Talkers and Do-ers: My exchange with a Lawyer and Karen Lewis a Be-smears Philanthropist

 " Hey,Hey! Ho,Ho! Spell Czecher Haz Gotta Go! ( repeat as obnoxiously often as if Andy Thayer were Thay-er"

The CPS Strike may be history.  Maybe. I don't believe so,

I do not believe that the leadership of the Chicago Teachers Union, Karen Lewis and her ISO guru Jesse Sharkey, have had anywhere near enough face-time on camera to work their gums.

National labor activists who embarassed themselves in Madison Wisconsin last year are trucking to Chicago tomorrow for an MSNBC flavored bongo and gong sing-along in Union Park near Pilsen.

CTU members and CPS teachers are frustrated and rightly so.  I know many excellent CPS teachers who are burdened by the clowns from both CTU and CPS.  Policies and practices get heaped on them like taxes showered on Chicago citizens and they are expected to not only teach, care for, keep-track of and love their students, but also change the social order and tuck-point the dysfunctional families who send their children to spend hours of the day in their charge.

God love them!  Rahm is playing to cash-cows and public relations at the expense of common sense, whether that means tossing a million dollars to the gang-banger pensioners of CeaseFire, turning Gresham, Englewood and Grand Crossing neighborhoods into the care of Calypso Louis' Bow-tie Precision Marching Teams, or Draconianly changing the schedules of some schools, while appeasing the Mommies and Daddies of Magnet School kiddies, or TIFing more schools into Charters. He wants to be President.

Then there is Karen Lewis.  Ms. Lewis is a face of CTU, the heart of CORE and soul of ISO.  CORE is the Caucus of Rank and File Educators.  ISO is the International Socialist Organization*.  The VP of CTU is Jesse Sharkey an ISO wheel and one time teacher at Senn High School - not listed on staff these days.

Karen Lewis and Jesse Sharkey have "Hey,hey'd and Ho, Ho'd" everyone else in CTU to an Occupy TV moment. They are not about the money, they are about ending the capitalist-running-dog 1% patriarchal hegemony.  Got that?  T'aint too hard.  Bill Ayers understands it and Carol Marin and Eric Zorn eat it up.

So do the loud-mouths and layabouts.  This week John Kass praised Leo High School that Karen Lewis had smeared as not a real school, as this Catholic college prep school for inner city men was open on Monday.  It was a very nice and accurate contrast to the Karen & Jesse Show.

A web-paper that publishes my stuff, Chicago Daily Observer linked John Kass' article: Here is one comment from an anonymous goof -DMLawyer:

DMLawyer said:The school will be closed in a couple of years.
White flight to the burbs (Br. Rice, Marist, etc.) was the start of its demise.

I have heard that Leo was on its last legs from guys- in-the- know since 1966.  White flight?  How about that Viking ship in Lincoln Park? So, I responded. 

Pat Hickey said:Where have you been genius?
White flight occurred in the late 1960′s.

Too piquant?  Sorry, that's how I roll when confronted with a spitting bi-ped purported to have been educated somewhere.

Not to be outdone, the pettigogger rose to his full height and rejoined -

DMLAwyer said:
And the effects are still being felt.
At least you finally acknowledge its occurence and have stopped making excuses for racism.

At Least I did that. Yes, yes, and a chastened Honkey-ass bigot I be there, DM. Lord, forgive my bull-whipping of colored folks. Old habits, I guess. 

Sorry.  There I go again. Now, I am just as bad as DMLawyer and would not deem to take a back-seat to any man when an old-timey micturating party is afoot and I responded, thus -

Pat Hickey said:Write check to Leo, DML. All them folks you like to tag as racist do. Nothing kills racism like involvement. Step up; the sidelines are way to thick with talkers. Leo is all about doing -Facta Non Verba. Or do you just like to talk?

I am a pretty nice guy.  Unless someone insults people I love.  Why would anyone publicly ridicule people who do good, without any prompting and also do it so very badly.  Imagine pushing your shopping cart down the aisle and catching the eye of a stranger, give the wink and smile and salute him or her with a cheery greeting of " 'Morning!"  only to be acknowledged with a "#$% You and all you White Flight #$%^-ers!"  -
( that actually  happens to me all the time, but only with family and close friends -never total strangers in my neighborhood)  Why would one do such a thing? Because they feel that they can and, in my experience, these people happen to be educated, wealthy and Progressive.  That is when, I wear my guts on my sleeve and can be singularly unpleasant and even, God forgive me, sarcastic.

Now, I talk . . .in my sleep, Y'all!  My mouth goes like duck's ass when given have the mereest chance . . .No, really. I do chat some.

