by calling (866) 468-3401."

Yet, Catholics for the most part are coming to understand that not only is President Obama and his folks no friend of Catholics, no friend of any people of faith.

Planned Parenthood stands only for killing unwanted children and everything else is mascara. Planned Parenthood paid good money to get Barack Obama elected and he is acting accordingly.

Catholics voted for President Obama. Catholics might want to re-think that vote.

In the past year, Obama's Justice Department has argued in court that defenders of traditional marriage — the most visible segment of which are observant Catholics and bishops — should be regarded in law as the equivalent of racists. His National Labor Relations Board has issued rulings against two Catholic schools, St. Xavier University in Chicago and Manhattan College in New York, saying that they are not sufficiently Catholic to warrant religious exemptions from federal labor law —a stunning breach of the precedent in which religious bodies, not government officials, decide who qualifies as a member of a particular church. Those rulings followed on the heels of a highly publicized crusade by Obama's Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to punish North Carolina's Belmont Abbey College for removing contraception coverage from its employee health plans, a move the Catholic school made to conform to church doctrine.

When someone kicks me in the nuts, I tend not to ask him over for a snack, an ice cold bottle of pop, a Netflix or two and another leggy wind-up and kick to the gents.

Elizabeth Warren Wants the Hick Vote - I'm Hick, but I'm Registered in Chicago, Bessy

EWwwwwwwwww, why you're Colored, I was looking for the Hicks. You may let go . . .now!

Were the daffy and naturally smug Ms. Warren aware that the "Hick" vote is highly prized and tough to get, she would not seek that demographic in the Bay Play Ground of the Affluent WASP Progressive. Shucks, Missy, you are in Massachusetts and Hicks are fewer than callouses in Harvard Yard. Do click my post title for Elizabeth Warren's Abortion Happy Voters and their habiliments.



Well, as The Hick on this blog, I must say, Elizabeth Warren is not only Uglier than a lard bucket full of armpits, but she is dumber than a cat covering crap on a marble floor, bless her heart.

How Many Terrorists Does It Take to Free One Israeli?

Shucks, it appears it takes 1,000 terrorists to free one Israeli.

Do the math, as the snarky say. The Clueless about Gaza, like Marxist International Solidarity Movement, the media, academic charlatans, and big-hearted goofs who do not read, need to do some cipherin'.

GAZA/JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit and hundreds of Palestinians crossed Israel's borders in opposite directions on Tuesday as a thousand-for-one prisoner exchange brought joy to families but did little to ease decades of conflict.

Sergeant Shalit, 25, returned home to a national outpouring of emotion in Israel after five years in captivity in the Gaza Strip, while the first few hundred of over a thousand Palestinians being freed in stages from Israeli jails were greeted with kisses and flags in Gaza and the West Bank.

Moshe Dayan was once asked, "How is that you win every battle you fight?"

Dayan cocked his good eybrow and rejoined, " I fight Arabs."

My goodness, some might call that response 'hurtful'. . .well, not as hurtful as was to gents who attacked Israel.

Let's see now, let's tally up the wars, not to mention the conflicts and Raids on Entebee and such -


•The 1948–49 War
•The 1956 War
•The 1967 War (The Six-Day War)
•The 1973–74 War (The Yom Kippur War)
•The 1982 War

Israel 5 and Pan Arab Attackers 0 - That's Five to Naught.
Must be something to that. . .well, not to a Progresive John Dewey Hegelian.

Welcome home, Sarge!

God Bless Israel!

OWS - Obama, Dumbledores, Vampires, Zombies and Trolls

"By all means continue destroying my possessions. I daresay I have too many." Albus Dumbledore
"I think when you spread the wealth around it's good for everybody." Barack Obama



President Obama needs a lift, a boost, some peeps, some street cred and some magic.

What better demographic than the vast, white, affluent, bored, Harry Potters now occupying the media, but not really America.

Judging from the OWS kids, Commies, and professional activists President Obama, who once enchanted a majority of Americans with his Olympian charms, can find a forrest of enchanted dreamers occupying their idle months with role play, bongos, chants and marches.

These are largely the Harry Potter Generation. They have absorbed the whimsy of enchament like a souse a free kegger.

For the last ten years, America's youth, including those who have attended Ivy League Universities and Blue Chip colleges, demonstrate an addiction to enchantment.

Generation Potter, begat the V -Kids; begat Generation Twilght Vampires, begat Generation Zombies, begat Generation Werewolf . . . Magic, Fanatsy, Obama, Dumbledore, Redistribution of Wealth, Trolls, Michael Moore, Van Jones, . . . beats reading or viewing anything of substance.

I wonder if any of the young Communist Party America (CPA)dilletants who linked up with the lads of Aryan Nation and Nazi Parties recall the Hitler/Stalin Non-Agression Pact. Have any of the wee-Wobblies read about Big Bill Haywood,or Big Jim Larkin? Big Bill embraced Stalin's Communism died a bitter, lonely drunk in Moscow.
Big Jim Larkin repudiated Communism -James Larkin died in his sleep on 30 January 1947. His funeral mass was celebrated by the Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, John Charles McQuaid, and thousands lined the streets of the city as the hearse passed through on the way to Glasnevin Cemetery.

A wave of a wand is preferable to toil. The wages of toil is success. Wands are something to hold in one's milky and soft hands.

Magic! Whimsy! Remotes! Aps! Redistribution of Wealth! Dilectical Materialism! Dwarfs! Paul Krugman and Robert Reich!

The Harry Potter Generation Post Grads are living with Mom and Dad - the Old Muggles!

Capitalism Sucks! Dad, My ATM Card has lost its magic!



http://www.mugglenet.com/books/quotes/dumbledore.shtml

The Fist of Worker Solidarity OWS Chicago & A Working Man's Hand

If the Occupy Wall Street Movement and its rehearsal the Madison Wisconsin Sideshow last year have done anything it is making us all aware of the importance of bongos, drums and other percussion instruments.

Though I expect that there will not be a wild revival of Sandy Nelson, Buddy Rich, or Gene Krupa record sales, those kids can beat.

But consider Sandy Nelson:



And the OWS In-a-gadda-davidas!



More significantly, the fist thrust heaven-ward has become an all too frequent semiotic tool.

There is nothing so impressive as the calloused hands of a man who actually works for a living with skill, professional piety, and determination.

There is nothing so laughable as the milky white digits of a latter-day Hero of the Proletariat.

Man, put them back in the pockets of your North Face, son.





http://www.redbubble.com/people/dickmanchester/art/5580602-working-mans-hand

Lions of Laughter -Leo H.S. Alumni Stand Up Night at Beverly Arts Center

May your troubles be as few and as far apart as my Granny's teeth. An Old Irish Toast

You can major in communications in college, but it's better to learn it by six or seven
Leo Alumnus Paul Kelly

I applied for admission at Leo, because it was easy to spell. An anonymous Leo Alumnus - now a $ 500 an hour Personal Injury lawyer

Leo High School is home to captains of industry, military heroes, sports legends, men of the cloth, civil servants, and four of the funniest men in America. On Saturday, November 19th at 8 P.M. the Beverly Arts Center will roar with humor sparked by Four Lions of Laughter. Chicago's own Paul Kelly, Bill " Soups" Campbell, Kenny Howell and John Caponera will give one night tutorial on Stand Up Comedy. Each gifted man entered the crucible of high school years, through the portals of Leo High School.

