City Council Unanimously Votes Ban On Torture -Another Meaningless Bit of Self-Puffery by 50 Needy People

Sister Benita Coffey and the Coalitions she represents.

This morning, Chicago Tribune's opinion page featured another in the endless shower of Police Torture screeds. This was written by Bendictine Sister Benita Coffey and has all of the value of a Confederate $100 Bill.

Here is a taste:

Last week, the Chicago City Council unanimously passed a resolution against torture, a symbolic act, at best. Torture is inhumane, banned by the United Nations and most civilized nations, and is contrary to the core beliefs of the world's major religions.

So why are the National Religious Campaign Against Torture, the Illinois Coalition Against Torture and religious communities like mine lauding this as a historic event? We shouldn't have had to ask our elected officials to pass legislation proscribing torture. It seems to be basic common sense, instinctive human behavior to abhor torture. To inflict cruel and inhuman treatment is beneath us as human beings.

While applauding our city's leaders for making Chicago the first city in the nation to condemn torture, we are certainly not seeing our goal anywhere near being accomplished. This is one deliberate and necessary step. It will indeed be a long road to raise the consciousness of the general public that torture is a reality; it is happening and likely will continue until we demand that it stop.

If memory serves, Sister, Jesus joined no Coalition. Plenty of torture going around, his cousin got himself beheaded and all, but Jesus never signed up with the Sicarri, or Zealots, in their Coalition Against The Stooge Puppet King Herod and Roman Imperialists Masters and Crucifiers. Like Free Mumia, I recall that the crowd that demanded Jesus get a tune-up by the cohort prior to crucifixion, demanded Free Barabbas! Now, those folks were committed activists, Sister.

Sister decries the fact that the media paid not enough attention to her and the various coalitions. Sister, we have more Coalitions than Mount Carmel has football championship trophies and yet kids are murdered with impunity because lawyers get fat overturning convictions on meme that police torture, lie, intimidate and use saracasm.

Sister Benita Burge's Up -

The day also presented the opportunity for us to address another type of torture — prolonged solitary confinement. In Illinois, the Tamms Correctional Center is a supermax facility that incarcerates inmates in solitary confinement, often for months or years at a time, which mental health professionals define as torture. Here in Chicago, to our shame, former Chicago police Cmdr. Jon Burge and officers under him tortured some 200 suspects to the point of confessing to crimes they did not commit. These victims were imprisoned while most of those who tortured, except Burge, who was convicted of a related crime, remain free.

Mental Health professionals? Incarceration of crazy thugs is torture - health care provided, educational opportunities abound, legal access to Lawsuit Lotto Lawyers, no to mention shelter, meals, and wardrobe; unlike the victims of these thugs, incarcerated under dirt until Judgement Day.

Sister Benita brings it home to Council and the Coalitions -This resolution declaring Chicago a torture-free city is a momentous occasion. We can be proud that our City Council can be called on to stand by its word and demand accountability if such violent treatment should ever again occur.

Sorry Sister, this is but another sanctimoniously meaningless bit of self-puffering from 50 people doing nothing meaningful, Sister.

Jon Burge was convicted of perjury after years of media bear-baiting and legal legerdemain.

G. Flint Taylor and legions of other fatuous opportunists have made fortunes by playing media, do-gooders and generations of young people completely unaquainted with the facts of the murders, arrests, convictions and subsequent judge shopping by Peoples Law Office, MacArthur Center for Justice, Loevy & Loevy.

There has been absolutely no proof of torture - hundreds of allegations and millions of dollars in payouts -but not one win in G.Flint Taylor's column.

Jon Burge was trapped in a legal maze created by time, judge shopping, media complicity and collective memory loss.

When torture appears, deal with it. That has yet to be proven. Truth is not something "We Can All Agree Upon." That is John Dewey.

There is much to pray for, Sister. Good people are up to their elbows helping young people read, write, add and subtract and somehow know that other people want to help them without lining their own pockets.

Praising a hollow and popular gesture like this means nothing and actually keeps the problems on our streets more than healthy. By the way, schools need teachers. I have not seen a nun here at Leo High School, in the heart Chicago's killing fields, in years. Facta Non Verba.


N. B. - do read Gregory Koger one of Sister Benita's Coalition Guys.

Here is Sister Benita's coalition pal's coda-“What the bourgeoisie therefore produces, above all, are its own grave-diggers.”—Karl Marx

And his Mission Statement:

The world today cries out for radical, fundamental change. . .
But the cruelest fact of all is this: IT DOES NOT HAVE TO BE THIS WAY! For here is the glaring contradiction: in today’s world the production of things, and the distribution of the things produced, is overwhelmingly carried out by large numbers of people who work collectively and are organized in highly coordinated networks. At the foundation of this whole process is the proletariat, an international class which owns nothing, yet has created and works these massive socialized productive forces. These tremendous productive powers could enable humanity to not only meet the basic needs of every person on the planet, but to build a new society, with a whole different set of social relations and values…a society where all people could truly and fully flourish together.

—Constitution of the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA

Here are the City Council Coalitions, Speakers and Advocates:

Speakers at the press conference and hearing included: Congressman Danny Davis; Flint Taylor, attorney with the People’s Law Office who has been instrumental in seeking justice for the men tortured by Chicago police commander John Burge; Dr. Frank Summers, psychologist who lead the fight within the APA to bar psychologists from participating in interrogations and torture in Guantanamo; Cherif Bassiouni, United Nations war crimes expert; Melinda Power and Margaret Power, Illinois Coalition Against Torture; Mary Lynn Everson, Marjorie Kovler Center; Sr. Benita Coffey, representing the National Religious Campaign Against Torture (NRCAT); Laurie Jo Reynolds, activist with Tamms Year Ten; Mario Venegas, Chilean survivor of torture under Pinochet; Mark Clements, Burge torture survivor; Mary L. Johnson, mother of a Burge torture victim and inmate at Tamms Correctional Center, as well as several other mothers of Burge torture survivors; and Wallace “Gator” Bradley, who spoke to the use of torture in the federal ADX supermax prison.

http://gregorykoger.com/ Charming Coalition.

Tales of the South Side - Police Officer George Newell and the Temptations

The "Classic 5" lineup of The Temptations: David Ruffin (bottom left), Melvin Franklin (top left), Paul Williams (top right), Otis Williams (bottom right), and Eddie Kendricks (center) circa 1965.

Chicago Police Officer George Newell* is a man of parts - husband & father, public safety professional, Leo Alumnus and civic minded neighbor.

I did not know until last night that George also drinks deeply from the Pierian Spring.

"You have two books out, Hickey."

Indeed, and read by tens of people.

" I wrote a study of the Temptations, the Temptin' Ts. This woman from a publishing house in New York liked my proposal and I submitted the manuscript: six hundred pages with notes and photos."

Hey, that's wonderful George. You are among the Leo Literary Lions, Dr. Lawrence McCaffery of Loyola authored many books on Irish history, Paul Somers is the author of the history of Lake Michigan Aircraft Carriers of WWII, Dr. Jack O'Keefe has published two best-selling novels and former Fire Commissioner Jim Joyce has a book about life on 79th Street in publication. You are standing in tall company with your brother Lions.

" There's a problem."

There always is in bringing any book to full-term, George.

" The publisher has a problem with my book. I love The Temptations!"

Who could not?

" I concentrated on the early years of the group. I tried to make a case for the cause of the many splits and personnel changes in the group, substance abuse, creative shifts in the R & B genre, the clash of ego, the train wreck of celebrity, the racism in the recoding industry."

All good topics of focus. What was the problem? Were they looking for a substantial treatment on some other point of discussion?

" No, they liked where I took the ideas fine."

Were there problems with point of view?

" No. not at all."

Was there a problem with your format?

"No, I handled that well - one-inch margins on all sides;double-space;courier or new courier font; no smaller than twelve-pitch; no more than 26 lines per page all that was fine."

What did they tell you was the problem?

"It was just my Pagination . . . running away with me!"

Uh,huh.

I continue to be a Ball of Confusion, much like the world today, Hey. Hey.

The hook slipped nicely into my gills; set with authority. George boated another fine bass-hole.

In the sobering words of the Dublin prose genius, Flann O'Brien, " out such events weaves the pattern of what I am pleased to call my life."


*

Newell, 45, of Morgan Park, has lived in the 19th Ward for 15 years with his wife and son, who attends Morgan Park High School. He grew up at 95th and Sangamon streets and attended St. Margaret of Scotland Elementary School and Leo High School. He has been an officer for 20 years, including the last nine with the 22nd District. He currently works as a school resource officer at Percy L. Julian High School.

