I Need a Top Coat, Life Insurance, the Love of a. Good Woman, More Fruits and Grains - ‘The Irishman? ‘ Not So Much

Any number of friends acquaintances, strangers and passers-bye have told me that I “need to see Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman.

I need to see this 31/2 hour epic story of a Frank Sheerin, a pathological killer who may have had something to do with disappearing Jimmy Hoffa?  I need this entertainment outing , why?

Plum evades me.

Can’t get roused to stir up even a modicum of interest to decline the offering to spend whatever the market will bear NETFLIX, or Marty.

I have never seen Frozen, the 50 Shades of Anything, Taken 1,2,3. & 4 among most films trotted since 1999.

I have yet to see an episode of

• Will & Grace
• The TV Show About Brainiac Nerds
• 60 minutes since the death of Andy Rooney
• States of Union
• Maud
• Brady Bunch in all of its manifestations
• Presidential Medals of Freedom
• Public Television -since the last episde of I, Claudius
• Bill O’Reilly
• Sean Hannity
• Rachel Maddox
• Chicago Tonight - since Phil Ponce ambushed Hank Lentzen
• Mass for the Shut-ins
• Family Guy
• The Real O’Neals
• Anderson Cooper
• Meet the Press

The last good movie that I watched at the Show ( a movie theatre) was A Little Chaos with the immortal Allan Rickman as Louis XIV of France. 

I am leading rich and full life, even though I have not purchased tickets for Hamilton.  I am not that woke. 

No,  I will shed my mortal husk without seeing The Irishman. 

Knock yourselves out!

Tenterhooks for the Enablers of Pedophile Duke? Nah, Let Horses Yank Him

“Everyone is on tenterhooks especially after the backlash to the Duke’s ‘Newsnight’ interview – no one saw the fall-out from that coming, especially the Duke,” a source previously told The Sun.

         Tenterhook - a hook used for stretching cloth, as with a tent. 

Stretching cloth for manufacture, or setting up a tent is nice metaphorical point of reference to feelings of tension. But nothing says it so well, when referring to the randified Duke of York - aka Andrew Albert Christian Edward . . .Windsor, I guess. 

This Royal Pedophile ( ˈpɛdoʊfaɪl, ˈpɛdəfɪl) An adult who is sexually attracted to children.) is getting his comeupance - sort of, 

The BBC will air the heir’s accuser this evening. I hope this princely pervert and degenerate Duke gets thoroughgoing drubbing. 

His play pal Jeffery Epstein choked on his sins and saliva in the New York lock-up while on suicide watch.

President Clinton is collecting speakers fees. 

I teach young people, ages 14-18, and they are children.  They live at home with their parents and are genuinely unaware of monsters like the Duke of York and the late Mr. Epstein. They will come to know all of manner of natural and unnatural forms of human behavior after high school. Their parents will have grounded them is eternal truths.  The Catholic high school they attend reinforces the lessons learned in the home and presented from the pulpit.

The kids are alright.

Stretching cloth for manufacture is unfamiliar to my students, as is the fact that rags worn by impoverished and starving children could soon be taken from their corpses and turned into good and useful paper. Dickens wrote Bleak House thanks to paper-mills. Ironically, the little ragged Dickens beggars might have been resurrections.  

Stretching the truth is and has been the tool of useful journalists and secular moralists who deny that sexual crimes are punishable by anything. 

One British hag of the aristocracy stated that pedophilia is not a crime. Two academics refer to the abuse of children as, “learning to love.”   like an apprenticeship program. 

We live in times where idiots hold universal truth over the fires.  We can nod in solemn agreement over the actions of the powerful and the protected, or we can ridicule swine for walking on two legs, boarding a private jet and vacationing on pedophile island. 

I choose the later. 

Mia Farro - I’m Going Whole Grain . . .with Plenty of Meat and Salt

The woman I love, but who absolutely hates when I mention her in writing has been nag . . .offering wholesome suggestions about adding Ancient grains to my diet. Her arguments are tighter than the pockets on a fat man’s pants.  Healthy eating is way cool and helps fight Dunlap’s Disease*

So , epicure that I am and dedicated to the lads who made  Mare Nostrum the pond of the world for more than a thousand years - I plunged into farro in Italian and tritium dicoccum.  This hearty grain was boiled by the Etruscans and later served in the Legions of Rome, conquering our cousins the Gauls and other beef eating Celts and then bricking the roads that remain all over civilized Europe. 

My idea of a healthy side dish is generally a half-pound of spuds drizzled in butter, or rice soaked with Kikkoman Teriyaki  sauce.   However, I can raise the bar on myself when compelled by the good opinion of a swell dame, or shamed by the vanishing notches on a belt.

