Baseball, Debt, Forgiving the Goons and Making Sense of the Goofy New World Order - Michaek Moriarty on Point

Wazzit Say? 

Sumpin aboud . . .Exercisin Yer Free Will . . .don't cost nutttin.

True ease in writing comes from art, not chance,
As those move easiest who have learned to dance.
'Tis not enough no harshness gives offense,
The sound must seem an echo to the sense: - Alexander Pope

 The measure the greatness of all other books against the greatest literary backdrop of all-time, the Bible, and I find with Joyce's Ulysses, the Bible doesn't even come close. If you're a writer, and you haven't read Ulysses, that fact is probably apparent in your writing  . . .
Joyce would have said as much. Joyce said a lot of things, such as: If Dublin was to be destroyed,Ulysses would be the book used to put it back together again. He said the same thing about the universe in accordance with Finnegans Wake.FW is a literary work that seems to have condensed time and space into a nutshell. Joyce also said of Ulysses: I'm writing a book to keep the scholars and professors guessing for centuries. That is the only way to ensure one's own immortality. Adam Michael Luebke

James Joyce is a tough read.  When a reader manages to get through with Dubliners, a collection of short-stories, the novel Portrait of the Artist as Young Man tosses up an offensive line of cultural tropes and references from Western Civilization that is as daunting as Jerry Kramer, Jim Otto, Fuzzy Thurston, Jim Ringo, Forrest Gregg and Bob Skoronski.  Those gents were the 1959-1963 Green Bay Packer offensive linemen - tough to get through.

Life is tough to get through.  James Joyce was said to have revolutionized literature - not really. Many, many, many ink-slingers are as thick with cross-references and dark conceits - Rabelais, Laurence Sterne, Jonathan Swift and Marcel Proust to name a few. Joyce, however,  could be as lucid and straightforward as a sportswriter when he chose to do so, or if the occasion demanded.

The more one brings to the blank paper, along with the standards of plain and truthful speaking, the richer the benefits for the writer's readers.    James Joyce brought music to his reader via the written word. Sound and Sense merged in a beautifully orchestrated and executed performance - Ulysses and Finnegan's Wake make the 1959-1963 Packers' offensive line seem like Mae Kennedy Kane Dancers *confronting Ragen's Colts with hangovers. Those are two obscure Chicago references for the energetic reader.

Ulysses offers this - Mr Leopold Bloom ate with relish the inner organs of beasts and fowls. He liked thick giblet soup, nutty gizzards, a stuffed roast heart, liver slices fried with crustcrumbs, fried hencod's roes. Most of all he liked grilled mutton kidneys which gave his palate a fine tang of faintly scented urine (55).

Is there anything left un-uttered? Ulysses is that Roman name for that Greek guy what wandered when he pissed off the gods and took a long time to get home to the Old Lady and the kid, right?  So, what's that got to do with Dublin on  16 June 1904?  Plenty.  That's the point.

Michael Moriarty writes much like James Joyce and brings a vast arsenal of culture to his prose.  This early morning before I could get to Kareem's Dunkin Donuts at 104th & Western, I was fully  caffeinated with the following offering by my pal Michael Moriarty.   Mr. Moriarty and I share a Jesuit education, a Catholic upbringing and Chicago roots.  We learned that First Principles based upon obligation to God as the foundation to living a good and happy life.  Without a sounding board, man is deaf.  If we refuse to hear the sound of the unborn child in mother's womb, what is the point of going to a symphony.

Michael Moriarty - read and listen:

THE NEW WORLD ORDER’S FIELD OF DREAMS
By Michael MoriartyAugust 7, 2012NewsWithViews.comMy grandfather, George Moriarty, first played for Chicago.No, he didn’t field for the Chicago White Sox, a team that eventually became known as the infamous Chicago Black Sox.He played for the Chicago Cubs. That baseball team hired my grandfather right off the sandlots of The Toddlin’ Town’s very, very tough and very, very Irish South Side.“Big George”, as we used to call him, then went on to play with the New York Highlanders – which later became the New York Yankees – and then he settled down for most of his playing career with the Detroit Tigers.There he became that team’s best third baseman … until George Kell, that is.My GrandfatherMy grandfather really couldn’t hit all that well. Never broke a seasonal .300.But what a base stealer!!Stole home more times in one season than anyone in baseball history … including Ty Cobb.Well, at least that’s what my father said he did.DON’T DIE ON THIRD!was written about him.The film, Gangs of New York, wasn’t all that different from gangs of Chicago.Tough.You had to know how to fight or you weren’t going to last long.You certainly couldn’t survive in the American Big League Anything if you batted under .300.Unless you knew how to protect the better hitters.I played a hockey “Goon” in television’s Deadliest Season. I was there on the ice to do nothing more than “intimidate.”Things get a little out of hand and my character kills another player on the ice.Bang The Drum Slowly was almost exactly the opposite message from my grandfather’s life and the lessons of The Deadliest Season: Protect the wounded and the infirm and you’ll build team spirit.Another baseball film, Field of Dreams, preaches a much more profoundly Liberal sermon than Bang The Drum Slowly.Field of Dreams is not only more palatably radical than any other American baseball film but more heart-warmingly revolutionary than any other American film in recent history.It basically echoes a breathtaking philosophic position that the writer Gary Wills offered us regarding the New Testament’s Judas:Gary Wills, another version of a Christian contradiction-in-terms, a Catholic Progressive – along with Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi – has been trying to canonize Judas for quite some time, exalt him as the most Christ-like of characters, this side of Christ Himself.Judas performed the job he had to perform and, therefore, he was doing God’s Will.“He was only doing his job!”Judas deserves to be honored for that.“A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do!”Okay.Kind of.Field of Dreams is a beautifully made film of forgiveness and reconciliation … for everyone.It is ultimately everyone’s field of dreams in everyone’s most childlike reveries.According to this film, we all, good-bad-or-indiffently-evil, end up in heaven, even every member of the undeniably but poignantly corrupt Chicago Black Sox.Okay.Kind of.There is still, however, the last, big time I noticed a dividing line between the good and the evil.Between, say Joseph Stalin and Winston Churchill.Then why did President Barack Hussein Obama send a gift from the Queen of England – a bust of Winston Churchill – why did he send that bust back to London?!And why did he promise Vladimir Putin of neo-Soviet Russia that he would be more “flexible” when he’s re-elected?Barack Obama must be a fan of something other than the World War II Free World.He’s not only a fan and booster but a major creator of what we now know of as “The Progressive New World Order.”Imagine a film wherein the victims of Stalinist oppression, relatives of the executed and worked to death, played soccer with Nikita Khrushchev?“All is forgiven!”Of course, a few cheating baseball players in Field of Dreams are hardly the Red Army.Dreams are the heart of an inevitably worldwide conflict; and since conflict is the heart of drama, let’s examine The Fields of Everyone’s Dreams.President Barack Hussein Obama dreams of a “fundamental transformation of the United States of America”.It’s all there in great detail within his tribute to his family, Dreams For My Father.Okay.He, however, is not the only one working on this.Guess what?The Progressive “New World Order” was most noticeably announced by George Bush Sr.A kinder gentler America” was,I believe,how Bush expressedhis own “field of dreams.”Eventually this New World Order just had to necessitate “the fundamental transformation of the United States of America.”What better way to begin it than by having George Bush Jr. put America into its biggest debt until, of course, Barack Hussein Obama showed up and tripled that same, record-breaking bankruptcy.Why?A Field of Dreams called the New World Order cannot be achieved without a “fundamental transformation of the United States.”What easier and simpler way to do that than by putting America into a debt that she cannot possibly extricate herself from?A field of dreams called The New World Order will take “strong medicine” in order to transform life on earth into the very heaven we experience in the filmField of Dreams.American debt is that “strong medicine”.Aside from suicidal, American debt, what is the main ingredient for creating The New World Order?Forgiveness.Apparently our feelings about the Soviet Union and Red China are the main obstacles to The New World Order’s Field of Dreams.We are in for the Obama Nation’s prolonged “teachable moment.”If we wholeheartedly forgive the Chicago Black Sox, put ourselves in heaven with them, then we can move on to forgiving the tyranny of Communism.After the revelations of America’s self-loathing, plus the opening punches to American self-respect in the patronizing brilliance of what I call “naïve genius,” the New World Order will keep America soft, warm and gooey withField of Dreams and Dreams For My Father until America welcomes her own death as a favor.I’m in Canada watching all this while rooting for the Tea Party and leadership such as Allen West. All of which are an embarrassingly painful minority.There is, however, the possibility of miracles.If such miracles don’t happen and the Obama Nation is reinstated by reelection, all of Canada had better start praying for her own miracles. My new homeland is much easier “pickings” than the former greatest nation of the Free World, the United States of America.Such death of individual freedom and responsibility is called “Progress”.With the virulently expanding death by legalized abortion and euthanasia, I call it The New World Order’s Fourth Reich.
What does that mean?The Progressively Digestible Survival of The Progressively Fittest.Until then, with the expanding control of Big Government over everything, we’ll be fed the palatable pap, the heart-warming, end-of-the-film suicide of James Earl Jones.
Perhaps never to return alive?His winningly and gently humorous dance into that heavenly field of corn?But only as a ghost of his former self?Death as merely an easily addictive field of dreams?The Western World’s Judeo-Christian culture, largely inspired by the ancient Greek and Roman civilizations?All to be melted away by a Progressively Marxist New World Order?Forgiveness for everyone?Including Judas, Mao and Joseph Stalin?When will that happen?When Hell freezes over and Heaven is a skating rink.© 2012 - Michael Moriarty - All Rights Reserved