19th Ward.com

Pat Quinn Will Name Jan Schakowsky to Kirk's Senate Seat

President Obama grabbed the box of nickels before the outraged Jan and the two flannel-mouths could snag it.

[WASHINGTON, D.C.] – U.S. Senators Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Mark Kirk (R-IL) joined Governor of Illinois Pat Quinn in announcing that the U.S. Department of Transportation has awarded $186 million in high speed rail funding to finance track and other improvements on the Chicago to St. Louis corridor between Dwight and Joliet. Earlier today, the Department of Transportation notified Congressional Appropriators that they have reprogrammed $400 million of the $2 billion in funding that was rejected by the governor of Florida.

High Speedrail's Connect Midwest is the Place to draw the likely conclusions in Illinois.

Following the flowers, cards, and stuffed animals, the stroke-surviving U.S. Senator Mark Kirk can expect a visit from Governor Pat Quinn and Lt. GUV & 5-String Banjo Sheila Simon. It will begin with -

Guv Christian " Hey Mark! How's the guy? Terry Cosgrove sent his best. Listen, you ain't no Gabby Giffords and we really need to make play for the spot. Boy, that is some good looking Salisbury Steak and green jello. Thought it was a piece of leg-o-lamb. Anyway, since you'll be laid up and all, I'm naming Jan Schakowsky to your spot."

Lt. Guv Plucky Simon "Ain't she great? Just great, really terrific, couldn't be better, I'll give her Dad's ties. . . ."

Guv. Christian -" What's that Mark? You're not making sense. . .gotta go. Get some rest. Thanks for the help in D.C.!"


In the Land of Lincoln, where if it is goofy, or contra natura things MUST be evolved -you know -chic, dashing, elegant, exclusive, fashionable, high-class, in, in vogue, mod , modish, posh, select, sharp, superior, swank, swanky, tony, uptown - it makes no sense at all to appoint someone from the GOP to Kirk's seat in the Senate.

Remember all that flapdoodle that Pat and his boss Rod the Convicted had when they went and named Roland Burris to President Obama's Seat? Lord Ha' Mercy! Same Party, Same Race Same Gender, as Senator/President Obama! Huge Mistake!

Well Governor Christian Quinn, Praise Jesus, has an opportunity to use his cookie sheet intellectual depth and after thinking above the envelop will realize that naming a woman from the opposite Party, opposite gender and another race, makes perfect sense, as does Gay Marriage, borrowing more on the debt, giving raises to political cronies and appointing Terry Cosgrove to anything.

It is time; Illinois is evolved! Illinois demands a woman with the same capacity for clear Quinn-esque thought and ubiquitous own-horn-blowing.

Quinn could appoint Congressman Quigley, Kirk's Damon to his Pythias, or Damon to an Affleck, depending upon your own personal cultural context, but that would be too patriarchal and Old Boys-ish. Dawn Clark Netsch, with panties a-twist in high dudgeon, would give Governor Christian a sound dressing down, make no mistake -not to mention the ire of Carol Marin and Toni Preckwinkle.

Nope, Pat Quinn is as predictable as a doctor's note in a pot-head's pocket. He will go with Jan Schakowsky as Illinois' First Non-African-American Woman Roland Burris!

What go possibly go wrong with that?

Ask the High Speed Rail Boys!

Gee, I hope this early prediction spoils not the prize.

A Church the World Hates Welcomes All- Father Tony Brankin

If I were not a Catholic, and were looking for the true Church in the world today, I would look for the one Church which did not get along well with the world; in other words, I would look for the Church which the world hates.

Bishop Fulton J. Sheen

The priest from El Paso . . .Illinois, who studied for Holy Orders at the old St. Viator's College ( Olivet University) in Bourbonnais, Illinois, and became the Bishop of Rochester, NY, as well as a television celebrity in the 1950's was a good one. Fulton J. Sheen, like the magnificent athlete/priest/bishop Bernard Sheil of Chicago is pretty much banished from popular imagination. Who they?

Well, they were no Bill Maher, or Simon Cowell, nor were they self-proclaimed community activists. Neither was Jesus. He was an apprentice Jewish carpenter and the Son of God.

Shiel and Sheen were energetic servants.

The world is beautiful. It is people who want to advertise for profit who throw up the hideously intrusive billboards along life's highway.

The TGIF Obama Presidency is the Mandate America Administration. Last Friday, always trot out bad news on Friday, mandates that "private insurance provide contraception and the abortion pill for ‘free’, which means insurance rates will go up and that all Americans will end up paying for it, no matter how disgusted you are by abortion."

Our popular culture comes not from building cathedrals as community, developing a synthesis of great thought from the ancients on of the Gospels, or Scripture. Rather, popular culture happens to be what is on an editorial page crafted by group think artisans, or what is available on cable. Oprah is Aquinas and Bill Maher is Chaucer.

Students are walked away from Western Civilization and begin the study of history at the end of the 19th Century. Truth is "a proposition is a plan of action and that it is only judged true when that plan of action has proven successful when put into action." Truth is a moveable feast.

Truth is tougher, it seems to me.

Last week in the Parish bulletin of St. Odilo's in Berwyn, IL, Father Tony Brankin, a Chicago Catholic priest, musician* and sculptor, offered this:

The people in charge of the culture—the newspapers and television—even the modern professors in the universities and seminaries—anyone who owned a microphone or stood in a pulpit or sat at a desk in a classroom told us that the
Catholic Church was no longer to be considered the One True Church. They told us that the Catholic Church did not have a special position in the mind of God nor in the hearts of the people. They persuaded us to believe that the Catholic Church—even though historically we knew that it was the one that Jesus Himself had founded—had no more authority than any other group or club or organization. They told us that every teacher—every speaker—everyone—all groups—all opinions—all teachings were equally capable of being right or wrong.

Oh, and it worked. We have all been damaged by this campaign against the uniqueness and authority of the Catholic Church. As moderns we have been made to think that possibly all religions are equal. How many times do we hear them say on television or in some movie or in some discussion on the radio that all faiths are paths to heaven—and that none is better than another? The problem is that if we hear this enough—we begin to believe it. We think that maybe they are right. It sounds so gentle and simple to say all religions will take us to God —Blah blah blah.

In fact, we have been brain-washed into thinking that we cannot even discover the Truth—either about God—or about His will for us—or about anything for that matter. The movers and shakers of our world, you know, the celebrities and politicians, as well as the ones who write the commercials and the scripts of all the shows we watch—the ones who teach us and our children what is important and what is not important—they want us to believe that we cannot find any kind of truth—because truth—they would say—does not even exist.

You say something long enough and loud enough and with enough of a crowd behind you and it becomes Truth, in the Dewey mold: Gay Marriage is same as Marriage, Choice is Woman's Reproductive Health, Promiscuity as no consequences, only treatments, and 1% is way too many.

Catholics are not homophobic, do not hate women, nor are they slaves to a Roman Master, of German parents, who wears a funny hat.

Father Brankin is not a priest that the media invites to share opinions on WLS, WTTW, or with the columnists and editorial boards of our surviving newspapers. Truth is a hard and answers are easy. You need an Progressively cached activist priest or nun, who fights for gay marriage, better and more abortions, and the ordination of women for easy answers to Dewey's agreeably verifiable conclusions to inquiry.

Father Brankin, like Bishops Sheil and Sheen, takes the tough road and beauty of living outshines the billboards, slogans and memes and he concludes with an invitation to all, not a mandate, a welcome to unity -

There are elements of truth in many faiths. If someone who is not Catholic believes that Jesus Christ is God and Man and the savior who died on the cross and rose from the dead—well, of course, that is correct, and that will help that person get to heaven. But if someone who is not Catholic denies things that Catholics believe, well, that might make it more difficult for that person to get to heaven. If, for example, a Muslim believes that God wants us to destroy our enemies and that a person
will go to heaven if he commits suicide and kills many people along with himself—how is that the same as saying that it is God’s will to love our enemies? In other words how does suicide and ritual murder help us get to heaven in the same way that loving our enemies gets us to heaven?

Again, suppose someone says that they don’t believe what the Catholic Church teaches about life and love. They believe, for example, that there is nothing wrong with artificial birth control. Well, they will have a very difficult time explaining to their children (or even to themselves) why pre-marital intimacy is wrong or why extra-marital intimacy is wrong—or even why abortion is wrong or why gay marriage is wrong. And if they do not believe what the Catholic Church teaches about life and love—basically that love is very much about having babies—then they will be forced by the logic of their unbelief to accept every other kind of immoral behavior—
unfaithfulness and promiscuity and a life of sin, homosexual behavior, pederasty, incest.