I also do. I do what I can and often a bit more.  I teach black kids, white kids, Mexican kids and, when the moon sits just right, my very own kids.  I can work a mop, turn on the boilers at Leo, fix the sump pump, chauffer the Canaryvillains, raise money, write grants, write articles, ask for help, make friends, fix bridges and buy lunches.  So does Dan McGrath, Mike Holmes, Mike Joyce, Aurora Latiffi, Mrs. Townsend, Gunny Frank Wilson and most everyone who draws a modest pay check at Leo every two weeks.

Most importantly, I can ask for money.  When I make a phone call, the person on the other side of the line knows I am about to lift his wallet, or rummage her purse.  Most people are willing to step in and help the mission.  We have millionaires, but mostly working stiffs. Some of our most loyal givers are on a fixed income.  All participate.  They mentor the kids, come to assemblies and games and love our lads. I value their gifts.

Karen Lewis has the luxury to slap people who have volunteered to help the public schools.  Today in the Tribune. Karen Lewis insults CPS donor Bruce Rauner. Mr. Rauner is what we at Leo call a "Big Hitter" - someone with oodles of the long-green-difference.  If my Rauner were giving to Leo and he told me that rotting dead alewife made a great deoderant, I'd be smelling like the dumpster behind DiCola's Fish on a hot August afternoon and happy about my new found scent. 

Karen has her own distinctive air - here is some of her gut-wind in today's Tribune

Rauner's solution to all these problems is to increase the number of Teach for America interns in CPS schools, to expand charter schools and to increase standardized testing. Obviously he knows absolutely nothing about education. If he even subscribed to any of the numerous education newspapers, like Education Week, he would know studies are showing Teach for America is not improving educational outcomes at low-income schools, that charter school performance nationwide is only on par with public school counterparts and that excessive standardized testing can have an adverse effect on students.
How much money has Bruce Rauner personally invested in all of these "solutions"?

Well, Bruce???? Tongue got your cat?

Mr.  Bruce Rauner is being impugned as a fat-cat capitalist opportunist by the ethically challenged leadership of CTU in preparation for the Big Labor Pay-Back for Walker Thru Rahm Rally tomorrow.  Money, marbles or chalk ? Jesse Sharkey, a practiced Commie scribe with many articles on his belt for ISO, wrote this piece for the svelt-talented Ms. Lewis.

Karen Lewis does not get direct dough for CTU from Mr. Rauner.  Mr. Rauner is about improving public education. He is a doer.  I disagree that Mr. Rauner's money is well-spent and that it is certainly misdirected.  Bruce Rauner should pop his dough into The Big Shoulders Fund and support Catholic Schools. I'm just sayin'!

Karen Lewis is educated, wealthier than most people I live near, and very Progressive.  

* Now a strike by the CTU over issues that are murky and confusing to the average citizen threatens to distract the electorate just as the Obama campaign picks up lost momentum.How could this have happened?
The ironic answer is that President Obama himself deserves some of the blame. At the top of the CTU leadership is a group of political activists for whom the health and well being of students is not the top priority much less the bread and butter concerns of their fellow union teachers. Instead, they are the hard core of a highly ideological milieu that has over the last decade or more burrowed their way into the teachers’ union.
Now they have their hands on the levers of power of a large urban union and are doing what no sane union leader would do, namely striking at a point where they are least likely to gain allies among Democrats and others on the left whom they normally could, and should, count on in a battle of this magnitude.
Only a group with a different agenda than that of the genuine labor movement would take such a huge risk. Actually, from their standpoint – one which advocates “r-r-radical” change – it makes a peculiar kind of sense because it appears to demonstrate their intransigence. While stalwart militancy can be a valuable trait in a labor leader, mindless militancy of the sort on display among the top leaders of the CTU is dangerous. For too long the democratic left inside the AFT and elsewhere hasignored these risks.
What animates this “mindless militancy”? It is the so-called “social justice” ideology propagated by a sectarian element in American schools of education and among their teacher graduates by individuals like Linda Darling-Hammond, Bill Ayers, Mike Klonsky, Gloria Ladson-Billings, Peter MacLaren and others. Thus, Karen Lewis, the new “fist in the air” fire brand president of the CTU in the words of her ally the Maoist education activist Mike Klonsky. Lewis recently traveled to Seattle not to discuss the tragedy of poor student outcomes in our nation’s schools but to rally the “Shock Doctrine” troops among the social justice crowd to take over the teachers’ union.
Keep in mind that I put quotes around “social justice” because this crowd’s “social justice” ideology has nothing to do with the social justice agenda of the genuine labor movement or the civil rights movement. This is, instead, an agenda about gaining political power, not for the students and teachers of our blighted urban schools, but for the advocates of “social justice” and its allied ideas such as multiculturalism and identity politics.
While proposed as something radical it is important to keep in mind how conservative and reactionary this ideology is, in fact. It represents a retreat from the genuinely progressive and radical agenda of the civil rights movement and the labor movement. And it is therefore not a surprise to realize that this new “social justice” agenda emerged in the wake of the defeat of those earlier democratic movements in the late 70s and early 80s.
The ideology actually leads the labor movement backwards into the divisive morass of politically correct identity politics. In the world of education, for example, it actually helped support the pro-corporate school “choice” movement by the formation of politically correct small schools like the “Social Justice” high school in Chicago. Not a surprise that figures like Ayers and Klonsky back the same idea as one supported by the Gates Foundation.
Thus, instead of creating democratic, transparent institutions that can lead us out of the crisis in our schools, this “social justice” crowd functions like a mirror image of the corporate education reform crowd they so loudly denounce. This faux radical milieu has, in fact, given up, sometimes explicitly, on wider social solutions, such as integration, to the problems of city schools. They promote absurd arguments that the schools are the moral equivalent of apartheid and promote a form of reparations for slavery in the name of repaying what they call the “education debt” that allegedly has accumulated over 400 years. Professor Stephen Diamond: Santa Clara University School of Law

