Braille Instructions for Diaper Changing

Most of us by now have seen the profusion of diaper changing stations springing up in the rest rooms of Chicago's fast food joints and other public accomodations.

They're now in all the area McDonald's and Jewel-Osco's.

Thankfully, not having need for their employment, I have seldom paid them much mind. But on one recent visit to such an accomodation, as will happen there, I found myself with time to ponder the device which was hanging on the wall across from the place of my seated repose.

There I discovered that the Koala Kare Products Corporation, of Englewood, Colorado, thoughtfully provided instructions for the use of its diaper changing table in English, Spanish, French, Italian, German, Japanese and Braille.

Now I can understand the need for multi-lingual diaper changing instructions, given the hordes of Germans, Italians and Japanese who are illegally flooding over our borders and snapping up all the child care-diaper changing jobs that Americans just won't do.

But braille?

Do you really want a blind person caring for your kiddie? Do you really want a blind person taking your baby out to a McDonalds, stumbling up to the counter to buy him a Happy Meal and then fumbling his or her way over to the rest room to read the braille instructions before changing his diaper?

I have noticed that Obama has been on the airwaves with a public service announcement touting the wonders of the Americans with Disabilities Act on its 20th anniversary.

These braille diaper changing instructions, are, no doubt, required by the ADA and a testimony to its wonderful works.

But if you feel you really must hire a disabled person to change your baby's diapers, rather than hire a blind person, perhaps it would be best to hire one with anosmia. That dreaded disability is defined as a lack of functioning olfaction, or in other words, an inability to perceive odors.

That would make for a happier child care employee and keep the ADA enforcers of the Obama regime happy too.

Maine Twp. School Dist. 207: Millions For Fat Salaries, Not A Penny For Transparency

Maine East High School

Posted below are the names and 2012 salaries of all teachers and administrators for Maine Township High School District 207.

(Editor's Note: When this article was initially published only the 2010 salaries were available. It has been updated to reflect the 2012 personnel and their salaries.

On June 18, 2012, the Maine Twp. District 207 school board, with only 1 dissenting vote, voted to further increase these exorbitant salaries and to add annual cost of living increases.)

Maine District 207 made the news on July 15th for being one of the area school districts that still refuses to record and put on-line the proceedings of its school board.

Maine East and Maine South and Maine West high schools and the District 207 administrative offices are wired to the hilt -- totally in step with the internet age.

But for parents and taxpayers it's the horse and buggy era. If they want to find out what their elected school board members are up to, they'll have to take off an entire night every month, get a babysitter and physically trek down to South Dee Road in Park Ridge to monitor their own school board.

Dist 207 School Bd.

You would think it would be a simple matter for a school district that has on its payroll a computer installer/repairman who is hauling down $121,274 a year as well as a business computer programmer, to whom they are forking over $106,438 a year, to simply put their meetings on-line.

But the fact is, the Maine Township school board and its fat-salaried administrators would probably just as soon not have pesky parents, taxpayers and reporters looking into what they've been up to.

And from the looks of the wildly opulent teachers salaries they've saddled the taxpayers with, I can see why.

They have an astounding 333 teachers and administrators on their payroll hauling down more than $100k a year.

You can see all of the names and salaries below, but here are some of the highlights of the Maine Twp. High schools wild salary spending spree:

--- 16 Gym Teachers hauling down between $104 and $153k a year.

--- Drivers Ed teachers being paid $149k, $145k and $121k

--- More than 20 Guidance Counselors, only 3 of which are hauling down less than $100k a year.

---Sex Ed. teachers being paid $119k, $114k and $97k

--- $137k drama coaches, $140k art teachers and a $110k dance teacher (Did Maine Twp. manage to land Sir Laurence Olivier, Pablo Picasso and Fred Astaire for these high dollar gigs?)

--- 4 librarians pulling down between $130k and $100k

--- 5 six figure social workers and 3 psychologists making between $116k and $165k

--- 9 English as a second language and bi-lingual ed teachers raking in more than six figures (remember this the next time someone tells you that there are no taxpayer costs to immigration)

And keep in mind, most of these salaries are for 9 months of work.

And keep in mind, most of these high dollar employees were from schools of education, which, according to Professor Walter Williams, are populated by the poorest students in the country with the lowest test scores.

And keep in mind, most of their "Masters degrees" were simply meaningless busy-work degrees, from these very colleges of education, which Williams calls, "the slums of American academia."