If was good enough for Marius’s Mules and Caesar’s 10th Legion, it is good enough for Porky Pat of Michigan City.

Here is my variation on this Healthy Theme - Mia Farro, A Dish Served Chilled

1 Cup of Farro - I chose Bob’s Red Mill Farro
1Ribeye -(0.71 Lbs)
1/2 cup Cherry Tomatoes
1/2 cup chopped pitted olives
1/4 cup of chopped Feta cheese
1/4 cup of cilantro. 
Juice of 1/2 Lemon 
Kosher Salt and Black Peper


Soak 1 cup of Farro overnight -just get the grains wet.
In a three quart pot add three cups of ice cold water and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium and boil for thirty minutes - covered the last five. Keep and eye on the grains and stir every once in a while.

In a good skillet pan grill the ribeye to medium/medium well
Let cool and slice thinly - the thin liner the better.

I a large glass mixing bowl with a good plastic lid mix the meat Cherry Tomatoes, olives, cilantro and chopped Feta.

Drain any liquid from the grains and add to the mixture.

Pour in the Lemon juice and mix like hell. Let cool and snap on plastic cover.

Put the stuff in the ice box and allow it to cool for at least three.

I nailed a couple of bowls of the this and feel that it stacks up nicely against chili, ragout, or slumgullion.

Mia Farro - a cold dish served is no revenge.




* My belly done laps over my belt!

Bob Foster Is Where God Requires an Honest Heart and a Windbreaker

  

                            Robert W. Foster -Eternal Since 1940

Man, did you feel that wind yesterday?  I was in the parking lot of Meijer’s in Michigan City and saw a blue basket-cart sail past my car with no human hands at the helm.  It was loaded with groceries. The helmsman caught up with it a yards west of the entrance. That was some wind.

When I got home and went back to work on my up-coming final exams, I learned via Facebook messaging from Dan Stecich,  that Bob Foster, Leo Class of 1958, Purdue Boilermaker, History Teacher and Football Coach for Leo, Mount Carmel, Little Flower, and St. Rita high schools, Principal and President of Leo High School had gone home to Christ.

That was no wind.  Bob Foster was leaving.

I worked for Bob Foster. I learned that Leo High School is not made of re-bar and poured concrete, but of bone, blood, muscle and heart.  Bob Foster coordinated those vital elements from all of the men he taught, mentored, or met.    Mr. Foster taught them the fundamentals of commitment and courage and swelled the sidelines of a very winning team.

Leo High School remains a vital organ on 79th & Sangamon Streets, because of Bob Foster.

God is not making any more Bob Fosters, because He did such a damn good job on the original.

You will know Bob Foster, because you will meet Bob Sheehy, Terence Bates, Mike Joyce, Mike Holmes, Dan Stecich  Mark Lee, Gus McNamara, Denzel Tucker, Bill Holland, Amir Hunter, Mike O’Neill, Raheem Williams, Rich Finn and Lonnie Newman.  Bob Foster will be most present wherever Leo Men and good people work to help make this a better world.

The bulk of Bob Foster’s spirit whirl-winded to God’s home field, where it is sunny, dry, the grass is cut just the length to confound the opposition and all a man needs is an orange windbreaker with Leo HS stenciled in bold black on the left breast.

Bob left enough spirit in everyone else to maintain the mission here.

That was some wind.

Obituary for Robert W. Foster

Foster, Robert W.

Beloved Husband of the late Carol (nee Goss).
Loving Father of Jennifer (Dan CFD) McVicker, Michael, and Cathleen (Sean) Huenecke.
Dear Grandfather of Erik, Luke, Peter, Jessica, and Ryan.
Fond Brother of the late Thomas, Donald, Jack, and Jeanne Tighe.
Dear Uncle of many nieces and nephews.
Special appreciation to Bob’s caregiver and friend Al.

Bob retired from Leo High School in 2010 after over 40 years in numerous capacities, Teacher, Head Football Coach, Athletic Director, Principal and President.

Recipient of Leo High School Alumni Association “Man of the Year” in 2008 and Hall of Fame Inductee. Tony Lawless Award winner. 2013 Inductee to the Chicagoland Sports Hall of Fame and 1983 Chicago Catholic League Hall of Fame Recipient, 1999 Distinguished American Award from the National Football Foundation and College Hall of Fame (Chicago Metro Chapter), 2006 ISCC Educator of the Year Award. 

