Free Booze in Wrigleyville

Precisely one year ago today, I reported on my tremendously interesting discovery that one can find free booze in the alleys of Chicago's yuppified neighborhoods on apartment moving day.

Back then, using the simple expedient of riding my bike thru the alleys of Roscoe Village, I found an entire 12 pack of Leinenkugel's beer, several unopened bottles of Spanish wine and an entire bottle of rum.

This year it was a foray thru the backways of Wrigleyville and once again I hit the mother lode.

Behind an expensive looking condo on Southport in the very shadow of Wrigley Field, I discovered a plastic storage container which contained (I am not making this up) an unopened bottle of Courvasier cognac, a 3/4 full bottle of French Grey Goose vodka, a bottle of British Tanqueray Gin, a mostly full bottle of Canadian whiskey, a 1/2 full bottle of Maker's Mark Kentucky whiskey, a book on cocktail recipes and a fancy cut glass bottle stopper.


To my mind it would have been sinful to relegate these fine potables to the city waste dump, so, given my steadfast commitment to recycling, I put the delictable potions to good use.

Is this a great city or what?

Evanston Library Filters Porn -- And Everything Else

Evanston has long had a storied tradition of prudery and pecksniffery. It was, after all, home to Frances Willard one of the founders of the Women's Christian Temperance Union. Her Evanston home -- The Willard House -- served as its national headquarters and is now a designated historic monument.

As such Evanston was one of the last municipalities in the state to allow the sale of booze --this many decades after the repeal of prohibition.

When we were prep school roustabouts, we would make a point of swinging by the old WCTU HQ at 1730 Chicago Avenue and flinging our empty beer cans on the lawn -- take that, you old biddies!

Today, Evanston had become hipper, younger and leftist -- but maintains its tradition of chasing down moral bugaboos. Today, instead of going after boozehounds, it goes after racists, hatemongers and homophobes with an enthusiasm that Mrs. Willard would admire. It stages an annual " Run Against Hate" and is a sanctuary city for illegal aliens.

But I didn't expect its librarians to catch the Evanston morality fever. But it seems they have with their extremely zealous use of anti-pornography filters at the Evanston Public Library.

For almost an entire month now, its public internet connections have disabled just about anything that requires a flash player. This means that usually all of youtube is off limits there.

Recently while stopping in there for a quick email check, I tried to open a link to an article in Forbes sent by a friend.

I was notified that due to the graphics contained in the Forbes article, it was filtered by the moral guardians of the EPL. Same with all the youtube bits on my own blog -- although come to think of it, Barry Manilow and ABBA are kind of aesthetically obscene.

The librarians on the 3rd floor say they are cognizant of their filtering problems and are working on it.


I just hope their crack techno-staff solves it with greater alacrity than the geniuses who are grappling with the Gulf oil gusher -- but it seems to be taking almost as long.

So I think I'll just forgo use of the Evanston library, for now, and spend my time just down the block from Mrs. Willard's house -- swilling beer at the Celtic Knot Public House.

Mr. Proft and Mr. Schakowsky Agree: De Facto Amnesty for Illegals

It was a wild Sunday on WLS talk radio. I put on the Sony Walkman to drown out the ambient noise in Legion Park while trying to read Alvah Simon's riveting account of his solo adventures in the Arctic.

But the banter on both Tom Roeser's "Political Shootout" and on Dan Proft's virgin solo foray into radio talk turned to Arizona and the illegal alien question.

I didn't get much reading done.

What was most disturbing was an identical assertion made by extreme leftist, Bob Creamer (Cong. Jan Schakowsky's convicted felon husband) and ostensible conservative, Proft.

They both repeatedly and quite casually said, "There is no way we are going to be able to deport the 11 million illegal aliens already here."

This is the new shibboleth being propounded by both leftists who lust after a new lumpenproletariat voting bloc and Chamber of Commerce types who crave their next cheap labor fix.

But it's not true.

We can deport substantial numbers of the illegal alien squatters and can effect self deportation of most of the rest.

I'm not talking about draconian measures like President Eisenhower's "Operation Wetback" which rounded up illegals en masse and bused them back home.

But serious enforcement of existing law (including ongoing deportation) and comprehensive removal of employment and social service possibilities could readily effect removal of those who have effectively ignored our sovereign laws.

When the magnets which attract and keep illegal populations here disappear many will self-deport.

This has happened before in our history. During the darkest days of the Great Depression, tens of thousands of persons who had recently legally immigrated to the USA, faced with bleak job prospects and minimal government assistance, simply packed up and headed home.

According to the political scientist Leuchtenburg, during the dark depression years of 1930-31, the numbers of recent immigrants boarding ships for a return to Europe averaged 5,000 a month.

3,000 American immigrants actually even took up the Soviet Russian government's offer of jobs and resettlement in the workers' utopia. Seems they had full employment in the gulag state.

We have no reason to believe that self-deportation would not correspondingly occur today if all incentives to stay were eliminated. Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies argue that as many as 50 percent of illegals would leave voluntarily if the government were to initiate an aggressive deportation policy.

When conservative Proft and leftist, Creamer, blithely assert that deportation is impossible, they are simply paving the way for yet another mass amnesty by asserting the impracticality of any alternative.

Amnesty as with the word amnesia is from the classical Greek word for 'forget.'

Either way you cut it, if you believe that deportation is impractical as with Proft or undesirable as with Creamer, you are advocating an amnesty -- that we just forget that they came illegally.

Proft may envision some scheme whereby the illegal invaders may have to pay a tax and perhaps, pretend to learn English. And Creamer may just want to legalize them all and register them to vote tomorrow, but by conceding the inevitability of their continued presence -- by refusing to consider serious enforcement and removal of incentives to stay -- they're both advocating amnesty. They're both telling us to just forget about the fact that our laws have been broken wholesale and our borders and sovereignty as a nation trampeled.

A vote on amnesty for illegal aliens is unlikely in this, an election year. The American people are overwhelmingly against it.

But if it's somehow rammed through in the future, it could well have the most societally disruptive and disasterous consequences to have been experienced in this country since the period 1861-65.

"Vote--Vote--We Want Beer!"