http://stephen-diamond.com/
 http://www.cdobs.com/archive/featured/what-teachers-strike-chicago-leo-is-going-great/#comments
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/ct-perspec-0914-lewis-20120914,0,7374511.story

Scott Waguespack Responds to My Call About the Savage Beating of Two Young Women

The Alderman is going door-to-door to fin the savage who beat two girls in Bucktown
Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen with Natasha McShane

32nd Ward Alderman Scott Waguespack promptly returned my call concerning the savage beating of two young women in the Bucktown Area*. Having been given a pretty harsh treatment by me in my Saturday's Blog Post, I must compliment the the young Alderman for his sober and very forthright response. I would not be anywhere near as measured abd clear were I to respond to my angry tone.

Bucktown appears to have a pretty solid guy in that office.

I believe that the two women were savagely beaten because they were white, as well as vulnerable. It is very sad that American society has taken the path that tags race hate, but what makes things worse is the injudicious manner of meting out Hate Crime Crimes when perpetrated. Black on white crime is no more ugly than black on black crime. If Hate Crimes are on the books they should be logged no matter what race the perpetrator. It is ridiculous to have a person charged with a Hate Crime for making a snotty remark in a Wal-Mart and ignore the bloody bat beating.
Mr. Waguespack gave me his reasons for not going to the press. Here, is the nub of Alderman Waguespack's response to me.

" Hello Mr. Hickey, I am glad that you are a reporter for Chicago Daily Observer. . .This was a savage attack. . .I haven't been running around to the press. I have been going door-to door to try and find witnesses. I have been helping the police try to identify this man, getting rides for people who need them and trying to help out in a positive way. I don't run to the press everytime that there is a problem. Please call my office if you have any more questions."

Thank you, for your prompt and dignified answer, Alderman.

Not running to the press is something elected officials generally take a pass on - This speaks very Well of Mr. Waguespack.

Likewise, the Alderman of Bucktown indicates that he is a service oriented public official - another rarity. I believe that Scott Waguespack should demand upping the charge at the savage who horrifically bludgeoned these girls. However, that will be up to Alderman Waguespack.

I will call Mr. Waguespack next week and try to bring this to full circle in an Article that I will submit for publication with Chicago Daily Observer.



*

Natasha McShane remains in a critical condition in a Chicago hospital Monday after being brutally beaten by a baseball bat early last Friday morning in the Bucktown area of the city, and her family is in shock as the 23-year-old has never been involved in anything like this in her life.

“Her parents are devastated,” grandmother Bernadette McShane told the Belfast Telegraph.

The Irish student is the eldest of a family of five and her parents are with her as she fights for her life.

“They are at her bedside. She is getting first class treatment at the hospital. We are just waiting on news. We hope to get her back the way she was.”

McShane remains critical, and though Doctors at the Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center carried out a procedure to relieve some of the pressure on her brain, the exact nature of the her injuries are not yet known.

McShane was on her way home with friend Stacey Jurich, who is in a stable condition, when the attack occurred. Jurich was able to give a description of the attacker but no arrests have been made.

Chicago police departments, Sgt Walter Chudzik said the two women were attacked from behind.

“The area where it happened has a lot of bars and restaurants and people hanging around at that time of night. There are predators there that prey on people on a night out. There are robberies every few weeks,” said Chudzik.

Due to the savage nature of the attack, Chudzik said that the police department made the decision to assign many officers to the case.

Get the Context from Dan Kelley in the Joe Berrios Brawl

Chicago Daily Observer columnist and attorney Dan Kelley presents the best analysis of the Cook County Assessor Race coming soon to voters near you!