* Mae Kennedy Kane 

Ragen's Colts - "Hit Me and You Hit 2,000". 



http://voices.yahoo.com/5-greatest-lines-james-joyces-ulysses-8361231.html?cat=9

http://newswithviews.com/Moriarty/michael133.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ragen's_Colts
http://www.irishamericannews.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2511:chicagos-first-family-of-irish-radio&catid=86:region
http://www.dom.edu/library/collections/kane-irish-books

Are These Thayers Kissin' Cousins? Andy and Spencer - Gotta Be The DNA

                           Thayer Younger is Spencer (up h'yar) seems an earnest and nasty little bit of business





Thayer Elder (over th'ar) is NATO Impressario and Chicago Utility Nutbag Andy " Smashing Knockers" Thayer!




Last week was Chick fil A Day Squared - Hundreds of thousands of people defended the First Amendment by purchasing fast-food all over the country and a day or two later scores (that's 20's and change) of perpetually put-out people smooched in protest and some became uglier than a boiled bald badger.

Right here in Chicago, a street preacher was insulted and mocked for his faith on the sidewalk near a Hipster-hood Chick fil A - The kid dressed like a Mormon without a bike is smarmy but polite. The real stary of the show is something else.

The following unedited version offered by Legal Insurrection's Anne Sorock ( who bought the beset upon gentleman lunch, God Love Her!):





The little prique in the bleeding Madras shirt and sporting a nattily trimmed beard is Spencer  " Thunderball" Thayer of Cop Watch and Occupy Chicago.

Spencer was the subject of one of my 2009, the dawn of Obama Values, posts:

Spencer wants Chicago to 'Bash Back!' Bash away Chicago!
Activist and Video Journalist SPENCER THAYER!
There is an Andy Thayer who works for Lawsuit Lotto Lawyer Jon Loevy - Andy Thayer is a Gay/Anti-War/Anti-Cop Activists who is as prominent in publicity for social activism issues as the Caveman in Insurance ads. I gotta wonder if Spencer Thayer is any relation to Andy Thayer who works for Jon Loevy who sues the Chicago Police weekly - following a Sun Timesstory or stories.
That's just the old close-knit ethnic south side of me - shucks, we think everyone is a cousin! Aren't they though?

The Thayer Tribe can't all be publicity addicted pests.  If so, that  Thayer DNA and them dilating pupils must be something to behold.

Thank you Anne Sorock and Legal Insurrection.com

 http://hickeysite.blogspot.com/2009/02/spencer-thayer-your-you-tube-police.html

http://legalinsurrection.com/2012/08/occupy-chicago-activist-claims-to-be-person-taunting-homeless-man-at-chick-fil-a-protest/

Celebrate the Last Rose of Summer -Terry Sullivan and the Chicago Jazz Caravan at 12 West Elm this Sunday -3:00 PM

CHICAGO JAZZ CARAVAN

with vocalist Terry Sullivan

Sunday, August 12, 2012

3:00 pm

TWELVEWEST nightclub

12 West Elm, Chicago

Admission $10

Limited seating; reservations recommended

at 312/337-3200 or www.12westelm.com

Dress: business casual or better

                                                           

The CHICAGO JAZZ CARAVAN

is a roving ensemble of some of

Chicago’s most seasoned jazz musicians,

performing music reminiscent of

New York jazz supper clubs of the ‘fifties.

Personnel:

Tom Muellner, piano        

Larry Kohut, bass     Terry Sullivan, vocals

TWELVEWEST is Chicago ’s

sophisticated new gold coast nightclub.

David Axelrod Explains Why Romney Can't Win

Mitt Romney belongs to the category of GOP politicians that I call 'tasseled loafer' Republicans.  They tend to be nice enough people, as far as I can tell.  I don't run into many, if the truth be told.  They are folks like Speaker John Boehner, or closer to home here in Chicago, DuPage County Republican types, of the failed gubernatorial candidates Bill Brady, Jim Oberweiss and that other guy . . . what's his name?  Most of these folks have the personality of dial tones and excite the imaginations of of people like the fabled offer of an ALL YOU CAN EAT Melba Toast Buffet.

That said, I find these folks far less repellent than the successfully artful Progressive ophidians who dominate the Democratic Party Nationally, Statewide and locally.

Watch here as David Axelrod gives a tutorial on how exactly Obama will be re-elected in a land-slide:


Make sense to you? Of course not and it is not supposed to . . .Dave Axelrod tosses word salads and even Fox eats it up, without question.