Normally I do not like to admit this in polite company, but I was once a Democrat. In fact a liberal Democrat.

As a precocious kid of 12 or 13, I used to tag along with a Democrat precinct captain as he went door to door.From him I learned some of the savvy techniques (and dirty tricks) that would later serve me well when I became a sentient being and began working to elect conservatives.

But I am not ashamed to admit it. I was once a Democrat. But then so was the very witty conservative writer, P.J. O'Rourke. He was not just a liberal Democrat, but was in fact, a drug addled hippie wwhen he wrote for Rolling Stone. Now he leans more toward dry martinis and H. Uppmann cigars. Now his writing makes sense.

And so, of course was the Great Communicator, himself, Ronald Reagan. Most people are unaware of this, but not only had he been a Democrat, but he was the only President of the United States who had been a labor union leader. He served as President of the Screen Actors Guild.

I can't often think of nice things to write about Democrats, but in recent reading, I came across the one indisputably good thing the Democrats ever did.

They legalized booze!

It was largely at the urging of pecksniff Midwestern and Bible Belt Republicans that liquor was outlawed in the US from 1919 to 1933.

It was the Democrat FDR who gave us back legal liquor.

Here is what the political scientist, William E. Leuchtenburg had to say about it:

"On Monday, March 13th, the President asked Congress to fulfill the Democratic pledge of an early end to prohibition. Roosevelt's victory had speeded a remarkable revolution in sentiment; even some veteran dry Congressman now voted for liquor. While the 21st Amendment was making its way through the states, Roosevelt requested quick action to amend the Volstead Act by legalizing beer of 3.2% alcoholic content by weight.

"Roosevelt's message touched off a rollicking debate. The drys, who had succeeded in killing a beer bill only a few weeks before, rehashed the arguments that had been so convincing for more than a decade, but to no avail.

"Impatient Congressmen chanted: 'Vote -- Vote -- We Want Beer!'

"Within a week, both Houses had passed the beer bill and added wine for good measure, although Congressmen protested that 3.2% wine was not 'interesting.' On March 22, Roosevely signed the bill.

"As the day of liberation approached, breweries worked feverishly to meet the anticipated demand. Working around the clock, a St. Joseph Missouri factory turned out ten tons of pretzels a day, but still ran two month behind. Emanuel Kovelski, president of the New York bartenders union proclaimed: 'We're all set. The bartenders will be all fine, clean upstanding yound men.'

"On April 7, 1933, beer was sold legally in America for the first time since the advent of prohibition and the wets made the most of it. In New York, six stout brewery horses drew a bright red stake wagon to the Empire State Building, where a case of beer was presented to Al Smith, 'the martyr of 1928.'

"In the beer town of St. Louis, steam whistles and sirens sounded at midnight, while Wisconsin Avenue in Milwaukee was blocked by mobs of celebrants singing 'Sweet Adeline.' The most important ritual took place at the Rennert Hotel bar in Baltimore: H.L. Mencken downed a glass of the new beer and assured anxious connoisseurs it was a worthy brew."

In 1936, The Democrats made the most of it as FDR easily sailed into his second term. They had a campaign song, which I once taped off of NPR. It went:

"Back Again,

Back Again

We Got Franklin D. Roosevelt,

Back Again

Since Roosevelt's been elected

Moonshine liquor's been corrected

We got legal wine, whiskey, beer and gin."

So don't ever say that I never gave the Democrats credit for ever doing anything good.

Ald. Joe Moore Proposes Arizonian Foie Gras Boycott

In the wake of the Chicago City Council's measure to boycott Arizona firms, Alderman Joe Moore (D-49th) has introduced a bill to turn up the heat on that hellish state by forcing Chicago firms to boycott Arizonian foie gras.

"In solidarity with the illegal aliens of our great sanctuary city, I propose a complete boycott on the importation of all and any foie gras from Arizona, " Moore said.


"Irrespective of what may transpire elsewhere, we must show the world that we are one city that genuinely cares for its illegal aliens and geese," Moore said.



The move was heralded by Alderman Tom Tunney (D-44th) who said, "The gay community is behind this bill 8,000 percent."

Alderman Berny Stone (D-50th)awoke from his customary slumber to say, "If it's good for the city's landlords, I'm all for it."



Jesse Jackson (D-United Nations) put the issue in moral terms saying, "This is indeed a civil rights issue. As our great Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ so clearly put it: 'That which you do unto the least of my geese, you do unto me.'"



Joshua Hoyt, director of the chief illegal alien lobby in Illinois, the Chicago Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, predicted widespread support for Moore's bill. "We must remember that no goose is illegal. Geese are people too," he said.

The bill is expected to pass the City Council by the usual 50-0 margin.

Welcome To the Chicago Service Economy

This past week I ran into a very interesting high fashion designer. A 3rd generation sansei, Japanese American, she graduated from New York's Fashion Institute of Technology and spent years in the realm of Manhattan high powered fashion design.

She commented that not long ago, the preponderance of American high fashion creations were actually produced in New York's garment distict. Today she lamented, the percentage actually manufactured in the USA hovers around 3%.

This made me recall an incident which occured a few years back. While dog walking in East Rogers Park, I ran into a twenty-something black guy. He was living under bushes in the park by night and cadging quarters to buy malt liquor by day.

During one of his infrequent lucid moments, he sadly recollected growing up on the South side in a stable family headed by a well paid steelworker. All those jobs are gone now, he said.

And with them have gone opportunities for a stable, dependable good job for Americans lacking a secondary education. As those jobs have flown to lower paid overseas cheap labor havens, a critical component of our societal stability has flown away alongside.

The US in general and the Chicago area, in particular, have been hemorrhaging industrial jobs at a fantastic rate for the past three decades.

Today a mere 10% of workers in the Chicago metropolitan area are employed in manufacturing. A greater number work for government and when you include the government schools, that becomes a vastly greater number.

According to 2005 Federal statistics, these are now the largest employers in the Chicago metro area:

Largest employers -- Number of employees

U.S. Government 88,000
Chicago Public Schools 39,402
Jewel-Osco 36,749
City of Chicago 35,978
Cook County 26,505

Instead of tax generating, real goods production, our economy is now dominated by the parasitic tax consuming government classes.