Here is a complete list of the salaries from Maine Township High School District 207. It was compiled from the database of the Family Taxpayers Foundation, which demanded them from the State Teachers' Retirement records, under the Freedom of Information Act. You can get more info on the individual payrollee (yrs. of employment, speciality etc.) by simply clicking on the name:

Teacher Salary Database Maine Township HSD 207 2012 - Download data NAME SALARY Abraham, Gilit $120,048 Adams, Allyson $76,565 Adams, Steven $149,474 Addante, Christopher $144,505 Adkins, Kenneth $71,246 Aguirre, Miguel $104,594 Albee, Erin $47,393 Alden, Aileen $94,138 Allen, Amy $137,183 Amidei, Juli $137,390 Archer, Samantha $108,580 Arguello, Jose $111,315 Atkinson, Bruce $135,213 Auge Caliendo, Suzanne $54,972 Awad, Aida $143,184 Bader, Carla $99,609 Bahamon, Rosanna $71,008 Baima, Sharon $128,954 Baker, Susan $100,737 Baldwin, Christine $138,121

Our Ill-Educated Public School Teachers

Prof. Walter Williams

This past Monday, George Mason University Professor, Walter Williams told WLS talk hosts Wolf and Proft that our public high school teachers are generally, the most intellectually challenged, least accomplished, essentially stupid students turned out by our nation's colleges.

The renowned African-American Professor of Economics at 9:55 into the interview said:

"Schools of Education are the slums of academia.

"If you look at SAT scores, the students with the lowest SAT scores become education majors. The professors in the Schools of Education are the least academically respected faculty on the college campuses.

"Students who do graduate with a degree in the College of Education, if they go on to take the LSAT to get into law school or the GRE to get into professional school or the MCATs to get into medical school score the lowest of any students in these graduate exams.

"It just shows there's not a lot of academic quality among people who are educationists."

The Chicago Lampoon has published more than a dozen complete lists of teachers with their salaries from area schools this past year and will do so again in the coming academic year.

The publication of the, usually very bloated, salaries of these unionized government workers usually provokes a wave of outraged comments from the taxpayers who subsidize their above average incomes.

It has also provoked a gaggle of teachers' union apologists from the education establishments to post comments justifying the big salaries.

And one of the most common apologias is that the teaching salarymen very often have advanced degrees. Usually Masters degrees from some school of education.

Which advanced degrees according to Professor Williams, in real academic terms, aren't worth a warm pool of spit.

Skokie, Rogers Park Black Youths Charged in Latest Mob Attack



Stanton Demaret of Skokie
Charged in Black Mob Attack


According to WLS radio news, seven black teenagers have been charged with mob action for beating and robbing a 17-year-old boy late Friday in a brutal attack outside the Cermak-Chinatown CTA station.

Chicago Police and WLS declined to report the race of the 17 year old victim, who was "stomped on" by the mob which stole his cell phone and debit card and pummelled him with their fists and feet. The victim was taken to Stroger Hospital where he was reported in serious condition. He is expected to survive.

Chicago news media have adopted an almost universal policy of refusing to identify the race of the mob attackers and victims although WLS radio has in the past deviated from this policy.

Olagbegi

Two of the attackers were not identified by Chicago police spokesmen because they were 16. One of the five identified assailants was from Skokie and the other four were from Rogers Park.

Charged with one count each of felony robbery, mob action and aggravated battery causing great bodily harm were, Fimi Adedokun, of the 6100 block of North Damen Avenue; Stanton Demaret, of the 8100 block of Knox Avenue in Skokie; Devin Mossiah, of the 6600 block of North Ashland Avenue; Denzel Olagbegi, of the 1400 block of West Pratt Boulevard; and Duwon Polk, of the 1700 block of West Pratt Boulevard.

Police said that the attack which was captured on CTA surveillance cameras, showed several of the thugs making a running leap and pouncing on the victim's head.

The seven black suspects are expected to appear in bond court Saturday.

Illegal Aliens Spawning Chicago Hit And Run Epidemic?

Illegal Alien Hit and Run Suspect

According to Jon Hilkevitch's August 15th report in the Chicago Tribune, Chicago isn't a very safe place to walk.

Over the period 2004-2009, 18,377 pedestrians were mowed down by cars here. And the report noted that about 2 hit-and-run crashes resulting in a pedestrian getting maimed or killed occur every day in Chicago

"Among the more troubling findings of the study commissioned by the Chicago Department of Transportation is that an average of two hit-and-run pedestrian crashes resulting in deaths or injuries take place each day in Chicago. Hit-and-runs account for 33 percent of vehicle-pedestrian collisions and 41 percent of those that are fatal, double the national average, officials said.

That's 5,534 hit-and-runs over the five-year stretch, causing 3,683 deaths and injuries, officials said."

That's a disturbing statistic: Chicago has twice the national average rate of hit-and-run incidents where pedestrians are maimed or killed.

Dennis McCann,
Killed by illegal alien driver 

But the ever-politically correct Mr. Hilkevitch and his Chicago Tribune bosses don't bother to ask why.