Joseph Addison wrote that laughter is "the bringing together of images which have contrary additional ideas…” My all time favorite joke that never fails to get me giggling like the class jerk runs," An elegantly dressed woman walks into a loud crowded bar with a mallard under her arm. The bartender shouts above din and roar, 'Hey where'd you get the pig?'
The grand dame frostily replies with dignity, ' This is a Canadian Mallard, you lout . . .a duck.' The bartender waxes chastened . . .for moment, while the noisy bar quiets and awaits his snappy rejoined. 'I know, Toots, I was I talking to the Duck!'

Some days, it takes every once of human will to manage a smile. Thank God for the people in our company who not only coax the corners of our mouths heavenward, but also squeeze the bladders of our humors so hard that not only laughter gushes forth, but every muscle is taxed to keep human fluids where they belong.

The four Leo Lions of Laughter are as different as our senses and sensibilities.

John Caponera is not only a great Canaryville Wit ( tall task that in itself), but a spot-on mimic:




Bill "Soups Campbell, now settled in Boston, MA, offers a family friendly cerebral consideration of laughter:




The youngest and the edgiest of the four Lions of Laughter is Kenny Howell. Kenny has comic chops honed sharp and is everywhere



Beverly Stand Up Stand out Paul Kelly is known as the comic laureate of Chicago is known for his offbeat perspective and a unique physical style. Audiences see themselves in his hilarious real life routines. Paul is a master story teller and a quick ad-libber. He is the winner of the WGN Comedy Bowl and is proud to have a bratwurst sandwich named after him.

The Chicago Tribune recognized Paul Kelly's genius -

"A lot of comics know what they're going to say before they get on stage, but I don't," added Kelly, who said he likes to start a show by "spritzing" (Yiddish for making it up as you go along).

"I try to clear my mind of all thought before I get started," said Kelly. "I have routines I do over and over again, but I'm always looking for the optimum way to do them. I believe in something James Wesley Jackson (a Chicago comic) once told me. He said, `Being a comedian is not the study of what makes people laugh but the study of the laughter itself.'

"I want to get to the laughter that comes from way down inside," added Kelly. "I don't do a lot of snappy one-liners because I want the laughter that comes out of a relationship or an emotion. Why sit around trying to think up jokes? Simple everyday reality is funnier."

Much of Kelly's stage persona came from growing up a South Side Irish Catholic. "I come from a family that had a lot of humor," said Kelly, whose sister Elizabeth Dadd of Los Angeles married another standup comic, Terry Dadd.

After graduating from Leo High School in 1966, he saw a different view of the world when he attended Michigan State University in East Lansing. "The main thing that was shocking to me when I first left the South Side was finding out that St. Patrick's Day was not a day off from school," said Kelly, whose family used to celebrate the holiday at St. Sabina Catholic Church.

Paul Kelly was the mixmaster of the Lions of Laughter and helped Leo Alums, John Gardner -Alumni President, Bob Standring, Mike Nix - Director the Beverly Arts Center, Public Relations Mogul Bill Figel and Leo President Dan McGrath offer a night of laughs and love for Leo High School.

This Stand-up, Knock-down, Drag-Up howl fest begins at 8 P.M. in the Beverly Arts Center on November 19th.

Lions of Laughter: A Night of Comedy wiith Leo H.S. Grads:
John Caponera, Kenny Howell, Soups Campbell & Paul Kelly

At
Beverly Art Center
2407 West 111th Street
Chicago, Illinois 60655
7 P. M.
November 19th 2011
Tickets - $40 in advance and $ 50 at the door



Tickets Available at Beverly Arts Center -Call (773) 445-3838, or buy them on-line
www.beverlyartcenter.org/

Leo High School ( 773) 224-9600, or from a Leo Graduate with a wad of them in his mitts.
For added ease, join the Leo High School Family in honoring our Veterans on Friday November 4th at 11 A.M. for the Annual Leo Veterans Observances in the courtyard War Memorial on 79th Street

Elite Class Warriors Hang a Strawman in Effigy

"Cheers: Coach Buries a Grudge " (1984)

Tom: Let's hang him in effigy.
Ernie 'Coach' Pantusso: To hell with that. Let's hang him right here in Boston.


I am neither the sharpest bulb in the box, nor the brightest knife in the drawer, but know not to dance a fine jig in a steaming and teeming cow pasture, in order to pick up an ice cold gallon of moo juice. I step lightly and nimbly on the concrete streets of my neighborhood and go directly to the dairy case of County Fair Foods.

Call me crazy, call me lazy but $ 2.24 for a gallon of Kemp's 2% is preferable to spending untold hours with a trowel or sharp stick de-defecating my boondockers.

Likewise, I enjoy a paycheck that will clear upon deposit at Beverly Bank.

When 516 City workers (laborers, bus drivers, Streets and Sanitation workers, clerks and crossing guards) stand a solid chance of layoff, I know that fewer families will be able to afford Catholic school tuition. The economic mess that is the American economy hurts the people who Ivy League Academics, MSNBC, Editorial Boards, Brahmin Appointees like Forrest Claypool, and the DNC play at helping.

The Elites build many strawmen - Chicago Progressives like Toni Preckwinkle and Forrest Claypool stay employed by attacking powerless workers in their budgets, Machine Bosses ( try and find one), Skilled Trades Leaders and middle class helots. the mantra is always It is not our Policies that Fail, You People Don't Pay Enough!

Kids and glue-sniffers love that.

The Occupy Everything Movement nonsense and the toddler Obama Administration are fast and furiously Hell bent on stringing up A Strawman. The Strawman is the mythical Rich. This strawman is a caricature like 19th Century cartoonist and anti-Catholic bigot Thomas Nast's cartoons of plutocrats.

The plutocrats in fact are creating the Strawman that people on the Left are burning in effigy. The real Plutocrats are the trust funded, insulated activists who have colluded with Bill Clinton, Goldman Sachs, Fannie & Freddie Mae, Rev. Jesse Jackson, Barney Frank and Chris Todd to force the myth of Real Estate Mortgages as a Civil Right.

Here in Illinois ten or more years ago, smart legislators saw a problem: if a man had no or almost invisible income per his Income Tax returns, how could he afford a mortgage? Former Illinois State Representative Kevin Joyce pointed that problem out. Zip codes that were home to the most impoverished Illinois residents were a signal. Rev. Jesse Jackson tossed the race card in reply. Remember?

People qualified for mortgages without any discernible proof of an ability to meet those mortgage payments. Soon, homes purchased on a promise went into foreclosure and property values took its continuing nose dive. That mortgage bubble built by the Elites burst in 2008.

Plutocrats never tend to be pipe fitters, carpenters, millwrights, machinists, cops or firemen.