Since the Reagan years, we've been hearing a lot of the new "service economy" reliably compensating for the loss of industrial jobs.

Frankly, I never bought a word of it. Real production of tangible goods, is, in the final analysis, the only real basis of wealth.

The 1961 economic analysis by British economists, Cole and Postgate, The British Common People,chronicled the flight of manufacturing from Great Britain which began as early as the 1920s.

"Napoleon is said to have called Great Britain 'a nation of shopkeepers,'" they wrote. "By 1939, it seemed to have turned into a nation of shop assistants, clerks, waiters and machine attendants."

If Napoleon had scoffed at Americans as a nation of fast food franchise owners, he would be likewise wrong. It is fast becoming a nation of hamburger flippers and Wal-Mart greeters.

Welcome to the new "service economy."

"Do you want fries with that?"

Will Gun Grabber Anita Alvarez Shoot Down 80 Yr. Old African American Vet Gunslinger?

No One ever accused Chicago pols of exercising consistency, but I'm really wondering what Cook County States Attorney, Anita Alvarez is going to do about the 80 year old African American Korean War veteran who gunned down an intruder to his home.

The Humboldt Park man had and used a handgun in clear violation of Chicago law.

While Running for States Attorney in 2007, Alvarez said on the Jeff Berkowitz Public Affairs Forum, "I don't think anybody should own a gun, we're all safer without guns."

She also told Berkowitz during that December 16, 2007 interview, that gun law violators should be prosecuted as felons.

See the gun control portion of the interview here:



The Chicago Police, this morning announced that they would not press charges against the homeowner, whom they refused to identify, but in a Sun-Times interview, his son was identified as Butch Gant.

But Alvarez has before overruled Police Departments that she viewd as being insufficiently ardent in their pursuit of her leftist agenda.

When Evanston Police charged several white teenaged boys with simple assualt in a CTA incident several months back, she overruled them and pursued felony hate crimes charges against the youths, since their victim was homosexual.

Alvarez, ever the committed liberal, has said before that blacks are disproportionately taken to account by the criminal justice system.

If she tosses aside her clearly stated committment to enforce gun control laws in this case, will it be attributed to Alvarez's desire to even the racial score?

The previous State's Attorney, Dick Devine, brought charges against a white suburbanite, Hale Demar, for using a handgun to defend his Wilmette Home from an intruder in 2003.

The case was strikingly similar.

Will only black homeowners get a pass from the Cook County State's Attorney when they defy onerous gun bans?

Obama's Guru, Saul Alinsky, Lampooned in Evanston

Back in 1978, the late Terry Dolan of the National Conservative Political Action Committee (NCPAC) declared that "we have won all the debates, now it's time to start winning elections."

With that, NCPAC embarked on its wildly successful effort to target liberal Senators. It doggedly attacked them with the innovation of 3rd party negative TV and radio ads and direct mailings.

As a result, such liberal icons as Senators George McGovern, Birch Bayh, Clifford Case and Frank Church ended up in the electoral ash heap and in 1980, President Ronald Reagan had a workable GOP conservative majority in the US Senate.

At that same time, Republicans in Evanston were in the business of winning elections. They controlled the municipal mayoralty and City Council, the local State legislators and served as home to U.S, Congressman, John Porter, who resided in a stately Evanston manse, just down Sheridan road from the homes of former GOP Congresswoman, Marguirite Stitt Church and former GOP Vice President Charles Dawes.

Today the Evanston Republicans are politically irrelevant to their local electoral landscape.

But they do sponsor debates.

They did that this past Wednesday. In conjunction with the Evanston Public Library, they sponsored a lecture by Chicago Lawyer, Joe Morris, on the topic, "Community Organizing 101: The Life Saul Alinsky."

Morris, a former Asst. Attorney General in the Reagan administration is a frequent guest on his friend, Dr. Milt Rosenberg's WGN radio show, Extension 720. The University of Chicago grad is arguably the most insightful and eloquent conservative speaker in the state of Illinois, if not in the entire Midwest.

His elucidation on fellow Chicagoan, Saul Alinsky's leftist community organizing philosophy was enlightening in several ways.

First, Obama's philosophic godfather was every bit as amoral as other Chicago godfathers who sported names like Al Capone, Frank Nitti and Sam Giancanna.

He dedicated his acclaimed opus, "Rules for Radicals," to none other than Lucifer, who he cites as an example of a genuinely successful prince.

According to Morris, Alinsky's political tactics were straight out of Niccolo Machiavelli -- the Father of amoral power politics.

Alinsky subscribed to the notion that the ends, in a given dispute, justified any means necessary to attain them. Those who expressed moral qualms, Alinsky wrote, didn't love the downtrodden masses enough.

The Hyde Park author of community organizing, admonished radicals to create discord in any community that they set out to organize, to personify the enemy, to infiltrate useful existing organizations and to shame the power structure into proferring financial support.

Morris points out that Alinsky's greatest monetary benefactor in Chicago was none other than the Roman Catholic Archdiocese, which showered money on him for his rabble rousing efforts (and continues to support his creations to this day.)

All interesting stuff, this.

But I kept waiting to hear Morris' recommendations for countering the ongoing tactical efforts of Alinsky's disciples: the Bill Ayers, Bernadette Dohrns, David Axlerods, Bob Creamers, ACORNS etc.

Alas, other than an admonition to avoid Alinsky's Hegelian moral relativism, there were none.

Guess an actual discussion of tangible counter-efforts will have to wait til the next Evanston GOP Christmas Party. That is held at the Evanston Presbyterian Retirement home. It's a convenient locale for the Evanston GOP's mostly septagenarian to octagenarian membership.

Won't win many elections with that demographic.

But it was a swell debate.

Ronnie Woo-Woo to Boycott Arizona All-Star Game

The Chicago Tribune reported today that Ozzie Guillen, skipper of the .412 White Sox who are 6 games below .500 and 8 games out of 1st place, said that, if somehow invited, he would not attend the 2011 All Star game in Phoenix due to that state's decision to crack down on illegal immigrants.

