Viva La Vida

Merry Christmas 2012 From the Chicago Lampoon: Ain't That Somethin'?

(Ed Note: This is reprinted from The Chicago Schlager Music Review. It eloquently captures our sentiments with, as Rahm Emanuel would blurt, "laser-like precision").

As our Christmas Greetings from Chicago this year, we could have posted Bing Crosby's classic "White Christmas" or Karen Carpenter's "Home for the Holidays."

But their sentimentally buoyant optimism is of another time and another, kinder and gentler America.

Those American songs would have been oddly out of character with the coarsening of the culture and the psychic angst that has descended on America in this, the 4th discontented winter of the Obama misrule.

But an innovative rock/soft jazz ensemble from Pittsburgh, Busted Universe, has quite artfully captured the almost nihilistic, angry cynicism that grips America at Christmastide, 2012.

We could find no Christmas video that more faithfully captures the zeitgeist of this time and place.

Here is Busted Universe's brand new video release of the traditional Christmas carol,"God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen,":




Busted Universe is offering this song as a free download at their website: http://www.busteduniverse.com/home.cfm

If we're still walking the planet, we'll be back in 2013 with our usual coverage of whatever the hell it is we cover.

Till then, Merry Christmas, all, from the Chicago Lampoon (I guess.)

Chicago's North Suburban WWII POW Camp: German Soldiers Held in Des Plaines

The Des Plaines POW camp ruins are
hidden by 65 years of silvan growth

In the popular mind today, World War II Prisoner of War camps conjure up images of the clever Col. Hogan outsmarting the bumbling Col. Klink in Hogan's Heroes or perhaps of a leather jacketed Steve McQueen sitting in the "cooler" bouncing his baseball against the wall in The Great Escape.

But from the "strange but true" file, there actually was a POW camp for German Prisoners of War in the suburban Chicago, Cook County Forest Preserves in Des Plaines, Illinois.

Only crumbling vestiges of it can be found today amid 65 years of silvan growth, but they're present, nevertheless, about 1/2 mile South of Euclid Rd., just East of the Des Plaines River.

From 1943 to 1946, 251 Wehrmacht soldiers captured by US forces in the North Africa and Italian campaigns were held in a crude camp in what was then called "Camp Pine."

Moss covers the foundation of
one of the POW camp barracks

It was one of 46 satellite POW camps administered from Ft. Sheridan in Highwood, which could not itself accommodate the growing number of captured German and Italian combatants.

It was placed at the site of what had been a US Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) camp for unemployed men during the great depression.

Constructed in 1934, the CCC Camp Pine was one of FDR's make work projects to help revive the economy. Paying able bodied men to rake leaves in a forest, didn't do anything to end the depression, but the industrial demands of World War II did and FDR's New Deal CCC experimental camp was abandoned in 1941.

(It isn't generally known today, but the CCC program was actually managed by the U.S. Army. A mere 3 years before Hitler's invasion of Poland and 5 years before the Jap sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, the left-wing Democrat New Dealers were intent on further cutting the US military budget. General Douglas MacArthur, then the Army Chief of Staff, arranged for the Army to handle the CCC as a way of avoiding the furlough and loss of trained Army officers. His foresight would prove vital in the coming war years. -- see Mark Perry's excellent 2014 biography of General MacArthur, The Most Dangerous Man in America.)

But due to the overflow of POWs at Ft. Sheridan, Camp Pine Woods was brought back into use in 1943, and became home to the 251 POWs and about 30 US guards.

The young German men there lived in five crude barrack-styled buildings on the high ground along the Des Plaines River. The huts were each heated by a single wood burning stove and there were 8 outdoor privies to accommodate the 280 or so prisoners and guards there.

Rusting hand pump that
serviced the POW camp prisoners

The POWs, many of whom were simple farm boys from places like Bavaria and Swabia, were put to work cutting flowers for Pesche's greenhouse (which still exists on River Road) or picking vegetables at nearby truck farms.

Years later, many of the surviving POWs had fond reminiscences of their humane treatment there at the hands of the Americans.

Ever on the lookout for weird things in and around Chicago, intrepid Chicago Lampoon reporters, with the help of a friendly man whose Golden Retrievers were romping in the woods, found the ruins to old Camp Pine and took the photos that illustrate this article.

They're well off the crushed limestone jogging path in the Cook County Forest Preserve known today as "Camp Pine Woods." But if you stumble around amidst the blackthorn and brush about 1/2 mile South of the Euclid Rd. entrance on the high ground along the river, sooner or later, you'll find them.

When you go, be sure to bring some Beck's Beer (no watery domestic brews, please!)for the ghosts of those long gone German POWs and pour it on the ground there for them.

And, the strictures of Gemütlichkeit, being what they are, be sure to swill a good quantity of the stuff yourself. These thirsty German ghosts surely wouldn't want to drink alone.

Good Spellen' at Niles Public Library

Just in front of the main entrance to the library in suburban Niles, Illinois, there are 6 benches for patrons to sit on and sun themselves, read, smoke or whatever.

In a really nice little gesture, some years back, the local Niles Cub Scouts offered to dedicate each of the benches to the veterans of each of America's major wars.

The little fellas in blue, painted the name and years of the conflict on each bench in large letters and in smaller letters, listed the major battles of the particular war.

So there is a bench dedicated to Civil War veterans and it says "American Civil War - April 1861 - May 1865" in big letters. And on the side in smaller letters it says "Fort Sumter - Shiloh - Gettysburg - Appomattox".

But on the bench commemorating World War I, the Cubbies listed the following battles: St. Mihiel, The Marne, Belleau Wood and "Argone Forest" (sic).

Do you see what's wrong with this picture?

"Argone" is misspelled. The costliest battle in the history of American warfare, where 26,000 American men were killed and 91,000 were injured was, in fact, the battle of Argonne Forest.

Now it's one thing to misspell something like that on a middle school term paper, but this thing is  - if not exactly etched in stone - at least pretty solidly out there on public display.

And in front of a library - Niles' preeminent place of learning.