With half a million illegal aliens in the state and most in "sanctuary city," Chicago, it would be a fair speculation that they are the cause of the wildly above average rate of fatal hit-and-runs here.

The average sentient citizen is eminently cognizant of the victimization of the populace by illegal alien drivers, but of course, the Tribune wouldn't dare systematically look into the phenomenon for fear of what it might find.

But there is no shortage of salient examples.

For example:

--- Chicago Police Officer Michael Gordon lost his life in August 2004 to an illegal alien drunk driver. Officer Gordon was in the driver's seat of his squad car when it was struck by Luis Calle, a Guatemalan, whose blood alcohol level was 0.177, twice the legal limit.

--- Just this past June 10, William "Dennis" McCann, 66, a long-time Chicago insurance agent and graduate of Mendel High School was run down and killed in Logan Square by Saul Chavez, an illegal alien driving without a license and having 4x the legally allowable blood alcohol level.

In fact there is an entire on-line memorial to the American victims of illegal alien criminals -- many of the Americans having been killed by hit-and-run illegal alien drivers.

Everybody knows this is going on. But the Chicago Tribune won't even ask why illegal alien "sanctuary city" Chicago ranks so astronomically high in hit-and-run fatalities for pedestrians.

In its monumental lack of curiosity, the Tribune is engaged in a de facto coverup. In this its editors are nothing less than criminal abettors -- pimps, if you will.

Traditional Bavarian Lederhosen, Dirndl Becoming Hip in Germany

Traditional lederhosen and dirndl
are becoming hip in Germany

Several years back I was at a thrift store on Western Avenue and on the rack amidst the second hand Brooks Brothers and Jos. A. Banks mens' suits, I spied a lone lodenjanker.

That's a traditional country sport jacket indigenous to Bavaria and the other Southern regions of Germany and the odds of that showing up in a Chicago thrift store are something like 1 in a million. I'm sure my ancestors wore them, but I'm sure no one in my line has worn one in well over 100 years.

lodenjanker

It fit me and I was tempted to buy it. But then better sense prevailed. When, after all, would I actually wear the damned thing? Maybe once a year at Maifest Chicago or possibly at an occasional Dank Haus stammtisch.

And I would feel like a damned fool being seen in it on the streets of Chicago going to and from those events.

Well, it seems I might have passed up a great bargain, because now, word comes from Der Spiegel that traditional Bavarian couture is becoming the hottest thing in Germany today -- not just in Bavaria but everywhere.

Helene Fischer and Florian Silbereisen
in dirndl and lederhosen

Sort of like as in Huey Lewis' 1985 song, "It's hip to be square", it's apparently becoming so hip to don lederhosen or a dirndl in many parts of Germany - at least for parties and special events - that manufacturers of the traditional apparel can't keep pace with demand and prices are soaring.

Helene Fischer, Francine Jordi and Andrea Berg among many other schlager songstresses have been photographed wearing dirndl, to very good effect.

I should have bought that lodenjanker when I had the chance.

(Reprinted from the Chicago Schlager Music Review, with permission)

Marxist Styled Indoctrination at Lemont Middle School

Lemont's Old Quarry Middle School

Posted below are the 2010 salaries for the administrators and teachers in the Lemont-Bromberek school district 113A.

The district operates Oakwood and River Valley schools and Old Quarry Middle School.

This district comes to our attention because, if the allegations made on WIND radio Sunday are true, its Old Quarry Middle school has been engaging in a vile form of leftist political indoctrination more reminiscent of a Soviet Lenninist education camp than a suburban Chicago Lemont school.

On Sunday's Champion News show, sponsored by Jack Roeser's Family Taxpayers Foundation, the guests were three kids who had independently formed a Junior Tea Party organization in Lemont.

One of them, an emigre from the former Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic, reported that he was sent to the Old Quarry school's principal's office by a female social studies teacher there for the high crime of saying that he was a conservative who did not care for Obama and his ilk.

Apparently, in the view of the leftist ideologue, who is paid quite handsomely to teach at Old Quarry, this constituted a thought crime of such magnitude as to require disciplinary force.

Stories of left-wing indoctrination on college campuses are legion. The Philadelphia-based Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE)files thousands of lawsuits annually against colleges and universities that engage in this manner of Orwellian thought control.

FIRE's civil rights lawyers almost always win.

But now it appears that the thought police have spread their tenacles down to even the middle school level

Maybe FIRE should take a look at the allegations of blatant civil rights violations at Lemont's Old Quarry Middle School.

