Skilled Trades Unions Give to Rahm: Folly

“folly…that is, the pursuit of policy contrary to the self-interest of the constituency or state involved,” Barbara Tuchman from The March of Folly

Firefighters, union electricians, tradesmen...the very people Rahm has been campaigning against publicly for years. There's also a list of out-of-state financiers, bankers, and other big money types looking at RAhm's national ambitions - like maybe Kirk's Senate seat. Second City Cop

Just imagine if Rahm put this much effort into raising money for the pension balloon payment - we'd be sitting pretty.


Filtered through a dependable Media myna bird, Rahm Emanuel will announce more support for his mayoral re-set from Skilled Trades Unions:

• International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (representing two locals)
• Laborers District Council (represents eight locals)
• International Union of Operating Engineers (represents two locals)
• Ironworkers District Council (representing three locals)
• Painters District Council 14 (representing 13 locals) 

Rahm is anathema to public sector unions, but he is no Scott Walker - he is a nastier Bruce Rauner, who is no stranger to nasty.


The public salaried 'unions' are backing Jesus 'Chuy' Garcia and they are remarkable because of the numbers.

Rahm has cur a deal with 'real labor' - trades that actually earn their salaries and benefits, through sweat equity, personal sacrifice and contract negotiation.

Public sector employees depend up later-day Trotskies and Jesse Sharkey, who writes the script for the Teachers Union and retired Weathermen like Mike Klonsky.  These Cadillac Commies share brie with the likes of Progressive Mandarins in Hyde Park and Evanston, like Dr. Quentin Young and Abner Mikva, followed by vigorous policy bullying of National Honor Society/Phi Beta Kappa Gold Key ink slingers and news readers of the Chicago media and then bulldoze legislation to give teachers, clerks and go-fers in government employ more money in salary, pension and medical bennies than Lotto player could ever dream of - and call it Labor.

The Skilled Trades are the middle class, because they built the middle class in America, when teachers, clerks and bureaucratic go-fers crossed theor picket lines from the 1920's through the 1960's. Add  globs of John Dewey mis-education for decades and pour on rhetorical bullshit seven days a week in the media and Chicago voters accept SEIU, CTU, AFSCME as children from Terrence Powderly and Sam Gompers. Voila!

I became aware that Rahm was gioing to play Middle Class Hold 'Em early this fall when a massive billboard went up on the Dan Ryan Expressway on the south east corner of 79th Street. I see it every morning as I drive a van load of Leo HS students to school - big as a The Big Lie.

N.B. Try and find an image of that sign on Google!

Anyway.  Rahm Emanuel, like every Progressive, hates the middle class down to the marrow. Rahm hates Catholic (private -non Chicago Lab) schools, parking spaces, streets without bike lanes, neighborhoods and the people who live in them.

Plumbers, pipe-fitters, pipe-coverers, electricians, laborers, carpenters, firemen, machinists and teamsters live in Gresham, Mount Greenwood, Portage Park, Garfield Ridge, Canaryville, Back of the Yards, Pilsen, and over by Midway.

I would never tell anyone for whom she/he should vote. Never have.  Me, I have made the mistake of voting for people like Dick Durbin, Pat Quinn and others who pretend to be my friend, but work to destroy the values and prosperity of my  middle class standard of living.  Rahm Emanuel makes Durbin and Quinn seem like nice, straight-forward gents.

I am just a school teacher and a pretty good one.  I know my trade, because I work at it - just like a pipefitter.

I read much and remember more.  Barbara Tuchman wrote a book on stupid decisions in history that were based upon foolish self-interest. I taught that book.  Tuchman details the lust for power that operates the motives of a Priam, a Pope Sixtus, A George III and a Rahm Emanuel, "Chief among the forces affecting political folly is lust for power, named by Tacitus as "the most flagrant of all passions.”  Power for the sake of agenda, usually Progressive these days, gives us Thug Comfort Zones, Massive Water Bills, Red Light Cameras, Lousy Schools in Perpetuity, Higher Property Taxes, Diminished Savings and less opportunity.

Tuchman elaborates, “A phenomenon noticeable throughout history regardless of place or period is the pursuit by governments of policies contrary to their own interests. Mankind, it seems, makes a poorer performance of government than of almost any other human activity. In this sphere, wisdom, which may be defined as the exercise of judgment acting on experience, common sense and available information, is less operative and more frustrated than it should be. Why do holders of high office so often act contrary to the way reason points and enlightened self-interest suggests? Why does intelligent mental process seem so often not to function?”


Finally she warns, like Cassandra herself, about our massive memory loss, “The attitude was a sense of superiority so dense as to be impenetrable. A feeling of this kind leads to ignorance of the world and of others because it suppresses curiosity.”
 

Old Coon Eyes is Back!

I have been a selfish man.

All of my thoughts, words and deeds for last several weeks have been about

• Raising more money for the guys attending Leo
• Getting the bus started
• Dealing with the huge horn grwoing out of the left side of my schnoze
• Praying for some really suffering people, kids with cancer and Chicago's Iron Man Great Shepherd -Francis Cardinal George
• Salting the walkways
• Finding a someone to cover my bus driving duties next week when I get my beak clipped
• Worrying about my motives in all things
• Worrying about my limitations
• Worrying that if I do go to see American Sniper, which I probably will not, because the my lady frined cringes about the violence on Dora the Explorer and shuddered like my hard wood floors when the CXO passes my house, all through UnBroke, will I be required to attend Tea Party rallies
• Worrying that, somehow, I have made Speaker John Boehner cry . . .

That is until, I unstuffed my mail box yesterday.

I had not gone to the mail box since last Thursday and Lowe and 35th St. there was a huge wad of Rahm Emanuel campaign flyers addressed to me, Patrick F..Hickey.

 

In all of my desultory worry and desperate acts of do-good rooted in my south side Catholic guilt-trippy being, I had totally forgotten our Random Mayor - Mayor Coon Eyes.

His adds reminded me of just what a warm, caring, 9.5 fingered neighborhood guy Rahm Emanuel happens to be. - I had forgotten all of that after I read my current bi-annual Water Bill that reads like a 2015 Lexus payment.  That made me forget that Rahn made bike lanes where people never cycle, gave Forrest Claypool another public teat - CTA,  voided more parking space, gelded the City Council like an Iowa hog farmer, made pot-holes last longer than an Alaska night and silenced more critics than Barbra Streisand during change of life.

The Campaign Flyers snapped out of it -my self-serving care for family, friends and freedom.

I'll remember, now. 

Hickey to Get a Modest Rhinoplasty

You're a very nosy fellow, kitty cat. Huh? You know what happens to nosy fellows? Huh? No? Wanna guess? Huh? No? Okay. They lose their noses. [flicks knife, cutting open Jake's nostril] Next time you lose the whole thing. Cut it off and feed it to my goldfish. Understand? Understand!?