Death by a Thousand UnAnswered Cuts-  that is  David Axelrod's modusoperandi. Mitt Romeny, like every tasseled -loafer GOP hopeful requires the help of an urban ethnic Democrat Ward healing cut-throat adviser - A Tammany baptized, unfiltered voice of practical political wit and wisdom to slap the back of his head everytime he tries to take the high-road to low-road set-ups by media or political surrogates

• Mitt, go for her nuts, when asked a question about Mrs. Romney's equestrian back therapy by Rachel Maddow - "Well, you want your wife to be healthy would you not spare no expense, Rachel?"
• Mitt, go Harry Reid, when asked about coughing up tax returns - " You know, I was talking to a top White House source only yesterday, and he told me that Eric Holder had set up a string of used gun shops from Brownsville, Texas to Baja, CA . . . Hey, I'm just sayin' "
• Mitt, go Desiree Rogers, when asked about Valerie Jarrett running the Obama White House - " You know, one day your BFF gets her Knockers in a Knot and the next it is some other babe's bazongas . . .that's brand Obama.  Hey, did Desiree crash that wedding afterall, Hey, I'm just sayin'"

Such counsel might make Mitt more palatable to folks who read only the New York Times, religiously, and watch only the PBS Nightly News with Judy Woodruff and Gwen Eyeful, as well as the guys who put busted-up chairs out in their freshly shoveled parking places and women who shop at Save Lots. I expect that Mitt Romney will pick a VP cut exactly to specifications of the Obama Campaign 2012 - a Tim Pawlenty  ( Mn), or Rob Portman (OH). He should pick someone like Governor Bobby Jindal, or Gov. Chris Christies, or Col. Allen West.  I don't see it.  Mitt will get my vote, because the alternative is repellent to me anyway.  I doubt if that will be anywhere near enough.  Mitt Romney will be willing victim until his concession speech early on the night of November 6th, 2012; after that . . .hold the phone, citizens!

Ronald Reagan was a good-looking guy with lots of dough who rode horses and never wore tasseled loafers.  Reagan was a Democrat, understood Democrats, and could never get trapped into skipping down a rhetorical blind alley by punks from Evanston, Winnetka, or Hollywood.

Transcript -

But, first, the presidential campaign battle over how to get Americans back to work. Joining us now from Chicago, David Axelrod, senior adviser to the Obama campaign.

And, David, welcome back to "Fox News Sunday."

DAVID AXELRORD, OBAMA CAMPAIGN SENIOR ADVISER: Thanks, Chris.

WALLACE: Let's start with the latest jobs numbers. The economy created 163,000 jobs in July but unemployment rate rose from 8.2 percent to 8.3 percent. Let's put that into some context. More than 23 million Americans are now unemployed, have given up looking for work, or are working fewer hours than they would like, and 5 million have been out of work more than six months.

Given that fixing the economy was number job one -- why does President Obama deserve reelection given that record?

AXELROD: Well, first of all, Chris, let's put this in perspective. In the six months before the president took office, we lost 4 million jobs. The economy was shrinking at 8.9 percent in the quarter before he took office. We lost 800,000 jobs the month that he took office.

The hole that was created is huge and we're going to fill it. But in last 29 months, we've had 29 straight months of private sector job growth, 4.5 million jobs created. In this last report, 173,000 private sector jobs created, led by the auto industry and manufacturing, that would be in a depression but for the president's intervention -- something Governor Romney opposed.

So, we've got a lot of work to do. The two sectors, by the way, that lagged were construction and education. The president has been urging Congress since last fall to pass his bill that would invigorate those sectors, and that would help. But we have a lot of work to do.

And the real question for voters is going to be, what is the choice on the other side? This week, we learned that Governor Mitt Romney's tax plans would raise taxes for the wealthy -- would cut taxes for the wealthy, a windfall for the wealthy and raise taxes by $2,000 on the middle class. That's not a prescription for getting our economy moving or rebuilding the middle class.

WALLACE: But, David, didn't this White House badly misjudge this recovery? I remember in 2010, two summers ago, you and Vice President Biden were running around, talking about recovery summer. That was the summer of 2010.

And the fact is that your White House said that if you got the stimulus, that $800 billion, that unemployment would stay under 8 percent. In fact with the stimulus, unemployment has stayed over 8 percent for the last 42 months, that's 3 1/2 years.

AXELROD: Chris, first of all, I wasn't running around saying anything that other than we were going to be persistent, that it took years to get into this mess, it was going to take years to get --

(CROSSTALK)

WALLACE: You talked about recovery summer in 2010.

AXELROD: Well, you should show me the tape of me saying that. I have been very consistent about the fact we need to be persistent in our effort.

But we can't do is go back to the -- you know, Moody's analyzed Governor Mitt Romney's plan to the degree you can because there aren't enough specifics to actually score it. And what they said was his plan would actually throw us back ward and might tip us back in a recession because it would ratchet down the things we need to keep the economy growing. So, people are going to have a real choice.

WALLACE: If I may --

AXELROD: Do we think -- do we think that raising taxes is the way to get this economy moving? Do we think cutting education by 25 percent is the way to get this economy moving, research that creates innovation and technology? I don't think most Americans agree with that.

WALLACE: But, David, you talk about Romney. I am asking you about the Obama record and the fact is unemployment has been over 8 percent for 42 months, which is 3 1/2 years.