And it's been up there since 1990.

And none of the sagacious scholars at Niles' Public Library ever seemed to have caught it.

I hear there are a few job openings at the Niles Public Library. The pay is pretty good and they are an equal opportunity employer.

They do not discriminate against those afflicted with illiteracy.

2012 Wisconsin Badgers Could Become Worst Rose Bowl Team Ever

When the Wisconsin Badgers blundered their way into the 1999 Rose Bowl, ESPN analyst, Craig James, famously called them, "the worst team to ever play in the Rose Bowl."

UW's Badgers stunk up the Big-10 all season
but still could go to the Rose Bowl

But after the great running back, Ron Dayne, powered Wisconsin to a 38-31 victory over UCLA, UW coach Barry Alvarez quipped, "now I know we're at least the 2nd worst team ever to play in a Rose Bowl."

Well, this year, implausible as it might seem, the eminently mediocre Badgers with a paltry 4-4 conference record, could, in fact, belatedly fulfill James' 1999 appellation.

With a win over Nebraska on December 1st, they would have stumbled their way to the Big-10 title and could, at last, secure the rights to the title "worst team ever to play in a Rose Bowl."

In any event, the Badgers would secure the distinction of having the worst ever conference record of any Big-10 Rose Bowl representative -- nudging out a 1950 Michigan team who went with a 5-3-1 record (and still managed to bring home the Rose Bowl honors to the Big-10 by beating California.)


How did this happen?

How could mediocre poseurs like the Wisconsin Badgers end up representing the Big-10 in Pasadena on New Years' day?

Hey, we'll take it any way we can get it!

Well, two years ago, when the Big-10 reconfigured itself into 2 divisions, by sheer dumb luck, Wisconsin ended up in the same "Leaders" division with Ohio State and Penn State (along with perennial pansies, Illinois, Indiana and Purdue.)

Ohio State, despite a flawless 8-0 conference record and overall 12 game winning streak has been banned from post-season play for Florida State-styled recruiting and payola shenanigans.

And Penn State, despite a respectably formidable 6-2 conference tally, as we all know, has been banned from post season play as punishment for condoning the buggery of young boys in its shower rooms.

So that leaves Brett Bielema's 3rd place, mediocre poseurs from Dairyland, alone eligible to represent the division in the Big-10 championship game against Nebraska.

The winner of that one will go to the Rose Bowl and with Nebraska having only eked out a 3 point win over the Badgers on September 29th, really anything can happen there.

Including a Wisconsin win.

But why not?

If a mediocre poseur like Barack Hussein Obama can be re-elected despite the worst economy in generations, why can't mediocre poseurs like the Wisconsin Badgers end up in the Rose Bowl with a 4-4 regular season conference record?

This may just be the year for mediocre poseurs.

Goat Husbandry in Chicago's Jewish "Golden Ghetto"

I kinda figured that all was not well in the Obamaite utopia when I saw that Kraft cheese singles were now almost 5 bucks at my local grocery -- the "Kosher" Jewel-Osco at Howard and Kedzie in Evanston.

Urban goats being raised on Chicago's North side

But I hadn't realized that things were getting so bad that neighborhood Orthodox Jews -- a mere few blocks away -- now have to resort to raising goats and chickens in their back yards.

I am talking about the Lubavitcher Orthodox Jews at 2815 Birchwood, Chicago, who are now raising chickens and goats in their back yard,

I am totally not making this up. Just look at the photos I took (above left and below right.)

Now this is all happening in a quasi-suburban area of the very far North side of Chicago, the 50th Ward West Rogers Park, which abuts Evanston and Lincolnwood. There are million dollar homes in the neighborhood.

Now there are also goats and chickens.

As you might imagine, the neighbors are not thrilled by this new agrarian Orthodox Jewish fad.

... and Chickens too

Several have taken up a petition to their Orthodox Jewish Alderman, Deborah Silverstein, asking her to oust their new farmyard friends.

The principal objections seem to be:

1) a distinctively barnyard aroma permeating the neighborhood on warm days,

2 ) the constant high-pitched bleating of the goats, and,

3) the ear shattering morning wake-up cock-a-doodling of the rooster.

I'm sorry, but I have to come down on the side of the thrifty agrarian black-hatted Jews on this one.

With the price of milk and eggs skyrocketing during the Obama depression, what is wrong with providing for your family via a little American farm heritage self-dependence?

And really, is there anyone out there who doesn't enjoy a nice cup of steamy hot, unpasteurized , goat's milk on a cold Chicago winters night?

I, like Bertie Wooster, find it hard to start my day without the good old English bacon and eggs. But have you seen the price of Oscar Mayer's thick cut bacon lately? Almost 5 bucks!!

So I am definitely on the side of these self-dependent, Lubavitcher black-hatters.

And I am now announcing that I am thinking of raising pigs in the backyard of my 50th Ward, West Rogers Park domicile.

And if you hoity-toity Orthodox Jewish one-percenters in your million dollar homes don't like it ----

Well -- you shouldn't have voted for the Silversteins and their friend, Barack Obama

And Now It's Christmas Music in Early November

I rather liked the Christmas tune "The Little Drummer Boy" when I was in 4th grade.

But having since heard the bloody thing, something like 517,463 times , I now just find it entirely annoying, unctuous, and frankly, odious.

But I just heard it again, minutes ago on Chicago's 93.9 FM.

I also heard Elvis singing "Here comes Santa Claus," and then an all negro girl group from the Brill Building rocker days singing "A Sleigh Ride Together With You" (Ringa Linga Linga Ding Dong Ding Ding) and right now they have Frank Sinatra crooning: "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas."

I am not writing this on December 24th -- or even December 12th.

I am writing this in Chicago on November 12th -- And It's not even bloody Thanksgiving yet.

And yet the nitwits who run Lite FM 93.9 can't figure out anything better to do than to crack out the Christmas moldy oldies -- this damned early!!

Oh, now they have Bing Crosby singing "Do You hear what I hear?"

EGADS!

(Oh Nooooo! Now they're playing the Peanuts' Snoopy Christmas piano song --  Good Grief!)