(Odd that the Venezuelan-born Guillen didn't express the same moral outrage over Venezuelan Socialist dictator, Hugo Chavez's persecution of political opponents and outright closure of 6 TV stations that were critical of his regime. But I guess Ozzie is too busy Twittering to take on every Great Cause.)

And in other breaking news, Cubs backup catcher, Koyie Hill, currently hitting a meaty .214 and Cubs ace reliever, Jeff Samardjia (ERA 18.90) also announced that under absolutely no circumstances would they accept an invitation to the All-Star Game if it were held in hellish Arizona.

But most disappointing, was the pronouncement by Chicago legend and Cubs mascot, Ronnie Woo-Woo Wickers, that he would be boycotting the 2011 Arizona All-Star game in solidarity with the illegal aliens of "sanctuary city" Chicago.

This is sure to break the back of the Arizona state law.

Woo-Woo explained his position in an impromptu news conference held outside Wrigley Field after yesterday's game. Mr. Woo-Woo was joined by Highland Park High School Asst. Superintendent, Suzan Hebson, the $206,000 a year bureaucrat who yesterday put the kibosh on her girls' basketball players' effort to attend a tournament in Arizona.

Q: Why are you taking this drastic measure, Ronnie?

Woo-Woo: Amnesty WOO! Illegal WOO! Aliens WOO!

Q: But don't the people of Arizona have a right to decide to enforce the laws of the United States?

Woo-Woo: One WOO! World WOO! Open WOO! Borders WOO!

Q: Under what circumstances would you reconsider your decision to boycott, Ronnie?

Woo-Woo: Sanctuary WOO! City WOO! Phoenix WOO! Mesa WOO! Free WOO! Healthcare WOO! Education WOO! Social Services WOO! for WOO Illegal WOO! Aliens WOO! WOOOOOO!

Joshua Hoyt, director of the illegal alien lobby group, IL Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights expressed satisfaction at Ronnie Woo-Woo's "keen grasp of the issues and unique way of articulating them." He said that his group will be wheeling out Ronnie as a featured speaker at future immigrant rights rallies.

Highland Park H.S. Scraps Residency Requirements

By now most have heard that Highland Park High School will not permit its championship girls basketball team to travel to Arizona for a tournament.

The girls had reportedly spent months selling cookies to raise funds for the trip, only to have an ideological warrior, Assistant District 113 Superintendent, Suzan Hebson, veto the trip.

Hebson,said that the new Arizona law intended to enforce U.S. residency laws in light of an onslaught of illegal alien settlement there, "would not be aligned with our beliefs and values."

Ms. Hebson is paid $206,319 a year to issue such profound pronunciamentos according to the Family Taxpayers Network teachers salaries report (see it here under the "Top 200 salaries" category: http://www.familytaxpayers.org/salary.php

Usually, when such morally superior uplifters as Suzan Hebson issue forth such ukases, there is a hypocrisy to be found nearby.

Such as with the 40% of Chicago Public School Teachers who sing the praises of the CPS system, yet send their own children to private schools. Or with such pro-public education luminaries as Barack Obama and Jesse Jackson, who conveniently send their children to posh and exclusive Sidwell Friends and St. Johns Academy respectively.

But I am happy to report that Suzan Hebson's Highland Park High School is true to its values.

After encountering a flurry of criticism on the morning radio talk shows and in the blogosphere, the ever-consistent Ms. Hebson announced that hereafter, Highland Park High School would not require proof of legal residency in Highland Park or elsewhere in District 113. Consequently anyone in the world who so chooses, will now be able to get a first class high-dollar education, courtesy of the enlightened, liberal taxpayers of Highland Park.

"We are not going to be like the benighted yahoos of Arizona," Asst. Supt. Hebson said. "There is no such thing as an illegal student. We are citizens of the world and all are welcome here," she pontificated.

Asked how District 113 would pay for a massive influx of new students, Hebson said that she would personally take a $150,000 annual pay cut and expected other members of her staff to do likewise.

"And if that is not enough, I'm sure the homeowners of the Highland Park area will enthusiastically embrace higher property taxes to make up any shortfall," Hebson said.

Hebson said that she was conferring with Highland Park mayor, Michael Belsky, about broadening the initiative to do away with residency requirements for the city's beaches and public library.

"We are going to be the first city on the face of the planet to truly obliterate meaningless distinctions of geographic residency," Hebson enthused.

To enroll your children at Highland Park High School for the coming year, call 224-765-1000.

Ask for Suzan Hebson.

North Shore Republican Leader Apologizes for Holocaust/Muslim Terror E-Mail

This past week, Tolbert Chisolm, the Committeeman of the New Trier Township Republican Party sent an e-mail to his membership which compared the Nazi holocaust to the 911 Muslim terror attack in New York.

And then he apologized for sending it.

For the life of me, I can't fathom to whom or for what he was apologizing. You can read the two e-mails in their entireity below and judge for yourself.

Chisum, is best known for being Cong. Mark Kirk's home Committeeman. He also has the peculiar distinction of being well known for having his operatives erect Mark Kirk campaign signs on peoples' lawns whether they asked for them or not, wanted them or not -- and for inventing the novel concept of actually charging people $20 to go to his annual New Trier Township GOP picnic.

In his initial email to party members and area activists, Chisum drew a parallel between the attempts of some to deny the reality of the holocaust perpetrated by the German National Socialists in the 30s and 40s and current attempts to hush up the reality of the September 11, 2001 Muslim terrorist massacre at the New York World Trade Center.

He incorporated standard textbook photos of holocaust victims and a (today seldom seen)photo of the first aircraft crashing into the WTC.

Then he sent another email to his list apologizing for sending the first.

To whom was he apologizing. Surely not to the Jewish community who raised more than $6 million to disseminate such very pictures at the new Illinois Holocaust Museum in Skokie.

To area Muslims for stating an historical fact?

Looks to me like Chisum is acting like so many other milquetoast Illinois Republican operatives. Either afraid of taking a definitive stand on crucial American issues or getting cold feet after the fact in the rare event that they do.

Here is the complete text of New Trier Township Republican Committeeman, Tolbert Chisum's, initial email:

"GET IT ALL ON RECORD --GET THE FILMS -- GET THE WITNESSES" EISENHOWER

When I was a kid, I couldn't understand why Eisenhower was so popular. Maybe this will explain why.