Not believing in Catholic truths necessarily makes it more difficult for non-believers to save their souls. I am talking about all this today because Wednesday we begin “Church Unity Octave week”. This is eight days in which
we are asked by the Church to pray as fervently as possible that those who are outside the Catholic Church may—to put it simply—become Catholic.

We pray that atheists may come to believe in God—that Pagans may learn of the true God. We hope that Jews will accept Jesus, and that Protestants (the so called “Christians”) would begin to understand the fullness of Revelation as
it is found in the One True Church, the Catholic Church. Most of the time—because of modern influences—we think that Catholics must relate to other religions by simply
celebrating our differences. But that is really not enough—nor is it honest.
People need to know—for their own sake— that there is such a thing as Truth—and that there is a true God and a true religion—and all of it will be found in the Catholic Church. If we love our brothers and sisters——then we should want them to get to heaven by belonging to the faith that will help them get to heaven.

We must do everything possible—prayer, example, and willingness to witness to the Truth of our religion—in order to bring them to the fullness of truth—in the One True Catholic faith. Because in that Oneness is Truth and in that Truth is salvation .

Life is beautiful without the billboards obscuring the view.

* edited update thanks to Leo Man Bob Hylard:
pat ..as you know fr.brankin is also a devotee of irish music as well his sculptoring..i'm happy to say my daughter lynn has one of his handmade irish harps.[ a beauty ]..my mother-in-law lived in st.thomas more and was totally dedicated to the man ..fr.brankin would sometimes borrow the harp to duplicate its' style for another would be harpo marx..lynn is quite good at the harp but it's too heavy to carry downtown for street music...


http://www.prolife.com/BIRTHCNT.html

On My Way to Peggy Kinnane's! Houli's There Wednesday Night, So I Gotta Beat Feet!

I'm as short on carfare as I am on the Cardinal Virtues; therefore, I had better beat feet, take it on Arthur Duffy, hit the bricks, start walking, motor this voter, make movin' behoovin', set sail these barques of mine, toe it north and ease west, hike to Houli* at Peggy Kinane's!

Okay, get snacks and water. Wake the mules and check my directions -

1. Head north on S Rockwell St toward W 107th St
0.1 mi
2. Turn right onto W 107th St
0.2 mi
3. Turn left onto S Western Ave
1.6 mi
4. Slight right to stay on S Western Ave
13.4 mi
5. Turn left onto N Milwaukee Ave
5.7 mi
6. Turn left onto N Northwest Hwy
7.0 mi
7. Continue onto Rand Rd
1.7 mi
8. Turn left onto Seegers Rd
0.7 mi
9. Turn left onto N Broadway St/Seegers Rd
66 ft
10. Turn right onto US-14 W
4.3 mi
11. Turn left onto N Evergreen Ave
354 ft
12. Turn right onto E Campbell St
Destination will be on the right

I'm OFF!




The fun begins at 7PM and Houlihan will tell some preposterous stories from his celebrated book and hold court at this legendary Irish pub till 9PM. Mike is offering all Peggy Kinnane's patrons a 60% discount on the price of his book that night!

Stop into Peggy Kinnane's for some Hooliganism and kick off your St. Patrick's Day shenanigans early. Peggy Kinnane's is located at 8 N. Vail Avenue in Arlington Heights. For more information. Call 847-577-7733.

Stop in and yuck it up with Renaissance Man Mike Houlihan - the man is busier than a retarded kitten trying bury cat poop on a marble floor.

*Mike Houlihan is an award winning writer, actor, producer, director, filmmaker, radio host, and journalist. He began his professional career in 1973 with The American Shakespeare Festival in Stratford, CT and has appeared on Broadway, Off-Broadway, on television, major motion pictures, our nations largest newspapers, periodicals, and bathroom walls. For more info please go to his websites, TapiocaTheMovie.com, ouririshcousins.com and skinnyhouli.com.

Archbishop Dagger Tim Dolan Calls Catholics to Fight Obama's "Choice" Mandate

President Obama loves to toss out Civil War rhetoric and links. His Choice Mandate demanding that contraceptive and abortifacient pills get shoved down everyone's throat, is reminiscent of 1863.

In 1863, Abe Lincoln sent Federal troops fresh from killing fields of Gettysburg to stop the Draft Riots in New York. The riots continued with great loss of life. Archbishop John " Dagger John" Hughes, spiritual Shepherd of the Catholic immigrant flock was doing the rioting in protest to unfair military conscription ( Micks in the Army; Yanks buy out of service), who was dying after decades of spiritual and temporal combat against Nativist hatred of Catholics, said this to rioters

-“Men! I am not able, owing to the rheumatism in my limbs to visit you, but that is not a reason why you should not pay me a visit in your whole strength. Come, then, tomorrow, Friday at 2 o’clock to my residence, northwest corner of Madison Avenue and Thirty-sixth Street. There is abundant space for the meeting, around my house. I can address you from the corner balcony. If I should not be able to stand during its delivery, you will permit me to address you sitting; my voice is much stronger than my limbs. I take upon myself the responsibility of assuring you, that in paying me this visit or in retiring from it, you shall not be disturbed by any exhibition of municipal or military presence. You who are Catholics, or as many of you as are, having a right to visit your bishop without molestation.”

As good as his word, the dying prelate addressed a crowd of 5,000 the next day.

The riots ended.

Words matter, only when conviction and steel resolve give them legs.

When two of " Dagger" John's Irish born priests challenged his knowledge of Canon Law, the bishop thundered -"I will show you County Monaghan canon law. I will send you back to the bogs whence you came!"

In the 1970's, had one Catholic bishop the sand and soul of Archbishop Dagger John Hughes - Roe v. Wade would have been a foot-note in history instead of the murderously flawed Supreme Court Ruling that has sapped the American Soul of its worth.

Now, after years of mincing and simpering parsing prelates, Catholic bishops are standing strong. Cardinal George in Chicago has been ambushed and flayed by the Gay Mafia and always comes back swinging. Denver's Archbishop Charles Chaput has stood for Catholic doctrine and moral teaching as have Illinois Bishop Listecki and Seattle's Bishop Sartain. One young Cardinal Designate is filling the long and wide shoes of Dagger John

Cardinal designate, Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York challenges Catholics to figh the Obama Choice Mandate announced by HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebilius on Friday, January 20, 2012.

This is serious assault on religious liberty, the most abortion happy and intolerant President in American history. Dagger Tim Dolan's words will have little impact upon Jersey Shore Catholics, those who fully believe that souls don't vote and abortion is a health civil right. It may however energize Catholics like me who generally vote Democrat and have given too long a pass to cream puff Catholics like Illinois Governor Quinn, Sen. Dick Durbin, Lisa Madigan and others of their ilk. If the life of the unborn child can be treated as no more than tissue to be torn, save your pieties on anything else.

President Obama is tone deaf to Americans, having had his ear cocked to the Planned Parenthood, secularist Victrola from the day he landed in Chicago. When all you want to hear is how transformationally soaring and thigh tingling you are from spin wizards and sycophants, it is pretty tough to hear what real people are saying. That said, a capable man wants to hear from the people.

Let's speak and see if he cocks his arrogant noggin our way.

Keep at them Dagger Tim!

“Never before has the federal government forced individuals and organizations to go out into the marketplace and buy a product that violates their conscience. This shouldn’t happen in a land where free exercise of religion ranks first in the Bill of Rights,” Cardinal-designate Dolan said.

On January 20, Kathleen Sebelius, secretary of the Health and Human Services, announced that non-profit employers will have one year to comply with the new rule.

Cardinal-designate Dolan urged Catholics and the public at large to speak out in protest.

“Let your elected leaders know that you want religious liberty and rights of conscience restored and that you want the administration’s contraceptive mandate rescinded,” he said

Do to this link for the video -

http://bcove.me/ob5itz9v

http://the-american-catholic.com/2009/02/11/honest-abe-and-dagger-john/

http://www.patheos.com/Resources/Additional-Resources/Dagger-John-Archbishop-John-Hughes-Pat-McNamara-1-18-2011?offset=1&max=1

Abortion Trail Boss Sara Paretsky - All Hat; All Prattle

The Chicago Tribune offers no less a voice on Obama's Choice Mandate than crime writer Sara Paretsky. Mrs. Paretsky is the author of the V.I. Warshawski novels. V. I. Warshawsky is female shamus, gum shoe, private dick, snoop, transom climber whose name combines V. I. Lenin, a eugenics pioneer of the last century, and the iconic Warshawsky's Auto Junk Yard on Archer Avenue. V.I. Warshawsky is a feminist tough gal from the 10th Ward ( Hegewisch and South Chicago)who is mentored by a doctor ( perinatologist - guess what she do?) who runs a woman's health clinic often beset by anti-abortion activists ( Bitter Medicine 1987 and others). V.I. Warshawsky is a lawyer and former member of the Cook County States Attorney's Office who gets on the case of patriarchal cops, corporate 1%-ers, and hateful Catholics.