Plutocrats are Kennedys, DuPonts, Rockefellers, Buffets, Gates' and Oprahs. They are unaffected by the collapse of the economy and they are just fine with Class Warfare.

The Class Warfare targets today are Capitalists, whoever they might be; billionaires with jets; 'sFat Cats and Dry Cleaners.

The Middle Class was shrunk, not because of Bush, or Pipe fitters, it has shrunk because too many of us are not only charging into, but rolling happily through the endless cow pasture, in the mistaken notion that by milking organically fed cows, one can get an ice cold gallon of pasteurized 2% Milk of Amnesia.

Click my post title for Joel Kotkin's lucid and far less cranky presentation of this very topic

Don't Forget Forre$t Claypool, Fran, or is ForreSt Claypool Working for Free?

Sometimes being left out is a good thing. Being absent from a list of top salaried City Officials in a Sun Times red meat piece tossed to us helots in order to stoke up the time honored Pitch Fork and Torches Parades, is a perq for Forre$t Claypool - CTA BOSS.

Now, as far as I know, CTA buses and trains run in and through the great City of Chicago. Bus drivers and train engineers will not get pee breaks, on Boss Forre$t Claypool's watch! Penny wise, dollar Progressive.

You'll recall that following another electoral defeat, Forre$t Claypool was appointed to yet another high profile policy postion by Mayor Rahm Emanuel - Boss of the CTA. One report had it that the Rula Lenska ( What exactly can Forre$t do? Never mind; enjoy) of Chicago political life has an undisclosed salary with City and Sho 'Nuff!!! you can't find Claypool among the salaried, Garzas, Newmans, O'Briens, and Zielinksis on the City Salary Spreadsheets.

Today, Fran Spielman offers up the big salary Titans, but no Forre$t Claypool.

Even with 517 layoffs, $417 million in budget cuts and $220 million in higher taxes, fines and fees, Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s first city budget rewards a handful of top mayoral aides.

Harrumph!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Then we get the top cops, fireman, transportation, city services and a Hynes, which are all non-Progressive Shakman Exempt Targets.

Where's Forre$t?

I am given to understand that Forre$t rakes in at least $185,000 and change sans perquisites - there's always perquisites.

Why leave the poor lad unheralded, Fran?

Boss Claypool had no problem banning potty breaks and lunch from bus drivers. Now that's Progressive.

That's Forre$t in the City!

OWS Movement, A Serious Consideration: Consider Vernon Supreme and The Fogartys

Finx -Vernon Supreme

“We’re here for justice — our sign says it all, and our sign says, ‘Stop government crimes,’” said Chris Fogarty, as he stood with his wife, Mary O’Sullivan, on LaSalle Street. “And the other side says, ‘Restore our laws.’” Chicago Tribune Oct. 5, 2011




For weeks we have been treated to daily infomercials about the Occupy Wall Street Movement in the media, salted and sugared with proclamations from Nancy Pelosi, Eric Zorn, and Kanye West attesting to the sober and serious activism of our youth and even younger greybeard activists.

I had occasion to witness OWS Chicago at the Federal Reserve Dugout Campsite in the Loop. The only serious activists present were septuagenarian Human Rights legends Chris and Mary O'Sullivan-Fogarty. Chris and Mary are the real deal. I was hoping to catch-up with these two on-level and warm people, but Chris was making a statement for WGN TV. I had Leo business and needed to occupy different pavement.

The Fogarty's were charged with murder by the FBI in 1995. Pan-media icon Carol Marin (NBC 5, Sun Times, WTTW) made her 'bones' with her breathy report that Mr. & Mrs. Fogarty were an IRA ( Irish Repbulican Army) hit squad who murdered a couple in Wilmette. The Fogarty's had their fortune depleted clearing their good names and the murderer turned out to be a teenage goof Ala-Columbine who lived next door to the couple. Carol Marin has yet to apologize to the Fogarty's but that is merely blood under the bridge. Carol's mill grinds other corn.

Aside from Chris and Mary Fogarty, the OWS Chicago activists were kids bedecked in the very best quality Hipster fashion-wear and outfitted with camping gear that would make Babe Winkleman tear up with envy. They were earnest and that is what is really sad. Aside from that poignant reminder that American suburban youth seem unable to articulate a complete thought themselves, I was amused by them.

Yesterday, again in the downtown area I had occasion to kill some time with the Southtown Star - the south side Sun Times Lite. The take on the OWS saga featured a true believer - a man from Baltimore - a coiner of a neo-logism - a pot growing master agrarian and hawker of the Occupy Wall Street Journal: Mr. Vernon Supreme.

When I got home last night, I occupied an hour or so to the work of Vernon Supreme and I was delighted to see that no flies land on this active activist.

Ladies and gents the prodigious Vernon Supreme!

Mr. Supreme offers gardening tips, as well as insights to growing herb.

Vernon Supreme Harvest Pics
"Not too much of a harvest, but it's some bud to tide me over. I left for spring break with my grow not ready to be harvested. My buddy didn't water my plants and I came back to find some dead looking piles of leaves. My furthest matured planted was the one that really broke my heart. It looked kinda ready to be harvested though, so I cut the top of it off and put it in my bong. It was a pretty decent taste with a very trippy high that lasted for about 1.5 hours. I'm sure that will improve with curing though.

Total dry weight is 3.5 grams.

BTW, my other plants are starting to come back to life...they are looking somewhat alive now. I need to get some bigger containers for them and we might be able to pull them off in the end. Lookout for a full hydro grow next go-around. already popped the seeds for it."

A veritable Johnny Appleweed, no slouch Vernon be.


http://www.gardenscure.com/420/visual-inspirations-success-stories/66284-vernon-supreme-harvest-pics.html

When not Occupying Wall Street or growing weed, Vernon Supreme coins a neologism ( that's singular) for the Urban Dictionary

1 definition by Vernon Supreme Finx (n):A person who could equally be described as a fox and a minx.

No, she's a finx!
buy finx mugs & shirts
fox minx mischevious coquette republican by Vernon Supreme Mar 8, 2011 share this add a video

http://www.urbandictionary.com/author.php?author=Vernon+Supreme

How does the man get through the day? The labors of Hercules! The Man in Full!

Vernon and I seem to be about the same age (58 and change) and to have sprung from the decade of the 1960'.

Temperment might attest to the paths taken in life. Vernon stopped in the Frosty Woods of a snowy evening and took some herb and other brain-pan lunricants and eventually the path less travelled leading from Baltimore to NYC and that has made all of the difference. I have never in my life shouted for the shot-gun seat and that has made all of difference.

Chris Fogarty built bridges in Honduras as an engineer, fights for a united Ireland, battles all torture, government abuse and historical ignorance, writes a monthly column for Irish American News and has a history book in publication.

Occupy Wall Street? Why the hell not? Knock yourselves out, kids!

However, to employ the south side vernacular as far as activism goes - You Could Never Carry the Fogartys' Jockstrap.

Chris and Mary Fogarty protest American Foreign Policy and Human Rights Issues on Michigan Avenue every week, wind, rain, snow, or sleet . . .right after Sunday Mass. They have been there for decades.