AXELROD: There's no doubt about it, Chris. There's no doubt -- we have faced an economic crisis that goes back -- you'd have to go back to the Great Depression to see a crisis like the one we walked into in 2009. And as we said then and as I say now, the hole was tremendous. We have to be persistent in moving forward. There are more things we can do. We wish Congress would act on them. There are more things we can do.

But we can't do is go back. And the reason I keep bringing up Governor Romney, Chris, is because people are faced with a choice. They need to know -- they need to make a decision as to whether going back to the last policies is going to get us to where we need to go.

WALLACE: All right.

AXELROD: I think most people don't believe that.

WALLACE: All right. Well, let's talk about the choice, because I think you would say, you would agree that the biggest policy difference right now between President Obama -- there are a bunch. But the biggest policy difference right now between President Obama and Governor Romney is on taxes. Romney wants to extend all the Bush tax cuts for everyone, the president says no, extend them only for people making less than $250,000.

But back in 2010, President Obama opposed raising taxes on the wealthy because he said the economy was too fragile. Let's take a look at what the president said back then.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Potentially, you'd see a lot of folks are losing business, more folks potentially losing jobs. That would be a mistake when the economy has not fully taken off.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/fox-news-sunday/2012/08/05/david-axelrod-defends-obamas-handling-economy-ted-cruz-pulls-texas-sized-upset#ixzz22n60Ib73

Morgan Park's Eddie Carroll Roofing to Scale Mt. Everest

Carroll Roofing & Construction
10912 South Western Avenue Chicago, IL 60643‎

Edit details

(773) 445-5756

The above is a basic sketch for Eddie Carroll Roofing & Construction Mt. Everest Climb fleshed out by Master Sherpa and engineer Framin' Eamon Cosgrove for the trip up Everest's south face.

Having topped the summits of Mount Greenwood, ( Georgians, Cape Cods, Raised Ranches and the odd Chicago Bungalo) philosopher, roofer, gad-about, swordsman, Big band leader  and adventurer, Eddie Carroll will dominate the top of the world, Ma!

Carroll Roofing and Construction - the surname of quality and Old World craftsmanship ( "I hire only DPs") - will soon best the name of Hillary, not the long suffering Mrs. Clinton, but Sir Edmund the Kiwi Rock Jock. Like Sir Edmund, Citizen Eddie will take the much tested south ridge route from Nepal.

I asked the raffish adventurer what possessed him to assault the 24,000 + ' summit and he cocked an eyebrow and rejoined, " I like it on top, Patrick, my boy; I like it on top."

I had expected nothing less.

To continue, I mentioned the perilous 1996 expeditions that ended in the deaths sixteen persons, but Mr. Carroll was not nonplussed.  He's often not nonplussed. Conturbent me Non Nihil! -(Perplex Me Not With Nothing!) should be Eddie Carroll's family crest.  I, on the hand. am nonplussed enough for everyone, let alone anyone.

Mr. Carroll continued to wax practical, "I'm using scaffolding . . .lots and lots of scaffolding . . . Pat, I take safety as seriously as President Obama takes his oath of office, maybe more so.   Look, if you skimp on costs in material quality, customers will skedaddle pronto . . .not to mention funeral. . . .well, burial anyway, maybe not the whole Bob Sheehy, but certainly the burial . . . expenses for the husky immigrants going up with a load of lumber, or shingles. No, Sir, I am scaffolding my way up Everest on Badger Quality*!"

God Speed, Eddie Carroll!!!!!!!!!!!

* Badger Ladder and Scaffolding -

1-5/8", 5' x 6'7"Steel Tube Scaffolding

The Outside Diameter of this frame scaffolding is 1 5/8". This high quality steel frame scaffolding is built tough to handle the demands of your work load. Fast Lock, lock system to help decrease assemble and disassembly time. Coupling Pin with NO collar included. The LF6R Scaffold Package is Painted Red. Each One of these Scaffold Packages Include: (2) 5' x 6'7" Steel Frames (2) 7' Cross Braces (4) Stacking Pins

Item # CROSS BRACE OPTION Price Qty LF6R 7' $145.00 LF6R-10 10' $159.00

http://www.badgerladder.com/index.aspx

Catholic Bishops Conference Pastoral Nails Assault on American Religious Liberty

 Francis Cardinal George Our Great Shepherd -with Leo Board Member Tamara Holder and the Leo Guys -Bobby Sheehy, Bill Hessian

I remain a Roman Catholic in America for the exact same reasons that I wake up at 3 A.M. and look in on my kids even though two are adults and the youngest seventeen, pray the Memorare and the Novena of the Little Flower on my knees an hour and a half later, read as much as I can, write about what I have read or thought about, try to do a few laps on the Rosary looking for all the world to be playing Master's Level pocket pool while waiting at Dunkin Donuts for Miss Lou, Kim and her daughter Kameron.  Lou takes Kameron to Day Care for Kim while Kim works at U of I Med Center in the cafeteria. I take Kim to the terminal at 79th & Western, as it is on my way to Leo High School.