General Eisenhower Warned Us.

It is a matter of history that when the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces, General Dwight Eisenhower, found the victims of the death camps he ordered all possible photographs to be taken, and for the German people from surrounding villages to be ushered through the camps and even made to bury the dead.

He did this because he said in words to this effect:

'Get it all on record now - get the films - get the witnesses - because somewhere down the road of history some bastard will get up and say that this never happened'







This week, the UK debated whether to remove The Holocaust from its school curriculum because it 'offends' the Muslim population which claims it never occurred. It is not removed as yet.. However, this is a frightening portent of the fear that is gripping the world and how easily each country is giving into it.




It is now more than 60 years after the Second World War in Europe ended. This e-mail is being sent as a memorial chain, in memory of the, six million Jews, 20 million Russians, 10 million Christians, and 1,900 Catholic priests Who were 'murdered, raped, burned, starved, beaten, experimented on and humiliated' while many in the world looked the other way!

Now, more than ever, with Iran , among others, claiming the Holocaust to be 'a myth,' it is imperative to make sure the world never forgets.



This e-mail is intended to reach 400 million people! Be a link in the memorial chain and help distribute this around the world.

How many years will it be before the attack on the World Trade Center

'NEVER HAPPENED',




because it offends some Muslim???


Do not just delete this message; it will take only a minute to pass this along.
FREEDOM ISN'T FREE...SOMEONE HAD TO PAY FOR IT!


And here is the complete text of his subsequent email apology:

Dear Friends,

I personally apologize to you concerning a recent email sent about a quote of General Eisenhower and the holocaust. I did not realize that this email contained graphic and erroneous information. I will be more diligent in our communication in the future. Please accept my apology. Thank you.

Tolbert Chisum

Was there a need for an apology?

And if so, to whom?

Co-ed Loyola Academy's Organized Criminal Activity

As an alumnus of Loyola Academy I was surprised, but not shocked at the recent disclosure that past LA President, Rev. Larry Reuter had engaged in sexual activity with an 18 year old man.

After all, we all knew that there were effeminate types amongst the teaching force there. But Larry never came across as one -- and certainly not a flamer like others that any grad might be able to mention.

But I was shocked to learn this past February, that after the North Shore Prep school went co-ed in '92, Loyola Academy has been engaged in criminal behavior of an organized kind. Criminal behavior that could be liable for prosecution under the federal anti-organized crime RICO statutes.

You see, I found out that my alma mater had not only been admitting illegal alien students, but had actually joined the notorious Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights. It is the only school of any kind to have been listed as a constituent member of that illegal alien lobbying group.

According to the unctuous ICIRR Director, Joshua Hoyt, the posh prep school joined his group after it sought help in getting its illegal alien seniors into state colleges which required proof of legal US residence.

This put an opulent old North Shore institution (its tuition is now higher than that of many private colleges) in bed with such smarmy illegal alien apologists as La Raza, MALDEF and the left-wing Immigration Lawyers Association. It also put them in bed with Joshua Hoyt.

I'm far more concerned by that than by whether or not an aging Jesuit was in bed with an 18 year old 20 years ago.

In doing this, Loyola Academy decided to mock and disregard the laws of the United States of America. It deprived qualified American students of seats at its own exclusive school and at whichever colleges its illegals attended.

When asked about this, a spokeswoman for current Loyola Academy President, Pat McGrath, clammed up as tight as an Exxon PR man after an Alaskan oil spill.

Apparently the big-money Wilmette institution isn't overly proud of its associations with Hoyt et.al. Maybe it doesn't want its parents and alumni to know that, as a cash-paying member of the illegal alien lobby group, it has been advocating an increase in Illinois state income taxes, amnesty for illegals and inclusion of illegal aliens into all taxpayer financed social programs.

Loyola Academy, despite having a teaching staff comprised of non-Catholic, non-cleric, males and females, remains nominally at least, a Jesuit institution.

The Jesuits over history, have been thrown out of most countries in Europe and many in South America for conspiring to undermine the governments of their host nations.

This Jesuit institution, has similarly joined a conspiracy to undermine its host nation.

I say, forget Fr. Larry Reuter's youthful homosexual indiscretions with a consenting adult. But prosecute Loyola Academy and its fellow members of the Chicago illegal alien lobby under the RICO Act.

Organic Foods Guru Dies on TV Before a Live Studio Audience.

In honor of the Earth Day commemerence, I want to relate the tale of Dr. Jerome Irving Rodale. He is generally considered one of the founders of the organic foods craze. He died of a massive gripper before a live studio audience after bragging that he would live to be 100 because of his healthy diet.

This is how it happened.

On June 5th, 1971, Dr. Rodale was a guest on the Dick Cavett Show. That was a nationwide late night talk show of the era, which due to Cavett's snooty Yale liberal demeanor, was favored by American liberals.

As Cavett relates it in his autobigraphy, the modestly entitled Cavett (1974), the organic foods guru was a somewhat pompous, Leon Trotsky look-alike, who had devoted most of his life to the promotion of organic farming and organic food consumption.

As the first guest on the show, the 72 year old got down on the studio floor and began doing pushups to illustrate his diet-induced vigor.

He then boasted that he would likely live to be 100, unless run down in the streets by a sugar-crazed taxi driver.

When the second guest of the evening, a New York Post columnist made his entrance, Dr. Rodale moved downstage to the secondary chair in a way common to the TV talk show format.

A few minutes later he appeared to have dozed off in the chair and was snoring loudly. Cavett then asked, "Are we keeping you awake, Dr. Rodale?" Audience laughter ensued.

Then it became quite apparent that there was something quite wrong with the health-foods guru. Cavett couldn't stir him. Cavett says he resisted the instinct to announce, "Is there a doctor in the house?" due to its comic implications. A staffer then came out with an emergency oxygen tank which in 3 Stooges or Keystone Cops fashion was found to be lacking a key component.

By this time some women in the audience began openly sobbing. Finally, paramedics arrived and the Health Foods kingpin was pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital of a massive heart failure. He was 72, about the average age for an American man of his time.