Jews "Only" Backed Obama by 69% -- Break Out the Champagne!!

A group calling itself "The Republican Jewish Coalition," (RJC) in a never-ending quest to make itself seem vaguely relevant to the Republican Party, today announced that "only" 69% of Jewish voters cast ballots for Barack Hussein Obama this time around.

Melvin Kaminsky (aka Mel Brooks) is not
necessarily related to RJC Chmn, Matt Brooks

Today the RJC chairman, one Matt Brooks (we're not sure if he is any relation to funnyman Mel Brooks) glowingly pronounced that "President Barack Obama and the Democrats saw a significant erosion of (Jewish voter) support to 69% from (Obama's 78% Jewish support in) 2008."

Well whoop-de-doo!!

Let's break out the bloody champagne and throw a party.

"Only 69%" of Jews backed Barack Obama.

In any campaign school they will tell you that any percentage above 60% qualifies as a landslide. So it is quite fair to say, that for the second straight time -- American Jews voted for Barack Obama in landslide proportions.

That puts Jews in the same category as blacks, and homosexuals, the only other voter cohorts who also gave such overwhelmingly massive support to Obama both times around..

Now this is interesting, considering that when Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu made a state visit to Washington in 2010, Obama kept him waiting in a White House anteroom as if he was a delivery boy bringing corned beef on rye from the K Street Deli.

And Obama welcomed the "Arab Spring," in 2011, just as today his emissaries are holding private (perhaps conciliatory?) talks with the emissaries of the Iranian Muslim mullahs.

But with an overwhelming majority of American Jewish voters endorsing these actions, the question becomes, "Why should Republicans risk, once again, alienating the wildly growing US Muslim and Arab-Christian voter cohorts with  knee-jerk support for the Israeli state? If most Jews don't care, why should Republicans?"

President Reagan's speechwriter, Peter Robinson, once wrote that Jews were the only voter group with the income of Episcopalians and the voting behavior of Puerto Ricans.

Barack Obama twice got the overwhelming support of Puerto Rican-American voters and has clearly declared  that he supports the independence of the Puerto Rican state.

Barack Obama twice got the overwhelming support of Jewish-American voters. Yet is it is not clear that he supports the independence of the Jewish state.

So why are Republicans sticking their necks out for Israel?

Chicago Preparing For Election Night Riots if Obama Loses

Twitter and Facebook have been abuzz with posters, largely African-American, who have been threatening civil disorder in America's streets if their messiah Barack H. Obama should lose the election next Tuesday.

Free Stuff For Everybody if
Obama Loses -- Or Wins

Seems Obama's African-American amen corner now has come to view a black president as being yet another entitlement, kind of like food stamps, section 8 subsidized housing, or racial preference job quotas for unqualified minorities.

The possibility of election night rioting has not gone unnoticed by Chicago Police. Some privately say they expect something like the 1992 LA Rodney King race riots here in Obama's home town and the Chicago Police Department has plans to go on high alert on election night.

According to today's Chicago Tribune:

"There are indications the city is preparing for issues beyond securing McCormick Place (site of Obama's election night event), whether it's informal gatherings in downtown parks or incidents in neighborhoods. The Chicago Police Department has canceled days off for officers, ordered plainclothes cops into uniform and is scheduling 12-hour shifts for Election Day, police sources said.

"Those moves mirror arrangements for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization meetings in May, an event that should have prepared all levels of law enforcement to handle Tuesday, said Jeff Cramer, a former federal prosecutor who heads the Chicago office of Kroll Advisory Solutions, a global security consulting firm."

The soft-soap peddling, city spokesmen claim the moves are designed to head off overly exuberant celebrators if Obama wins.

But there were no such elaborate preparations in '08 and the rapture of Obama's messianic victory caused no civic disorder from "over exuberant celebrations," by any of the 250,000 celebrants who gathered at Grant park back then.

But with Romney now ahead in national polls as well as in the critical swing state of Ohio and continuing to surge, you can bet that they're really thinking about the Rodney King-styled race riot scenario if Obama loses.

They just dare not say it.

Attending Alcoholics Anonymous as Court Ordered Punishment

The Chicago Tribune, to steal a line from the great TV host, John McLaughlin, accidentally stumbled into the truth when describing a Michigan court's recent DUI disposition in the case of University of Michigan running back, Fitzgerald Toussaint.

Sentenced to AA as punishment

According to the Tribune on page 7 of its sports section last Thursday 11/25:

"Michigan Tailback Fitzgerald Toussaint received 10 months probation after a guilty plea to a misdemeanor charge of operating a vehicle while impaired. Toussaint, the Wolverines leading rusher in 2011, must attend 10 Alcoholics Anonymous meetings in the next three months as punishment, according to the Detroit News."

Well, you certainly have to hand it to the Detroit sports scribes because, however inadvertently, they sure got that straight: mandatory attendance at AA is nothing other than punishment.

What else can you call being forced at the point of a gun to join a bunch of self-debasing, morbid mopes in dreary church basements and listen to them drone on and on about how fucked up their pathetic lives are?

That, in a nutshell is what the 1935 religious conversion therapy of Alcoholics Anonymous is: self flagellating bull sessions heavily interlaced with Bible-belt Christian mysticism.

And AA doesn't work -- never has -- and almost certainly never will.

According to Charles Bufe's landmark work, AA: Cult or Cure? AA works for 2.6% to 3.5% of the people who try it.

Imagine that -- 2.6% to 3.5% of those who try AA treatment are sober after 5 years -- AA's own baseline for measuring success.

For no other disease would the public stand still for a treatment that has such a paltry efficacy rate -- they would be demanding major government funding to find a serious medical cure -- such as that currently being undertaken by the governments of France and Canada.

In fact the French equivalent of the FDA has now cleared an alcohol abuse curative drug for public use there.

After attending AA punishment
you'll need a good stiff belt

But in the US, courts and the highly lucrative addiction treatment industry (how many times have Charley Sheen and Lindsay Lohan been thru  very expensive, AA-based rehab now? 5X a piece?) are content to just herd the drunken miserable wretches off to the idiotic 1930s-styled prayer meetings, called AA.