Parestky's books sell. I read one (Blood Shot 1988)which deals with bad, powerfully patriarchal, environmentally hateful, corrupt anti-recycling politicians meant to mirror Ed Vrdolyak - less than close. It ain't Raymond Chandler.

Today, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius issued a statement finalizing the rule that requires insurance plans to provide coverage for contraception without charging a co-pay, co-insurance or a deductibles.

It wasn’t always a sure deal. Back in August, HHS adopted the Institute of Medicine’s recommendation to include family-planning services as one of the preventive health care items for women that must be covered by newly issued health plans, but it was only an interim rule, subject to comments.

In November, there was a lot of worry about whether the decision that contraception should be a covered preventive service under the Affordable Care Act would survive. President Obama met with Roman Catholic bishops, and one of them came away saying, “I left there feeling a bit more at peace about this issue than when I entered.”

Our Bodies, Ourselves.org January 20, 2012

Today, one would think that Tribune editor Bruce Dold had snagged Leo Tolstoy to chirp up Obama's Choice (abortion) Mandate, given the editorial trumpeting.
From The jump, Sara Paretsky goes to the heart of the issue - herself

Sunday marks the 30th anniversary of my first novel. It was synchronicity, perhaps, that V I Warshawski was born on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade. Like Roe, though in smaller ways, V I has helped change women's lives. Justice William Brennan, writing for the U.S. Supreme Court, believed (as I believe) that women are full citizens and moral agents, able to make decisions without a father, a church or legislator telling us what to do.

In V I's early years, I got some ugly letters, including one that said V I should be beaten for talking back to men. But for most readers, V I came as a breath of fresh air. She was a woman who granted other women permission to solve their own problems and live their own lives as well or ill as they could.

Justice Brennan's words, which challenged the ancient notion that women are not as human as men, have not fared as well. In myth, song and Congress, we are often described as animals. During the 1996 debates over welfare reform, Republicans characterized women as "alligators," "cats" and "wolves."

Aligators, cats and wolves? Can't say as I recall that particular Americanization of Similes.

Well, Sara should sell some of her books, if not the Choice Mandate that requires contraception and abortion ( abortifacients) get into the hands of all fertile women-folks.

Seems odd that Choice is forced.

Then, again, Our Bodies, Our Fertility seems no less important a document than Our Bodies, Or Selves 1971 by the gals at the Boston Woman's Health Collective.

Our Bodies, Our Selves

Our Bodies, Ourselves is the resource that women of all ages turn to for information about their bodies, sexuality, and reproductive health. Completely revised and updated, these pages provide women with the information and tools they need to make key health decisions—accurate, evidence-based information, input from leading experts, and personal stories from women who share their experiences. This new edition of Our Bodies, Ourselves includes the latest vital information on:
• CHANGES IN THE HEALTH CARE SYSTEM—especially how health care reform affects women and how to get the care you need.

• SAFER SEX—how to engage in pleasurable, satisfying sexual experiences while protecting your health and the health of your partner.

• ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH RISKS—including minimizing exposure to everyday pollutants that endanger reproductive health.

• BODY IMAGE—resisting negative media stereotypes and embracing healthier approaches to looking and feeling good.

• LOCAL AND GLOBAL ACTIVISM—using social media and organizing tactics to build community and advocate for policies that improve women’s lives. • As well as crucial information about gender identity, sexual orientation, birth control, abortion, pregnancy and birth, perimenopause, and sexuality and sexual health as we age.

Together with its companion website, ourbodiesourselves.org, Our Bodies, Ourselves is a one-stop resource for women of all generations.

What's Behind Obama's 'Choice" Mandate? The Brook Farm's Bovine Leavings.

The Obamacare regulation gives faith-based institutions, like Catholic universities and hospitals, the choice of violating the fundamental tenets of their faith by covering the federally mandated coverage in their employee health plans, or of dropping health insurance for their employees — in which case they would be fined for violating the employer mandate.

Grace-Marie Turner


Catholics Suck!

I know that in the opinion of the Obama voter, I most certainly do. Catholics have always sucked; unless of course Catholics controlled the vote, the working and middle classes, and the wide world of sports.

In the 19th Century, Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne,Lyman and Harriet Beecher-Stowe, Fredrick Douglas, Honest Abe Lincoln, William Lloyd Garrison, and Lyman Trumbull detested Roman Catholics. Jane Addams, Ida B. Wells, W.E.B. Dubois, Roger Baldwin, Margaret Sanger, John Dewey, Upton Sinclair, Sinclair Lewis, and Henry Wallace hated Catholics with a purity that made the KKK seem like Quakers. This last group of sweethearts created the machinery of eugenics and Hegelian power politics - Planned Parenthood and American Civil Liberties Union.

In the 19th Century the romantics ( Thoreau, Emerson, Hawthorne et. al) lived a communal experiment called the Brook Farm Movement under a Unitarian minister and hs bribe George and Sophia Ripley - believe it or not. Rev. Mr. Ripley and his disciples followed the teachings of secular socialist Charles Fourier. Flourier became in the words of Brook Farmers "A Second Coming of Christ."

One brilliant and religion hopping seeker (Congregationalist, Methodist, Unitarian, Baptist, Brook Farmer) was Orestes Brownson a genius no public school child has ever heard of - he is buried in the chapel of the Sacred Heart at University of Notre Dame, of all places. Brownson wrote this of Brook Farm -"the atmosphere of the place is horrible. To save money, "retrenchments", or sacrifices, were called for, particularly at the dinner table. Meat, coffee, tea, and butter were no longer offered, though it was agreed that a separate table with meat be allowed in December 1844. That Thanksgiving, a neighbor had donated a turkey." Orestes Brownson converted to Roman Catholicism and became editor for the Paulist Fathers and the Quarterly Review America's greatest Catholic newspaper.

Brownson and other Brook Farm Transcendentalist converted to Catholicism, in recognition of the secularist and communistic Utopian nonsense at the core of their beliefs. Mrs. Ripley became a Catholic; how's that for irony? One Brook Farm apologist complained -"We are beginning to see wooden crosses around and pictures of saints... and I suspect that rosaries are rattling under aprons." Dang!

Brownson recognized the egotistical American intellectual romantics need to be little gods - he termed this Odinism. Much of this can be witnessed in the more radical Native American quasi-religious rites and rituals, or in the Amnesty for Illegals Movement.

Brook Farm failed, but that never stops and egomaniac. Egoism does not work in Catholicism - humility does. We do not make the rules to suit or immediate needs - we don't go around Congress as it were. As Orestes Brownson wrote, The Catholic Church is not the divinely constituted representative of the spiritual order on earth.

Secularist egoists believe that.

President Obama carries water for the American intellectual traditions rooted in a failure Brook Farm and re-organized sub rosa in the 20th Century by egoistic secular Progressives, and Incorporated in the agencies that control the American Democratic National Committee, universities, media and radical interests.

Choice means Abortion.

Choice is an Obama Mandate that can't wait . . .well at least not until after the 2012 election.

This is nothing new. It is the same old egotistical ( WE CAN CHANGE THE WORLD!)cow pies that littered Brook Farm. As the great N.D. football coach,Frank Leahy said,“Egotism is the anesthetic that dulls the pain of stupidity.”

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/288756/religious-liberty-latest-target-obamacare-grace-marie-turner

Obama's Choice Mandate - War on Catholics; Well, Not All Catholics.

Notre Dame 's Choice Planned Parenthood's President Barack Obama


The President, wholly owned by Planned Parenthood, which has owned the Democratic National Committee for decades, mandates Choice.

Choice is a euphemism for Abortion which is the engine that drives Planned Parenthood.

Choice's smokescreen is women's reproductive health.

Women's reproductive health employs contraception - largely birth control pills, but also schoolyard condoms for kids and also . . . abortion, because, after all they are kids.

Kathleen Seblius, the Kansas Mauler herself, a Birth Catholic and a Planned Parenthood owned politician, directs all Health and Human Services for Planned Parenthood's first President, Barack H. Obama. Sebilius, speaking for Planned Parenthood, the folks who use abortion to make sure that 'unwanted' children are murdered, trotted out the announcement that Choice is a Federal Mandate:

Planned Parenthood Federation of America and other women’s advocates had been worried the White House would broaden the list of employers that were exempt from the requirement. They expressed relief that the White House stuck to the basic policy.