Don Flynn Way is not just an Honorary Street - It is the Heart of Catholic Giving and the Blood and Soul of Leo High School

On Monday, Columbus Day, Leo President Dan McGrath and I took a group of Leo students to the Parade. We were marching with The Big Shoulders Fund, a private charity that supports inner city Catholic schools and eases the financial strain on families who want their sons and daughters to receive the best education in Chicago.

Catholic schools provide the best education, not because of dollars, but because of Faith. Faith is the spine of good living. Along with our brothers and sisters of St. Rita, Mount Carmel, St. Francis De Sales, Maria, Mother McCauley, Gordon Tech, Queen of Peace, St. Benedict, Our Lady of Tepeyac and St. Gregory high schools, we celebrated the accomplishments and contributions of Italian Americans.

Leo High School is largely African American as a student demographic though there are now a few white and Hispanic students returned to the Miracle on 79th Street.

After the parade, we fed the Lions at Schallers Pump one of Chicago's oldest family restaurants, owned by Leo Hall of Fame basketball legend, Jackie Schaller ( Leo '43).
Along with the great feed, the young gents were schooled by a real Lion. Jackie Schaller played for the great Leo Basketball teams that won consecutive National Basketball Titles in the early 1940's. Most importantly, the life-long tough guy commanded, " Stick to your business. Learn as much as you can. Don't be smart-asses. Stay in Leo." Nothing passive agressive in those imperatives.

I drove three of the guys to their homes in South Holland, Brainerd and Ashburn. The second drop-off was between 87th and 88th & May Streets - the very block that was home to arguably the most successful graduate of the Leo High School Class of 1957- Donald F. Flynn ( 1939-2011).

I drove my last charge home and headed home myself. The minute I got in the door, I received a phone call from Mr. Bill Plunkett, who had worked with Don Flynn at Waster Management. " I have some very sad news; Don Flynn passed away in sleep last night,"

Mr. Plunkett and I talked for some time. I related the stories that I heard about Don Flynn from the great Bob Foster '58, the man who kept Leo open by dint of his heroic presence alone.

Bob told the story of a game against Gordon Tech. Helmet face guards were new to football and very few Catholic League teams sported them. The Rams had a few. Leo had none. Don Flynn, a guy that Bob Foster said, 'transformed from a studious and sweet guy into the Incredible Hulk the minute he stepped into the locker room' had a broken arm and was wearing plaster cast.

Flynn was a lineman and great field goal kicker. At some point in the game, the guy over whom Don Flynn was lined up, begged the referee to do something about the madman Flynn. " He is going to kill me!!! He said, so; ' I am going to kill you.'

The referee, probably the immortal Frank Strochia replied, "This is the Catholic League Kid. Kill him back."

A few plays later, the same referee stopped the action and signalled the sideline to take the kid out. He noticed that in fact, the young man's brand new face guard was not only in serious disrepair, but it was caked and crusted with not only young man's blood and field turf & sod, but plaster - lots of plaster.

The Leo Alumni reproduced every yearbook going back to 1931. I have posted Don Flynn's page. Note his high school accomplishments and his stated ambition in 1957 Click that yearbook photo, please and get a good look.


Don Flynn -Top row;second from leftDon Flynn and Bob Foster played on the 1956 City Championship team together. That was last time Leo won what is now called the Prep Bowl.

Don Flynn # 91 top row extreme right; Bob Foster #56 Front Row second from the left. Coached by the legendary Jimmy Arneberg & Bob Hanlon.Flynn went on college; played football and a knee-injury ended his playing days. He transferred to Marquette University and then lit the business world afire.

Bob Foster, a year later, went on to play for Purdue and returned to Leo as a history teacher and coach.

Thirty years later, when the Irish Christian Brothers departed, Bob Foster took the helm of his beloved school. Leo High School needed a great deal of help.

Don Flynn, along with Frank Considine '39 and Andy McKenna '47 buckled up the monetary and moral chin-straps.

Don Flynn made payrolls, pumped in tuition support, funded capital improvements, because he had made what many consider to be a fortune. That was only money.

Don Flynn's fortune was made between 87th & 88th and May Streets, at St. Kilians, in the classrooms of Leo, and on the broken beer bottle and cinder strewn grounds that were Leo High School's Shewbridge Field.

I had the privilege to meet Don Flynn a few times. Like every Leo Man I have ever met he was sweet-natured, witty, uncompromisingly generous and suffered no fools gladly.

Bob Foster, like Don Flynn and all Leo Men, looks for no tributes; therefore, it is always important to give tribute to the team. Foster petitioned the Alderman of 17th Ward Terry Peterson to have 79th & Sangamon designated 'Don Flynn Way.'

Don Flynn's way is followed by every person with a Heart and a Hand.

Heavenly Harps are plucking the Leo Fight Song!

Leo Fight Song
Oh, when those Leo men fall into line,
And their colors black and orange
are Unfurled,
You see those Brawny stalwarts wait
The sign,
And then their might against the foe
Is hurled
For then the foe shall feel the lions might,
And spirit of our team’s attack,
For with every heart and hand,
We will fight as one strong band,
For the honor of the orange and black!
RAH! RAH! RAH!

Boss Toni Preckwinkle's Vindictive Firing of John O'Sullivan

Rule 5: Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon. It’s hard to counterattack ridicule, and it infuriates the opposition, which then reacts to your advantage. Saul Alinsky Rules for Radicals

Okay, so let's take a page out of Old Saul's playbook. Progressives ridicule. They ridicule anyone and everything in order to gain power. Once in power, hold the phone.




I'd have to call Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle a real Progressive, because all of the Progressives call Toni a Progressive. More so, Toni Preckwinkle acts and speaks like a Progressive - fell into an open sewer on the way to City Hall, called Nobel Literary Laureate Saul Bellow a racist, after he died, begged Regular Democrats for help in getting her elected and then turned on one like rabid skunk with the miseries. Progressive.

A Progressive is not a politician, even when a Progressive uses politics to get elected. A Progressive uses elected office and the power that comes with office to make Policy in order to build more power - civil unions, no goose guts, bullying mandates, abortion and contraceptives for pre-schoolers - all the real meat and potatoes issues that improve our little lives.

Toni Preckwinkle's public costume ( like Lady Liberty in the photo above) is that of a person who shuns the old ways of the Bossism in politics and operates only with the purest of motives and without any personal opportunity to make money, or influence.

Yet, we voters not only read, but we also work, play, worship, love and share our small gifts and fortunes under the rubrics of policy.

I read last week, in Abdon Pallasch's October 4th Chicago Sun Times article, the saga of the Cook County Democratic Party's slating festival.

The Cook County Democratic Party may decide to endorse one of the three Wednesday.

In the past two weeks, Mayor Rahm Emanuel headlined a fund-raiser for Justice Mary Jane Theis, and Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle headlined one for Justice Joy Cunningham. Justice Aurelia Pucinski is gathering signatures and has not scheduled a fund-raiser yet.

Theis serves in the seat now by appointment. Cunningham and Pucinski sit on the state appellate court where Theis served for 17 years before being appointed to the high court last year.