Arrangements entrusted to Robert J. Sheehy & Sons Funeral Home


www.sheehyfh.com 708-857-7878

Free People, or Helots. Hoosiers are Free People, for Now.

like donkeys suffering under heavy loads,
by painful force compelled to bring their masters half
of all the produce that the soil brought forth.
(Tyrtaeus West Fragment 6, trans. West)

Description

Helots - The helots were a subjugated population group that formed the main population of Laconia and Messenia, the territory controlled by Sparta. 

noun

1. a member of a class of serfs in ancient Sparta, intermediate in status between slaves and citizens.

   • a serf or slave.

I have been using this term to describe people of the middle class in Chicago, Cook County and Illinois for a number of years,   In ancient Sparta, Helots were the middle class, sandwiched between the upper class and slaves as we know the term. 

In Chicago during my life time (1952-2018) there, I watched the robust American middle/working class diminish, shrink and all but vanish from Cook County.   The upper classes and their stooges ( some journalists, activists, too many labor unions, private charities) have done everything to get people who pay taxes, work for a living and live happy lives get the Hell out of Dodge. 

A few weeks ago, one of the Oligarchy’s stooges with Chicago Sun Times  wrote a piece bewailing the departure of the black middle class from Chicago and positing the possibility of its return.   The stooges of Oligarchy have made Race the basis of everything, but the facts confound this lie.  The Black Middle Class is no different from the Polish, Swedish, Greek, Lithuanian, Bohemian, Mexican, Jewish and Italian middle class.  The only ethnic demographic of the Middle Class that does not get it is the Irish.

As a group the Irish serve the oligarchy with regularity and lick-spittle lock-step for the likes of Pat Quinn, Richie Daley, Toni Preckwinkle, Lori Lightfoot and JB Pritzker like no other.  

This is odd because the Irish were once in the forefront of creating the middle class.  My Grandfather was. a hairy pawed union slugger in the stock yards who helped form one of the most powerful and professional skilled trades unions in Illinois.  He went from coal heaver, to operating engineer, to union official always with a job in the trade.  He was a radical Big Jim Larkin off-the-boat bog-trotter in 1912, who eventually owned a huge brick bungalow for his wife and thirteen children at 7535 S. Marshfield, saw his grandson become a Norte Dame standout and Houston Oiler, but was as equally proud of that man’s younger brother who won an ITT fellowship in engineering design, because merit was a path out of the working class.  All of his 75 grandchildren became solidly middle class citizens. Those blue collar dreams came true in the early 1960’s. 

That was when John F. Kennedy became President and starred down the Communists in Berlin, Vietnam and Cuba.  Today, JFK would be excoriated as a Red-baiting, anti-abortion, Catholic deplorable. JFK would be a helot today.   Our world hates pugnacious people with moral centers.  The Fighting Irish is a logo.  Bishop Shiel is forgotten and the doughy mush Monsignor Jack Egan touted as a working class hero.  Today, a Pastor Michael Pfleger is treated with deference, if not the contempt that he works so very hard to elicit. 

The Irish tend to be generous to a fault, tribally loyal and willing to be counted.  Those same gifts allowed the Irish as a group to be co-opted by people and indeologies that detest them to the marrow.  Hyde Park buried Bridgeport between 1972 and the Progressive Hegemony that controls Illinois.  Abner Mikva and Dr. Quentin Young co-operated with City Hall and County Building and roped in the likes of Tom Hynes, Neil Hartigan and the young Daleys.  The Media, 501(c) # Fortunes and IVI-Good Government cache no longer assaulted The Machine. 

Mike Madigan understood that Ward power was over and played cent-field with Hyde Park.  The Irish fought no one and became most congenial. 

The Congenial Irish took the path of least resistance and all but erased the verbal fighting from their political, religious and moral lexicon.  The Irish got behind Neil Hartigan and went soft on abortion to the point that a mushy mope like Senator Dick Durbin walks publicly in a green sash. 

The Irish of the tail-end of the 20th Century get behind “great gals and guys” who take the coin, the endorsement and condescension of people who detest everything about being Irish. 

As such, huge voting blocks in neighborhoods in the 19th Ward have helped put shackles on the Irish and any ethnic group that marries into their flabby embrace. 

The Irish retain political influence in Cook County and Illinois because the Irish, as a group, go-along with the great enthusiasm.  

As a result, the middle class is being eliminated.  Why?  The middle class is anathema to the Oligarchy who blend Marxism with kleptomania. 

Cook County is Animal Farm.  Pigs get fat and everyone else gets slaughtered. 

Shunning, slogans, group hate and the daffy doings of the Bears and Cubbies numb middle class families  that still remain within the borders of the City and the State.  Like blacks and sharecroppers in the post-Reconstruction American South, the middle class suffer the same burdens hoisted upon their backs by Richie Daleys, Rahm Emanuel, Bruce Rauner and now the completely supine Lori Lightfoot. 