Here, from the database of the Family Taxpayers Foundation, is what the taxpayers of Lemont and its environs are shelling out for left-wing teachers to bully and brainwash their kids:

Teacher Salary Database

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Lemont-Bromberek CSD 113A 2010 - Download data
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NAME SALARY
Anderson, Cathleen $66,782
Anderson, Michelle $67,785
Antonoff, Susan $67,428
Balaty, Christine $60,229
Baptist, Judith $57,457
Beckwith, Robert $112,739

Skokie's Favorite Hitler Fan: Mohandas K. Gandhi

Skokie's Statue To Hitler Fan
M.K. Gandhi

On October 2, 2004, with much fanfare and an obvious eye toward the burgeoning Indian vote in his village, Skokie Mayor George Van Dusen unveiled Illinois' first statue of Mohandas Gandhi.
The 8 ft. tall bronze statue stands in Skokie's sculpture park/bike path near Dempster and McCormick a mere 2 miles down the road from the Illinois Holocaust Museum.

The marble base upon which the statue sets contains an accolade to the Indian ascetic, which reads, "Apostle of Non-violence, Love, Truth and Justice." It also contains four quotations from the Indian nationalist leader -- all lofty appeals to truth, justice, righteousness, yada, yada, yada.

Oddly it omitted this utterance that the Mahatma issued in the Indian Newspaper, Harijan on April 22nd, 1940 -- the day that France formally surrendered to the armies of Adolf Hitler:

"Germans of future generations will honour Herr Hitler as a genius, as a brave man, a matchless organizer and much more."

Let me repeat. That glowing endorsement of Adolf Hitler, the murderer of 6 million Jews and 4 million others was written by Mahatma Gandhi.

I stumbled onto that little gem on page 190 of award-winning historian, John Lukacs' 1990 work, The Duel: 10 May-31 July 1940 - The Eighty Day Struggle Between Churchill and Hitler.

As I recall, members of Skokie Mayor Van Dusen's Democrat party howled when it was revealed that California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's father had been a member of Hitler's National Socialist Party.

Gandhi Fan
Van Dusen

And they actually sought to shoot down the nomination of a Reagan appointee to a Treasury Department post when it was revealed that as a 10 year old boy he had been enlisted in the Hitler Youth -- the equivalent of the Boy Scouts. In fact, Van Dusen was a top aide then to one of the very liberal Congressmen, Sidney Yates, who was making those noises.

But neither of those ever even came near the outright endorsement of Adolf Hitler that was penned by the supposed Indian holy man.

Odd, the selectivity of the outrage of these doctrinaire left-wing pols, isn't it?

English Global-Warming Student Mauled, Eaten By Bear

British Global-Warming Student Horatio Chapple:
Eaten By Polar Bear

Sooner or later we're all going to have to contemplate our inevitable date with the grim reaper.

Given the few short decades given us to walk this vale of tears, one can hope that when the time comes, it will be peaceful -- perhaps painless -- maybe even meaningful --- but certainly not ridiculous.

That has unfortunately become the sad plight of an ever-increasing number of ideologues of the left, so drunk on their own snake oil as to become a cause for horse laughs on the occasion of their passing.

My all-time favorite in this category was the immortal health food crackpot, Jerome Rodale. He was felled by a gripper (see Chicago Lampoon 4/22/10) before Dick Cavett's live studio audience, minutes after boasting that he would live to be 100 due to his interesting diet of wild nuts and tree bark.

And then there was the animal-loving Ms. Frances Frost, a self-described "environmental dancer" of Canmore, Canada.
After her pet dog was killed by a wild cougar on her property, she refused to allow hunters permission to seek out the blood-thirsty beast and shoot it.

Weeks later, Ms. Frost danced her last eco-friendly tango, as the self-same kitty cat stalked, mauled and killed her.

But now comes sad news from Northern Europe of the nature-loving student who was eaten by a bear while on a school field trip to study "man-made global warming."

It seems that, caught up in a frenzy of excitement over the global warming flapdoodle, a group of 5 British students went off to the isolated Norwegian isle of Spitsbergen to conduct their own studies (replete, no doubt, with falsified data and faked e-mails.)

While communing with nature there, these nature-worshipping Brits ran into a bear. He did not take kindly to nature lovers invading his natural habitat, so naturally, he attacked them.

Hungry  Norwegian

Four of the young scholars narrowly escaped with their lives, but one, Horatio Chapple, 17, was killed. When his remains were recovered, it seems that the bear had decided that young Master Chapple would make the perfect filling lunch for a cold Nordic day.

So now, young Chapple has entered the never-ending cycle of nature by way of the bear's digestive system. On the bright side, however, at least his carbon footprint  has been reduced to a very sustainable, zero.

I'd be willing to bet a steak dinner at Chicago's famed Gibson's Steakhouse that these five British lads were devoted, holier-than-thou vegetarians.

Too bad the bear wasn't.