All I asked was, "Where's you get the midget, Jesus."

Part of the perks of my White Privilege is having a 'see-through' Irish pelt.  For six decades and change, me and that lucky old sun have been at war with Hickey Lad taking the pasting to his pallor.

Days at Rainbow Beach from digging sand pits to flexing for the babes, waist deep in the mighty Kankakee on burning hot days casting the line of my Zebco, Fins McCool, to the mouths of Smallies, quaffing that superrogatory quart of ice cold Drewrys and having a nice lie down in open field for some day time Rapid Eye Movement deprived night-night, yelling encouragement from grandstands and sidelines sans UPF 50, or Quaker State, and just walking around under the blaze and bake of Old Sol have added a bumb to my porcine pug smeller.

I have what appears to be one big-ass Basal Cell Carcinoma occupying my schnozzola.

This will be addressed by a lovely Greek American plastic surgeon.

The alternative, would be searching out celebrated Pédophile et cinéaste, Roman Polanski, and piss him off  - Ainsi !



Change A Comin'!

An Obama Library Could Get Haunted by Old Studs Lonigan

Washington Park's Studs Lonigan didn't cotton to Coloreds in his neighborhood around 58th & Indiana

John Kass notes the possible site of an Obama Presidential Library near 58th & Indiana.  I believe our preening President is, was and has been finished with Chicago and will demand that his Presidential shelves filled with copies of his ghost written autobiographies will be located in Hawaii, where he choom-ganged his way through school.  That said, were our  Guest of the City President to acced to the wishes of University of Chicago swells and the real estate kings ( Judson Miner and Allison Davis) who bankrolled Obama's ghost-ride to Springfield and thence Washington D. C. such a spepulchre to self-worship might find a ghost wandering its halls - William "Studs" Lonigan, as fictional a character as the President, his own bad self.

Studs Lonigan is a character from the Trilogy bearing his name. A trilogy is a trio of books linked by similar plot, character development and theme, not unlike the duology Dreams from My Father and The Audacity of Hope. You have a novel, a duology, a triology, a tetraology, a pentaology, a hexology, and a heptology, an octology, a enneaeolgy and posiibly a decalogy.

James T. Farrell, was the Mount Carmel High School student athlete who went to University of Chicago and bought into all of John Dewey's crapola, and wrote about 'the old neighborhood.'  Farrell wrote about a guy died young, after a long career as a bust-out, bar bully who wasted his soul and health on our American Dream. The American Dream is the dope of the middle class, according to University Lab School trust fund babies and anyone who actually believes that John Dewey makes any sense.

Farrell's Studs Lonigan character is a sad, grunting bum who recoils from hard work, human feelings and doing for others.  The real person Farrell modeled Studs' character on is buried a couple of hundred yards from my modest, middle class front porch in Mount Olivet Cemetery. Buried with and near this sad guy are hundreds of wonderful south siders - priests, soldiers, poets, Fenians, bootleggers, teachers, cops, firemen, nurses, business moguls and writers.  The quiet souls rest in Christ's smile. Studs? Probably not so much.

The unquiet soul just might wander.  The real Studs Lonigan might take a ghoulish street car from Morgan Park and back to Washington Park. This racist, drunken lout must be sickened that a 'shine, a coon, a dinge' became President of the United States and want to haunt the guy's library.  Hold the phone!

The Washington Park neighborhood lies near the lake and the gray Gothic towers of the University of Chicago, but this is a working-class town. On hot summer nights you could smell the sweaty wind from the stockyards to the west, and the smoke from the steel mills all the way to East Chicago and Gary. Though these streets have fallen on hard times, the heavy masonry and brick give the churches, the two- and three-flat buildings, and large apartment houses a look of fortress-like solidity and permanence. They must have influenced Farrell’s prose. Not far from St. Anselm’s, at 58th and Indiana, a sign may soon be going up, renaming the block “James T. Farrell Way.” This was the heart of the old neighborhood: the Mom and Pop groceries, the drugstores where you had to exchange a nickel for a slug to make a phone call, the movies and the pool hall where the gang hung out. The corner. A corner of Chicago that belongs to Farrell, and to his most famous creation, Studs Lonigan. 

James T. Farrell was miserable guy.  He made himself miserable, because Studs Lonigan was all that people wanted.  He was bummed that Chicago never lionized him for his literary art.  Farrell visited Loyola, a year after I graduated, at the gracious invitation of Dr. Suzanne Gossett who taught the Chicago novel. Farrell was anything but gracious.  He died shortly in his self-imposed exile in New York.

President Barack Obama is very much like James T, Farrell in the way that he constantly blames others for his self-made miseries.  They are brothers of the Maroon, having both won glittering, but unearned prizes at University of Chicago and they are authors, as well.  Farrell hated his neighborhood. Obama hates anything resembling a neighborhood and the Babbitts who choose to remain in the them.

If Obama's Presidential ends up being the Chicago default choice, they had better budget big dollars for the poor slobs working the night shift.  Studs will be in the House!

Pray on Your Knees and Live on Your Feet

"Pray on your knees and live on your feet."  Patrick E. Hickey

Those are two hard imperatives from a hard guy, from hard school.

My Dad was not an exceptionally public pietist. He was not public anything.  He never joined anything but the Marines and the Union.  He was private, actually a Private First Class.  He had been kicked out of Catholic grammar school as an 'incorrigible' ( "I decked a nun") and managed to attend St. Rita High School only because of the diplomatic and saintly efforts of his mother - Nora: Grannie Hickey.

Dad was a three campaign ( Bougainville, Guam, & Iwo Jima) combat veteran.  The only WWII memorabilia that survived his seabag ( saved by his sister Marguerite) were his Identification cards, discharge papers, a compass, a letter opener that said GUAM, a carbine bayonet, a pair of canvas leggings and a couple pictures of Dad and Bob Guth. One other item, remained. It was a steel disc with a cross.  Dad gave it to one of my daughters, before he died.  My son has his I.D.'s and compass, The carbine bayonet remains in the sock drawer of his dresser at my Mom's house.  I have his seabag.

The rosary is memorable because of its size and simplicity - a seabag was all a guy had to carry everything he owned back then. He prayed alot, it may be deduced. Each of three campaigns contained enough horrors and challenges for twenty persons, let alone a teenager from Chicago.

When my wife's brain tumor was diagnosed as inoperable, I was feeling pretty sorry for myself - I ain't no tough guy.  My Dad took me out for a couple of beers and counselled, " That poor girl of yours is hit; leave her on the beach."