Dan Kelley presents the context for this race being papered over by the dimwitted corporate media - especially the ever fatuous icon Carol Marin. I like Joe Berrios and Carol Marin does not. That is usually Okay by me.

For the real deal dig here and find the gold.

Thus:

Berrios might have been vulnerable to a primary challenge in 2008, but the only opponent to emerge was Jay Paul Deratany, a lawyer with ties to US Representative Jan Schakowsky (D-9th) and her husband, the former felon, Robert Cremer. Deratany enjoyed financial support from the gay community, but his campaign money could not buy him love from the primary electors. A stronger opponent might have caused Berrios some sleepless nights, but the leftist Shakowsky endorsed a Board of Review candidate who could not play to the voters in the bungalow belt. Had a more conventional opponent filed against Berrios in 2008, he may have been retired already.

If Claypool qualifies for the November ballot, this may be the most interesting local contest in more than a decade. Claypool has a political resume that is enviable when contrasted with that of Berrios. For the time being, voters will have to wait and see what develops.

Click my post title for Dan Kelley's Chicago Daily Observer piece

Three Race Hustlers Take a Cue to and Beat the Hell Out of the Truth - CTA Cuts

We must make certain that Illinois is a state that truly exemplifies the principles of equity and justice in its public institutions. We can start now. Let's take this lawsuit as our cue.

Rep. Danny Davis (D-Ill.)

Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.)

Ald. Rick Munoz (22nd Ward)

Never bring a Cue to a Race Card Game, Guys!

Congressman Jackson has Ethics - well an Ethics Investigation over his noggin in Congress.

Wrong-Way Kedzie, Tamil Tiger and Rev. Moon-Pie Danny Davis is a celebrated nit-wit with the pipes of church organ and E. Power Biggs hitting the keys.

Ald. Ricky Munoz is a dodgy ethically challenged darling of the Brie Eating Dummies. His poor Dad got into a huge jackpot last year, by Ricky managed to keep most the problem off his own shoes*.

This triumvirate of race baiters is hammering the race card over cuts to CTA services and using the time-honored Lefty Mantra ( now being 'so played' by the Obama White House - Systemic)

This funding ( CTA) scheme comes from a history of systemic racism that perpetuates barriers to social and economic equity in the region.

Thanks, Fellas! I ride the CTA. Grandma Donahue rides the CTA from 63rd and Kedvale to visit Mrs. Cooney in St. Gabes in Canaryville - she takes three ( four sometimes) buses ( 63rd to Pulaski -Pulaski to 47th and 47th East to the 'Ville). Stan Petkas from over by Marquette Park rides the CTA up Kedzie to Archer and then downtown. Dinko Malinkovich from Hegewisch rides the CTA down to Jardin and back every day. Esther Fein on the Gold Coast rides CTA #151 to Temple. Bruno and Rose Panatera from Taylor Street ( well not for long because the Profs and Docs strangled what used to be called rent in that once proud Italian neighborhood) ride the CTA all over the place.

Chicago journalist Dennis Byrne at Chicago Daily Observer gives these three dopes a Three Stooges Xylophone slap (Danny,Jesse, Ricky!)- Do Read:

The problem with the filing goes well beyond it('s) narrow reading of history, convenient disregard of reality and factual errors. The pleading asks for an end to the “disproportionate adverse impact” on race, but fails to say how. Redress would by definition require the reopening of the distribution formula and possibly legislative change of the farebox recovery ratio to favor more CTA riders. Should a judge—and not elected officials—now make that decision? On what basis? There’s no guarantee that when all things fair are considered that the CTA would even come out better.

The suit also leaves out an important fact when it bifurcates the region into the CTA and suburbs. The Illinois Metropolitan Transit Authority Act, which created the CTA, authorizes the agency to operate in much of Cook County, including the suburbs (for the literal-minded, it’s everything east of Range 11.) And, indeed it does, serving as many as 30 suburbs, such as Wilmette and Evanston. Metra also serves some of those same suburbs, such as Wilmette and Evanston. So, for purposes of squishy equity the suit demands, are African Americans living in Wilmette or Evanston defined as a part of the plaintiff class? If so, should their Metra service be reduced to achieve some vaguely defined notion of parity?

Racial mongers make their living like this, separating the world into honeycombs of advantaged and disadvantage, victims and oppressors, black and white. This is the 21st century, folks. We should be beyond that.

To the three nitwits - ALL CHICAGOANS pay fares and get cold at the stops. Cuts hurt Everyone! It is cold at stops for elderly Jewish, Croatian, Lithuanian, Italian, Polish and Irish systemic racists as well as the Acceptable Victims ( Black & Hispanic). Funny – I never hear Mexicans beef. Only Hispanics, Where the hell is Hispania, or Hispanica anyway?

Danny Davis needs to start collecting his many pensions.