The show was being videotaped and as such was never aired by ABC.

Today there is a non-profit organization, the Rodale Institute, which promotes organic farming and organic foods and has an entire section on its website devoted to the hokum of Global Warming.

I have little doubt that the Rodale crowd are among the biggest enthusiasts of government action to regulate the foods that we eat and forcibly restrict the product choices that we can be allowed to make.

They know what's best for us.

If we take their advice and adhere to their dictactes, we will all live happier, healthier and longer lives.

Just like their great leader, Dr. Rodale.

The only man in the history of American television to croak before a live studio audience.

Cubs Tickets Priciest in MLB

It's opening day at Wrigley Field. And despite the Cubs 101 year World Series Championship drought, it will now cost you more to see this year's motley assemblage in blue perform than any other team in major league baseball.

According to the Wilmette-based Team Marketing Report, the Cubs have now overtaken the Boston Red Sox with an average ticket price of $52.56. That means "a day of fun at the old ball park" as Jack Brickhouse used to blurt, will now cost a family of four $329.74, when you add in parking and all of the other associated costs.

The Cubs were second in the majors with a 10.1% price increase for 2010.

Thank you, Ricketts family.

But as the Cubs limp into Wrigley today with a 2-3 record, hitters that can't hit in the clutch and a bullpen creakier than the boards on the deck of the Mayflower, they will be sold out this afternoon.

You see, the Cubs now are chic.

But it wasn't always that way.

Back in the mid-60s, the old owner, P.K Wrigley, couldn't give away Cubs tickets.

On a bone-chilling opening day in '67 or '68, one of my avid Cub fan childhood friends ditched grammar school to attend along with about 1,014 other stalwarts (or lunatics depending on your perspective.)

P.K. was so grateful that he gave them each a certificate for free admission to another game. I wonder what the 2nd place prize winners got -- 2 tickets?

Back in 1964, the year the Cubs traded away future Hall of Famer Lou Brock for a sore-armed pitcher, Ernie Broglio, to save money ladies used to get in for free every Wednesday.

I'm sure that P.K.'s marketing geniuses thought this would turn Wrigley Field into a chick magnet. In reality it gave suburban mothers an excuse to pack the station wagon with the neighborhood kids and bring them to a game. The moms would get in for free and the kids would set them back a quarter a piece.

My mom did that with me and my neighborhood baseball card trading pals on several occasions.

According to an old scorecard that I have (I was lucky enough to get it autographed by future Hall of Famer, Juan Marichal) that year an Oscar Mayer hot dog cost 30 cents and a Budweiser bottle 40 cents.

Bleacher admission was 50 cents.

That was, of course, before the great liberal Democrat, Lyndon Baines Johnson, inflated the US currency to pay for his wildly successful wars: his war in Vietnam and domestic war on poverty.

In 1981, Cubs Manager, Lee Elia went into his famous on-tape, career ending, obscenity-laden rant when he said that most of the city of Chicago worked for a living and the rest came out to Wrigley to boo his ballclub.

Despite a nation-leading 11.9% unemployment rate you won't see the unemployed represented at Wrigley today.

It's just too bloody expensive.

Chicago Lampoon Hits the Mississippi Airwaves

This past Monday, the author of the Chicago Lampoon was a guest on the Paul Gallo talk show on the Supertalk Mississippi radio network.

The invitation was in response to the piece that appeared earlier this month in the Lampoon entitled: "Hey Garry Meier: Mississippi is Freer that Chicago."

The interview was heard on stations in Jackson, Hattiesburg, Brookhaven/Monticello/McComb, the Mississippi Delta, Oxford, Corinth, the Golden Triangle and in Elvis' birthplace, Tupelo.

I discussed the relative superiority of Mississippi over Chicago from a libertarian perspective and was particularly critical of Chicago's gun ban, smoking ban, red light camera surveillance and the lousy record its colleges have on student liberties.

You can listen to the interview by clicking HERE

Schakowsky: Immigrants Afraid of Census

Speaking on the morning WLS radio Don Wade and Roma Show, North side Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky (D-9th) said that Chicago's low rate of census form return was due to the fears of Chicago's massive population of recent immigrants.

Hear the entire interview here.

The rate of return of the mailed census forms was a paltry 38% in the Chicago area compared to a nationwide average of 52%.

Schakowsky said that this was because immigrants are poor and begin to "double up" with several families living in a single apartment. "They may be afraid to say how many people are living in certain spaces," she said.

Wait a minute. Is Schakowsky saying that immigrants, many of them illegal, are overcrowding apartments and homes in violation of various municipal codes of occupancy, health codes and fire codes?

Immigration control activists have been arguing for more than a decade that this overcrowding is commonplace among immigrants. They argue that it is unsafe, unhealthy and poses an unfair burden on other renters who have to share common spaces with people who are not paying there fair share. They also argue that it is unfair to taxpayers who pay to educate the large numbers of children brought into their neighborhood schools after being illegally crammed into these dwellings.

In fact, in September of 2006, there was a fatal fire in Schakowsky's own district where 6 illegal alien children died. They were among 13 illegal aliens who lived in a cramped East Rogers Park apartment.

And this past February 14th, 7 people, including a newborn died in a fire which swept thru a Cicero apartment that was packed with multiple families.

Yet when Cicero authorities had tried to enforce the codes of occupancy that would have stopped such overcrowding, Schakowsky and her friends in the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant Rights - Chicago's main illegal alien lobby group - called the enforcement racist. It discriminated against Latino immigrants, they said, and in '97,they prompted the Clinton Justice Department to force Cicero to desist.

And when Waukegan authorities objected to packing multiple families and unrelated persons into apartments and homes, Schakowsky and her illegal alien lobbyist friends got the Clinton Justice Department in '97 to force them to desist too.

And now Schakowsky is explaining to us that immigrants aren't answering the census questionnaire because they may be packing multiple families into small apartments and don't want to get caught by authorities who she and her allies have not yet browbeaten into non-enforcement of their occupancy and fire codes.

What a web these leftist do-gooders and uplifters weave.