Kim is a single mom with two daughters. The elder girl is nineteen and ebony goddess Kameron is eight years old with designs on capturing America's heart on the Disney Channel.  I was easy.  Kim works a brutal day preparing salads for the Medical staff at U of I ChicagoMed Center.  Last year, I began driving Kim and spending real quality time with these three African American women, along with the cops, firemen, skilled tradesmen, City of Chicago white collar folks, nurses and cousins at Kareem's Dunkin Donuts.

These tasks, like my prayer ritual, are part of me.  I was taught to pray and then forgot how, until times of trouble or when I had managed to piss off every carbon foot-print within my five mile radius.  Prayer is not only a public ritual, but should be a reflexive action that underlies our waking hours and balms our sleep.

Being Irish, I am embarrassed to make a public display of prayer - that kiss of Peace at Mass ( 'Peace Be with You!' - Uh-huh, thanks. Back at you.) really tossed Irish Americans into a spiral. Some of the more pious took to it like duck's to Cheetos and evolved into the folks who extend arms with palms up like ad hoc Melchizedeks  I belong to a subsection of Irish Catholic America that winces when publicly hugged, touched, or complimented. I like traditional prayers and go absolutely Bat Guano when Catholic educators begin every Goddam meeting with the distribution of xeroxed copies of personal prayers to be read out loud.  We got plenty good prayers, but we insist on being the center of the show with a presentation of badly formed words and phrases - "Dear God, the sexually ambiguous Trinity, bless our actions this day as we bring about an end to universal poverty, racism, torture with this day's breaking into groups for discussion and sharing and all kinds of passive aggressive gamesmanship . . .!"

Prayers get answered in God's own manner and with his own brand of theological larceny - "Hickey, the door to back . . .right is open and you already signed in . . .pull a Murphy . . .let Dan know . . . there, see behind the faculty from St. Benedict's?  Yes, the doors with exit sign . . . Really, how do you get a fork to your mouth without mutilating yourself?  Now, you guys go . . .clear the exit to parking lot . . .wait for the signal  . . .  the command for heads to drop in Humble supplication . . .Go!"

I am proud on my Church and more than proud to find a pew in the back and off to side at Mass on Sunday and a few days of the week.  For the last twenty or thirty years, Catholics have been goaded into becoming Unitarians - Let's call Blessed Virgin Mary Hospital - All Faiths Health Services!  No, let's not.  Most of the kids at Leo High School are non-Catholic, but they all take Catholic instruction and attend Catholic Mass.  Leo High School prays every day, because it is Catholic.

The American Catholic Church in America and every other faith is under attack.  The new Pastoral by the American Catholic Bishops clearly road-map the paths to the situation and identify assaults. In subsection of this pastoral the government handcuffs on religious liberty are here -

Our First, Most Cherished Liberty: 

A Statement on Religious Liberty

pdf version

to order copies

United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
Ad Hoc Committee for Religious Liberty

Religious Liberty Under Attack—Concrete Examples

Is our most cherished freedom truly under threat? Sadly, it is. This is not a theological or legal dispute without real world consequences. Consider the following:

• HHS mandate for contraception, sterilization, and abortion-inducing drugs.The mandate of the Department of Health and Human Services has received wide attention and has been met with our vigorous and united opposition. In an unprecedented way, the federal government will both force religious institutions to facilitate and fund a product contrary to their own moral teaching and purport to define which religious institutions are "religious enough" to merit protection of their religious liberty. These features of the "preventive services" mandate amount to an unjust law. As Archbishop-designate William Lori of Baltimore, Chairman of the Ad Hoc Committee for Religious Liberty, testified to Congress: "This is not a matter of whether contraception may beprohibited by the government. This is not even a matter of whether contraception may be supported by the government. Instead, it is a matter of whether religious people and institutions may be forced by the government to provide coverage for contraception or sterilization, even if that violates their religious beliefs."3
• State immigration laws. Several states have recently passed laws that forbid what the government deems "harboring" of undocumented immigrants—and what the Church deems Christian charity and pastoral care to those immigrants. Perhaps the most egregious of these is in Alabama, where the Catholic bishops, in cooperation with the Episcopal and Methodist bishops of Alabama, filed suit against the law:
  

   It is with sadness that we brought this legal action but with a deep sense that we, as people of faith, have no choice but to defend the right to the free exercise of religion granted to us as citizens of Alabama. . . . The law makes illegal the exercise of our Christian religion which we, as citizens of Alabama, have a right to follow. The law prohibits almost everything which would assist an undocumented immigrant or encourage an undocumented immigrant to live in Alabama. This new Alabama law makes it illegal for a Catholic priest to baptize, hear the confession of, celebrate the anointing of the sick with, or preach the word of God to, an undocumented immigrant. Nor can we encourage them to attend Mass or give them a ride to Mass. It is illegal to allow them to attend adult scripture study groups, or attend CCD or Sunday school classes. It is illegal for the clergy to counsel them in times of difficulty or in preparation for marriage. It is illegal for them to come to Alcoholic Anonymous meetings or other recovery groups at our churches.4