Individuals finally get a bellyful. I planned to move out of Illinois and found a home in Michigan City, Indiana.   Alas, my children will continue to live in Illinois.  

All three were born outside of Cook County, but all three love being close to cousins, aunts and uncles and grandma, as did I. 

I can visit.  They own homes.

Hoosiers have resisted the harness.  The news papers have no reliable stooges, but report on public affairs and actually have local high school sports data and stories,  One might mark the end of freedom in Illinois from the time that the sports pages became propaganda for lovable losers and the milquetoasts of the Midway,

More significantly, the newspapers are independent and a MEDIA.  There are no self-absorbed stooges like Eric Zorn, Fran Spielman, Carol Marin, Michael Sneed, Rex Hupke, or the appalling Mary Schmich.

Politically, there is not a huge block of Woke Millennial Irish to wrap Progressive initiatives like abortion in corned beef and cabbage. 

The editorial boards are not lickspittles for City Hall.  In fact, today’s. headline screams this: 

 La PORTE – Just days before the election, felony charges were filed against Michigan City Mayor Ron Meer for his actions following the arrest of his stepson earlier this month, but no judge has yet agreed to conduct a probable cause hearing.Court records show that on Wednesday – under seal – the La Porte County Prosecutor's Office charged Meer with one felony count of official misconduct; five felony counts of intimidation; and two misdemeanor counts of false informing resulting in substantial hindrance to law enforcement.
The charges were initially filed in Superior Court 4, but Judge Greta Stirling Friedman recused herself from "even finding probable cause on the basis that, among other reasons, the Judge's spouse, whose employment caused him to be included on an email chain and could potentially lead to his being a witness in this matter," according to court records.

No Bruce Dold, Chicago Tribune managing editor could spike the story.  No team of Yahoos like Mark Brown, Neil Steinberg, or Mary Mitchel could blare out distraction yarns of Racism, or Yellow Corn.

 Days before election Mayor Ron needs to gussie-up his resume.  I spoke with Michigan Citizens and some like what Mayor Meer has done for the downtown area and others said that he was jerk when they worked for him in City Government.   Everyone has a vote and it is not for barter.

I don’t have a dog in the fight and look forward to election day. 

Hoosiers are not helots - yet.   

Cold War South West Lake Michigan Shore - The Nike Sites

The C-47 -Portage, Indiana Nike Missile Site from 1954-1972 was a part of the defensive ring of anti-missile batteries that garlanded the Lake Michigan shoreline. The Last Line of Defense - Chicago’s Nike Missile Sites

The threat of death by Communism was very real and its palpable, existential presence was part of every day life for people on the south side of Chicago and Northwest Indiana.

As a child, I remember going to the Museum of Science and Industry with my Uncle Bart and future Aunt Betty (c 1957) and remarking on white ballistic missiles sited along Lake Shore Drive.  “ Those are Mike Sites, Padgeen,” the recently discharged Korean War veteran uncle replied.  “They are there to keep the Reds from killing us,”. he further explained.

Sixty-two years later, I retain a healthy fear of the Reds.  They still would like to kill us, but they have chosen to legislate and tax us to death, rather than inflict thermo-nuclear war on us all - not they might not opt for that once the dough vanishes.

Last Tuesday, as our bus load of Marquette Catholic High School students returned to Michigan City from the wonderful Holocaust Museum in Skokie, passed by Wolf Lake, I pointed to the last indication of Hammond Nike Sites along Sheffield Avenue.  One of the freshmen challenged my veracity and went to Nike Sites Hammond Google.

“Yep, Mr. Hickey nailed it!  Dudes, check it out!”

The young cynic presented a number of photos from the world wide web.

These sites were abandoned in 1972 as no longer relevant.  Communism was treated very much in the same way.  Nothing to worry about.

Once the existential threat was removed, who. needs anything else?  Just like real life, “ God, get me out of this and I will be a modern day St. Sebastian!”. Threat removed and penitent goes total libertine!

I hope that teachers remind students of these sites as historical artifacts to the times when the nuclear cloud and the very genuine threat of Communism hung heavily over all of us.

My Uncle Bart fought the Reds in Korea as a U.S.Marine.  The threat of the Reds was very clear to him and my future Aunt Betty.  Sophisticated people who see abortion as a health care laugh at their  existential fears of the 1950’s & ‘60s and vote in people to Offices 2019 who may have helped take away the Nike sites with its spectral caveat concerning mad socialism and a sound wariness over a system of economics that has a history of slaughtering millions of people.