Jesse Jackson, Jr. needs less street cred and more sound legal advice - Talk to the Mrs. more Congressman - Dad's advice has not played out too well. Fitzy has a spotlight brighter than the Congressional 10 Watt Flashlight.

Ricky - well. One can never get through to a Leftist Action Figure. Time will take care of Ricky.



This Systemic Winter is a Bitch! Ain't it just.

*
Muñoz's father, Elias Muñoz, a legal Mexican immigrant, operated Nuevo Foto Muñoz at 3105 W. 26th St., in the Little Village Discount Mall. In April, 2007 U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents searched the shop as part of an investigation dubbed "Operation Paper Tiger." Nearly two-dozen defendants were charged with participating in a bustling counterfeit identification document business that allegedly generated between $2 million and $3 million annually. Elias Muñoz was charged on May 29, 2007 with conspiracy to produce false identification documents and aiding and abetting. Elias Muñoz pleaded guilty, was sentenced to four years in prison and two additional years of probation, and is likely to be deported.
http://www.cdobs.com/archive/featured/will-we-ever-get-beyond-racial-hype-in-the-public-interest,112821

Chicago Daily Observer Connects the Allison Davis Dots Found By Sun Times' Tim Novak

Tim Novak of Chicago Sun Times has done more to put ’some’ light on the Progressive Machine; however, Mr. Novak’s great work scatters heaps of Dots that remain Unconnected on the political table.

His labors are Augean, but also like those of Sisyphus - much uphill groaning and heaving only to have the stone roll back.

Dan Kelley's timely piece might just prod the Lap Dogs to connect the piles of Dots:

If nothing else exposing Davis would serve a higher purpose: publicizing the blatant hypocrisy of the phony activists who are really reliable cogs in the Democratic Machine. A one time civil rights protester, who marched outside of City Hall, Davis proved to be someone who could be bought off by the system. His one time protégé, Obama means to overhaul the American economy and engage in a massive expansion of the size and scope of government activities. Like Davis, Obama, exempts himself from the rules and intends to live a life of ease and plenty. The president can jet off for a dinner date on Broadway without worrying about the hypocrisy of simultaneously asking all of us commoners to pay higher taxes and make sacrifices while reducing our wasteful use of energy and limiting our pollution causing habits.
Posing as a community activist is a tried and true way to advance your political and financial career in Democratic Chicago: the Shaw brothers, Bob and his late brother, Bill, were supposedly fair housing activists; Dorothy Tillman attended Chicago Board of Education meetings where she shouted down Angeline Caruso, a former acting school superintendent, and ridiculed Caruso’s frumpy appearance in the name of education activism; Luis Guiterez marched with Communists and Puerto Rican Nationalists, some of whom were later accused of committing acts of domestic terrorism; Marilyn Katz ran with the campus radicals, Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn, and protested the Viet Nam war while hurling missiles at the police before she became a public relations expert for the political machine; Jan Schakowsky and her unapologetic, convicted criminal spouse, Robert Cremer, are two other fakers. Interestingly enough, despite their varied backgrounds, these folks have something in common: all of these individuals seemed to fall into line as soon as their personal needs and wants were gratified and they were given a place at the head table. They have all been feeding from the public trough ever since. The former Soviets called such privileged leaders “the vanguard of the proletariat.”
Obama has accepted bushel baskets of money from Davis in the form of campaign contributions. He lobbied to place housing redevelopment funds in the hands of Davis and Rezko. Perhaps, a few dollars from the pension fund profiteering ended up in Obama’s campaign war chest too. Only time will tell as the investigation proceeds.
Someday soon, the president needs to explain his relationship with both men. Calling it another “boneheaded” move or claiming “This is not the Allison Davis that I once knew” may not cut it indefinitely. Laundering clean a stained reputation is not an easy task. Club soda does not remove all types of spots.

Click my Post Title for Dan Kelley's Expose of Chicago's Progressive Machine within its Very Nuanced Context and Chicago's Media's Feckless Disregard for Both.

Richard C. Lindberg Tonight -on Extension 720 with Milt Rosenberg

Milt Rosenberg invites Chicago Historian - Richard C. Lindberg on to Extension 720.

The brilliant and genial host and Richard Lindberg will discuss the Gambler King of Clark Street - Rich's full-length biography of the Man Who Invented the Chicago Democratic Machine.

Click my post title for more on this great author and subject at Chicago Daily Observer - Chicago's best source for what is happening!

FRIDAY, JUNE 5TH
GAMBLER KING OF CLARK STREET
Tonight we welcome a favorite guest on Extension 720, Chicago historian Richard Lindberg. Lindberg is a prolific author with many books on Chicago history including his latest The Gambler King of Clark Street. The book is a biography of Michael McDonald, a 19th century political power broker, among other distinctions. We'll talk with Lindberg about this book and more after the early Cubs game. We should be on the air by around 9:30pm.

http://www.wgnradio.com/shows/ext720/wgnam-ext720-june-09-program-guide,0,596976.story

Chicago Genius Tom Roeser Skewers and Broils Chicago Media Morons!