• Altering Church structure and governance. In 2009, the Judiciary Committee of the Connecticut Legislature proposed a bill that would have forced Catholic parishes to be restructured according to a congregational model, recalling the trusteeism controversy of the early nineteenth century, and prefiguring the federal government's attempts to redefine for the Church "religious minister" and "religious employer" in the years since.
• Christian students on campus.In its over-100-year history, the University of California Hastings College of Law has denied student organization status to only one group, the Christian Legal Society, because it required its leaders to be Christian and to abstain from sexual activity outside of marriage.
• Catholic foster care and adoption services. Boston, San Francisco, the District of Columbia, and the state of Illinois have driven local Catholic Charities out of the business of providing adoption or foster care services—by revoking their licenses, by ending their government contracts, or both—because those Charities refused to place children with same-sex couples or unmarried opposite-sex couples who cohabit.
• Discrimination against small church congregations. New York City enacted a rule that barred the Bronx Household of Faith and sixty other churches from renting public schools on weekends for worship services even though non-religious groups could rent the same schools for scores of other uses. While this would not frequently affect Catholic parishes, which generally own their own buildings, it would be devastating to many smaller congregations. It is a simple case of discrimination against religious believers.
• Discrimination against Catholic humanitarian services. Notwithstanding years of excellent performance by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops' Migration and Refugee Services in administering contract services for victims of human trafficking, the federal government changed its contract specifications to require us to provide or refer for contraceptive and abortion services in violation of Catholic teaching. Religious institutions should not be disqualified from a government contract based on religious belief, and they do not somehow lose their religious identity or liberty upon entering such contracts. And yet a federal court in Massachusetts, turning religious liberty on its head, has since declared that such a disqualification is required by the First Amendment—that the government somehow violates religious liberty by allowing Catholic organizations to participate in contracts in a manner consistent with their beliefs on contraception and abortion.

Here in Chicago, the two daily newspapers fully ignored Francis Cardinal George's statement on Rahm's Chicago Values.  It is not about the chicken sandwiches at all.  The media wants the Catholic Church in Chicago to obey the meme text maxim -STFU -What about the pedophile scandal?  What about it?  What has not been said, or done about it?    The media washed the homosexuality of the scandal right out of the issue and turned its guns on administration.  The pedophile priests weren't looking for Bachelor and the Bobby-Sox-er dates. It was and remains overwhelmingly Man on Boy predation.

 Our politicians have all been bought by Planned Parenthood and "baptized Catholic altar boys" like Alderman Proco Joe Moreno do its bidding.  Gay Marriage is an adjunct of the abortion industry. The media, never friends of Catholics, cares more about an interview with Governor Pat Quinn than with the leader of one of the largest Catholic populations in America. Chicago's President announced no compromise on contraception and abortion mandates - how about that Pat Quinn, Dick Durbin and the balance of the Illinois Personal PAC elected serfs?

I am a Catholic and I pray everyday -thoughts, words and, I hope, deeds.

Alderman Proco "Joe" Moreno Calls Cardinal George Remarks " Ingenuous and Irresponsible."

“The Bible says many things,” Moreno said. “For the cardinal to say that Jesus believes in this, and therefore we all must believe in this, I think is just ingenuous and irresponsible. The God I believe in is one about equal rights, and to not give equal rights to those that want to marry, is in my opinion un-Christian.”

Candid, frank, guileless, without cant and yet irresponsible?  Say it it ain't so Proco-Joe.


Candidly, Proco Joe, I believe that Mayor Rahm twisted your ear like Kesley Grammer did to that Hispanic Alderman in last season's Boss on Starz ( New Season Begins August 17 on Starz -catch Chicago actor Tony Mockus as Kesey's Father-in-Law!) and said, " Proco Joe, prove your fealty, and go out and test the Gay waters for me - send Chick-fil-A a dead fish . . .Don't make me come into your shower!"  No Alderman goes off on his own hook . . .not in decades.


Proco Joe is wriggling on the pike and Chick-fil-A is frying up a storm.