Some years back I went into an office building in Washington D.C. to use its pay phone. One of the building's tenants was an AA club.

I put my groceries on the staircase and went up to make my call. In the interim, an AA meeting let out and the inmates passed my groceries on the stairs and when I returned all the food items were still there -- except one of them had pinched my six-pack of beer.

But I really couldn't blame him or her too much. After sitting thru an hour of AA punishment, anybody would need a drink -- and actually something much stiffer than beer.

Founder of Beck's Books Dies at 91: A Dying Cub Fan's Last Request

Robert Beck, the founder of Beck's Bookstores passed away last month.

Robert L Beck:
Book Man, Cub Fan

He was one of those men who epitomized the grit and good nature of the boys of "the greatest generation."

Growing up during the Great Depression, Beck left to serve in the Coast Guard during the Second World War, returned home, began a family and started a small bookstore on a shoestring.

He persevered with Beck's Books until it became a major success and something of a Chicago institution, with 10 locations and  several hundred employees so far over its 57 years.

According to the Chicago Tribune's obituary, he had only one major flaw. He was obsessed with and devoted to the Chicago Cubs.

We've endlessly heard the jokes about the Cubs having a bad century and so forth. But I don't believe I've ever seen the futility of being a Cub fan expressed so poignantly as it was in Beck's Tribune obit.

It said (and I am not making this up):

"Having lived only 91 years, he missed seeing the Cubs in a World Series."

Some scientists, however, are now predicting that life spans for humans born today could reach as long as 1,000 years, due to breakthroughs in molecular biology.

That would seem to be a possibly favorable sign for future generations of Cub fans.


Here is the late Steve Goodman singing his famous "A Dying Cub Fan's Last Request" atop one of the Wrigley Field rooftops:



According to his obituary, Mr. Beck's funereal arrangements were handled by the Cremation Society of Illinois.

No word on where the ashes will be strewn.

Feminazi Fritz's NOW Affiliation Covered Up By Redeye

On July 11th of this year the leftist National Organization for Women (NOW) formally endorsed Barack Obama for President.

Stealth feminazi, Niki Fritz

On September 6th, the Chicago Tribune's newspaper for dummies, the Redeye, on page 4, ran a screed by one Niki Fritz, effectively endorsing Obama in terms so gushingly Pollyannish and absurd that it seemed to have come directly from the Obama campaign's talking points.

Fraulein Fritz, who heaves up a periodic column there, was described as a "Redeye Special Contributor." She was listed as having an email address at tribune.com.

Fraulein Fritz also happens to be the PR Chairwomen of the Chicago chapter of the aforementioned NOW.

In a truly outrageous violation of journalistic ethical standards the Redeye's editors conveniently failed to mention that.

Can you imagine the howls of indignation from the left if a mainstream news entity published a glowing endorsement of Romney by an operative of -- say -- the conservative Illinois Family Institute -- and covered up the association?

The call-in lines at the lefty radio outlets, WCPT and WBEZ would be abuzz with protest and soon thereafter, Redeye editorial heads would be rolling in Tribune Tower.

Redeye Editor Tran Ha - journalistic ethics
straight from Mao's cultural revolution

Indeed, The Society of Professional Journalists' code of ethics says, among many other things that journalists should:

"—Avoid conflicts of interest, real or perceived.
---- Remain free of associations and activities that may compromise integrity or damage credibility.

and

— Disclose unavoidable conflicts."

One other tenet of the Professional Journalists Code of ethics holds that journalists should,

" — Expose unethical practices of journalists and the news media."

So who at the Tribune Corporation can we count on to do this?

Certainly not Redeye editor, Tran Ha, whose ideas of journalistic ethicality and transparency seem to parallel those of the Maoist cultural revolution.

This is an era of unrestrained left-wing media bias and this is the season of what Bernard Goldberg calls, the media's "slobbering love affair" with Obama.

So if you are waiting for journalistically ethical behavior from the Chicago Tribune Corp. ----

don't hold your breath.

The Election Ethno Name Game Part 2: Larry "Kyle" Frank

Some months back we posted an article about the ridiculous propensity of Chicago area pols to finagle with their names to try and attain an ethnic edge on the ballot.

Larry Frank became "Kyle"
 after he went to Eatin'

We chronicled how this election season we'll have a Fillipina named O'Brien and a Jew named Drury. 

We chronicled how in past election seasons we had a WASP with a Polish ballot name and scores of women of somewhat bland ethnicities who, for ballot purposes, adopted their husbands' Irish names or Italian names.

Well, add to the list one Kyle Frank who is running for State Representative in the North Shore's 17th legislative district.

He is running as a Republican against a truly execrable, ultra left-wing Northeastern  Illinois University (see: "high schools with ashtrays") teaching assistant named Laura Fine.

The fact that candidate Frank's name is "Kyle" today would come as something of a surprise to his former classmates at Skokie's Niles North High School. They simply knew him as an ungainly Jewish kid from Skokie's North side named Larry Frank.

But apparently at one time he set his sites on running for office as a Republican in the Northern suburbs and needed a new, enhanced, ballot name.

Likely he considered "Skippy" Frank and "J. Danforth" Frank but ultimately decided that "Kyle" had a nice enough WASPish GOP ring to it.

Perhaps he figured that it would make voters think that instead of Niles North he went to Eton.

And from the looks of his campaign photo, it is quite apparent that at one time he did, in fact, go to eatin'.

Clarence Darrow's Commencement Speech at Senn High School

Senn High School on Chicago's North side at the corner of Ridge Ave. and Clark St. has been around since 1911.

Chicago's Senn High School

 Apparently it's been a very funny place at one time or another, having produced kiddie show comic Shecky Greene, kiddie show puppeteer, Burr Tillstrom (creator of Kukla, Fran and Ollie), National Lampoon comic actor/director, Harold Ramis and TV and movie comic actor Harvey Korman.