Emanuel was joined by state Senate President John Cullerton at Theis’ fund-raiser at the Berghoff Restaurant, along with current and former members of the bench. Former Mayor Richard M. Daley has also endorsed Theis. He was represented by his brother Michael Daley and his nephew Patrick Thompson, who co-chairs Theis’ campaign.

“Mary Jane Theis and I co-chaired John Cullerton’s first campaign for state representative,” Thompson’s co-chair Tom Moore said in introducing Theis. Cullerton said he met Theis when they both applied for jobs at the Cook County Public Defender’s office after getting out of law school.

( emphasis my own)

The next morning, Voila! Abdon Pallasch reported the votes of the Committeemen.

A Cook County Democratic Party committee Wednesday recommended the party endorse Mary Jane Theis for the state Supreme Court in the March primary election.

Theis was appointed by the other six members of the court last year to fill out the term of Justice Thomas Fitzgerald. She is running with the support of Mayor Rahm Emanuel, former Mayor Richard M. Daley, and, based on Wednesday’s vote, the support of enough Democratic committeemen to run as the official party candidate.

Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle supports Justice Joy Cunningham for the slot. She made a motion to endorse Cunningham or make no endorsement. But as it became clear that Theis’ supporters had more votes, the committeemen opted for a nominally “unanimous” vote for Theis. (emphasis my own)

The full party is expected to ratify the decision Thursday.

They did and Judge Theis won and Joy Cunningham joined Aurelia Puchinski for some sour grapes. Looks like Boss Preckwinkle fired John O'Sullivan more for the way he 'didn't vote' than for what didn't show up on a well-vetted resume.

I have not spoken with John O'Sullivan. He has enough on his plate, having been fired for political reasons. I wonder if Shakman is awake? Nah, not his rice bowl taking care of helots.

Okay, let's jump to Friday. Worth Township Democratic Committeeman John O'Sullivan was fired by Cook County Board President Toni "The Boss" Preckwinkle. The story of the firing was smeared by Dane Placko of Fox Chicago all over the evening news and the narrative was continued over the weekend. Dane Placko used all of the euphemisms employed by Progressives to ridicule people.

Chicago - Political clout may have helped him land a county job. But in the end, clout couldn't save him.
FOX Chicago News has learned Worth Township Democratic Committeeman John O'Sullivan was ordered to resign today from his 85-thousand dollar a year job at the Cook County Forest Preserve.

Last June Fox Chicago broke the story of O'Sullivan's questionable hiring.

The former state lawmaker got an 85-thousand dollar a year supervisor's job despite having been fired by the county a couple years ago for time card fraud.

Forest Preserve Superintendent Arnold Randall says they looked further into O'Sullivan's background and found discrepancies in his work history, which led to his termination.

Progressives and their media hacks always ridicule little people, never powerful folks. They'll go after a Todd Stroger, once they get green lighted and he is already politically dead, but they'll never take on the powerful. They use the powerful.

Dane Placko and other media hacks go after truck drivers, plumbers, cops, firemen and political foot soldiers in their EXPOSE!!!! of corruption. While they get the 40 Watt intellectuals snarling and snapping, the real thives are taking not only the vaults of loot, but the fixtures and toilet paper rollers.

Well Dane, John O'Sullivan, a working man, challenged the charges and was not only re-instated to his job, but received all of his back pay.

It sure does look like John O'Sullivan voted for Justice Mary Jane Theiss. I would not know. I am sure there were plenty of folks who do know - John O'Sullivan knows.

It is not about a resume, or being the 'right fit' for the job with Cook County Forest Preserve - Boss Preckwinkle said that Johnny O' was just swell for the job from June all the way until the vote at the Democratic Slating Party. Shuck's Boss Toni even compared John O'Sullivan to Forrest Claypool - I told you she was mean; John O'Sullivan actually worked for his pay.

I have known Committeeman John O'Sullivan for a very long time and I know him to be a generous, thoughtful, and hard-working man.

I have known about Boss Preckwinkle for even longer and consider her to be a model Progressive - angry, smug, arrogant, not real bright, ill-humored, vindictive, petty, and lousy at whatever task lands in her lap.

Progressives can mouth platitudes, but never ever speak with people.

The Democratic Party lost its effectiveness and integrity, when it opted to play ball with Progressives. Progressives always end up taking home the ball, the bats, the bases, the coolers, the chalk-liners, the wads of gum stuck under the benches, the benches and the grass.

Toni Preckwinkle is as much of an angry, vindictive, daffy hack as Todd Stroger could ever dream to be.



http://www.suntimes.com/news/politics/7996099-418/democratic-primary-for-illinois-supreme-court-a-three-woman-race.html

http://www.myfoxchicago.com/dpp/news/metro/john-o'sullivan-resign-cook-county-forest-preserve-job-worth-township-20111007

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-06-14/news/ct-met-toni-preckwinkle-hiring-20110614_1_preckwinkle-state-lawmakers-regional-superintendent

Happy Columbus Day! Felice Columbus Day, Viva l'America! Columbia the Gem of the Ocean

This is a photo of an Italian America couple who scratched, fought and saved for the America we all take for granted at best and at worst scorn. This man and his beautiful wife worked in Chicago's lumberyards along the Chicago river and when unemployed worked the Illinois bean fields. Jane Addams and her girlfriends put on presentations of Sophocles at Hull House, in order to help them out.


I read a couple of snarky scribbles about Columbus Day by Chicago and national media types. The usual stuff. Genocide, White Supremacy, Religion bashing, a few nods to the trust fund babies spending a few weeks in Eddie Bauer and Abercrombie and Fitch tents playing Occupy America.

Today, Italian Americans celebrate America. Pietro Ceasari Alberti, a Venetian sailor is recorded to be the first Italian to settle in New York in 1635, a few years after Giovanni Verranzzano mapped New York Bay.

Thomas Jefferson established the oldest military band - The President's Own U.S. Marine Corps Band in 1798 staffed largely by Italian musicians.

Italian-American women, like our first American Saint Mother Cabrini, get ignored in favor of Jane Addams, Eugenics Abortionist Margaret Sanger, or Gloria Steinem.

Contributions of Italian Americans are largely ignored, as are those of most assimilated ethnic groups. Example how many high school kids learn of Enrico Fermi, as oppossed to Robert Oppenheimer? Oppie hated the bomb and became a darling Progressive icon.

Chicago's Mario 'Motts' Tonelli was a pro football rookie, Notre Dame All-American from Chicago who out his country before his career, went into the Army, to the Phillipines just before Japan decided to celebrate diversity world wide. Motts survived Bataan, the Death March, Coffin Ships, Genuine Grassroots Torture and Starvation. He returned to Columbia - a euphemism for America, the land discovered by Christopher Columbus, a Genovese sailor and devout Roman Catholic.



Columbia, The Gem of the Ocean!