It is interesting that it took a trip to Skokie’s Holocaust Museum to jog my memories about Nike Sites.

Sadie Hawkins Dance 2019 - I’m A Goin’! Can I say that these days?

From 1934 to 1977 ( FDR -Jimmy Carter Administration), there was a comic strip that made fun of white people who live in fly-over America. These are People elites might never have encountered - persons from Lower-Slobovia and all treated with humorous respect by the creator.  Al Capp’s artistry was so popular that a  hit musical comedy was born of its celebrity.

Li’l Abner was not a Gangstah rapper gunned down at the behest of Chief Keef.  For fact, it was a comic strip theater featured the lives of white folks from the mountain hamlet of Dogpatch.  The denizens old Dogpatch were hillbillies, or as today’s PC cranks might offer Mountain Williams.

One of these Deplorables was the unfortunate daughter of the founding family, Sadie Hawkins.   Sadie was . . .homely.  One of Life’s Unplucked Flowers, like a Sister of Mercy back in the day, Sadie Hawkins, not a Mackeral Snapper, but a Bible-belted bringer-in-of-sheaves, resorted to whining to her Paw that no man wanted to her.  Paw came up with a race requiring every eligible bachelor in Dogpatch to get a running start from his homely child and head for the tall pines.  If Sadie could catch her man, she’d keep him.

Out of this misogynistic bit of patriarchal law-laying-down, arose the Sadie Hawkins Dance.  In every high school gym in America Sadie Hawkins Dances required the girls to ask the boys out to the jig.

The boys are honor-bound to accept and have fun.

Tonight, I will chaperone a Sadie Hawkins.  In English class last week, I revealed the etymology of the name of the dance, much to the surprise and delight of one and all.

The Dance is almost sold out.

My only beef is the fact that there is no band.  Kids no longer go to dances with bands.  That is a tragedy.  There will be a DJ.

I will duke the platter-spinner a double sawbuck to ensure that the following numbers are played:

Hold me

Just Ask the Lonely

Land of 1000 Dances

Devil with the Blue Dress On

A Fin a piece is a bargain to educate young American Catholic young men and women.

The Sun Times Remains a Sad Joke

“ Men in sport coats mulled about and women clutching designer navigated the second floor .  .   . “ Tom Schuba Chicago Sun Times (print edition) sentence one of paragraph one to Pot Goes Mainstream

" Men clad in sport coats mulled about and women clutching designer purses navigated the second floor of a Loop hotel hosting a major investment conference."  Tom Schuba edited after paper had gone to print. 

The Chicago Sun Times was once a local newspaper; today it is pamphlet put out by alleged labor lovers and actual Leftists.  Lynn Sweet is doing the black bag work for Mrs. Obama and DNC, Neil Steinberg has still not completed reading Dante's Divine Comedy, but mentions that he is reading it, Mary Mitchell continues to draw a salary and a pasty goof named Gene Lyons make the afore mentioned threesome seem to write like Dorothy Parker, Ted Dreiser and Audre Lorde.  The Sun Times is a pamphlet and a bad one at that.

One pamphleteer for this organ is the above cited Tom Schuba - any relation to the folks who own that fine and hip saloon on the northwest side? Schuba laced up his spikes for another Sun Times fellation  of Governor Pritzker's Weed Empire

Out of the blocks, Schuba sprints into a hurdle - words mean something.

Men is sport coats might very well mull about somewhere and at some time and in some place, but not in this instance.

mull
/məl/

verb
think about (a fact, proposal, or request) deeply and at length.
"she began to mull over the various possibilities"
synonyms: ponder, consider, think over/about, reflect on, contemplate, deliberate, turn over in one's mind, chew over, weigh up, consider the pros and cons of, cogitate on, meditate on, muse on, ruminate over/on, brood on, have one's mind on, give some thought to, evaluate, examine, study, review, revolve; More

or to have been warmed, if liquid men, with spices and sugars added.

Lynn Sweetner, mayhaps?

I believe Master Schuba meant top say "Men in sports coats milled about . . .  the second floor of a Loop hotel hosting a major investment conference."  Millining about suggests an accurate apprehension of what was going down on the 2nd floor lobby.

Thus! mill around. — phrasal verb with mill verb [ T ] uk ​ /mɪl/ us ​ /mɪl/ (UK also mill about) If a group of people mill around, they move around with no particular purpose or in no particular direction, sometimes while waiting for someone: In the square, people were milling around in the sunshine.

Now, as to Master Schuba's missing noun ( purses - designered and clutched) we will leave that to the universally poor editing of the hardest working propaganda organ this side of NEWSPEAK.