Talk about a WTF moment.

" All you can do is make her happy in her last few days ro minutes. You have alot to do, my boy. Get busy with it and you had better hit your knees every morning.  Pray on knees and you'll stand up alright."

Gov. Bruce Rauner - Lay Off the Skilled Trades

"There's a saying that you can't manage what you don't measure,"   "I want to measure the results. … Then we'll decide from there, when we know the facts and we see the trends, what appropriate action we can take further." Bruce Rauner

Measure twice; cut once.  Governor Carhartt knows as much about the skilled trade ( the ones that pay well, because the tradesman actually sacrifices his own time, talents and treasure to be a skilled tradesman) as he does about Pat Quinn's deepest aspirations.  Well, maybe not that shallow a guess.

Bruce Rauner is a money guy businessman - not a player with railroads, or stacker of wheat.  He shitches zeroes and commas after arabic numerals, preceeding the requiste period.

Bruce Rauner hitches zeroes and commas with best of them. I voted for Rauner, because he is not Pat Quinn.  I will vote for Dr. Willie Wilson, or Jimmy the Two Headed Boy, because they are not Rahm Emanuel.  Chuy and Alderman Goldenrod weave are Rahm without the game.

The skilled trades are going for Rahm, like was Barack Obama with street cash. Labor has made foolish pacts with politicians in last twenty years that have diminished labor.

My entire family, save one hand of cousins and myself - and my family is huge, BTW - are skilled tradesmen - carptenters, machinists, plumbers, electricians and travail acharné , certains actes de violence secondaires de protection et la grâce de Dieu, members of IUOE local 399.  I listened to their concerns that Bruce Rauner was out to kill labor, because he was just like Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker.

Rauner is no Walker.  Walker stands for small government and the middle class Rauner sprints to money and power and like his soul-mate Rahm Emanuel could care Effing less about you, your neighbor, your dog, Selma, or the middle class.

The skilled trades of Wisconsin learned that Walker was a genuine friend of real labor -public unions , like SEIU and the teachers, not so much

Skilled work pays well and skilled tradesmen work.

Bruce Rauner wants the skilled trades to open up their books to him. Governor Carhartt wants to see how many minorities and veterans are in skilled trades apprenticeship programs.

The Skilled Trades should tell Bruce Rauner to go pound sand.  Governor Rauner wants to measure data, in order to control. Each skilled trade got to where it is today on its own.  Yes, they did build their own success.

Pandering to veterans along with minorities is slick.  Pat Quinn must be kicking himself.

Instead blaming public education for its crime against minorities, Governor Rahm Rauner decides to kick the skilled trades with implied racism, bad breath and poor polo skills. Right out of the Rahm Emanuel playbook.

Bruce Rauner knows that government adds zeroes and commas to his arabic numerals and if he can wrest control of the apprecipship standands and training from the Pipefitters, Engineers and all the other skilled trades the media will love him as much as Rahm Emanuel.

Government wants controll of all training programs.  No dice. The skilled trades are the redoubt of the American middle class. An early warning sign of the government take over of skilled trades unions comes fro the biggest government warehouse of ineptitude and smarmy hypocrisy - the National Education Association:

The skilled trades should take Rauner's measure twice and thrice times twenty, before cutting their own throats. 

So, You Wanna Have a Library and Museum, Lads? " Go Scrutin!!"

                                   OB wans a libray and KaNobi Wans a Museum

"Scrutiny? What else do you want? Do you want to take my shorts? Go scrutinize yourself. I get scrutined every day." -Mayor Richard M. Daley

Colonel Lucas: Your mission is to proceed up the Nung River in a Navy patrol boat. Pick up Colonel Kurtz's path at Nu Mung Bha, follow it, learn what you can along the way. When you find the Colonel, infiltrate his team by whatever means available and terminate the Colonel's command.
Willard: Terminate... the Colonel?
General Corman: He's out there operating without any decent restraint, totally beyond the pale of any acceptable human conduct. And he is still in the field commanding troops.
Jerry: Terminate... with extreme prejudice.


A Library - " A library is an organized collection of sources of information and similar resources, made accessible to a defined community for reference or borrowing. "

A Museum- "A museum is an institution that cares for (conserves) a collection of artifacts and other objects of scientific, artistic, cultural, or historical importance and makes them available for public viewing through exhibits that may be permanent or temporary."

Libraries go back to the Sumerian dynasty when collections of cuneiform tablets were stored by the perky blonds in horn-rimmed glass of that time. That library was in Ninevah, which is near Mosul, in northern Iraq. ISIS, it will be recalled, holds human artifacts in same high regard it holds for human life.

The oldest museum is the Capitoline built with a grant from Pope Sixtus IV, back around 1471. To be sure, there were collections of artifacts looted and held in great care by rich guys going back to all ancient civilizations, but Pope 6-tus gets the props on this one.

Rich guys are not always bad guys - pirates, foot-pads, warlords, or creeps.  I know many very rich people and they tend to eat M&Ms by the handful just like everyone else.

Some rich guys are creeps.  Chicago greatest creep has a museum of natural history named for him - The Field Museum.  He was the 19th century purveyor of 'nice things.' Marshall Field knew what nice was when he saw, but had much to do with 'nice.'  He took credit for the work and words of others, especially his hard-working clerk Harry Selfridge, whom Field managed to run off to London.  Everything that Marshal Field & Company means to a Chicagoan was created by Harry Selfridge.

Field was a been counter and shrewed claim jumper ( from Potter Palmer to Harry Selfridge) who always knew that just up the next street was a some hard-working slob to be courted, hustled and discarded.

Field's kids built a museum for old Dad.

Chicago is home to many libraries. Public libraries are in every neighborhood, but seem as empty as a Quaker Meeting house in Morgan Park on non-election days.There are the magnificent private libraries,  University Club od Chicago Newberry and Ryerson & Burnham, where membership and access is a privilege.

Well, now, it seems that a 21st Century Presidential  library and a Hollywood & Science museum are meeting some hostility -

Emanuel’s office is helping secure rights to 10 acres at two possible locations, in Washington Park and Jackson Park. Winning those rights would require votes by the Chicago Park District Board and the City Council. The Chicago Park District will hold two community hearings next week. The third possible site, the South Shore Cultural Center, has been taken off the table because it’s not big enough.
“I want to make sure that, if there’s any issues, that we resolve those so we’re competitive against New York and this becomes an easy decision for the president to pick his hometown for where his presidential library, in my view, belongs,” Emanuel said at a Monday news conference, Sweet reported. Emanuel promised to play an “active role” in getting the Chicago bids up to speed.
The land deal is far from certain: A local community group, Friends of the Parks, is already suing the city over another proposed museum, funded by filmmaker George Lucas, that would sit on 17 acres of parkland. The group has succeeded in slowing down the Lucas museum, and they could throw up additional roadblocks to the presidential museum, too.