Today it is supposedly trying to improve by adding magnet programs and in 2005 added a Naval military program.

But it is pretty much as big of a cesspool as most Chicago Public Schools today. A few years ago a girl was raped in a passageway there during school hours.

Anyway, the best oration ever likely given there was made by famed Chicago defense lawyer, Clarence Darrow at the 1918 Senn commencement ceremony.

Clarence Darrow, famed Chicago-based
criminal defense attorney and social gadfly

Darrow was apparently as prescient as he was brilliant.

After sitting on the stage listening to an hour or so of public school educators blather on and on about how their brilliant graduates must "go forth and serve," etc. etc -- yada, yada, yada -- he got up and uttered the following famous words to the 500 Senn graduates:

"Look -- let's you fellows down there relax now. 

That was as fine a lot of bunk as I ever heard in my life, and I know darned well you youngsters didn't believe a word of it. 

You're no more fit to "go forth and serve" than the man on the moon. 

You're just a bunch of ignorant kids, full of the devil, and you've learned practically nothing to show for the four years you spent here. 

You can't fool me, because I once spent four years in just such a place."


According to Irving Stone, author of the 1941 Darrow biography, Clarence Darrow for the Defense (Bantam Books, p.7) the parents were shocked, the Senn faculty was purple with rage but the kids were ecstatic.

They thought that Clarence Darrow's Senn High School commencement speech of 1918 was the only good sense they had heard in months.

Chicago Blacks Protest Immigrant Labor - Libs Worried

For two consecutive days last week a group of South side black activists conducted a civil disobedience campaign protesting the overabundance of Latino immigrant laborers on construction sites in their neighborhood.

It seems that all is not well in multiculturalist diversityville.

Activists at one of Ed Gardener's
protests last week

In one incident the black protesters made anti-Latino taunts and sabotaged a city works project, shutting down the construction site for a time.

Led by Edward Gardener,an 87 year old retired black entrepreneur and veteran of General Douglas MacArthur's WWII army, the protesters targeted work sites where close to 100% of the work force was Latino immigrant. They demanded the scarce blue-collar jobs for Americans from their own community, where unemployment has reached staggering levels.

Conservatives of the immigration control movement have taken an odd sort of solace at these developments, We hate to say "we told you so", but we told you so.

Since the 1994 inception of the immigration control movement here, with the founding of Illinois Citizens for Immigration Reform, black leaders have been repeatedly warned that historically, high levels of immigration to the US have led to depressed wages and fewer jobs for black Americans.

To that they turned a deaf ear.

They bought the line propounded by their liberal-left leaders that they were part of a "rainbow coalition" for "social justice."

They sat by and watched as hordes of 3rd world immigrants, many of them illegal, streamed into the country and snapped up jobs and educational opportunities that rightfully would have been theirs.

Blacks watched meekly as foreigners of color were added to the racial spoils scheme known as "affirmative action."

They watched dumbly as their leftist leaders declared Chicago a "sanctuary city" for illegal aliens and refused to cooperate with federal authorities in effecting their deportation.

Today they are protesting their inability to get those scarce jobs that their liberal pals told them that "Americans won't do."

They watched as hordes of foreign born Asians and Indo-Pakistanis snapped up scholarship money and scarce spots at US college campuses. Their liberal leaders cheered this on as "diversity" and "multiculturalism" and even called for the de facto immigrant amnesty of the so-called "Dream Act."

Blacks watched as their hard earned urban electoral power base was eroded and diluted by an aggregation of foreign-born, now organized, voter cohorts.

I watch with amazement as at a McDonald's in the very shadow of Evanston Township High School, throngs of black teens are daily customers at a restaurant that seems to hire only foreign born, likely illegal, Latino workers.

Lame Brain Brown

Ultra-lefty Chicago Sun-Times columnist, Mark Brown, lamented the fact that Mr. Gardener's protests have targeted Latino workers. How terribly un-PC, that.

Well who is he going to target, lame brain Brown? How many times have you passed construction sites with all Latino immigrant laborers? When was the last time that you saw a black teen or a white man on a landscaping crew?

Well now there is, I suppose, at least one black Gardener in Chicago. He's an 87 year old activist and however belatedly, he has shined the spotlight on the devastating economic and cultural effects of 4 decades of uncontrolled foreign immigration.

And that has gotten Libs like Brown worried.

Oppressed Proletariat of Lake Forest Schools Strikes: 2011 Teachers Salaries Listed

Posted below are the names and latest available salaries of the teachers of Lake Forest High School district 115

This past Wednesday these very unionized teachers of Lake Forest High School District 115 walked out on strike.

Members of the exploited proletariat of Lake Forest
who average $106k  for their 9 mo. gigs

These oppressed members of the proletariat average $106,500 a year in salary for their 9 month gigs and that compares pretty well with the already very generous Illinois average teacher salary of  $65,000.

But these oppressed members of the exploited working class - in what  is perhaps the most posh educational setting in Illinois still aren't satisfied.

Despite the continued national and statewide economic malaise (believe it or not there have been foreclosures even in Lake Forest) these piggies are still holding out for raises of 5 to 6.5 percent per year.

Here are the 2011 salaries of all teachers and administrative employees of Lake Forest High School district 115. These are the latest available and have been garnered by the Family Taxpayers Foundation database  from state pension reports. If you click on the individual teacher's name you can see further data, such as specialty and years of service:

Teacher Salary Database

Lake Forest CHSD 115 2011 - Download data NAME SALARY "Maher, Jr." $0 Abrams, Ryan $90,802 Alexander Collier, Cindy $93,208 Antrim, Wendy $132,483 Aronson, Steve $81,721 Austin, Christine $78,952 Barndt, Darren $103,829 Bassill, Robert $91,500 Baysinger, Kristen $75,921 Behling, James $51,784 Benson, Rhonda $151,701 Berkshire, Jacqueline $125,969 Bielski, Carolyn $98,605 Birtman, Amy $104,321 Bower, Diane $120,567 Brandes, David $142,452

Nanny Alderman Chased By Knife-Wielding Bag Lady

Rookie Alderman James Cappleman (D-46th) seems to have a serious problem getting chased around by the bag ladies in his Uptown ward.