Hey Garry Meier: Ole Miss is Freer Than Chicago

I genuinely like WGN radio's Garry Meier. I think he is one of only two genuinely funny jocks on the Chicago airwaves and I genuinely hope he blows away his backstabbing ex-partner, Roe Conn, in the arbitron ratings.

But last week Meier made the mistake of trying to make a serious observation and he showed his obvious 60's timewarp in the process.

He tried to do a bit on the inanity of some obscure North Mississippi High School, which cancelled its prom so as to not allow an overt lesbian couple to attend.

He then concluded that Mississippi was a repressive place and he was sure glad he lived in much freer Chicago.

Think again Garry. This isn't 1964 and Sheriff Clarke is long dead. Chicago today is vastly more repressive than that old bastion of the Confederacy.

Old black men in Mississippi are free to exercise their constitutionally guaranteed right to defend their homes and families with firearms. Not so in King Daley's fiefdom, where an elderly black man named MacDonald had to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court to secure that civil right in the face of Chicago's onerous and unconstitutional violation of his 2nd Amendment rights.

The free adults of Mississippi are free to partake of legal adult tobacco products when they sip beer in a pub or play blackjack in one of the Gulf Coast casinos.

And in the enlightened libertarian utopia of Lucedale, MS, they can smoke anywhere they wish -- even in workplaces.

Not so in the Chicago nanny state where adults must hunker down in the cold 15 feet from the entrance of a tavern in order to enjoy a puff on a cigarette. They can't even smoke on Chicago's windswept beaches for Chrissakes!

Mississippi citizens can face their accusers when alleged to have run a red light. They have no autamotonic revenue generating red light machines there as those that torment Daley's serfs.

And while the actions of an obscure Mississippi High School may seem petty and onerous to the libertarian minded, they pale in comparison to the outright neo-fascism of the speech codes at all of the major universities in the Chicago area.

Northwestern, De Paul, UIC and the University of Chicago are all on the red light watch list of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, a potent civil rights advocacy group, for their outrageously unconsitutional "Speech Codes."

These purportedly "liberal" Chicago institutions have conspired to violate their adult students' civil right to free speech for decades now. The University of Chicago even went so far as to attempt to discipline an adult student for his private Facebook postings. The UC book burners had to back down when threated by a FIRE lawsuit, but the petty, pusillanimous academic bugaboo chasers there remained unrepenetant.

As I mentioned, the notorious Mississippi Sheriff Clarke of the civil rights era is long gone. His police state tactics have been resurrected however by people with names like Burge and Abbate. And they are from enlightened Northern Chicago, not Mississippi.

So please stick to your funny bits, Garry and don't lecture us on how relatively free Chicago is. It is a civil rights backwash by comparison to Mississippi.

I briefly dated a fetching belle from the Mississippi Delta and a friend dated a total knockout who had been Miss "Ole Miss."

We both can attest that the girls are freer there too.

U of Chicago Thought Police Threaten Pro-Israel Student

For the second time in two years, the University of Chicago has threatened a student with disciplinary action over comments posted on the student's personal Facebook page.

This time, they launched a police investigation into controversial Pro-Israeli tongue-in-cheek comments posted by an undergraduate campus radio host.

This time the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), a civil rights advocacy group, may take legal action against the UC (which formerly employed both Mr. and Mrs. Barack Obama.)

Here is the report from the FIRE website:



University of Chicago Repeatedly Censors Student Facebook Posts:

Joke about 'Israel Lobby' Author's Assassination Leads to Police Investigation


CHICAGO, March 24, 2010—For the second time in two years, the University of Chicago has censored a student's post on a private Facebook page. Undergraduate Joseph "Tex" Dozier posted a joke that he had had a dream about assassinating University of Chicago professor John Mearsheimer "for a secret Israeli organization." Mearsheimer is co-author of the controversial book The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy. This post prompted an investigator from the university's police department to question Dozier about his political views, suggest that he would investigate Dozier's comments on his university radio show, and demand that Dozier remove the post or else have the post reported to Mearsheimer, one of his professors. Dozier came to the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) for help.

"Any reasonable person would recognize that Dozier's post was unquestionably a joke," said FIRE Vice President Robert Shibley. "If Dozier worked for a secret Israeli organization, would he have announced it via Facebook? And if the University of Chicago truly believed that Dozier presented a threat to a professor's life, how would merely censoring the student have solved the problem? The U of C is making a joke of itself by policing and censoring student comments on Facebook."

On December 6, 2009, Dozier wrote on his personal Facebook page, "Dreamt that I assassinated [University of Chicago professor] John Mearsheimer for a secret Israeli organization - there was a hidden closet w/ Nazi paraphanelia [sic]. Haha! :-)" Mearsheimer is popularly known for his 2007 book The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy with co-author Stephen Walt. According to the authors, the book "focuses primarily on the lobby's influence on U.S. foreign policy and its negative effect on American interests."

University of Chicago Police Department (UCPD) officer Abraham Martinez phoned Dozier on December 7. According to Dozier, Martinez called the post a "death threat" and asked if Dozier disagreed with Mearsheimer politically. Martinez also asked if he had made "controversial comments" about Mearsheimer in the past that the UCPD should be aware of.

Martinez even told Dozier that he had "researched" Dozier and his weekly radio show The Boiling Point, which is broadcast on university-hosted station WHPK. When Martinez said that he was required to contact Mearsheimer to inform him of Dozier's comment, Dozier replied that Mearsheimer had been one of his professors and that he feared negative repercussions if his innocent comment was reported to Mearsheimer. Martinez responded that if Dozier deleted the comment within 30 minutes, Martinez would include the removal in his official report and not contact Mearsheimer. Dozier negotiated a two-hour window and then deleted his comment.

Neither the University of Chicago nor the UCPD has challenged FIRE's or Dozier's account of this conversation.

FIRE wrote University of Chicago President Robert J. Zimmer on March 2 about the violation of Dozier's expression rights. While the University of Chicago is a private institution not bound by the First Amendment, it explicitly promises students freedom of speech in its Student Manual, which also states that "The ideas of different members of the University community will frequently conflict and we do not attempt to shield people from ideas that they may find unwelcome, disagreeable, or even offensive. Nor, as a general rule, does the University intervene to enforce social standards of civility." The university has not responded.