That Tom Schuba screwed the pooch at paragraph one is clear to a reader of the print edition --the one that comes out after newsmen scream, 'Stop the Presses!' when a pooch is having been proved screwed.  Proper screwed.

That Tom Schuba would countenance the fact that he did, in fact, have his wicked way with this puppy ain't gonna happen.

Pravda never printed a disclaimer and the Chicago Sun Times will consider no such thing.

Animal Farm requires no inquiry, no memory and no conviction.

Mull that one over. 

I.C.E. ! Wolf! Hysterics of the Media and Real People

Dick Durbin goes Matlock in solidarity with people who will not be swept up by I.C.E.

I live in the real world.  I work in the real world.  I work at a huge Bakery/Packaging factory in Alsip, IL.

So & So Snacks makes cookies, pretzels and wildly over priced gluten free crackers for affluent, mildly educated white people.

In my time with this company, I have made the gluten free 100% cheese crackers and now package and pallet them for shipping.

I an one of three non-minority majority ( African American, Latino, or Mexican) workers among the more than 100 in Gluten Free ( aka 'Nasty Crackers") production and shipping.  The vast majority of workers are Mexicans and most likely immigrant - I have no idea, much less care about their legal status - Mexicans are the greatest workers. 

By greatest I mean this.

• They struggled to get to this country by the most perilous path and many lost loved ones in the process
• Mexicans sing while doing the most dull, onerous, difficult and messy tasks
• They use break-time to help out their 'neighbors' on other lines - pretzel and cookie dough workers help the cracker stackers
• Mexicans do the work sniffed at by black and white Americans as 'too degrading' until the native born get shamed into picking up their end of the tasks
• They never drink, smoke dope, or snort cocaine during working hours
• Mexicans stay until every aspect of the job is completed and the work stations are properly cleaned for the sanitation crews to come along and prepare for the next shift
• They sing and laugh - Americans piss and moan

These past weeks the American media ( papers, cable, TV and radio) shrieked about Immigration ( I.C.E.) raids, not unlike those black and white images from Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List -colorized of course, blared from every outlet and useless idiots like Senator Dick Durbin

moued before the cameras wearing Matlock Suits, while hair-gel'd dimwits like David Muir warned that jack-booted Trumpian thugs were coming for brown residents - ON SUNDAY!!!!!

I went to Mass on Sunday and our altar boys and their parents were on hand.  Pout of curiosity, I took a swing by the Cracker Factory and Mexicans showed up for over time work, as well as the Blue Hair-netted Line Bosses ( Mostly African American).  

I was off work today, as I needed to repair an Apple I-Pad that I will need when I begin teaching in three weeks.  Before, I drove to Jet CO Device Repair on North Wells, I popped over to work - there were Lette from Durango, El Padrone from Mexico City, Jospehina from Durango, Emma, the opera singer, from Vera Cruz, Matin from Toluca, Martina from Sonora and the balance of the gang.

I was greeted with, " Oye abuelo ¿Dónde está tu ropa de trabajo? ¿Vas a ir a Indiana de nuevo?

In my best Spanglish I replied, "¡No, bebés! Quería ver si Trump te atrapó a ti y a los niños."

They laughed and waved me off on my way. 

Our news media will turn this country into a fascist state before too long.  

It operates on fear and hysteria and depends upon un-inquiring minds and nodding caitiffs to fulfill its mission to make America an oligarchy. 

Americans are most certainly the least inquiring of minds. 

Let us pray they retain some courage of genuine conviction. 

Shrimp Cocktails and The Colonies of Liberty!

Happy Fourth of July!

I spent the day fishing the Kankakee River at Custer Park along Route 113 and had only two lackluster tugs by a denizen of the deep, or cresting waters.

My boon chum and I gave up the lures and headed back to Cook County before the next phalanx of storm clouds pelted us with hail and silver dollar sized droplets.

We had a great time cast-drifting for small mouth and snagging driftwood. The piscean Illini of the mighty Kankakee remain unhooked and free!

We stopped at the Rocketship in Wilmington for a celebratory pot roast sandwich.  I had a GreenRiver and my pal a cold Dad's Old Fashioned Root Beer,

Our table talk centered on foods, dining, America's Youth, our shrinking cultural contexts due to my allusion to young African Lad with whom I labor at J & J Snacks ( formerly Labriola Bakery) in Alsip, Illinois.   I explained.

I work on the packaging and shipping line for the Parm Crisp Division of this worthy firm.   I had worked making Parm Crisps - a gluten free lure for white people with more money than taste.  These 'sophisticated' snacks come in three ounce packages and sell for a husky $ 4.95 at most marts.