Thomas Roeser, Chicago's answer to 18th Century genius Dr. Samuel Johnson, skewers huge chunks of the meat heads who pass themselves off as journalists in Chicago.

Roeser, whose resume is longer than a Studs Terkle story, helps John Powers, local philanthropist and businessman, run Chicago's only balanced and authentic news and opinion organ Chicago Daily Observer.

It is so nicely balanced, that my south side musings appear along side those of Progressive genius, journalist, historian and political analyst Don Rose, who sent more brain cells down the drain of the gents at Jimmy's Woodlawn Tap than I'd ever hope to have.

Roeser deconstructs the Chicago Media icono-sphere with all of the glee of Smash McKenna ( Pipe Coverer Extraordinaire!) in doing similar justice to a bust-out who grabbed Nualla's tip money at Keegan's Pub - more gore than Titus Andronicus and much more hilarious!

We start with Carol Marin the political columnist of the “Sun-Times.” She made her mark as a smooth TV anchor and feature reporter where her views were not readily known. Then came her rebellion at Channel 5 when management wanted to include Jerry Springer as a commentator. She left with a tsunami of favorable publicity but what wasn’t realized at the time was that her renegotiation was up for grabs and she might not have been retained anyway. But it worked. She has a smooth TV style--but as soon as she went over to the “Sun-Times” her mood 1960s Mother Superior attitude…literally…conveyed her true beliefs, that of a morally superior dilettante in politics who wants to enable true social justice on earth. Social justice means the welfare state…and which party better represents this goal than the Dems. All tied up in her sense of religious self-rectitude -which betrays, of course, a sense of vacuous non-theology.
Her first column was to celebrate that 14-carat phony with a self-embroidered history of radical activism from yesteryear, Studs Terkel, 96, a self-promoting agnostic windbag who named one of his kids after declared Communist stage actor and singer Paul Robson and , to hear Terkel tell it in his rasping voice which thrills his listeners since they fathom the real man of the street is talking… marched with the Wobblies, braved assaults from the club-wielding goons in the Armour strike, endured beatings with Walter Reuther in the Detroit sit-down strikes of the 1930, fought the white racists who opposed blacks swimming off a South Side pier in the 1920s, was black-listed because of his opposition to that hideous Joe McCarthy…all the stories inflating in coloration by the year-some invented out of whole cloth--while Ms. Marin beamed expressively and accepted his supposed man-in-the-street lingo as true genre.

As the late Steve Neal, no conservative, pointed out in a column Terkel never did anything of note for the “working class,” is in reality a b.s’ing blatherer of tales who would long since have been thrown out of a neighborhood bar for inculcating terminal boredom, since he has lived far longer than most and has license to exaggerate scandalously without fact-checking. Aside from a brief acting career on early TV, Terkel’s has done nothing noteworthy except to snap on a tape recorder and capture stories from first-hand participants for which, as a canny capitalist, he paid nothing but from which he made a fortune for himself-beginning with “Division Street America.” A self-proclaimed man of the people, he deliberately never learned to drive and rides a bus, taking care to sit by the window where he, festooned in his red-checked shirt, can be quickly glimpsed. I debated him once at Bughouse Square. A coward when confronted, this giant puff ball self-inflated turned into a clawless pussy cat. I actually went easy on him after he caved. It was the first time he was ever called on any of his stories because his recollections were at variance with history. Marin the dilettante swallows it all.
The late John McDermott a once squishy soft liberal but always a truly authenticist Catholic (who changed to a Reagan voter because of the pro-life issue,…and who was for years an office mate of mine)…once embarked on a self-designated campaign to encourage Marin, either a fallen away or fallen away wanna-be to re-embrace the faith. According to McDermott her conditions involved the whole swath of feminism: contraception, abortion rights, keep-your-hands-off-my-womb, women priests, women bishops, gay rights. Oh, said I, sarcastically, by all means let us immediately reformulate 2000 years of theology so Carol will go back to the church! He never gave up on her and remembered her in his prayers every day. I said: save your breath.
So Democratic party cross-eyed is she that when she interviewed Henry Hyde for her paper she had to put in the piece that she told him she came from a family where the women never voted Republican-as if anyone cares…but it was her way of squaring herself to write about him at all. Her way of getting an insight into how the presidential campaign is going is to sit down with David Axelrod whom (ith her little girl naivete) he thinks will give it to her straight. So cross-eyed is she that she actually believes this stuff.

Always a treat to see Tom tune-up the fatuous loudmouth Studs Terkle. Avail yourselves Citizens! Avail Yourselves!