“This common-sense decision means that millions of women, who would otherwise pay $15 to $50 a month, will have access to affordable birth control, helping to save hundreds of dollars each year,” said Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood.

The decision was a setback for social conservatives, Republicans and especially the U.S. Conference of Bishops, which criticized the requirement as a violation of religious liberty.

I am a life-long Catholic, more trouble than I am probably worth, but a Catholic. Abortion is and always be murder. It is premeditated murder - choice after all.

The U.S. Catholic Conference of Bishops issued a very strong condemnation of Obama's Choice Mandate and said, in effect, to take his one year extension and place it in its proper aperture.

Washington: The Catholic Bishops of the United States called “literally unconscionable” a decision by the Obama Administration to continue to demand that sterilization, abortifacients and contraception be included in virtually all health plans. Today’s announcement means that this mandate and its very narrow exemption will not change at all; instead there will only be a delay in enforcement against some employers.

“In effect, the president is saying we have a year to figure out how to violate our consciences,” said Cardinal-designate Timothy M. Dolan, archbishop of New York and president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

The cardinal-designate continued, “To force American citizens to choose between violating their consciences and forgoing their healthcare is literally unconscionable. It is as much an attack on access to health care as on religious freedom. Historically this represents a challenge and a compromise of our religious liberty.”

The HHS rule requires that sterilization and contraception — including controversial abortifacients — be included among “preventive services” coverage in almost every healthcare plan available to Americans. “The government should not force Americans to act as if pregnancy is a disease to be prevented at all costs,” added Cardinal-designate Dolan.

At issue, the U.S. bishops and other religious leaders insist, is the survival of a cornerstone constitutionally protected freedom that ensures respect for the conscience of Catholics and all other Americans.

Back in the day, Barack Obama followed orders from Emil Jones and Mike Madigan. Obama took no risks.

Barack Obama has always done exactly what he has been told, but only by some of the most screwed up people in Florsheims and Jimmy Choo's - Rod Blagojevich, Tony Rezko, Miner & Davis, Frank Marshall, Rachel Maddow, Valerie Jarret, Samantha "Irish Arab-Spring:PowersJan Schakowsky and Bob Creamer, Katha Pollitt, Katrina Vanden Heuvel, Frank Rich, The Journolistas, Jeremiah Wright, Dawn Clark Netsch, Van Jones, Desiree Rogers, Andy Stern, Georgie Soros, . . . ad infinitum.

Obama could care less about Catholics or their bishops.

Catholics are in for some ugly days ahead, unless they are Catholics like Dick Durbin, Kathy Sebilius, and Pat Quinn.

Catholics have two guys with steel in the soul - Archbishop Tim Dolan of New York and Francis Cardinal George. Archbishop Dolan and Chicago's Cardinal George will take most of the hits. They are up to it.

See you at Mass.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/la-pn-religious-groups-extra-year-to-comply-with-birth-control-rule-20120120,0,3542705.story

Rex, Brah! No Police State When Bullhead Surfin' the Calumet & No TOURIES WITH THE MOURIES

“It’s unbelievable. It’s just a body of water. What’s with the regulations?” said Slater, the 2011 Association of Surfing Professionals champ. “ It makes no sense. … It sounds like a police state.”

"Sliding a wave removes our brains out of the ordinary and slips us into the extra ordinary of being there now. No more worries about mortgages or strife of being poor or rich. When you enter the domain of an ocean cylinder, that moment, those split seconds belong to the Zen part of just being. Period."

Aggro Surf Nazi, Poet and Wave Shaper Architect Bill Hamilton -Period again. To emphasize. Done. End of story. Finito. Kaput. Last Train to Clarksville, Brah!

Rex Flodtsrom -Surf Brah, artist, poet and on-line tea employee


Coming to the moral support of Rex Flodstrom, , a 40-year-old artist, poet and online tea company employee 11 time Surf Champion Kelly Slater decries the foam facism and police state "NAH BRAH" Rahm Emanuel, because the Nordic Nardude was busted for catching a wave.

Rex Flodstrom is a great handle. Translated the cognomen reresents! Rex (king L.) Flodstrom ( River Icon Swed.). Lake Michigan, Brah! That would be Rex SJÖ-strom, Brah.

The lake has waves - VALID. You need the wake, Waxboy. Bullheads, Brah!


Chicago is the center coast? Real Pipeline Pirates take the quantum wake at Rainbow Beach or the Calumet River riding the bullhead.

I have gotten away from the cares and woes of this Vale of Tears for a few precious hours by taking the old harness down to the Calumet River, when I lived in Griffith, Indiana and now the Cal-Sag.

I bait up liversausage and onion sandwich onto the lure pole and off we go - Just me and and Old Ameiurus Melas knifing a causeway of water down the center of Cal-Sag that washes over the docks and levies! Wetsuit Be-Damned and Hair ( widow's peak really) awash in the browney foam of the Cal-Sag!!!!

Let the girls surf! The Men will be BullHeading the Cal-Sag! Yo brah, your such a zepherrr!.

Trippy Trunkin Troder Pat Hickey Calumet River Bullhead Sufer


http://hickeysite.blogspot.com/search?q=calumet+river

Rep. Quigley & Sen.Kirque - Ripping Japes and Pranking the President

On the third day of the trip, Kirk and Quigley respects at the Warsaw Ghetto Memorial and the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum.
Kirk points to an expanded waistline as evidence of a great trip. He gained five pounds, he says Daily Heralds.


K- "Dude, let's grab an armful and bolt.

Q- " Just random flowers."

K- " It's not like they paid for them."

Q- " And they're Polacks's!"

K- "Duuuuuuuude!!!!!! That is so not cool."

Q- "Whatever."

( Last Time: Mike and Marque wanted to 'find the fire' behind the smoke involving the wate of millions of HLS tax-dollars by Cook County while Quigley was on the County Board and immediately jetted off to Poland.

Here's our boys - they have taken the affable President Obama "prisoner 'under arrest-like. "

“That’s about as high-handed a proceeding as I have heard of in a long time, Quigley!” exclaimed Sen. Kirque.

“Tut, tut,” returned Quigley; “just a little bi-partisan fun.”

“Fun?” echoed Marque Kirque h. “It’s lawless fun, then and should be severely condemned. The President lured from his hotel, made a prisoner—even locked up—and this What’s-his-name, pitcher for the GOP, deliberately waylaid, bound hand and foot, and left among the rocks-you call that cowboy fun, eh?”

“Rough fun, mebby,” said Quigley, “but the regular, Simon-pure article as developed by a bunch of daredevil Occupiers. They didn’t mean any harm, not at all. The consideration shown Obama proves that.”

“But suppose those steers had trampled The Presdent in the gap? Suppose he had been injured during the rowdying that followed the game?”

“That would have been too blame’ bad, only it didn’t happen. No man’s got any business worrying over what doesn’t happen. Eh,Mr. President?”

“I should think not,” Barry answered.

“And you’re satisfied?”

“Perfectly.”

Quigley turned and reached a hand over the back of the seat.

“Put it there, son!” he cried heartily. “You can take a joke, even if it is rough, and that’s the sort of spirit that’ll carry a fellow far in this man’s country. Right this minute I’ll bet something handsome that the Tin Cup outfit, the Congressional Black Caucas and. the GOP punchers are having a love feast. Oh, they’re all right; so’s Boehner, and Obama, too—a whole lot. Everything’s all right, and I wish you’d hit it up with your car and get me home in time for supper. The wife never likes to have me late.”

After dropping Obama’s hand, Quigley squared around in his seat.

“That boy, Kirque,” he added, in a low voice; “is the clear quill. From now on I’m goin’ to watch him with considerable interest.”

Keep up with our Illinois Congressional Frog & Toad - Congressman Mike Quigley and Senator Marque Kirque -Bi-Partisan Buddies

Apologies to Frank Merriwell

First Class of the Axelrod Political Institute at U. of C. - February, 2013

"My goal now is to help encourage young people who are going to be the David Axelrods and better in the future so that we'll have a new generation of people who'll be active in politics and public life," he said.

February 2013. University of Chicago - The Dave Axelrod Institute of Politics 101:

Good Morning, I must say it is a delight to be here with all of you bright and well scrubbed foreheads. The mustache on each every one you warms my heart.

Please, if you have any gum in your mouths please spit it into this Waste Management basket, provided by the patriots now doing the people's business all over Chicago.