George Lucas and President Obama want a museum and a library which will stands as testament to their fascinating and exclusive lives.

Barack Obama, when I first met him in 1995, is a rather full-of-himself man of limited abilities.  He was led by the hand to the White House, without any scrutiny. He was never scrutined

Obama made his career in Chicago and some career it has been.  Everything was just Jake, until Barack Obama became jumped into the driver seat of America's most important vehicle of change - The Presidency.
Everything is over his head, but not his pay grade.  No one seems interested in helping President Obama carve-out brick and mortar pyramid to himself. Private funds?  Barack Obama lifted every friendly wallet in the nation; so, he must turn, once again to our pockets as tax-payers and our public lands as Chicagoans.

George Lucas? Never met him; never will.  He'd sic the Wookies on me, were I to ever ring the bell to his outer-gate and ask, " Wanna buy some World's Finest to help the poor kids at Leo High School?"

George Lucas became as much of Chicagoan as Rahm Emanuel.  He married a gal with Chicago clout.

George thought, "Chicago deserves a museum dedicated to me! . . .well, Star War, Ewoks, Darths and Skywalkers!" George Lucas wants prime public land that Daniel Burnham and his guys actually re-created from the malarial swamps and sand dunes God created.

My feelings are these projects?  Terminate is too weak a word  - Scrutin (sic) both projects, in cold, ice-water-for-blood and with extreme prejudice.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rahm is a 100% American Progressive

Imaginary Villainy is All Progressives Have Left

Blame not Islam; lay it on the Swedes!

That Americans are by historical screeds vicious, slave holding, Indian blanket infecting, Sioux massacre-ing, Uncle Tom Mexican hating, trigger happy Klan Kops and Islamaphobes hiding in sexual identity closets as big as Alaska is a given . . .in the New York Times, Salon, HBO, New Republic, Atlantic, Rolling Stone world of forced fed thought.

Yep, some days I just wonder what nasty mischief this 62 year old Catholic breeder-on-hold, widow man with mortgage, Cook County and Illinois State taxes to gravy the Federal outpourings from each payroll from the job I have, can up to - say, ginning up some Anti- Swedish hate mail.

Dear Ole,
It is 12 degrees above zero with a wind-chill factor of negative 15, why don't you and your herring choker of a wife load up the tow-headed spawn of Lutheran pre-schoolers of yours and do polar plunge off of the break-waters near La Salle Drive?
My Imam and Dad have told me of your crimes against humanity -

• Viking looting of Iona, Wexford, Waterford, HenryFord

• Limpa Bread

• Herring in Cream Sauce

• Pickled Beets

• Carl Sandburg

• Carpenters Local # 58

        Goth is great!  The Profit is better and will not be mocked! Be warned!
        Sincerely

        Stor Hammare av Svenskarna, M.A.

Now, before we get to jamming Svenskas into wicker baskets, let's consider . . .why the Hell not?  Americans are haters from cradle to grave and the Swedes have gotten off Scot Free . . .don;t get me started on the Haggis Hour folks.

On every cable or network TV station we are treated to reminders of just how evil, wicked, mean and nasty Uncle Sam's Children happen to be and the magazines and newspapers are only worse,. but require the act of reading and we all know how Americans hate to read.


Here is an example of the scab-yanking, guilt gilding temperment of what passes for chic American thought:
Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times and Andread Mitchell of MSNBC

ANDREA MITCHELL, NBC NEWS: Nicholas, you have covered these conflicts around the world and you wrote so passionately today about the need to not do religious profiling. Let's talk about how Muslims in France and Western Europe have been under fire. There have been reports of actions against mosques, three mosques around France today. What is the message we should be focusing on?
NICHOLAS KRISTOF, NEW YORK TIMES: Well, I think it is two-fold. On the one hand, I think we have to acknowledge, and Muslims indeed do acknowledge it, there is a legitimate problem within Islam. There is a strain of extremism, there is a strain of intolerance and misogyny. And these are real issues and it's characteristic that as soon as this attack happened, even though Charlie Hebdo offends all kinds of people, everything [shows] that this was are extremist Muslims who decided to use AK-47s to resolve that.
But at the same time that we acknowledge there is a real issue here of extremism within this vast religion, I think we have to be very, very careful not to engage in religious profiling and to recognize that one can't blame 1.6 billion adherents of this vast and complex religion. One can't blame this event on all of them. One has to acknowledge that the Taliban folks who is shot Malala [Yousafzai] are one element of Islam and Malala herself is another. And this is a religion that contains multitudes.
MITCHELL: And in fact you wrote today:
So let’s avoid religious profiling. The average Christian had nothing to apologize for when Christian fanatics in the former Yugoslavia engaged in genocide against Muslims. Critics of Islam are not to blame because an anti-Muslim fanatic murdered 77 people in Norway in 2011.
There are violence groups within all religions.
KRISTOF: That's right, and I think we have a tendency to otherize people, if you will, of a different race, a different religion, a different ethnicity and then to perceive events into a narrative of threat and this is a very natural human thing. And I must say when I travel around the Mideast, I sit down in mosques and hear clerics concoct these extraordinary sort of paranoid visions of America because every datapoint that they get plugs into this stereotype that they have and they otherize us. I think we really, really have to be careful not to respond to the extraordinary intolerance of these jihadis with our own intolerance.
MITCHELL: I was talking earlier in the program to Congressman Keith Ellison (D-MN) who is Muslim and he was praising what George W. Bush did after 9/11. And in trying to bring groups together, it was an ecumenical, you remember an ecumenical service at the National Cathedral.
What does François Hollande have to do now given the fact that France has had already so much division because of the large Muslim community and its anti-immigrant stance in some quarters and the right-wing, of course?
KRISTOF: And Marine Le Pen, the head of one of these right-wing parties, is indeed going to be a great political beneficiary. And I've had some of these more anguished comments from Muslims in Europe who may point out that nobody defames Islam or the prophet more than people who murder cartoonists. I mean, the cartoonists are far less inimical to Islam than people who slaughter those cartoonists. And now on top of that, there is going to be this backlash that is going to affect roughly 8% or 10% of the population of France that is Muslim. One of the things I really admired about Australia after the incident there last month, the hostage taking in the cafe, Andrea, was the way Australians gathered around for that "I will ride with you" Twitter campaign, offering -- I thought it was really kind of beautiful to be able to recognize on the one hand that that attack on that cafe was just brutal, intolerable and just to recognize that ordinary Muslim-Australians in hijab were terrified of the backlash and needed support and to reach out and to help them escort them safely in public transport. I thought that was a tremendous reaction on the part of Australia and I think it is something that we can aspire to at a time when it's very easy for hatred to try to promote more hatred.