Skewered and Grilled! Get some more with Tom Roeser!

Welcome Home Marines of 2-24! Chicago's Own!

There are six young men coming home from the Morgan Park/Beverly/Mount Greenwood Neighborhood, known in the Chicago MSM at the 19th Ward.

Ryan Nolan
Mike Hughes
Jim Kelly
Bob Carroll
Nick Parker
John Folliard

. . . all Marines of 2nd Battalion, 24th Marines.* Our young men will be greeted down Western Ave. - their hometown mainstreet. These five heroes are members of St. Cajetan's Parish! There are Yellow Ribbons all over this neighborhood in Morgan Park of Chicago. God Bless You, Marines!

Tomorrow, I will meet the young men who have served our Country with Honor in Iraq at the 2nd Battalion, 24th Marines formation at Rosemont Horizon. My interviews with their familes and the men themselves concerning their part in the The Surge and the welccome that awaits them back in the neighborhood.

My interviews and photos will appear in Chicago Daily Observer - The Best Source of Balanced Journalism in Chicago: go to www.cdobs.com

http://cdobs.com/

John McCain: Ignore the New York Times

In this campaign, there are honest differences over Iraq, and we should discuss them with the thoroughness they deserve. Unlike Senator McCain, I would make it absolutely clear that we seek no presence in Iraq similar to our permanent bases in South Korea, and would redeploy our troops out of Iraq and focus on the broader security challenges that we face. But for far too long, those responsible for the greatest strategic blunder in the recent history of American foreign policy have ignored useful debate in favor of making false charges about flip-flops and surrender.

It’s not going to work this time. It’s time to end this war.

Senator Barack Obama New York Times Op-Ed piece July 14, 2008.


There's fair and then there's the New York Times. The New York Times refused to print Senator John McCain's polar opposite Op-Ed piece to balance the charges of 'same-old-same-old' Bush Failed policies and the audaciously hopeful fiat to Joint Chiefs of Staff, "As president, I would pursue a new strategy, and begin by providing at least two additional combat brigades to support our effort in Afghanistan. We need more troops, more helicopters, better intelligence-gathering and more nonmilitary assistance to accomplish the mission there. I would not hold our military, our resources and our foreign policy hostage to a misguided desire to maintain permanent bases in Iraq."

As a Democrat voting for John McCain, I trust McCain's judgment and character. I have no idea what Senator Obama's judgment and character might be other than that of a very elegant politician who has no problem consigning political liabilities to oblivion once they become too public. Obama is a great speech reader and set piece prop - he looks and sound good even when he ain't.

John McCain walks the walk and too often trips over the talk. Most people I know have that very problem. Sometimes there is a tendency among very public people to pretend that they can divine the depths of another's heart by the choice of words. Parsing has become sucker-punching in today's timid thought climate, only less vital to what passes ( er, parses) for debate is the volume at which one manages to scream questions.

The New York Times goes one further - they will not print words that they do not particularly like. They seem to be taking their cues from the Cable TV medium - say what Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow, or Bill Maher deem appropriate or stand up for ridicule. The New York Times is nothing if not terribly sensitive to criticism from the political Left - delicate and fragile.

I hope that John McCain parts company with these delicate flowers. The Opinion Hothouse that Obama's handlers own is unforgiving - ask Ryan Lizza!

Give the New York Times a nod and then move on - a polite, perfunctory heads -up regular guy salute and keep walking.

Let them assume that you are only interested in talking to your right wing friends - whoever the hell they are! Allow bloated mopes like Olbermann to soil his britches in straining to make a point about the cartoon of your character that Obama's handlers strain to make. You have the voters. It is deeds and not rhetoric that people will support in the voting booth.

Thank the New York Times for their endorsement of you in the Primaries, Senator McCain and then ignore them. They are too delicate for the bare-knuckled world of deeds and not words.

Click my post title for the full text of McCain's rejected NYT piece from Chicago Daily Observer

Chicago Catholics Voice Welcome to Pope in New York Times

The New York Times On Line has a great feature that captures the attitudes of American Catholics. Some of people ineterviewed are profoundly insightful and from Chicago.

Ms. Terry Sullivan, correspondant for Chicago Daily Observer, is the most thoughtful. Other Chicagoans featured are St. Patrick's Parish Pastor Father Tom Hurley, Jim Healy, Carlos Lourenco, Oralia Mascio, and Kirk Struhart. Click my post title to hear from your neighbors.


Well done ladies and gentlemen. The best gift the Pope can get in America is Honesty.

Chicago Daily Observer - The Only Place for Balanced Opinion

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!


One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.


"And, has thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!'
He chortled in his joy.