Cathy O'Connell with Kathleen Keane and Jimmy Moore at Skokie Theatre - October 16th

Catherine O’Connell, Kathleen Keane & Jimmy MooreSunday, October 16, 2:00PM
Skokie Theatre
7924 N. Lincoln Avenue (Lincoln & Oakton)
Skokie, IL 60077
Phone 847.677.7761
Email: info@skokietheatre.com

Tickets $20 in advance, $25 at the door

Please join us for an afternoon of 'whatever suits our fancy'!

If you have anything you would like to hear, email a request, we will take it under advisement! NOTE the time 2:00PM we would like everyone home (or your favorite pub) for dinner and the Bears game!

INTERESTED IN BOOKING CATHERINE FOR A SPECIAL EVENT? CONTACT HER AT CATHERINE@CATHERINEOCONNELL.COM

Chicago Tribune Shout Out for Football Prep Week # 6 Goes to Leo High School's Keith Harris!

Coach Mike Holmes and Leo Teammates surround # 20 Keith Harris after meeting Dr. Terry Barrett of University of North Dakota ( Fargo) at the John Fardy Memorial in August.



Yesterday, I supervised my youngest child's painting of her room. I was there for sic and fetch and possible paint knock-overs ( I am a past master at that); therefore, missed the victory of my beloved Leo Lions up at Luther North. Gordon Tech is one tough team and both Catholic League Red Division schools needed the win.

The Lions, behind the great running of Keith Harris, managed to beat the Rams of Gordon Tech 39-19.

Last year the Rams gave us a thorough Catholic League schooling at Gately Stadium.

Go Rams! Like every school in the Chicago Catholic League, parents can expect that their young women and men will have the bar step up above them and that they will learn to exceed as well as succeed.

A success that has exceeded a young man's dreams is the focus of today's post, before I head to Mass. Keith Harris, Leo 2012, who has had many colleges interested in his matriculation including Yale, received 60% of the fan votes in the Week # 6 Shout Out Polling.

Keith Harris is an exceptional young man, gifted scholar and a beautiful athlete to watch. Not only that, the man can dress like Cary Grant!

Well done Lions! Thank You Voters! Keep exceeding your grasp, Keith; God's has your back!

Shout out | Who was your top performer in Week 6?
Who was your top performer in Week 6? Check out all the stats here and let us know who was the best of the best.
Abdullah Alghazali, Pritzker (5 responses)
0.0%
Matt Alviti, Maine South (72 responses)
0.0%
Danny Arden, Antioch (18 responses)
0.0%
Aaron Bailey, Bolingbrook (23 responses)
0.0%
Anthony Craft, Collins (5 responses)
0.0%
Matt Cullen, Conant (10 responses)
0.0%
George Edlund, St. Charles North (13 responses)
0.0%
Josh Elliott, Lyons (49 responses)
0.0%
Jordan Getzelman, Prairie Ridge (297 responses)
0.2%
Keith Harris, Leo (110116 responses)
60.5%
Ryan Meyer, Marist (71144 responses)
39.1%
P.J. O'Connor, Ridgewood (7 responses)
0.0%
Alex Short, Payton (4 responses)
0.0%
Andrew Sledd, Highland Park (88 responses)
0.0%
Stefan Skoneczka, Elk Grove (13 responses)
0.0%
Michael Thomas, DuSable (3 responses)
0.0%
Martez Walker, Brother Rice (53 responses)
0.0%
Jeremiah Westbrook, Hope Academy (3 responses)
0.0%
Tim Williams, Homewood-Flossmoor (14 responses)
0.0%
181937 total responses
(Results not scientific)
This poll is closed to voting.

Goo-Goos Are Not a Working Man's Pal - Claypool Rolls the Bus Over CTA Employees

Policy killed politics. Politics is what made government effective. Politics responds to people's needs. Policy is the pathway to power.

The goof who first said, "There ought to be a Law" opened the door to government for Progressives. Progressives entered that smoke filled room and immediately went shopping for judges to get smoking banned; the rest is government that pads the few and pounds the rest.

Witness this swell photo of Armani clad CTA Brahmin ( appointed, n'cest pas) Forrest Claypool standing on the platform for a CTA L Train, clad in his Progressive Work Clothes. Shucks, he's just like folks.

However, folks seem to scan for the train in the correct general direction that the train will take.

Working Folks are about to get another world-class, transcendent, post-racial screwing, from Goo-goo Progressive Forrest Claypool.

Fifteen minutes of paid “coffee time” before the start of each shift. Twenty-minute paid bathroom breaks for customer assistants with easy access to washrooms. Paid lunch breaks for CTA rail operators and Sunday bus drivers. Paying workers convicted of drunk driving to do nothing for 180 days while they appeal and attempt to get their driving privileges back. Starting the clock on emergency overtime when employees get the phone call at home instead of when they arrive at work.

Those are some of the CTA work rules that CTA President Forrest Claypool wants to change in order to fill a $277 million shortfall in the CTA budget without raising fares or cutting service.

Yeah, taking a leak is killing this City. Thus, always the way of reform. It does not matter that policies begun by people like Frank Kruesi and continued by Forrest - people who have absolutely no working experience in the field of transportation -and deals cut to make a few people rich and not a bathroom break has crippled the Chicago Transit Systems. Did we really beg for accordion buses? Green buses? Faux Parisian benches?

Forrest Claypool never drove a bus, or a train. I doubt if Forrest Claypool has ever been on the business end of a janitor's broom, mop, or brush. I'd venture to offer that, Forrest Claypool does not drop by CVS, Jewel-Osco, or other fine venues to purchase a CTA Red Pass at a modest $85.00 good for a full month of rides anywhere in Chicagoland.

I have one in my wallet. In fact, I ride the CTA in order to ease my carbon-footprint off of Mother Earth's back and to save a few shekles. I generally get on the 5:06 Bus at 104th & Western to 79th Street Terminal and grab and east bound ( Red Line) to 79th & Morgan and legendary Leo High School.

I have never seen Forrest, or Rahm on that run. They keep different hours.

I am a working stiff. A College and Graduate school degree'd mope. I ride the bus with a Mr. Duckworth ( 'Duckie') a Coast Guard Veteran who works at Calumet Harbor, Vanessa, a cook at Perspectives ( formerly Calumet H.S.) and Bertina, a nurse at Jackson Park Hospital. We are very happy with the working men and women at the wheel who not only safely and promptly get us to work, but also maintain command presence and authority over drunks, crack-pipe artists, thugs and idiots. They (Bus and Train drivers) are in harm's way, all day and every day, and do not wear Kevlar.

Driving in Chicago traffic is a bitch and a half on a good day; driving a bus is a labor fit for Greek Gods. God Bless Our CTA Folks!

Sorry for your looming troubles, folks.




Then there is the Goo-goo appointee - Forrest Claypool who gets conveniently slotted into an elective spot when someone dies and his opponent is in an iron-lung, or more commonly appointed to a six figure salary. Forrest Claypool is the Rula Lenska of Chicago*. One always wonders - "What exactly did he/she do?" Rula was the sexy Limey broad who did Clairol commercials staged in what was supposed to be a theatrical dressing room. Forrest Claypool bounces from Parks, to Staffs, to Hospitals, to Boards, to Executive Suites.