Fastidious Alderman James Cappleman (right)
at Gay Pride parade


In the latest incident, the ever-tidy, openly gay Solon was in the act of calling the cops on one Shermain Miles aka Charmane Boone, who was allegedly enjoying a chilled adult beverage while sitting on a public way.

Taking umbrage at this interruption of her libation enjoyment, Ms. Miles then proceeded to chase the fastidious lawmaker down the street while wielding a knife.

Being in fear for his very life, Alderman Cappleman is pressing charges for assault and battery against his fleet-footed constituent as she apparently caught up to him and pushed him into some bushes.

Fleet-footed Adult Beverage Connoisseur
Shermain Miles

Cappleman sagaciously philosophized on the incident, saying, “What went through my mind was, ‘I don’t want to get stabbed and killed over some stupid thing like this, over someone drinking in the public way. That’s not the way I want to die.’ ”

This comes on the heels of a July incident where he pressed battery charges against another 59-year-old Uptown woman for allegedly pushing him in a confrontation over feeding pigeons.

Cappleman said he saw bread crumbs on the ground near Broadway and Wilson and began to sweep them up when the woman, known to area residents as the “Pigeon Lady,” shoved him hard enough to push him into the street, and then threw a handful of bread crumbs at him.

Cappleman said the area was littered with bread crumbs, and he was just trying to clean it up before it became a breeding ground for rats.

Homeless Homos Mum Over Hizzhonor's Handoff to Catholic Charities

We have been, frankly, quite perplexed over the absence of outcry from Chicago's homosexual community over Mayor Rahm Emmanuel's decision to turn over the city's homeless services to Catholic Charities.

Why have gay activists been mum over
Rahm's Catholic Charities homeless handoff?

True, one lone gay blogger expressed consternation that the hellish sons of the Spanish Inquisition might not do such things as conduct AIDS/HIV tests on homeless shelter denizens or refer them to the Gay outreach center in Boystown.

The gay blogger also protested that Catholic Charities would be averse to referring clients to Planned Parenthood. And I always thought that unwanted pregnancies were the last thing homosexuals had to worry about -- silly me..

But overall, the response has been surprisingly muted considering that homosexual activists made such a stink over Catholic adoption services.

The Catholic Charities agency had precluded homosexual couples from adopting innocent children from them. Working with the left-wing Democrats that control Illinois, the homosexual cabal forced Catholic Charities, after many decades of service, to opt out of the adoption business.

Will the Catholics deny Queen-sized
cots to homeless homo couples?

So why aren't the gay civil libertarians hollering over the likelihood that Catholic run shelters might not let their homeless fellow adherents freely engage in erotic expression on the provided cots and bunk beds?

Why aren't they caterwauling that the Popish authoritarians might outlaw water sports in the showers? And what about "married" gay couples? Will the Catholic homeless shelter administrators deny them their marital rights to frolic in Queen-sized floor mattresses?

All these lingering vital questions are hanging out there unresolved and unaddressed by Chicago's homosexual activists and we can't figure out why.

Except possibly, it's because they dare not raise a peep of protest against the author of  this move, their fellow lefty, the Rahmfather.

Free Redeye Home Delivery: The Perfect Conversation Starter

Sagacious reader, RJP, of Chicago recently wrote in commending us on our August 17th column lampooning the Tribune Corp's Redeye newspaper for dummies.

"I not only get all my news from Redeye,
but I even get it delivered to my door"

Seems she is red-faced because she somehow inadvertently subscribed to home delivery of the Redeye many years ago.

 RJP believes that she is now, quite possibly, the only person in Chicago who actually has the stupid thing delivered and as each new Redeye piles up on her doorstep, it reminds her daily that she forgot, once again, to cancel the damned thing.

She says that she never reads the thing, has stopped doing the sudoku puzzles and just having it around makes her feel like her IQ is oozing away.

We were not aware that the cheesy throwaway free paper was actually delivered, but now that we are, we're going to sign right up.

What a magnificent conversation starter this could be!

Just imagine yourself at one of the trendy pickup bars the Redeye is endlessly touting-- the ones with the $15 papaya martinis and what-not.

So there you are and across the crowded room, you see kind of intellectually-challenged looking, yet unbelievably hot chick at the bar. You are at a loss for how to approach a luscious pea-brain of this sort. What could you possibly have in common?

Then, eureka!! You remember your Redeye subscription. You simply then have to sidle up to her, put your papaya martini down on the bar and suavely say, "Have you been having problems with your Redeye home delivery, like me? The thing hasn't been arriving before 7am lately and I just can't sit down to my first cup of coffee without it."

Then she begins chattering away about the wonderful insights into Kim Kardashian's lifestyle that she's gleaned from Chicago's newspaper for blithering idiots and the two of you are well on your way to a night of magic.

Or, if for some reason, you should ever find yourself at a gathering of Chicago area SIU, NIU or Northeastern Illinois University alums -- you, as a Redeye home delivery subscriber, will have natural grist for conversation-starting.

Something like, "How much do you tip your Redeye newspaper home delivery man at Christmastime? Is $10 still acceptable, do ya think?"

The Redeye is great for igniting the kindling
in your Chicago winter  fireplace

The possibilities are endless. As a member of an elite group of Redeye subscribers, you will feel right at home with all manner of Chicagoans, who, due to differences in intelligence quotient and taste, might otherwise have seemed unapproachable -- members of gay mens'choral groups, "American Idol" devotees, hip-hop fans, bimbos who follow Charley Sheen and Paris Hilton on Twitter, hipster-doofuses who plan their summers around Lalapalooza and people who still have "Obama-Biden 2008" bumperstickers on their Subarus.

I know I'm getting on the phone right away and getting my free Redeye home delivery.

Who could pass up this opportunity to broaden one's social horizons?

And besides, It'll be fireplace time again soon and what could be more convenient on a chilly Chicago day than free kindling starter delivered right to my door?