Our concern in politics and all politics is global.

What we do here is transformational.

What we say here is transformable.

What we do here is transmutable.

Today you are students, but you are also activists, guerrillas, agents for change,Sherpas on the long climb, sailors on the Costa Concordia of the Constitution - if it hits a rock; hit the silk, Jim!

I came to the conclusion months ago, and I said it to members of Congress, that the only way people are going to fully appreciate what this reform is if we pass it and implement it and it becomes not a caricature but a reality, and I still believe that. So I think it will be easier to sell it moving forward than it was to this point.

You see if you want something bad enough, no matter how bad it is, it is a good thing and it must be. Let it be!

Where would the six LGBTQ young marines, depicted in the great monument in Washington D.C., who raised the flag on Hitler's bunker in 1941, be if they did know the verifiable accountability behind their actions?

I have never believed in the Wizard of Oz theory of consulting, that I am all-knowing and all-seeing, and that everyone around me is kind of a backbencher. No that is why after I left the White House, President Obama threw the Alice in Wonderland secret party.

You are all here to learn from me. Here is something from scripture -

I don't want to straight-face you
Race or chase you, track or trace you
Or disgrace you or displace you
Or define you or confine you
All I really want to do
Is, baby, be friends with you.

I don't want to meet your kin
Make you spin or do you in
Or select you or dissect you
Or inspect you or reject you
All I really want to do
Is, baby, be friends with you.

I don't want to fake you out
Take or shake or forsake you out
I ain't lookin' for you to feel like me
See like me or be like me
All I really want to do
Is, baby, be friends with you.

That's me baby! If you are looking for someone else you are in the wrong classroom!

Go lightly from the ledge, babe
Go lightly on the ground
I’m not the one you want, babe
I will only let you down
You say you’re lookin’ for someone
Who will promise never to part
Someone to close his eyes for you
Someone to close his heart
Someone who will die for you an’ more
But it ain’t me, babe
No, no, no, it ain’t me, babe
It ain’t me you’re lookin’ for, babe

Remember speak with a whisper; no one is ever listening. You, Dave in the third row . . .you and Dave in the fourth, Dave in seventh and Dave in the eighth . . .take these syllabi and distribute them.

Oh, don't forget to sign up for the bowling team!

Blimey! Gents, With Whom, or With What Do You Sleep?

Damn! He was a wild one, old Hatchet Jack. He was livin' two year in a cave up on the Musselshell with a female panther. She never did get used to him. Del Gue from Jeremiah Johnson



Then of course there was Errol Flynn -





Marines Sleep with their rifles




Brits with their Teddys (plush toy animals -

Well, in the last 12 months, British hotel chain Travelodge has reunited more than 75,000 bears with the owners. That's a lot of stuffed animals left at its 452 hotels in the United Kingdom and Spain. So the company decided to investigate a bit further.

Travelodge surveyed 6,000 Britons and discovered that 35 percent of adults admitted they sleep with their teddy because they found cuddling their bear comforting. Additionally, many said the calming feeling of a bear hug helped them lower their stress level after a hard day.

And it turns out that a large number of the bear-toting travelers are men.

Travelodge said that 25 percent of men reported they take their teddy bear away with them when going away on business. The stuffed animal supposedly reminds them of home and -- some say -- helps fill a cuddle-void left by distant partners.

Cuddle void? Tell me about it.

I, a widow man, sleep soundly, hugging the faith and knowledge that the quality and cast-iron dependability of my Zoeller Effluent or dewatering submersible pump for septic tank, low pressure pipe (LPP) and enhanced flow STEP systems is humming and that Kennedy Brothers Sewer

Mr. Carl Clark - Navy Hero of WWII - Stood His Post Against Kamikazes and Bigotry with Honor, Courage and Dignity

Award ceremony for Carl Clark - a real gentleman and real American hero. I also had the pleasure of shaking hands with a Tuskegee airman at the event. Lots of terrific folks, vets and active duty. Talked with the Sec Nav's assistant - very bright guy and a captain at 50 years of age. Mike McQuade - Vietnam Veteran -Sanfrancisco, CA.

Steward First Class Carl Clark waited 66 years for this day. It’s been years since the 95-year-old last wore his uniform — which has only been made complete today with the addition of a medal he won when he was 29.

During World War II, black men were allowed to enlist, but the only job available to them in the Navy was as stewards.

“Taking care of officers, feeding them their meals, cleaning their rooms, shining their shoes,” were just a few things that were part of the job, according to Clark.

When the ship was under attack, however, they joined their fellow soldiers, manning their battle stations like the rest of the crew. They did just that on May 3, 1945, near Okinawa on board the USS Aaron Ward.

“Our ship had been hit by nine kamikazes,” Clark said in a film. “All four of the other ships in our station were sunk.”

Clark’s job was to fight the fires on deck and to help the wounded.

“When first plane hit, I was blown against the overhead I broke my collarbone,” he said. ” I was the only survivor of an eight-man damage control team. But two minutes later a second plane came in. I stared at the pilot as he guided his plane toward our ship … the explosion blew me into the air to the other side of the ship.”

Singlehandedly, he kept the fires from reaching the big guns — saving the ship from exploding. They lost 40 men that day, but while his white comrades received medals for bravery, Clark did not, even though the ship’s captain felt he deserved it.

Clark’s story came to the attention of Rep. Anna Eshoo, who pushed the Navy to acknowledge him for his bravery. They were able to finally set it right today with an appropriate ceremony. The secretary of the Navy pinned the medal — the Navy and Marine Corps Commendation for valor — on Clark himself.

Clark didn’t think he’d live to see the day.

“It was a different country then,” he said, sadly understanding the slight. “Things have changed.”

Now, he’s amazed by the attention he’s being paid.

“All these people and the applause — it’s overwhelming,” Clark said.

ABC News

Jim "Skinny" Sheahan Leads on Parade

James "Skinny" Sheahan is a leader. Skinny took the lead to offer Paul Vallas to voters of Illinois over the 'smart' choice of Democrat deal wizards who backed the toxic Rod Blagojevich. The wizards got their way after a very close primary battle and Illinois is still paying for that wizardry.

The South Side St. Patrick's Day Parade was cancelled over concerns for the safety and properieties damaged by train-loads, car-loads and bus-loads of revellers from all over Illinois who viewed the neighborhood celebration as Mardi Gra Lite. The very same Chicago media that invited one and all to get their CHIRISH ( Miller Brewing) on by showing up hours before the parade kick-off fully Kreuzaned ( Old Style) and Bud-lit-up, only to toss their celebrations onto the pavement while weeping to neighborhood residents, " War Cuh. . .Eye gud a Cab . . . Toxey, Duuuude?"

Well, old son, I never have much problem hailing one at Clark & Division, Take the CTA # 49.

"Whar?"

The stop right behind you. God speed, Wayfarer!

The same media that swelled interest in the parade as a political platform (Clinton, Gore, Jerry Brown, Pat Buchanan, Barack Obama, and our home grown beauties jigged mightily down Western to Kennedy Park)and day -long guzzle for mopes, ridiculed the parade and most of all the very good people the event was meant to celebrate.

Perhaps the old committee pulled the trigger too quickly; maybe there were things that could have been done. The Face Book attempt to get the CHIRISH ON was as successful as an Italian cruise and travelled about as far.

Two years agon Skinny spoke with Chicago Sun Times reporter Mark Konkol and predicted this -

More from Skinny Sheahan via the great Mark Konkol


"I'm sure the parade will be back because we need a parade. Beverly's still Irish, but [without the parade] it's very boring," Sheahan said. "Listen, I was in charge of every parade in Chicago for 10 years. I've seen more parades than anybody in the world except for Mayor Daley, OK. This was a great, great parade. Two percent of people at the parade were goofballs, that's a fact. But the parade will be back. They'll have a heart attack when they read that, but I don't care."

For the husky side of two years, Skinny Sheahan and number of neighbors have worked bring this event back to its purpose and common sense.

Organizers Want South Side Irish Parade To Return To Its Roots: MyFoxCHICAGO.com

Skinny Sheahan leads. Democratic wizards give people Blago. Skinny leads.

Catholic School Closing Caveat from Christine Flowers

Core Values is what it is all about.

This past Saturday, it was my privilege to welcome five young men from St. Gabriel Parish in Canaryville to Leo High School - Tommy, Mitch, Brian, Joe and Kevin. Asked them about their grades at St. Gabe's or Graham Elementary and four gents sparked up -"As & Bs" The biggest of the quintet, a red-headed freckled Bowery Boy escapee, was quiet. I asked, "How about you,pal?"