The guy can't keep a job.

Forrest is a Goo-goo Brahmin - that is a life-long sinecure - he is a professional 'Ain't He Great-er' and therefore will always collect a huge paycheck.

American Labor, like the Democratic Party has snuggled up to the Goo-goos for forty year. Why? God only knows. Unions are now learning what Old Time Ward pros have known all along. Goo-goos ( Mike Quigley, Pat Quinn, Forrest Lenska, Deb Shore, Sheila Simon, Quentin Young, Dawn Clark Netsch, Ralph Martire, Terry Cosgrove, and always hilarious Jan Schakowsky) are not friends of working people.

When a Goo-goo, Reformer, Progressive, Activist, Mobilizer, or glue-sniffer gets power, grab your ankles, make sure you have a good athletic mouthpiece firmly fitted between your uppers and lowers, and wait for the screwing of the Ages!


*"

Who the hell is Rula Lenska?" The question was first asked on the air by Detroit TV News Anchorman Don Lark, then echoed in print by Washington Post Columnist Roger Rosenblatt. She is, as many TV watchers know, a glamorous redhead who appears regularly in commercials for Alberto VO5 hair spray. She tosses her long locks, identifies herself as R-u-ula Lenz-z-zka and speaks of herself as though she were a famous actress. But, as the newscaster asked, who is she?
Chicago Adman David Lewis knows the answer, and he is telling everyone who will listen: Rula Lenska is the 31-year-old daughter of a Polish émigré count and lives in London. She was featured as a rock singer in the British TV series Rock Follies and as a character in a never released film, Queen Kong. What fascinated Lewis, who had nothing to do with the hair spray commercials, was this obscure actress's hopeful pretense of being a famous star. As a lark, he founded the Rula Lenska Fan Club—and soon found that some 600 other people were ready to join the cult.
In London, "The Fair One," as she is known to her U.S. fans, confesses to be "stunned and astonished" by her unexpected fame but more preoccupied with the imminent birth of her first child. Lewis urged fans to "name the nipper." The winners: Octavia and Llewellyn.


Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,920557,00.html#ixzz1aCK9sxop

I Am Very Well Occupied - History and a Haircut.

America - "the image of democracy itself, with its inclinations, its character, its prejudices, and its passions." -Alexis de Tocqueville


I had a wonderful day yesterday. My prospect and grant research was interrupted by Leo Principal Phil Mesina.

Yesterday, Leo President Dan McGrath had arranged for a great photographer by the name of John Konstantaras was drop by at 10:30 A.M. and take some photos of Leo Men that will be used in our marketing and recruitment materials and for an Ad that will ride on the back of CTA buses.

One of the gents who volunteered for the photo shoot is a freshman from Canaryville's St. Gabriel's Parish - who had been sporting a modest Clay Matthews head of hair in homage to the great Green Bay Packer linebacker. Our young Matthewsis doing very well in the classroom and sports # 16 on the freshman roster -a linebacker and place kicker. The day before, Principal Mesina admonished our gentlemen to shave and get their hair trimmed. They are to be the collective face of Leo High School.



Uh, huh, As parents of teenage sons will attest.

At 8 AM in the midst of sealing the envelop destined for Chelmsford, MS and the Blanche Walsh Charitable Trust, Mr. Mesina asked if I would squire Leo's Fun Size Matthews to a master barber. John ( Giovani's in Mt. Greenwood)Cutrone's Barber Shop!

Off we went on a 19th Ward adventure. The lad, like most inner city youngsters, had never journeyed outside of his neighborhood or the Leo High School grounds.

'Whoa! This is a nice town!' young Clay exclaimed. This is Chicago, Bub, 19th Ward.

'For Real?'

Indeed. We turned off Western Ave. and headed west on 111th Street and talked about Chicago history.

'I like to study history, Civil War stuff is interesting.'

I explained that his neighborhood played a significant role in War for America's Soul. Camp Douglas was a prison for Confederate soldiers and it was over on Cottage Grove at 35th Street. The Illinois 23rd was comprised of mostly Irish from Bridgeport and the Illinois 24th was made up of German and Hungarian immigrants.

We passed Mount Olivet Cemetary and explained the historical importance of its being - Al Capone for a few decades, Father Maurice Dorney - who commanded the stockyards for 35 years, the respect of Samuel Gompers, Eugene Debs, Big Jim O'Leary the Gambler, President Teddy Roosevelt, and thousands of working men and woman now eased from history by lesser souls like Jane Addams, Michael Cassius McDonald -the original Godfather of crime and Democratic Machine Politics, the brothers of Gangster Spike O'Donnell, the victims of the Great Chicago Fire and the Stockyards Fire, soldiers from every American war and conflict from the Civil War to Afghanistan, Clan Na Gael's Monument to the Chicago Irish Civil War veterans who invaded Niagra, Canada in 1867 and were called by to Buffalo by General Grant.

John's was not yet open so I headed to the White Hen at Kedzie and bought the soon- to-be-sheared historian tough guy some grub and coffee'd up my own bad self and headed back to Mount Olivet.

For a half-hour the two of us strolled among the Mausoleums, Monuments and grave markers identifying the bones of Chicagoans who occupied their moments in history.

My charge ran ahead of me and picked up empty cans of Bud Light and tossed them into the green garbage cans only three feet from where they had been tossed by neighborhood goofs who no doubt had relatives resting near their beer party.

'My Mom taught me to respect the dead.'

Your Mom did a great job.

The tossed beer cans lay in front of the Mausoleum of Francis O'Neil - the County Cork born immigrant who worked as sailor, cowboy, lumberman and police man. Francis O'Neill became the Chief of Chicago Police during the violent labor battles in the Pullman and the Stockyard strikes of 1904. O'Neill, in his spare time, preserved Irish Music. The music of the Ireland remains because of Chief O'Neill who had every dirge, jig, reel, hornpipe, and polka transcribed by a musician from Lyon & Healy by hand, turned to print, bound and published out of his own pay as a policemen.

I told the Young Lion that 1904 on Mausoleum notes the time that O'Neill had the marker built in order to house his children, especially his beloved musician son. The Old Chief died in 1935, himself.



Some goofs tossed their empties at his family tomb. Thoughtless. A metaphor of this age. History is tossed away.


John Cutrone's shop ws open and we both got trimmed. We returned to Leo for the photos and it was obvious that Clay Matthews Lite had changed. He was no longer the Green Bay Packer - his classmates yowled 'Yo! Jutsin Bieber!'

My tough guy from the one hundred year old frame houses between Halsted and Stewart and 39th and 47th Street grinned at his antagonists and then back to me.

'Hey, I like it looks good.'

It will look better on the back of CTA buses.

*

In April of 1866, a group of Fenians gathered at Campobello Island, New Brunswick, but withdrew in the face of the Canadian Militia, British warships, and American authorities. A month later, about 800 Fenians crossed the Niagara River into Canada, occupying Fort Erie and cutting telegraph lines. The Buffalo and Lake Huron railroads were also severed before the Fenians proceeded inland. Again, the Canadian Militia countered the attack.