Andrea Mitchell is no where near as bone-stupid and vapid as Mika Brzezinski; nor are her knockers any where near as eye-poppingly fulsome.

Nicholas Kristoff . . .he stacks up with Andrea

Baby, It's Cold Outside. 'Who Told You, Hickey?'

 Dangerously cold wind chills to affect the area ... In Effect From Midnight Tonight to noon CST Thursday ... which is in effect from Midnight Tonight to noon CST Thursday ..N.B. photo provided by the exquisite Deborah Boscarelli

Fifteen minutes for my pre-set alarm goes off ( 3:25 AM) Sophie's scratch at my basement bedroom door signals me to toss off the quilts, hit my knees to the floor for my morning Memorare, and re-et my alarm  My eight year old jet black kitten, is one needy female who purrs up a storm until I give her the morning's change to the sandbox, In-House Cat Chow and double bowl of Michigan Straight H2O, as well as the requisite scratching, petting teasing with the pen laser.

God has given me another chance to inhale the day.  Neighbors, I worry not about ISIS, Al Qaeda, Ebola  Vlad Putin, the PDRNK, ,Red China, or what Rahm Emanuel is planning for me and other tax-payers.  That pile of anxieties are for people much more thoughtful, or psychically profound than I.  My anxieties are spiritual, related to prosaic civic and vocational obligations and most especially familial - I am a parent.  I worry about me bairns 24/7.  Like most worries those stand foar beyond my control. My youngest is snuggled in her bed and has five days remaing of her break from Western Michigan. The two older young uns are out of the nest.  Yet, I do worry.

Things I can address cause most of my anxiousness due to my husbanding of technical skills and talents.

The furnace is working fine. The sump-pump's buzz durng the morning's ablutions calm my constant home owner fears.  

All is right with the . . . Uck Fay!  

(Hickey's alley facing north)

Two powdery  inches of new white stuff on the weathered wooden deck.  The snow blower checked out and operated handsomely in respense to Winter 2015's intial assault, only hours ago.  The temperature is Zero, but the winds are mild.  No sweat. . .plow after work at Leo High School.

But, wait!  

Once  fleased, buttoned, zipped and gloved, I survey the immediate property.  On my walk, is a form . . .a human form . . .and all too human form . . .an all too female woman buck-nekid form . . supine in the snow drifted 1926 poured City of Chicago walk-way between the trio of park way trees and south side of Casa Hickey!

Do I start the dependable MTD snow throwing Dreadnaught and chance taking a 9mm in the ass from a neighbor - it is, after all, 3:45 AM?  Do I wait until after work? This exquisite beauty might require immediate attention! Call 911 and go to work?  

Own a home? You got anxieties.

Man, it's cold.  Time for Dunkin Donuts coffee!!!!!!!

NYPD Again 'Backs' Mayor Warren/DeBlasio/Bill DeBlasio/Billy Jack.

New York decided that Warren Wilhelm, Jr. ( AKA Warren DeBlasio-Wilhelm ( 1983) and finally in 2002 Bill De Blasio) would make a fine mayor of the Big Apple. Hell, Chicago voted in a nine-fingered  Highland Park  Danseur  Why?  Billy Jack. 

The Democrat Party warmed to the notion of a post-political, non Wall Street infected hipster with a compelling narrative makes a great elected official.  I believe that I can trace this notion back to that fine American film that dominated the American conscience during the Carter Administration - Billy Jack Goes to Washington - a re-make of Capra's Mr. Smith Goes to Washington by Capra's boy Frank Junior. Billy Jack is, in the Democrat tradition that made Roland "Tombstone Burris" a national laughing stock of a United States Senator, appointed to fill-out a term. Instead of Mr. Smith's planned Boy Ranger Park, Senator Billy Jack goes for a clean-energy " NO MORE NUKES" National Initiative!  Hey, it works for Billy Jack, imagine what it could do for National Health and Same Sex Marriage.

With tweaking in the last century and twerking in the current millennium the DNC has produced Senators, Congressmen, governors, mayors, Water Reclamation District trustees and a President with all of the abilities and heart of Billy Jack. We are living the Billy Jack dream!  Warren Wilhem-Warren DeBasio Willhelm-Bill DeBlasio is Mayor Billy Jack and he hates cops.

People who normally are known to their communities as goofs,odd-balls, anti-cross and creche litigants have been elected by voters more concerned with Fantasy Football rosters, Oprah Matters and political pantomime, than taking responsibility for their continued presence in the American middle class.

The national news media, no longer played by veteran character actor Thomas Mitchell, but by Chris Hayes, hates not only cops, but also, firemen, skilled tradesmen; Catholic schools; all living Jews inIsrael;Black Supreme Court Justices, neurosurgeons, Army colonels; all Navy Seals and taxpayers.   Some believe that the murder of the two NYPD officers made cops happy and that police officers should turn their backs on politicians who call them stupid, racist, brutal choke-hold and trigger happy thugs.

Call me silly. but I admire and respect police officers - committed public servants who deal with monsters frequently and creepy asses hourly.

In defiance of Commisioner Bill Brattan's suggestion that NYPD Blue-coats refrain from signally their contempt for a contemptuous ass occupying Gracie Manor, thousands of officers turned their backs on the Big Screen when Mayor Warren Wilhelm-DeBlasio, Bill photo bombed the services for Officer Liu and mouthed pious hypocrisies, like this idiocy worthy of Salon's Joan Walsh, “New York has been, from its earliest days, the most tolerant of cities, that harmony has been challenged.”

Really?  Ever since the Dutch took Manhattan with a handful of Mojos, New York has been intolerant of somebody - People who backed George Washington, potato gobbling, garlic scented, kielbasa wielding Catholics,  Slavic accented  shtetl- dwellers who believe in Justice universal, and Archie Bunker.

I have a blue ribbon on my tree.  In fact my neighborhood has blue ribbons tied to trees all over my Ward.  It is meant to show support for cops.  I never use the word solidarity, because my union card expired in 1977.   I respect cops.  They keep the kids who attend Leo High School safe.  Leo High School is 95% African American and not one has been shot, let alone killed by a Chicago Police Officer.  I have helped bury ten young black men who were Leo students and have watch one young man struggle to over come the five bullets to his abdomen sent their by the gang-banging monster who wanted to kill his cousin and decided he's do as well.

Mayor De Blasio is a media creature - Mayor Billy Jack.  Billions of barrels of ink and TV balloon juice will back and parse away every contemptuous word that comes from this Mayor's maw.