" I made the D Honor Roll!" remarked the future Leo Hall Fame inductee.

These guys will do fine. We had a nice crowd of test-taking Lions-to-be, mostly African American guys from the immediate neighborhoods, and several more Mexican American lads from Marquette Park and Scottsdale.

Last week it was reported that the Chicago Archdiocese Office of Catholic Schools reported the best enrollment in over forty years. That is news to celebrate, but briefly.

Other Catholic cities are not doing as well. My friend, lawyer and journalist, Christine Flowers posted a sobering report on the closings of Catholic Schools in Philadelphia, PA.

But, just as the secular fabric loosened, and families became less cohesive, so did the greater Catholic community. Sure, the vast majority of Philadelphia faithful continued to send their money and their kids to the Archdiocese, partly because they wanted to and partly because they had no other option. Private schools were too expensive or too far away (and too snotty), while public schools in the city started to get pretty dicey. I mean, we can talk all we want about Central and Masterman, but given the choice between a thwack on the fingers by a nun and a knife at the throat from a classmate, the choice was easy for most Catholic (and even non-Catholic) parents.

But a growing number of people decided that they'd prefer to spend their money elsewhere, even that relatively modest amount that the Archdiocese was asking for in tuition. And then you had the people who decided that the church didn't deserve their money because, as we all know, it was a haven for pedophiles, women-haters and homophobes. And there were always those who didn't want their kids brainwashed by the "religious kooks" and preferred to send their parents' grandchildren to nice secular places where they distribute condoms in the vending machines.

I hear you saying that it's not all a culture-war problem. That's true. It's a lack of common sense, from both God and Caesar. In making a complete and tragic mess of the abuse scandal, the church not only lost the moral high ground but made sure that the lawyers would start coming out with their claws unsheathed, ready to file lawsuits at the drop of a miter. You can't convince me that some of the schools targeted for closure couldn't have been saved if a million-dollar settlement hadn't already been paid out to Altar Boy Doe.

And the secular governments that are so obsessed with that wall between church and state, the one made of imaginary constitutional brick, heed the cries of the secularists and make sure to block vouchers at every possible turn. When you realize what the Catholic-school system saved the city in resources, you understand that the only reason it could have opposed vouchers was a suicidal fear of religious indoctrination.

It feels like a tidal wave has flooded Philadelphia, sweeping away generations of good things and cherished memories: my mom's alma mater, West Catholic; St. Hubert's, rock of the Northeast; Prendie and Bonner, in my own back yard.

I don't have any answers. Just tears.

When virtue disappears from the public, politicians can do exactly what they want. It is virtuous to give our children an education rooted in core values. Core values are important -even the government says so - this is from the National Park Service

What are Core Values?

The core values of an organization are those values we hold which form the foundation on which we perform work and conduct ourselves. We have an entire universe of values, but some of them are so primary, so important to us that through out the changes in society, government, politics, and technology they are STILL the core values we will abide by. In an ever-changing world, core values are constant. Core values are not descriptions of the work we do or the strategies we employ to accomplish our mission. The values underlie our work, how interact with each other, and which strategies we employ to fulfill our mission. The core values are the basic elements of how we go about our work. They are the practices we use (or should be using) every day in everything we do. ( emphasis my own)

CORE VALUES: Govern personal relationships
Guide business processes
Clarify who we are
Articulate what we stand for
Help explain why we do business the way we do
Guide us on how to teach
Inform us on how to reward
Guide us in making decisions
Underpin the whole organization
Require no external justification
Essential tenets

CORE VALUES ARE NOT:
Operating practices
Business strategies
Cultural norms
Competencies
Changed in response to market/ administration changes
Used individually

http://www.nps.gov/training/uc/whcv.htm

Catholic Schools have been successful because they stuck to core values -

To Know, Love, and Serve Jesus Christ
Perhaps it may be said that an even more foundational core value of the Catholic Church is to assist every one in the world - including we ourselves - to know, love, and serve Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, both in this life and in the next.

Great warning to Catholics, Christine.
Read more: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_are_the_core_values_of_Catholicism#ixzz1jjWXqAGa

Mossy Harrington Explains the G-8/Nato Summits

For the life of me, I can not understand the benefit of, much less the logic behind, Chicago's hosting both the G-8 and the NATO summits in this our international city by the Lake.

Everything is hush, hush, or back pedaling, be it funding the event, or controlling the fruitcakes.

Fortunately, I spoke with City Hall legend - go-fer and counsel - Maurice "Mossy" Harrington. Mossy was born in BallyMcElligott where he was a handball champion mistaken for Mossy Horrington who informed on IRA men in the 1940's. Mossy Harrington could not convince local Republicans that his visit to Manchester, GB had been to play handball and not warn British Intelligence of a bombing on the docks at Liverpool.

By the time that Mossy's innocence was verified by the 'RA universal, he had already buggered off to Canada and illegally crossed into the States arriving quietly in Chicago. When the smoke cleared on his character, Mossy plunged into a most active role in all things Chicago and sundry. Mossy never chewed his cabbage twice, nor needed to do so.

Mossy went to work for the Old 18th Ward and eventually secured a job as an elevator starter in City Hall. His ability to offer no opinion on anything led to a job in the Mayor's Office making himself indispensable to Mayors Byrne, Washington, Orr, Sawyer, and Richard M . . . himself.

I ran into Mossy at 6:45 AM Communion service at St Cajetan this past Monday morning.

I asked if he was enjoying the January weather. " Can't say. Won't say,so. 'Tis fine now, I suppose. . . . not that it won't turn sour given half the chance, so."

I asked if he watched the Patriots beat Denver, " I might have at that. I might have at that. Then again, I might have watched roller derby. Great sport that."

Warming to such rock-sold considerations on matter mundane I ventured further, "Mr. Harrington what do you think is behind the need to host teh G-8/Nato Summits here in Chicago."

" The truth is it? Like your man who sold his brother for a pipeful of 'baccy, I know a bit from the Hall."

Mossy offered the most conspiratorial raising of his wildly thick gray white eyebrows, which matched nicely with his tufts of equally thick nostril and ear coiffs, " I'll say this, though Pat, and not a word to another. so; and, here's the long and short of it - Mossy held forth

Well, now! There was one time a Frenchman below, who got married here and settled down and worked with the rest of us. One day we were outside in the trawler, and there was a French boat anchored a bit of a way off. "Come on," says Charley--that was his name--"and see can we get some brandy from that boat beyond." "How would we get brandy," says I, "when we've no fish, or meat, or cabbages or a thing at all to offer them?" He went down below then to see what he could get. At that time there were four men only working the trawler, and in the heavy season there were eight. Well, up he comes again and eight plates under his arm. "There are eight plates," says he, "and four will do us; so we'll take out the other four and make a swap with them for brandy." With that he set the eight plates on the deck and began walking up and down and looking on them.

'"The devil mend you," says I. "Will you take them up and come on, if you're coming?"

'"I will," says he, "surely. I'm choicing out the ones that have pictures on them, for it's that kind they do set store on?"'

Afterwards we began talking of boats that had been upset during the winter, and lives that had been lost in the neighbourhood.

'A while since,' said the local man, 'there were three men out in a canoe, and the sea rose on them. They tried to come in under the cliff but they couldn't come to land with the greatness of the waves that were breaking. There were two young men in the canoe, and another man was sixty, or near it. When the young men saw they couldn't bring in the canoe, they said they'd make a jump for the rocks, and let her go without them, if she must go. Then they pulled in on the next wave, and when they were close in the two young men jumped on to a rock, but the old man was too stiff, and he was washed back again in the canoe. It came on dark after that, and all thought he was drowned, and they held his wake in Dunquin. At that time there used to be a steamer going in and out trading in Valentia and Dingle and Cahirciveen, and when she came into Dingle, two or three days after, there was my man on board her, as hearty as a salmon. When he was washed back he got one of the oars, and kept her head to the wind; then the tide took him one bit and the wind took him another, and he wrought and he wrought till he was safe beyond in Valentia. Wasn't that a great wonder?' Then as he was ending his story we ran down into Dingle.

" Do you see, now, Pat?"

Like Stevie Wonder, Mr. Harrington.

"Good man yourself, Pat; Fodhlí Dea agus sábháilte sa bhaile."

Back at you, Mossy!

apologies to J.M. Synge

Portrait of Andy Thayer - Pan Pest and Utility Fruitcake

Chicago Sun Times reporter Kim Janssen does a complete work-up on one of Chicago's ubiquitous pests, who traditionally stays under scrutiny by the Chicago Media.