"Obama 2016" Showings in Chicago Area - Anti-Obama Film Surprise Summer Hit

If there is any need for further proof that the leftists in Hollywood haven't a vague clue as to what appeals to Americans, they were stunned when the anti-Obama movie, 2016, Obama's America, came in 3rd in yesterday's box office totals.

Based on conservative, Dinesh D'Souza's best-selling 2010 book, The Roots Of Obama’s Rage, the film achieved box office success despite appearing in only one third of the number of venues as most other wide release films.

Here is a brief trailer for 2016, Obama's America:




Here is a list of the Chicago area theatres, which as of this writing, are showing the anti-Obama hit film 2016, Obama's America:

Addison 21
Addison, IL

Regal Bolingbrook Stadium 12
Bolingbrook, IL

AMC Showplace Galewood 14
Chicago, IL

AMC Loews Country Club Hills 16
Country Club Hills, IL

AMC Loews Crestwood 18
Crestwood, IL

Crystal Lake Showplace Stadium 16
Crystal Lake, IL

Cinemark Century 16
Deer Park, IL

Gurnee 20
Gurnee, IL

AMC Lake in the Hills 12
Lake in the Hills, IL

Lake Zurich 12
Lake Zurich, IL

Lincolnshire Stadium 21
Lincolnshire, IL

AMC Yorktown 17
Lombard, IL

AMC Randhurst 12
Mt. Prospect, IL

AMC Showplace Naperville 16
Naperville, IL

AMC Showplace Niles
Niles, IL

Tinselton 17
North Aurora, IL

AMC Northbrook Court 14
Northbrook, IL

Round Lake Beach Stadium
Round Lake Beach, IL

AMC Loews Streets of Woodfield 20
Schaumburg, IL

AMC Showplace Village Crossing 18
Skokie, IL

Regal Gardens 7-13
Skokie, IL

AMC South Barrington 30
South Barrington, IL

Charlestown Mall 18
St. Charles, IL

Cantera Stadium 17
Warrenville, IL

AMC Loews Woodridge 18
Woodridge, IL

Woodridge 17
Woodridge, IL

Due to the initial box office success of 2016, Obama's America, more theatres are beginning to book the film, so this list should expand soon.

The Tribune's Redeye: Chicago's Newspaper for Dummies

It will soon be 10 years since the Chicago Tribune launched it's throwaway free Redeye tabloid. Those are the papers you see in those little red boxes on street corners throughout the city and nearby suburbs.

The Redeye: A newspaper for blithering idiots

We used to refer to the Redeye as "Chicago's newspaper for dummies." But a perusal of the August 8th issue has compelled us to admit our error.

Redeye is not Chicago's newspaper for dummies. It is Chicago's newspaper for complete blithering idiots.

Before launching into a scathing critique of this alleged newspaper, we must first answer the question that is, no doubt, nagging the reader: Why would literate, sentient beings like you even bother to pick up the Redeye if it is so stupid?

The answer is twofold: First -- the weather and Second -- kindling.

The first vaguely saving characteristic of this rag is that it prints little 3 day weather forecasts. They are in the form of cutesy cartoons with inane comments on the prognostication, but they do tell you the projected weather. It is probably gleaned from the Tribune's Tom Skilling which explains why the predictions are at least 40% correct.

Secondly, in certain months of the year, we find ourselves starting wood fires. This requires newspaper to kindle the pencil-sized kindling sticks, which in turn ignite the logs.

With fewer people subscribing to newspapers, it is becoming increasingly hard to find newsprint in alley recycling bags. Hence, a trip to the corner red box will yield 8 or 10 copies of Redeye, which serve to do the trick. (The Tribune's Hoy free Spanish paper will also work.)

But beyond that, there is no legitimate reason for picking up the Redeye, unless you are a total nincompoop.

The Red Eye: Music news, booze news
 and non-stop Kim Kardashian news

Take the August 8th edition.

With Syria embroiled in a bloody civil war that could ignite the volatile Mideast, with Motorola laying off another 300 Chicago area workers, with constitutionally unsettling issues haunting the ongoing Drew Petersen murder trial the Redeye devoted it's front page, lead story to the pressing issue of: "Breakup Ahead -- 6 signs you might be headed for a love interruption."

Then page 3 treats the reader to an analysis of NPR's list of teenager's favorite books -- Harry Potter, The Hobbit and the Catcher in the Rye made the list. We really needed to know that.

Then California girl, Tracy Swartz's regular CTA column on page 4 (they couldn't find a Chicagoan for this?) analyzes the relative urine stink levels at assorted CTA El stations.

Then on pages 6 and 7 you get the front page-touted 2 page spread on love affair breakup signs. And then finally the news on page 8. I say news, but at the Redeye, they really should be called "news nuggets." All they really consist of are 1 line blurbs on assorted area train derailments, knife attacks and oddball assaults.

Redeye news reports are basically abridged versions of USA Today news tidbits, if you can envision that.

The international coverage, which usually falls around page 10, likewise consists of 1 line notes on such esoterica as Filipino monsoons, Nigerian epidemics, and gambling developments in London.

After you've had your fill of news tidbits, it's on to Redeye's sports news nuggets, punctuated by an occasional abbreviated sports story, lifted from the Tribune and cutesy attempts at sports humor by a panel of Redeye staffers and various trendy stand up comics and other personnae  picked out for this.

Then the Redeye -- around page 19 -- gets down to its mainstays -- music, booze and Kim Kardashian coverage -- lots of it -- all the time.

The Redeye makes an excellent kindling starter

Charitably, the Redeye has no editorial page. That would be as taxing intellectually for its staff as for its readers.

Still it manages to inject a hefty dose of knee-jerk, left-wing bias into its product. Usually this consists of running handout photos from the Obama press office of Obama commenting on how cool the female star of the Batman movie was -- and running bits on George W. Bush's verbal gaffes -- even in 2012.