Who back the back-turning people in Blue?

Me.

I got a blue ribbon, put on my tree by one of my neighbors.   It  is not much but it speaks to my choices.

I know bullshit when I see it, but I refuse to dine upon it.

Joan Walsh and Sun Times on Frederick Douglass and Irish Catholics - Wrong Again!

William Lloyd Garrison wanted -

"the political support of the Irish peasantry in their home country, but only as a means to affect the attitudes of Irish immigrants towards the black population in America. O’Connell and the Irish were only beneficial to the Abolitionist movement as long as they remained an impoverished people, yet when they gained economic and class status, they were quick to dispense with their support for Garrisonian Disunionism and the American anti slavery cause. "

Christopher Allan Black


“No people on the face of the earth have been more relentlessly persecuted and oppressed on account of race and religion, than the Irish people. But in Ireland, persecution has at last reached a point where it reacts terribly upon her persecutors. England today is reaping the bitter consequences of her own injustice and oppression. . . . Fellow citizens! We want no Black Ireland in America.”
Of course, one could argue that we in fact have what Douglass would have called a “Black Ireland in America,” given the persistence of poverty and oppression for African-Americans. It would probably not be surprising for the abolitionist to discover that some of the loudest voices denying the persistence of racism belong to guys named O’Reilly and Hannity and Lynch. Joan Walsh



Joan Walsh is the editor of Salon, a ubiquitous MSNBC blabber, an educated Irish American Feminist who shills for the abortion industry and someone who reads little and understands less. She reminds me of that Pulitzer Prize winning reporter for the Baltimore Sun on the great television series The Wire - someone who goes for the 'Dickensian Aspect,' in all things, while ignoring the facts.

Nowhere in Joan Walsh's attempt to be a profound analyist can be found the phrase " Garrisonian Disunionism."

Outside of seriously written historical tomes, the attempt by abolitionist grifter, opinion maker and the George Soros of the 19th Century, William Lloyd Garrison's attempt to pull the American union of States apart is rarely memtioned and altogether Un-Googleable.  William Lloyd Garrison, like the Beechers, Jane Addams, W.E.B. Dubois, Margaret Sanger and other Progressive icons have had their sins laundered by the academics, textbook publishing houses and the political media.

That does not put a stop to the relentless scab-yanking of unctious dummies like Joan Walsh and they should stick to their time-honored templates.

Keep it simple, Joan;  make it all about skin and nothing else matters. Instead Joan Walsh tries for intellectual parallel graviats . . .and fails miserably.

Garrison was not only the publisher of The Liberator, America's leading abolitionist and nativist rag, but also the very first Confederate. He was a sessionist, before Kansas Nebraska Act of 1854. Garrison sought Disunion - the northern brand of session.

Joan Walsh ignores, or perhaps has never heard of Garrisonian Disunion. Instead she makes the PC but very lame claim that Frederick Douglas "was a leader of global human rights In today’s parlance, this might sound like the ultimate version of white-centered discourse." Was he the Nelson Mandela, Tupac Shakur, or Michael Eric Dyson of the 19th Century? Nope he was a man of great spirit and heart who was being used by William Lloyd Garrison to enlist the support of Ireland's Martin Luther King - Daniel "The Liberator" O'Connell to instruct Irish peasants who escaped to America that Garrisonian Disunionism was just the ticket.

'The supporters of Garrisonian Disunionism believed that the Irish immigrant population held the key to whether or not union with slaveholders would be abolished.

O’Connell’s first address to an American audi-ence occurred on January 28, 1842 at Faneuil Hall in Boston. While the purpose of the meeting was to advocate for the Abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, the Abolitionists made a concerted effort to advertise the event to a predominantly Irish audience by posting handbills in immigrant neighborhoods and promoting the speech in The Boston Pilot the Catholic paper. While O’Connell’s speech attracted several thousand Irish from Boston and the

surrounding area, it did not have the desired effect that Garrison hoped it would have. On February 5, 1842, ThePilot warned against drawing close connections between the Irish Repeal movement and Garrisonian Disunionism. The Catholic press warned that Abolition would lead to the dissolution of the Union and that the disunionist movement itself “was a British plot to weaken the United States” (Ignatiev 13). The Catholic media argued that if the Irish American community supported the Abolitionist movementthat it would result in greater economic competition and ethnic discrimination among emancipated blacks and working class Irish laborers.

The editors of The Pilot claimed that if IrishAmericans endorsed Disunionism they ran the risk of putting themselves back into the subservient minority position they experienced in their native country. As a result, Douglass and Garrison strategically employed O’Connell as a respected authority to counteract this type of

divisive rhetoric that existed within the Irish American community." Black

Joan Walsh wants American Catholics, Irish American Catholics in particular, to get on the side of the angels - the far left crowd of white-guilt neo-Garrisons like herself.

In the 19th Century,the Irish and black slaves were used by William Lloyd Garrison, a top-ranked historical creep if ever there was one, to destroy the Union and make Garrison a power-player.

Their scions are just as confused and used by the Sharptons, the Dysons, the Walshs and the Lynchs ( I still can't figure that one out. Bill O'Reilly and Hannity, I get - Joan hates them because they have larger audiences). Lynch? Racial buzz-word and Celtic synonym?

Anyway. Joan Walsh and the editors of the Sun Times, who re-printed Walsh's blarney and bamboozle, are wrong again. New Year and the same old, same old.

Racism worked for creeps like Garrison and it pays handsomely for creeps like Sharpton et al.

More UnBroken - Tom Gerrity Still in the Fight With 'Mortimer'

Back:  P/O Allen R. Page (RAAF) - Capt. Smiling Tom P. Gerrity - M/Sgt Melvin E. Owens - Sgt. Al Fawe - Cpl. Ed D. Connor                                                
Front: T/Sgt Al Simmons - T/Sgt James G. Westbrook - Unknown - Unknown

Yesterday, I wrote about a Leo Alumnus (dec.) - Thomas P. Gerrity* ( Leo Class of 1930 - the Charter Class). Thomas P. Gerrity became one of the pioneers of the Missile Program that eveolved into NASA and landed a man on the moon. Tom Gerrity died of a heart attack in in 1968, while directing the missile program at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio,

The photos linked here were taken in May and and June of 1942.  Less than a month before, Tom Gerrity escaped the Fall of Bataan when he was ordered out to Australia - there were more planes than pilots Down Under.  Tom Gerrity fought in the Phillipines from December 1941 through April, 1942 as a medium bomber pilot whose plane was bombed and straffed (Gerrity was wounded in that attack) before it could fly from Nichols Field, as an air liason officer, flying a P-40 to and from Corregidor for General Wainwright, the scapegoat chosen by Douglas MacArthur for his own failures, as a member of the Bataan 24th Pursuit Group flying obsolete and shot-up planes against the Japanese and as a rifleman when the planes ran out.