Lewis Carroll - He was no Cathleen Falsani


Thirsty in a very dry land, parched readers looked to drink from the water of a clear pond of thought and opinion, but there was ne'er a drop to drink. Chicago was a journalism desert until August 8, 2007.

And Then!!!!!!!

A leading Chicago Philanthropist funded the operation of an Internet news source that offer a varied and balanced forum of opinion for Chicago and the Nation.

The Chicago Daily Observer was launched in late summer of 2007 and continues to provide the best source of opinion on politics, religion, social mores and topical events.

Operated by local genius Thomas Roeser and business innovator John Powers, Chicago Daily Observer manage and edit the vast array of offerings from every point of view and level of talent - from Don Rose and Dennis Byrne all the way down to Pat Hickey.

Thomas F. Roeser is an 18th Century man of letters and parts gracing an age marked by convenient convictions and Wal-Mart world views. Tom Roeser, a life long Catholic and corporate leader,with a discerning eye that scans the offerings from the written word, drinks deeply from the best in thought and shares the best of what he has consumed in voice that levels the conversation with democratic largess.

Here is a posting of Tom's August 8th launch of Cdobs - Chicago Daily Observer. What Tom initiated with John Powers runs sprints in the lanes of opinion every morning.

Not long ago after I spent most of my blog (www.tomroeser.com) complaining about the abysmal quality of our local daily newspapers, a reader known as Lovie’s Leather wrote to say “why don’t you either shut up or start a newspaper of your own?” I don’t know what happened to Lovie’s Leather but he gave me an idea. I visited with a number of people and after a year we have funds were collected to start this five-day-a-week Chicago Daily Observer… which will be a for-profit Internet publication—free to you but paid by ads and other income-producing devices that will allow it to stand tall in the free market.

We have opened our doors to capture a “center-right’ treatment of the news…some breaking news, some commentary—but all, we hope, in the spirit of Chicago’s great newspaper tradition. We’ll have some well-known names in this issue and the succeeding ones…including Dennis Byrne , Russ Stewart, Jeff Berkowitz, Ben Joravsky, talk radio commentators you are familiar with—Deborah Rowe, Teri O’Brien, hopefully Eileen Byrne (who just got married)...as well as the inimitable Frank Penn, decorated veteran of Vietnam and a former Chicago police officer, Charlie Johnston, probably one of the finest grassroots practitioners in Illinois, Terry Sullivan who helps run an educational enrichment center in the inner city—Midtown, Nicholas Hahn III, the bright young just-turned-20 kid who in his efforts to conservatize DePaul and make it once again the Catholic university it somewhat dishonestly proclaims itself to be, has been named one of the five leading conservative young leaders in the U.S. by the Young America’s Foundation.

Others will include Peter Fitzgerald, Chris Dudley, Ben Joravsky (who will supplement his Reader duties to write in his interesting way on TIFs and other things), Joe Morris and Kathy Posner to name a few. Democrats won’t be ignored with contributions upcoming by people like Jack Franks, the bright young state representative and committee chairman from McHenry and Tom Dart, the young, vigorous sheriff of Cook county. More will be added by the day, Frank Avila, Frank Coconate—many others…

The idea got started with a lunch I had with Ron Gidwitz, entrepreneur and civic leader, whose innovative run for governor of Illinois impressed me. Not enough to support him at the time but as I got to know him, I was highly stirred by his encyclopedic understanding of government in the city and state, bracing ideas with a free-market twist and his courage in articulating them. Ron and all of us agree that the role of government must be subordinated to the free market. After that, I “drafted” John Powers, the young co-founder of Pay-Pal who has become our president. He is one of the brightest young men in Illinois. John is responsible for a lot of snazzy devices in our product—maps that pinpoint where in the Chicago area events are happening that interest us. In the future, for example, if you want to find a good charter school you just need to hit a button and they’re there…or a neighborhood with less crime than yours…hit the button and you’ll see them all. John is responsible for all those wonderful innovations.

Ron, John and I have a lot of fun putting this project together and we intend to see it grow and become a true alternative to the liberal promulgating four major daily newspapers in this market. In a sense, we hope to be something like a local version of www.realclearpolitics.com by giving you a taste of different views
that…for some reason (I wonder why?)...have been omitted from our newspapers.

Here in the Chicago area have two city newspapers. One is the Democratic party’s newspaper of record and frenetic Barack Obama cheering section. The other is all too often (although getting better) a paper torn between its liberal reporting staff and its editorial board. We have two regional dailies…but guess what? All follow the same generally liberal line. For this huge metropolitan area that is so diverse, they supply precious little diversity. By merely existing, we supply diversity. I hope you stick with us. I hope that today’s will be the worst edition we put out—since by doing we all get better. Welcome aboard!

Thomas F. Roeser
Chairman,
Editorial Board

Give my post title click for the best and most varied in Chicago thought