And I almost forgot to mention the Redeye's crossword puzzles. These truly are designed for the benefit of the mentally challenged and linguistically infantile. What can you say about a crossword puzzle that (I am not making this up) heaves up agonizing brain teasers like "Winnie the _ _ _ _" , "Mao _ _ _ Tung" and "Actor _ _ _ Cruise."?

Years ago, I boarded the Evanston Express sans reading material and thought I'd tackle the Redeye crossword for diversion. What a joke! Beginning at the South Blvd. station, I had it solved by Jarvis -- 3 stops away.

But there you have it --  Chicago's very own newspaper for complete blithering idiots, soon celebrating its 10th anniversary.

In the history of the Republic there have been some very formidable journalistic endeavors, which have contributed greatly to the improvement of our national civic life.

The Christian Science Monitor of the Godfrey Sperling era, the International Herald-Tribune of the Hemingway/Wm. Shirer eras, the Sacramento Bee during its Libertarian days and even the Chicago Tribune and New York Times of the first half of the 20th century.

Those were newspapers for the ages.

But the Redeye too, is a newspaper for the ages ---

ages 5 thru 12.

Evanston To Hold "Mau Mau Whitey" Seminars

Beginning tomorrow night at the Evanston City Hall, The City of Evanston will begin hosting three city-wide events entitled “My Evanston, My Neighbors: Constructive Dialogues on Race."

Madelyn Ducre: Evanston Mau-Mau

In the Obama era, a "dialogue" on racial issues means having a phalanx of cockamamie, minority race profiteers and other lefties noisily tell a flock of masochistic, self-loathing white people how awful they are.

In the early 70s, Tom Wolfe called this "Mau-Mauing." In fact he wrote a best-selling book called "Radical Chic and Mau-Mauing the Flack Catchers."

Back then, wealthy liberal New Yorkers would invite radical Black Panthers to their Manhattan salons for a fashionable soiree.

At the soiree, the Black Panthers would harangue the guilt-ridden New York liberals, yell at them, tell them how they were all miserable racists and then demand from them, sizable donations.

That was called "Mau-Mauing."

All in all an enjoyable evening in the weird world of American liberalism.

Now, Evanston's leftist Mayor, Elizabeth Tisdahl, has decided that Evanston liberals all should be able to enjoy a night (or 3) of being Mau-Maued on the city government's dime.

Hence these "Constructive Dialogues on Race."

The idea was actually the brain-child of one Evanston race huckster by the name of Madelyn Ducre.

This civic dynamo has been vocal on such issues as Evanston Police brutality, legalizing pot and keeping in place, the superfluous Evanston Township government.

In expounding on the joys of her new city-sponsored Mau mauing sessions, Ducre told the Daily Northwestern: "We're not going to stop hate overnight, but it's a start."

You can see, right off where this thing is going.

"Hate speech", "Hate crimes" and "Hate" in general are leftist code words for evil deeds perpetuated by the white man.

Be sure to be there in Evanston, tomorrow night, for this exciting new development in Obama-era, "racial dialogue."

If you're white, wear a hair shirt.

Skokie's Tsunami of Violent Crimes: Black Males Sought In All

Last week a Cook County grand jury charged a Skokie man with 4 counts of attempted murder for firing off eight shots at a passing carload of people in downtown Skokie during the evening rush hour.

Skokie Police Chief Scarpelli said the suspected shooter
A. Soballe (above) is not black and not on Sec. 8

This is just the latest in a tsunami of violent incidents that have occurred in that once tranquil Northern Chicago suburb since the end of April.

Additionally there have been a series of violent robberies of Skokie residents and most recently a racially motivated assault on a white couple in a Skokie park.

In all of the recent incidents, the suspects are black males.

The rash of violence prompted Skokie officials to hastily convoke a June 14th public forum where they sought to assuage growing citizen fears. Noticeably absent from the meeting was Skokie's usually publicity hungry mayor, George Van Dusen, former longtime aide to liberal Democrat Congressman Sidney Yates.

At the forum, Skokie's new police chief, Anthony Scarpelli asserted that crime was really down in the suburban village, that the suspected downtown shooter, a Skokie resident, despite having clearly African features, was not really an African American and was not a Section 8 low-income housing subsidee.

Nevertheless a survey taken at the event revealed that 62% of Skokie residents "believe they are less safe after dark in their own neighborhood."

Here is the chronicle of recent violent crime in Skokie:

--- June 14th Gunfire incident - 8 shots fired at passing car in downtown Skokie during rush hour - suspect Black mixed race

--- Two violent robberies within an 8 day period at the end of April. One woman stabbed and robbed of $500 near the 7-11 at Main St. and Skokie Blvd. One 54 year old man badly beaten and robbed of $250 near downtown Skokie -- suspects 2 black males


--- Last Week of June, 3 incidents of violent robbery of Apple iphones in residential area near downtown Skokie - suspects 3 black teens

A Skokie woman was robbed of her Ipod
at gunpoint by a black male suspect

--- June 25th incident where a group of black teens attacked a white couple  badly beating the husband in Skokie's Tecumseh Park after yelling anti-white racial slurs - suspects 3 black teens


While the tempo of violent crime in Skokie has reached a fever pitch this Spring and early Summer , apparently it has been going on for a while. Last year these similar incidents occured:


Woman robbed of Ipod at gunpoint on North side of Skokie - suspect black male


Two teens robbed of cell phones March 4, 2011 near Skokie Swift station one assaulted -- suspects 2 black male teens

At an earlier public forum, Skokie residents blamed the new violent crime wave on the politically liberal suburb's encouragement and acceptance of federally subsidized Section 8 low-income housing vouchers, which have become prevalent in some of Skokie's seedier neighborhoods which abut its central business district.

Skokie's liberal political elites have long encouraged racial integration and settlement of low income residents there.

The Government of Niles Township, of which Skokie is the principal municipality,  contributed taxpayer funds to the Interfaith Housing Center of the Northern Suburbs, a Saul Alinsky-styled community organizing group, which agitates for more low income housing in Chicago's suburbs.

And the Skokie Human Relations Commission, an agency of the Village government, is listed as a member of the group.