Gerrity starved on Bataan and stayed in the fight even though he was racked by malaria and bone-breaking dengue fever.

Lieutenant Gerrity and several other pilots managed to get a Navy float-plane back in shape and flew it to Mindanao, where they were picked up and taken to Australia by members of their Bomb Group, who had been ordered out earlier.

Tom Gerrity was married and had a son back home in the States.

America was beaten all over the Pacific and Asia. Only a few pilots managed to take the fight to Japan,  Tom Gerrity, starved, wounded and sick, stayed in the fight.  He flew a bomber nicknamed 'Mortimer.'
In the following months, Gerrity flew 49bombing missions and sank 28 Japanese ships,

 B-25C   "Mortimer"   41-12443  

Ask yourself, " Should our kids know about a Tom Gerrity, a Motts Tonelli, a Louis Zamperini, inorder to lead good life?"

That is not a rhetorical question.


Tom Gerrity
Born December 8, 1913
Harlowton, Montana
Died February 24, 1968 (aged 54)
Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio
Buried at Arlington National Cemetery
Allegiance United States of America
Service/branch United States Air Force
Years of service 1939-1968
Rank General
Commands held Air Force Logistics Command
Battles/wars World War II
Awards Air Force Distinguished Service Medal (2)
Silver Star
Air Medal (2)
Purple Heart
Relations Thomas P. Gerrity (son)[1

UnBroken -American Heroism

 

To the Officers and Enlisted men of the of the 27thBombardment Group (L) dead or missing in action in the
Philippine Islands, Australia Java, and New Guinea, we
dedicate this book and all our efforts to repay, ten thousand
times over, the Japanese for every one of our men lost.

Thomas P. Gerrity ( Leo 1930) Top row extreme right - shortly after his escape from Bataan.

 It was great to see that Angelina Jolie's film of UnBroken, based upon Laura Hillenbrand’s wonderful book of the same name, has exceeded box office expectations.  Hollywood no longer wants movies that extol common values like valor, honor, courage and faith. Instead, movies are churned out that cast doubt on any one's ability to reach deeply to the human core forged in faith, commitment, sacrifice and duty.  Valor comes not from a political bequest and certainly not from a reparation of grievances and is therefore taboo to the Procrustean themes forced by Harvey Weinstein, Peter Gruber, or Scott Rudin.

Marvel and DC Comics are the script templates replacing the Torah, the Pentateuch, or the Rights of Man.  Abe Lincoln fights Vampires, Werewolves, or the demons of his sexual identity.  Valor only works when pagan totems are doled out by Odin, Zeus, Minerva, or learned in the classrooms of Hogwarts Staff.

Anything that leads a person to behave selflessly and in good-faith from a First Cause is verboten.

Yet, thanks to Ms. Jolie's UnBroken, it is evident that People will pay to witness a man act without the aid of PC, or magical powers.

Our Thumb-Dummy Kultur Kampf is meant to keep people from talking with another person and arriving at mutually satisfying conclusion that 'boy, a man's faith in God and himself can sure give him an edge in a tough situation.'

Tough situations abound, but tough people ( people who can it - whatever it happens to be) are getting scarce it seems.  Seeming is not being.   We can be tough without Bat Utility Belts, a bog-ass Mjǫlnir in our mitts, or help from President Obama.

I linked a story writtten by a group of very tough people - the battered, under equipped, out-numbered and alone survivors of the 27th Bomb Group, including Lt (later Captain) Tom Gerrity of 17th Bomb Squadron who were sent to the Phillipine Islands less than a month before Pearl Harbor.

Tom Gerrity (Leo Class of 1930) flew a B-18 bomber that only seems to appear in a Bugs Bunny Cartoon

The plane was obsolete and Gerrity never got his plane off the ground of Nichols Field on December 9, 1941 when the Japanese destroyed General Mac Arthur's air power on the ground. 

The next day, (9th), found the 17th with some of the crews manning machine gun
posts at Nichols Field and with flying crews standing by to man the B-18’s. Tom Gerrity
and Ed Townsend had one, Pete Bender and Harry Roth of the 16th had the second, and
Gus Heiss and F.E. Timlin of the 17th had the third. All had it easy on the 9th but on the
10th all were called out. Tom and Ed were down at Nichols preparing for a bombing
mission when shortly afternoon the Nips staged a huge raid. Tom and Ed ran for cover as
the Zeros began to strafe the B-18’s that they were to use on their mission. Tom
unfortunately was hit in the hand by a piece of shrapnel and Ed got to cover just as the B-
18’s load of bombs blew up. “Tim” and “Gus” ran into a dog fight but finally managed
to get to San Marcelino.
In the same raid, several of the 17th gunners at Nichols were strafed and one crew
manned its post until blown out by bombs.

Nine days later:

The 27th Group Commander, Major Davies and a number of pilots left early this

morning by plane for Australia. They plan to pick-up the 27th’s A-24 dive bombers, and
ferry them back to the Philippines. In the absence of Major Davies, Major Sewell acted
as Group Commander with Captain Whoffell as executive officer and Tom Gerrity as
group Material Officer.
Due to the lack of aircraft and the dis-organization of the entire situation, the 27th
was left high and dry. A complete air corps unit with no airplanes with which to fight.
The “Powers the be” later turned the Group into an infantry outfit.
On December 20th Tom Gerrity was assigned to the North Luzon force as Air Corp
Liason Officer. On the way north he stopped off at Stotsenberg. Clark Field was a
shamble. Wrecked airplanes lay burned all over the field.

Tom Gerrity served as liason to General Wainwright, flying from the island fortress of Corregidor to Bataan and back keeping the man desiganted by MacArthur to be the goat for his monumental failures and arrogance in the Phillipines apprised of the appaling air defences,

Gerrity front row far right on Bataan as a P-40 pilot

 Tom Gerrity later went to Bataan as a pursuit pilot in one of few remaing P-40's, until malaria, dengue fever and the Japanese Zero turned pilots into rifle men.
Gerrity was one of the last men to escape the Death March when he was ordered to Australia only hours before the fall of Bataan. Gerrity patched up a Grumman Floatplane and flew himself and others one thousand miles south Mindanao's Del Monte Field, where he was picked up by comrades from the 27th Group ordered to Australia months earlier.