In June, the Fenians drove the Canadians back at Ridgeway, Ontario, and suffered many casualties. At Fort Erie, they took on another Canadian Militia and forced them back. The main Canadian forces entered Fort Erie, but the Fenians had already escaped back across the border to the U.S., where they were given a hero's welcome. Later that same month, about 1000 Fenians crossed the Canadian border and occupied Pigeon Hill in Missisquoi County, Quebec. They plundered St. Armand and Frelighsburg, but retreated to the U.S. when the American authorities seized their supplies at St. Alban's.

Thus ended the Fenian invasion of Canada.

http://seducedbyhistory.blogspot.com/2011/05/irish-invade-canada.html

Shakman, Grid and Progressives the Imperial Triumvirate of Chicago

"The aldermanic role in service delivery should be ended and the focus of aldermanic activity shifted to legislation and oversight functions," the report says. Amen. Yes, those high-maintenance constituents will howl, but that's not what aldermen fear most. They're afraid taxpayers who learn they don't need 50 garbage districts will realize they don't need 50 aldermen.

Chicago Tribune Editorial Ending Any and All Debate on the Grid System


In Republican Rome, after each abuse of power by political strongmen( Marius and Sulla)and civic turmoil, arose a committee of three - a Triumvirate - literally three men. There were two Triumvirates - the first was Caesar, Crassus, and Pompey.

Caesar was a class warrior who took the side of the lower classes over the rich, though Caesar was a Patrician (rich guy) himself. Caesar managed public opinion and then exercised public control He was the original Op Ed opinion maker - Commentarii de Bello Civili et Commentarii De Bello Gallico - were Caesar's Dreams from My Father and Audacity of Hope.

Caesar ruled. Here in Chicago, Mayors came and went, until the 1950's and the decades of Mayor Richard J. Daley. Like Caesar Daley was popular and powerful. Mike Royko's book Boss portrayed Mayor Richard J. Daley as Caesar.

Caesar amassed power with the full approval of the Senate of Rome. Some Progressive Senators did not like that and sought to end one man rule. They Shakman'd Caesar.

When Mayor Daley died our home-grown idiots wrung hands and rent garments about such one man power emerging again and employed the Shakman Decrees - in my opinion the most moronic, mealy-mouthed and cynical dagger to the kidneys of the body politic ever crafted by a legal sneak. Nothing against the corporeal Michael Shakman, mind you, he had his agenda and shopped for the right judges. He and his enterprise is doing swell. The City of Chicago Post-Shakman? Not so hot.

Policy,not politics was the true exercise of power - Shakman was the knife. Progressives palmed that shiv and will twist it home with the Grid System that will effectively end any and all power within the City Council.

This is a Triumvirate of Power - Shakman, Progressives and the Grid System.

Chicago Aldermen, or City Council Members as they like to be PC addressed, have historically handed power over to anyone.

Question: What is an Alderman?

Answer: The City of Chicago is comprised of 50 wards or legislative districts, determined by census of the population. Each ward elects one alderman - at times there two. The 50 aldermen comprise the City of Chicago's Council, who with the Mayor of Chicago, are charged with governing the city. An alderman's term is four years. The Chicago City Council is gaveled into session regularly (usually monthly) to consider ordinances, orders, and resolutions whose subject matter includes traffic code changes, utilities, taxes, and many other issues

The Mayor of Chicago appoints. He appoints Department Heads - Water, Police, Fire, Streets and Sanitation City Departments. Likewise, the Mayor appoints the boards that govern Chicago Park District, Chicago Public Library, Chicago Housing Authority, Chicago Transit Authority, the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority, et al and thanks to Richard M. Daley and Illinois Legislature the the heads of the Chicago Public Schools.The Mayor is the President of the City Council and the City Clerk is the Secretary of the City Council.

The Mayor and the Aldermen serve four year terms following an April Election per the 1872 City and Villages Act.

Sounds simple? Read the papers. Read Chicago history. Chicago city government is designated a 'weak Mayor' system by Charter. Still is.

In practice, the Mayor's Office is virtually Imperial. Old Mayor Daley took the power of Budget from the City Council. Mayor Harold Washington signed the idiotic and Chicago Metro Unique Shakman Decrees. Shakman* killed Jacksonian democracy in Chicago.

That was the end of the Jacksonian intent. Andy Jackson, the Pappy of the Democratic Party, believed that if elected officials had more 'checks' on them, the less harm they could do - it is to giggle, Old Hickory.

Coming soon, will be the end of the City Council. The American Media have been at war with legislatures for decades. When the people vote, overturn the will of the people by Executive fiat or Shop for a Judge. Witness California's recent Defense of Marriage Vote. People 0; an openly Gay Judge 1.

Here in Chicago "Everybody Hates Alderman." You can see an Alderman; not so a Chicago Mayor. Aldermen go to jail ( 30 since 1972). Governors of Illinois go to jail ( Kerner, Walker, Ryan, Blago soon), but Mayors do great.

I know a couple of Aldermen. They are very hard working people. They are accessible. My Alderman is all over the Ward. Most voters like and appreciate him and some do not. I like my Alderman very much. Matt O'Shea elected last April to serve the 19th Ward. I see him out in the Ward almost every day. He knows what the needs and problems are and he can solve a few of them. Most of what can not be solved are due to the historical context into which he was elected.

The Grid System being considered for garbage collection in the City will most likely be a reality.

Waste Management, or some other private company, will be awarded a City Contract, much like the Parking Meter deal, or the one that went to the Australian Company that operates the Skyway Toll Booth, both were said to be Revenue Boosting and dollar smart. The Media wanted those; the BGA approved, and Progressives and Goo-Gos gushed! Executive Fiat!

Shakman and the Grid and the Progressives are the Triumvirate.

If you think Chicago has been an Imperial City, stick around.


* Shakman Decrees

In 1969, one man made his stand against the Chicago political machine. Michael Shakman, an independent candidate for delegate to the 1970 Illinois Constitutional Convention, battled against one of the most enduring traditions in Chicago's politics: political patronage, or the practice of hiring and firing government workers on the basis of political loyalty. With many behind-the-scenes supporters, Shakman's years of determination resulted in what became known as the “Shakman decrees.”

Shakman filed suit against the Democratic Organization of Cook County, arguing that the patronage system put nonorganized candidates and their supporters at an illegal and unconstitutional disadvantage. Politicians could hire, fire, promote, transfer—in essence, punish—employees for not supporting the system, or more particularly, a certain politician. The suit also argued that political patronage wasted taxpayer money because public employees, while at work, would often be forced to campaign for political candidates.

In 1972, after an exhaustive court procedure and much negotiating, the parties reached an agreement prohibiting politically motivated firings, demotions, transfers, or other punishment of government employees. A 1979 ruling led to a court order in 1983 that made it unlawful to take any political factor into account in hiring public employees (with exceptions for positions such as policy making). Those decisions along with companion consent judgments—collectively called the Shakman decrees—are binding on more than 40 city and statewide offices.

Roger R. Fross Chicago Encyclopedia