Here is the recipe:

• Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
• Pour a heaping tablespoon of Parmesan onto a silicone or parchment lined baking sheet and lightly pat down. A silicone baking sheet is highly recommended. ...
• Bake for 3 to 5 minutes or until golden and crisp. Cool.

J & J Snacks uses only 40 pound wheels of delicious Belgiosio Parmesan and quarters, chops shreds and particles the dairy delicacy into a  very fine dust and bakes accordingly.

The product reminds me of particle-board - De Gustibus Non Est Disputandem.

Tony Marxist Oak Parkers flock to Whole Foods and other outlets and lay down a fin per package - that's $5 for twelve crisps weighing in at 3 ounces.

Go figure.

A month ago, I requested transfer to shipping and packaging where I am delighted to work with African American working women and gents and a legion of Mexican immigrant Americans.  These people humble me.  They work long hours for an average of $11 per hour and never fall out and always over compensate for inferior equipment and understaffed crews with hard labor, grit and great good humor.

I package between 600-900 boxes ( 7-9 pallets) per shift, Our labeling machine has a faulty closing arm and now have an 18 year old Temp named T working with me.

He is a baby face with a very sweet nature - guileless and respectful of women and  his aged white co-worker and shipping mentor.

He tasted our product and concurred with my judgment that you will never go broke underestimating rich white people. " Cracker's nasty!"  he exclaimed.

This cracker cab be nasty, but I am generally sweet natured.

Our bonding took a turn toward tastes in food.  I told him that any great dinner out should include and appetizer of shrimp cocktail.  T had never heard of this hors d'oeuvre.

I began, " This seafood specialty originated in Great Britain and consists of cooked chilled prawns      ( large shrimp) arranged and dolloped with a sauce consisting of catsup, mayonnaise and Tabasco - in Old Blighty and Ketchup and horseradish here in the Land of the Free and Home of the Brave - served in a chilled martini glass on both sides of the pond.:

" Pond, Old School?"

'The Pond refers to the Atlantic Ocean, Young Folks."

These days young Americans have a very diminished capacity for confronting cultural contexts.  T had never heard of Sarah Vaughan, Joe Williams, or Miles Davis, let alone understood my reference to a co-worker taking a Steve Brody off of the railroad bridge crossing the Cal Sag.

America should be big enough to school our young 'uns in matters of taste.

Our elites eat gluten free 'nasty crackers' that cost $ 5 a dozen.  Eighteen year old African American Lads who work 40 hours a week for $11 should be directed to enjoy a shrimp cocktail, for the love God, His Holy Mother and All the Saints.

Our Founding Fathers would concur. I think.

The Asses and the Pig - Illinois Re-Fabled

Thus oft the industrious poor endures reproach
From rogues in lace, and sharpers in a coach;
But soon to Tyburn sees the villains led
While he still earns in peace his daily bread. Thomas Bewick

BUT never in Illinois 2019 - thus oft and always!

Illinois' first statewide capital plan in 10 years will include spending on everything from an expansion of high-speed broadband internet to sewage system development. The bulk of the money -- $33.2 billion -- will be spent on transportation projects. An additional $4.3 billion will be spent on state facilities, $3.5 billion on education projects and $1.2 billion on environmental projects.
To pay for it all, the Democratic-controlled Legislature approved the expansion of gambling around the state, including new casinos in Chicago, Rockford, Danville, Williamson County and a yet-to-be-decided site in a Cook County suburb south of Chicago. Supporters say the state's share of gambling revenue will be $2 billion in one-time licensing fees and an additional $400 million a year when all the casinos are up and running.
"We're responsibly expanding gaming at the request of cities that want to make sure that they have the resources to pay for police and firefighter pensions, and to fund vital services," Pritzker said. Daily Herald

Illinois is a kleptocracy.  Aesop, and other dead white males. warned of the looming moment when Venezuela will make Illinois look like Lake Geneva, Wisconsin.   Illinois has reversed the morals taught by Aesop, Phaedrus, Croxal and Beckwith, as well as the diversity demanded Munika-Jakata fables of the Buddhist traditions.   In Illinois, Pigs prosper and working stiffs prove ourselves Asses.

An Ass is an equine working quadruped - bears burdens and is rewarded with carrots, sugar cubes and is pensioned off.  A Pig eats, rolls in filth, defecates, procreates, eats more and is slaughtered for his bacon & etc.

Aesop wrote of The Ass ( us) and The Pig (0ur Elected and Protected Elites) as a cautionary tale for men and women.

A Pig ate everything that came within his sight and snout, not unlike our Governor and most elected legislators, mayors and trusted public servants.