The next day two more missions were flown by
each flight. Cebu Harbor and Dabao was heavly bombed. Anti-aircraft fire was heaby
on all missions, but the Japs consistenly underestimated the speed of the B-25. After the
last mission both flights landed at Del Monte, and under cover of darkness bomb bay
tanks were reinstalled and the ships were serviced for the long hop back to Darwin. Up at
the clubhouse, the 27th Pilots welcomed back into the fold, two 27th men who had make
their way down from Bataan bare hours before it’s fall.
The faces of Tom Gerrity and Jack Wienert clearly showed the strain of four
months on beleaguered Bataan. They could give no information about the men of the
27th who remained on Bataan to the last, except that all the officers were still alive up to
the last day and that the casualties among the men had been small.
Take-off time was set at 2300, and shortly before midnight ten B-25s, each
overloaded to capacity with officers recently evacuated from Bataan - - took off from Del
Monte, bored up through a low overcast, and headed south toward Darwin, 2000 miles
away in the darkness. The scourge of the tropic “old man dengue” had smacked Talley
squarely between the eyes just before the last mission, and Pete gladly let Jack Wienert take his place as co-pilot during most of the return trip. All the ships landed at Batchelor
Field, forty miles south of Darwin, after daylight the morning of April 14, staying only
long enough to gas up, and taking off immediately. Night found them back in Charters
Towers, more than a little weary from nearly fifty hours of hard flying in four days, and
asking for nothing but a bed.
After a few days of rest, the group was called on to furnish ships for constant patrol
out of Port Moresby. J.R. Smith and Talley – now recovered from his battle with dengue
- - took two ships up April 23 and spent the usual four or five days, running a nine hour
recon flight every day over all Jap bases from Kavieng in the North to the deboyne
Islands in the south. The recons were long, lonely, and dangerous, but the pilots who
flew them gained an intimate knowledge of the entire combat area which was to be
invaluable to them later on.

Gerrity flew B-25s against the Japanese is credited with sinking 28 ships in the Bismark Sea.

UnBroken.   There are many tales of Unbroken people. We need to tell those tale. Shared memory is civilization.

"Who's the Water Head, Now, Hollywood?" Angelina Jolie Sure as Hell Ain't

"I never had a plan for my life," she said. "I do what I want to do. And if suddenly tomorrow I couldn't do anything, I could deal with that. I'd be happy at home being a mom." Angelina Jolie in People

“She's seriously out of her mind.” Scott Rudin e-mail to Amy Pascal

Seriously.  Sony pictures was hacked by the North Koreans, because it produced a movie intended to 'goof-on' the tubby, dictator who orders live ammunition practice on his Kin and paramours.  The hack-job mined a bonanza of Tweets, e-mails and cyber messaging between Sony executives. These same executives produce untold hours of loud,dull, self-congratulatory,  insulting, violent and meaningless 'entertainment' that goes immediately to Blue-Ray and Cable. Every once in a while the odd 'film' manages to squeeze through that is not loud,dull, self-congratulatory,  insulting, violent and meaningless 'entertainment' and lands somewhere in the level of artistic value next to Mitchell (considered the # 1 Worst Movie of 1975.

1975 was the year actor and director Angelina Jolie was born.

Since that time, the young lady seems to have done pretty well for herself - married a successful guy, adopted many children, engaged in charitable works with a grace well beyond her years and zip code, "She has received an Academy Award, two Screen Actors Guild Awards, and three Golden Globe Awards, and was named Hollywood's highest-paid actress by Forbes in 2009, " directed two films and has avoided rehab, scandal and managed to not make a complete train-wreck of her image.

She is a cute girl - some say beautiful.

That said, the executives at Sony who have managed to allow the tubby sociopath of the Pacific Rim to unmask Hollywood for the fetid cesspool it happens to be 24/7 and no days off for religious holiday.

In 1975, I was a baby teacher at Bishop McNamara High School in Kankakee, IL ( home of actors Kara Zediker BMHS '88, and Fred MacMurray).  Years later, while Kara Zediker trod the boards of Steppenwolf Theatre with John Malkovich, appeared in The Babe, Uncle Buck, Dig Two Graves, Contagion, Rock Star, The Babe, Janie Jones and No God, No Master, as well as made her talents evident on TV shows Like Star Trek, 24, King of Queens and Zena Warrior Princess, I became aware that Angelina Jolie was making a splash in Hollywood.

I saw Ms. Jolie in a couple of her films and recognized her intelligence, humor, depth and good heart.

I did not pick up on any clues as to her mental stability. She seems like a person who is centered and one not prone to worry about what is in the gift bags, or the place in line.

Hollywood is powerful.  Kim Jong Un is powerful.  Some people with power make life a living hell for others whom they deem inferior.

In 1975, I would go from Kankakee back home to the south side and tend bar.  I made more from Friday through Sunday than I did as a teacher.  There was a guy who used come into the bar who was a full blown nut-job. He would disguise himself with fake beards, glasses, trench coats and flash cards and badges that he got from Riley's Trick Shop and cage drinks and snacks.  He was nuts but relatively harmless.

"Shayyy? I'm jusht in from the coasht, and Bosh ( Boz) shed any thing I ashked for wash Ok, until my finanshesh get shquared away, Shpill me a Millersh and a shot of Chevash,"

Despite the disguises and the false identities, Larrensh (Larry) was afflicted with 'Fountain Mouth' - the Eddie Foy disease -"Shhay It, Don' Shhhpray it." That he could not hide.  Therefore, bar tenders immediately knew that Lawrensh Washhh In the Housh! The bartenders and owners gave the poor guy a couple of beers, a bag or two of Chipshhhh and the odd ride home. All but one.

Hollywood Hogan hated Lawensh like he was freshman Algebra. He would order Larry out with threats and maledictions and call him Water-head.

One very foggy night, after Hollywood ( a stunningly handsome black Irish Colin Farrell look-alike in full possession of a room temperature IQ) broke his ankle in softball game, Larry showed up an taunted the hobbled Hogan.

"Sha Madder Hollywood? Shpring in your Shtep Vanishhhhed?  Shum moush shcare you?"

Hollywood tucked a crutch under one arm and struggled to give chase.

Now, the city of Chicago had dug up the streets for sewer replacement and massive moats paralled the bar access.  Larry bolted Slushing out taunts and teases in the path of Hollywood Hogan doing his very best Walter Brennan giddy-yap.

Hogan decided to run down Larry with his big 1973 Pontiac Catalina. He tossed his crutch and fired up the car.  Larry hopped only yards from its path.

Hogan gunned the engine and tossed the Pontiac into drive. Larry hopped to the side and the quality vehicle careened into the City of Chicago created moat.  The rear wheels spun Hollywood beat the steering wheel with desperate and congenial hatred.

We witnessed this theatre.

From the fog, beyond the sewer ditch on Pulaski Ave. we heard the familiar voice of master of disguise, " Whoooshhhhhh The Water Head Now?"

Hollywood.