For the first time, that I can recall, a Chicago newsman has done a thorough work-up of the activities and the background on one of the Progressive Machine's utility loudmouths -Andy Thayer.

Mr. Thayer has been given more face and microphone time than Oprah Winfrey in the last couple of years, but like Hamas leader ISM's Kevin Clark, Radical PR mogul Marilyn Katz, the unctious and odius Bill Ayers &Bernardine Dohrn, police torture/abuse wildcatter G. Flint Taylor, and Thayer's employer Lawsuit Lotto Lawyer Jon Loevy, remains unanalyzed by our local news hounds.

Until today - Thayer prefers the fitted T-shirts, sensible glasses and neat haircut that befit a middle-aged gay man whose day job is office manager for the law firm Loevy & Loevy. He’s quick to agree that he’s only one of many organizers, and that G-8 NATO protestors will march for a plethora of causes, including an “Occupy” coalition that emphasizes collective action over individual leadership.

For all that, his whole life might have been building to this moment.

Raised in a small town in upstate New York by his father, who designed missile parts, and his mother, an activist who secretly helped Vietnam draft dodgers escape to Canada, he was a misfit from the start.

The Sun Times remains daffy at the editorial/columnist level, but is blessed with genuine news talent -Mark Konkol, Natasha Korecki, Tim Novak, Chris Fusco, Steve Metsch, and Abdon Pallasch. Chicagoans deserve to have the bullshit icing removed from the fruitcakes, sneaks, and bullies called activists. Let's get real, as Crown Heights Al Sharpton might say, in the fervent hope that it never actually gets real.

I hope that other journalists follow Kim Janssen's lead and give Chicago readers some insight into the people who play at Revolution and have been allowed to not only get away with crimes and misdemeanors, but manage to suck tax-dollars out of our pockets. It would be nice to see work ups on the goofballs and screw-ups trotted out at election time as "Ain't She Great/Ain't He Great" ballot choices. Look at the race between Dorothy Brown and Ricky Munoz as empirical evidence of that.

An informed public and electorate needs information, not propaganda.

Real Jazz for a Very Nice Day in Chicago.

ALLOW ME TO LEAD OFF WITH THIS -



"I'll Remember April" Jason Crawford: 8-string guitar



Errol Garner's "Misty" by the incomparable Keeley Smith



Ms. Ella Fitzgerald " I gotta right to Sing the Blues"



The Great Joe Willams -"Got Out My Life Woman"



Kitten V. Rottweiler. . .because I can. Skip irritating ad Asap.

More Cowbell! A Romney Victory in August; Obama Win in November

I must agree with John Kass in his very forthright and Chicago-savvy prediction that President Obama will win re-election in 2012. I vote primarily Democrat (locally)and but rarely for the GOP. I consider myself to be a conservative Catholic Democrat ( registered so)and vote for Real Labor (skilled trades and non-public sector labor) candidates with a track record.

For years, It has been my firm belief that the GOP ( local and national) is the Party That Blows Off Its Own Toes. They are best friends the DNC and Progressive Machine have in the world. They add, MORE COW BELL, to Barack Obama's Blue Oyster Cult!

Cowbell = Memes and Attacks -"Hateful, Islamaphobic, militarist, 1%-ers, Rich-lovers! Breeders!Homophobic, Divisive, Sexist, Racist, Sexist, Racist, cowbell, more cowbell!" AXELROD WALKEN - I GOTTA FEVER!!!!

Proof? Dan Proft is on WLS and not in Springfield.

The Illinois GOP could not 'get behind' Dan Proft because he is a bachelor. Instead, they allowed the unpainted furniture King of Bloomington/Normal and the man who makes the best ice cream in America suck the life out of the campaign.

With equal if not more self-loathing, the national GOP is going with our Bill Brady writ- large Mitt Romney.

President Obama is the same man he was when he was elevated to the purple by same Progressive Machine ( Democratic Party with a dash of Sen. Marque Kirque) that made the Woods Fund Activist and Hyde Park acolyte a State and United States Senator.
President Barack Obama will win re-election in 2012.

The reason he'll win?

He knows who he is. And the Republican politicians don't know who they are. They've forgotten what they're about, or perhaps like some isolated tribe, they've lost the language necessary to explain it to themselves.

Their voters know this and don't really believe them anymore.

And that's why Obama will win.

Only Rick Santorum could possibly beat President Obama, but only if he could withstand a public scourging not seen since Pilate ordered the cohort to give the carpenter's kid a tune-up.

LOTTSA COWBELL!!!!!!!!!!!

Rick Santorum is very much like my pal Dan Proft - he plays with five cards and the money boys play with six decks. Sarah Palin is a good person. I liked her. The worst thing that she did, as far I can see and that includes the Russian coast, was resigning as Governor. Other than that Ms. Palin was aces and worn down by the constant whippings from the likes of faux-thinkers Kathleen Parker, Christoper Buckley, David Brooks, Peggy Noonan and Steve Chapman who play in same sandbox as E.J. Dionne and the cast and crew at Saturday Night Live.

Abortion ( the full health package) and Gay (Civil Rights with less humor) issues are the COWBELL Cat-'o-nine-tails.

When President Obama visited Chicago, Pat Quinn, Dithering Dick Durbin and Lisa Madigan nudged their way into openly gay mega-million dollar ATM Fred Eychaner's open but expensive house party. I have no doubt that Pat Quinn's boss Terry Cosgrove nibbled cheese and quaffed some vino there as well.

The money goes only to suppliant hand-mavens and their public office mendicants. Rick Santorum is already getting scourged. MORE COWBELLS! IGOTTA FEVER FOR COWBELLS!

Mitt Romney is no different from the Illinois likes of Sen. Marque Kirque, Mike Quigley's new play pal. More so Mitt Romney is no differnt from the Bush Family which played nicely with the Chicago Progressive Machine.

In sum, it is up to individual voters -Catholic, Jewish, Protestant, Muslim, Atheist, Breeder, Gay (universal), to vote their hearts and minds.

Personally, I will vote for whomever runs against President Obama. I still feel that he is out of his depth. . .way out of his depth. So is Senator Marque Kirque, Mike Quigley, Deb Shore, Ricardo 'Rick' Munoz, Dorothy Brown, Sandy and Jesse Jackson, Dick Durbin, Jan Schakowsky, Sara Feigenholtz, Barbara Flynn-Currie, Toni Preckwinkle, Forrest Claypool ( anywhere), and so many, many, many more public plungers.

Don't forget, the same media and PR machines that gave us Roland Burris also created Blagojevich. Judy Baar Topinka anyone? Let's hear from the Greek again!

But Republicans smoke the opposite of Hopium. Their pipes are filled with Dopium.

One bowl of Dopium and you can listen to tough talk about budget cutting and deficits with one ear. And with the other ear, you can listen to talk of another war with Iran and why that's a good thing, and how we can't cut defense spending or the world is doomed.

If you tried doing this without Dopium, you'd go stark raving mad.

Sadly, since I belong to neither group, I've become hooked on another hideous substance: Kasshish.

It allows you to see reality and a bleak future.

And what I see is Obama winning in 2012.

Hopium and Cowbells Brother John!

Another chap, calling himself the Catholic Knight says this-

What we have right now is an entire section of the Republican Party (about 20%) that has rejected the status quo precedents set by previous GOP administrations and congresses. What we have is a political party that is now about 20% more 'libertarian' than it was just ten years ago. We have a party that is 20% more likely to embrace a non-interventionist approach to foreign policy. We have a party that is 20% more likely to want to abolish the Federal Reserve. We have a party that is 20% more likely to embrace states rights and decentralisation. This is why GOP icon Sarah Palin has warned Republicans not to alienate the Ron Paul supporters. For in alienating them, they risk the breakup of the Republican Party entirely. The only GOP candidate bringing in sizable numbers of young energetic voters right now is Ron Paul. It is clear, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that the future of the Republican Party is going to reflect Ron Paul's thinking a lot more than any other political candidate. Paul has made his mark on the GOP, and it is a mark that is here to stay, unless of course the GOP rejects it. If they do that however, the GOP rejects its future and consigns itself to a generation of irrelevance.

Tru Dat, Sir Knight! More Cow Bell!

http://www.chicagonewscoop.org/obamas-visit-cboe-ceos-shame-kass-v-brown/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=obamas-visit-cboe-ceos-shame-kass-v-brown

http://www.nbcchicago.com/blogs/ward-room/quinn-durbin-obama-fundraiser-eychaner-137151703.html

http://catholicknight.blogspot.com/