The Ass returned from his labors and refused to eat goodies left behind by the demised porker, believing that devouring everything was somehow bad.

In WOKE Illinois, we know that the opposite is the fact.

Facts are what are used by public school educators to support any conclusion determined to be satisfactory, like gender neutrality, pension jackpots, weed is not dangerous, gambling is good, gas should be unaffordable, the poor will have more company,  State controlled apprenticeships and severe punishments for nonconforming citizens of unprotected races, genders and colors.

Facts fatten Pigs and have nothing to do with what was at one time referred to as Truth, but is now dismissed from Free Port to Cairo.

Pigs prosper and Asses vote them into power.

Pigs never die in Illinois.  Babies do in Illinois at State funded Abortion Mills ( aka Planned Parenthood).

They'll never pay taxes, or drive petroleum fueled vehicles.

Drive a car?

I filled up this morning at Thornton's on Western Avenue; next week, in Hammond.

Adieu, sophistique de l'Illinois - I'm A By-Gawd Hoosier Chawbacon!!!!!

Come August, I will again reside in the great State of Indiana.  From 1988-1999, I spent many happy years in the Hoosier State.

Now, I am only too happy to bid farewell to Illinois.

I loved Illinois.  From Freeport to Cairo and from Momence to Quincy the plain people of Illinois lived up to our homeliest and most beautiful of American Presidents - for whom our auto licence plates pay homage, if not the antics of our homegrown and imported elected officials.

I no longer choose to reside and pay taxes in a State that is dedicated to Infanticide, Weed and the economic Genocide of the Middle Class.

I am no where near sophisticated enough to do so.

I am no Kelly Cassidy, let alone a Heather Steans ( even if I willed to either one avail myself of a gender ambiguous water closet).  Them gals are Sophisticates!

No, I am an urban rustic at heart, a helot, a Hoosier, if you will.

A Sophisticate has no qualms about equating health care to the slaughter of innocents and a sophisticate can watch the Rev. Michael Pfleger dictate doctrine to Chicago Cardinal Cupich with homiletics gleaned from the editorial page of The Sun Times without pisser lui-même, ses chaussettes et ses birkenstocks.  Hell, I can't!!!!!  That race-baiting Cracker in the Collar kills me!!!!!

A Sophisticate understands that Blue Collar values are always wrapped in a Rainbow Flag ( 100%, 24-7 and Siempre!) and I just don't see that.  Euclid works fine.  I believe that treating everyone respectfully and kindly is the thing to do, but that two gents will never require an obstetrician's talents even with Bill Nye the Science Guy bulling away for them at Monsanto Chemical.  Rainbow Flags are terrific, by the way and so are Pride Parades - taking a florist, a baker or anyone to court to score points and punish people is not so prideful.

A Sophisticate can parse the news to browbeat millions of people into voting for a bloated billionaire with most of his dough socked away in Caribbean off-shore tax-havens, while keeping his 'walking-around money' to face the Illinois tax-handlers of the very friendly Susan Mendosa, Comptroller of Illinois for the Fair Tax pruning. My large extended family, who voted lustily for JB Pritzker and all he stands for, will be plucked like feathered Perdue unfortunates and abused at the gas pump, like Fair Oaks Farm animals, until last week.

A Sophisticate from Illinois voted in every louse who voted For and Present on the Kelly Cassidy and Heather Steans ( Governor JB Pritzkers Weed Go-to-Gals in the Illinois House) monstrous Infanticide legislation and only raised an eye-brow when Cullerton and Madigan sneaked in a $1,600 bonus pay raise for their loyal Assembly creeps.  Baal is smiling all over Illinois.

Health Care is a euphemism for murder in Illinois.

My watch is over.

I was a high school teacher and I watched many kids get fouled up on Marijuana and a good number of those very sweet souls died taking the drugs that Weed gatewayed their foolish exits. Booze is bad. Weed is worse. Like I said I am not sophisticated enough to admit otherwise, having witnessed the empirical truth.

Illinois is for sophisticates only.

• Illinois will have zero Middle Class very shortly
• Illinois will no longer boast talented artists, writers and public spirited philathropists
• Illinois will resemble Cairo on the Ohio River,  by 2020 and Caracas, Venezuela by 2025
• Illinois will be comprised of people of great wealth and those to serve them
• Illinois will tolerate no conversation - Lynn Sweet, Eric Zorn and SEIU will determine all future conversation
• Illinois will be a national Abortion Mill, Weed Dispensary and Casino
• Illinois will be governed by theft

I am a by-God Hoosier Chawbacon, come August!!!!!