"The Bible says many things " and the dictionary has many words.  Chicago's Alderman Proco "Joe" Moreno said a mouthful there; no doubt he needed to immediately sit down and catch his breath following such vigorous display of intellectual dexterity and rhetorical exertion.The Ghost (Rahm) had Mr. Chick-fil-A gallop gamely to the finish line with this -

Moreno also called the cardinal’s reference in the blog to a fictional Council Committee on Un-Chicagoan Activities “hyperbole and rhetoric.”
Moreno noted the church scandal surrounding pedophilia among priests, questioning George’s right to the “moral high ground on equal rights.”
Moreno, who has called gay marriage the civil rights issue of our time, also said the mayor and he are not trying to force their values on anyone, but rather to ensure equal rights. (emphases my own-natualment)

Pretty Ingenuous yourself, there, Proco! You know, candid, frank, honorable, noble & etc. Did you mention that there had been a pedophile scandal? Oh Yes.  But, of course, That's So, 1990s Proco Joe - unbefitting of the above postered beefcake-punk rock-theologian and one might find that last bit rather irresponsible for an American elected official to condemn a churchman for defending his church - This Ain't Your Daddy's Political Party notwithstanding. Well, First Ward First; now, to that Bible.


That Bible says a lot of stuff - Lot for example.Lot was the guy who defended God's angels from be gang-banged by the lads of the Boystown of the Central Plains -Sodom.  God, according to the Genesis account, was determined to destroy Sodom and its suburb.  God told Abraham "find 50 just men." Abraham, the old desert haggler, tried to gyp God down successively. . . " 40, 30, 20, 15 15 & 1/2 . . .10?"


Lot was it. He was a Breeder and had big family. 


"No Dice, Clay, " God said to Abraham, but I'll help get Lot out of this coming jackpot."  God sent two angels to help Lot and the wife and kids

Genesis 19:1 ¶ And there came two angels to Sodom at even; and Lot sat in the gate of Sodom: and Lot seeing them rose up to meet them; and he bowed himself with his face toward the ground;² And he said, Behold now, my lords, turn in, I pray you, into your servant's house, and tarry all night, and wash your feet, and ye shall rise up early, and go on your ways. And they said, Nay; but we will abide in the street all night.³ And he pressed upon them greatly; and they turned in unto him, and entered into his house; and he made them a feast, and did bake unleavened bread, and they did eat.

Here's where it gets problematic with regard to sexual preference.  Lot had two handsome gents as his guests and the neighbors wanted to "know" them - Knowing causes choice or coercion. Know in the Bible means to have marital relations - between man and woman.  However, the gents of Sodom and its suburb, took a far less natural approach to the requisite act of natural selection*. They stormed Lot's door -


6. Calling out to Lot they said, 'Where are the men who came to you tonight? Send them out to us so that    we can have intercourse with them.'

7 Lot said, 'Please, brothers, do not be wicked.

8 Look, I have two daughters who are virgins. I am ready to send them out to you, for you to treat as you please, but do nothing to these men since they are now under the protection of my roof.'

9 But they retorted, 'Stand back! This fellow came here as a foreigner, and now he wants to play the judge. Now we shall treat you worse than them.' Then they forced Lot back and moved forward to break down the door.

That was it! So much for Chicago Values in Sodom.


The God of the Phoenicians ( in the Bible the Moabites and all those folks; Philistines and such) Astarte was a sexually ambiguous deity of pan sexuality and human sacrifice. Them folks in Tyre and Sidon and Biblus and especially the sensitive and civil rights conscious folks of Sodom along the eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea worship up a storm and tried to force other folks to accept Sodom, Tyre, Sidon and Biblus Values.  Didn't take.


Nope, a barbered blind man breeder pulled a whole temple to Ashtarte ( Baal -whatever) down around their noggins. These were pretty much the last of the sexually ambiguous folks who eschewed Old Time Chick-fil-A.


Earlier, some sort of 'natural occurrence wiped out the 13 cities of the plain around Sodom. The Koran, the Torah as well as the Bible mention the calamity and so do the secularist Greeks, who by the way did not make a religion out of preference -Spartans notwithstanding, because they didn't get along with anybody.  Greek geographer Strabo states - "there were once thirteen inhabited cities in that region of which Sodom was the metropolis". Strabo identifies a limestone and salt hill at the south western tip of the Dead Sea, and Kharbet Usdum ruins nearby as the site of biblical Sodom."


Proco Joe you are free to believe in "The God I believe in is one about equal rights" Knock yourself out!


Francis Cardinal George is, as you so correctly state INGENUOUS, but he is no way irresponsible.  In fact, Cardinal George pretty much presented the view of most people of faith.   So are we ingenuous.  

* Natural selection is the gradual, non-random, process by which biological traitsbecome either more or less common in a population as a function of differential reproduction of their bearers. It is a key mechanism of evolution. The term "natural selection" was popularized by Charles Darwin who intended it to be compared withartificial selection, what we now call selective breeding.

http://www.catholic.org/bible/book.php?id=1&bible_chapter=19
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/chi-cardinal-blasts-city-government-over-chickfila-opposition-20120801,0,3109917.story
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodom_and_Gomorrah
http://penelope.uchicago.edu/thayer/e/roman/texts/strabo/16b*.html
 http://www.catholic.org/bible/book.php?id=1&bible_chapter=19