This is the second time the University of Chicago has censored a student's Facebook post in violation of the university's promises to its students. In 2009, undergraduate Andrew Thompson posted a photograph album on his personal Facebook page under the title, "[Name of ex-girlfriend] cheated on me, and you're next!" The photos were of various persons and were unremarkable, though some of Thompson's Facebook "friends" posted negative statements about the ex-girlfriend.

The next day, after the ex-girlfriend complained, Susan Art, Dean of Students in the College, demanded that Thompson "remove her name and remove the pictures you have posted of her" because of an alleged Student Manual prohibition against "disrespectful" speech.

"Can you let me know when her name and her pictures are removed from your [F]acebook page?" Art wrote. "I expect this to happen right away." Fearing university punishment, Thompson complied with Art's censorship demands, but turned to FIRE for help.

FIRE wrote President Zimmer on February 23, 2009, but the university eventually replied that since FIRE was not threatening litigation, the University of Chicago did not want to engage in any further discussion regarding the issue.

"The University of Chicago had a chance to reverse course last year and start respecting students' free speech rights, but it has continued to monitor students' off-campus Internet speech and censor innocuous comments," said Adam Kissel, Director of FIRE's Individual Rights Defense Program. "The university has failed to fulfill its own promises once again."

FIRE is a nonprofit educational foundation that unites civil rights and civil liberties leaders, scholars, journalists, and public intellectuals from across the political and ideological spectrum on behalf of individual rights, due process, freedom of expression, academic freedom, and rights of conscience at our nation's colleges and universities. FIRE's efforts to preserve liberty on campuses across America can be viewed at www.thefire.org.





Tell the University of Chicago to respect student rights. Send a letter to President Zimmer here.

Devoted Cub Fans Keep Pledge

In 1953 a loyal Pittsburgh Pirates fan from Dubois, PA, vowed that he would not shave until the Pirates won a pennant.

True to his word, he let his whiskers grow, unabated, until the Pirates finally clinched the NL crown in 1960.

The Cubs finished 35 games behind the Pirates that year with a meager 60-94 record.

Figuring that some of the Pirates good luck might rub off, a group of North Siders vowed back then that they too would refuse to shave until their beloved Cubbies won the NL flag.

With the unseasonably warm weather this April 1st, the loyal group (pictured above) gathered today outside the Museum of Science and Industry downtown to discuss the Cubs prospects for 2010.

Daddy's Little Girl Anointed For Dem Lt. Gov Slot

With today's news that Accidental Governor, Pat Quinn, has anointed former Sen. Paul Simon's daughter, Sheila, to be his running mate, I began to ponder the plethora of Democrat political dynasties in Illinois.

The Democrats in the state and Chicago in particular seem to have more political dynasties than medieval China or pre-1914 monarchic Europe.

First Mayor Richard J. Daley begat Mayor Richie Daley and Cook County Commissioner John Daley.

And Cook County Bd. President John Stroger begat Cook County Bd. President Todd Stroger.

Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan begat Illlinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan and Chicago Congressman Bill Lipinski begat Chicago Congressman Dan Lipinski.

And of course Jesse Jackson Sr. begat Chicago Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr. who married Chicago Alderman Sandi Jackson.

And Cook County Assessor Parky Cullerton begat State Senator John Cullerton.

And powerhouse Chicago Alderman, Dick Mell begat State Rep. Debra Mell and former IL First Lady Patti Mell Blagojevich.

And Illinois Senate President Tom Hynes begat Illinois State Comptroller Dan Hynes.

Try as I might, I could think of no such phenomenon on the Republican side hereabouts.

Wonder why that is?

Now we might have yet a second Daddy's little girl holding a statewide constitutional office.

But hey, this is Chicago.

It's all in the family.

Combat Child Obesity With "Start Smoking Clinics"

Led by First Lady, Michelle Obama, the uplifters have of late uncovered a new Cause: child obesity.

The yawping bugaboo chasers have been shedding oceans of crocodile tears over the fact that American children are too fat. And they come forth now with enlightened schemes for substituting celery and broccoli for nachos in America's school cafeterias.

Anyone who has ever been in a school cafeteria knows that it is only a matter of days before the little savages will begin hurling celery stalks and broccoli buds at each other. The phenomena will probably reach such a crisis point as to inspire the zero tolerance scholastic pecksniffs to define vegetable abuse as a hate crime and cart the miscreants off to the local hoosegow.

The solution to the child obesity problem is so patently obvious that I thought it would be apparent to even a Congressman.

We simply have to encourage child tobacco consumption.

Since the American Indians first turned on Sir Walter Raleigh, tobacco has been universally recognized as an appetite inhibitant. At least 80% of adults who quit smoking suffer significant weight gain.

I addition, tobacco consumption has been measured to enhance alertness, relieve stress and ease the digestive processes.

Think of the benefits to the legions of listless Attention Deficit Disorder sufferers and the savings in psychotropic drug costs.

We must not only allow our children to smoke, but must take the steps necessary to encourage responsible tobacco use.

Accordingly, I am announcing my new scheme to open a network of "Franklin D. Roosevelt Start Smoking Clinics."

I thought that in this new enlightened era of Social Democrat prominence, it would only be fitting to honor FDR in this way. The architect of the New Deal was seldom seen without a cigarette in his mouth. At his press conferences he used to joke about
his favorite Murad and Camel cigarettes.

And so, at our clinics, we will teach the kids the proper way to light, inhale and extinguish their butts. I think we will start them out on Camel straights -- no use in starting out with halfway measures -- and if they feel like moving on later to more tasty Newports or more chic Virginia Slims, that's their business.

This is hardly a novel concept.

Well into the 1970s, the prestigious Loyola Academy in Wilmette, afforded its Seniors the luxury of their own smoking lounge.

It was a respected rite de passage and Loyola not only had among the highest SAT scores in the region, but one seldon saw any fat men there.

So I say, let's go ahead with the "FDR Start Smoking Clinics."

I have already had my grant writer contact the Phillip Morris Foundation for start up money. And I will be franchising out the idea.

FOR FRANCHISE INFORMATION, JUST DROP ME AN EMAIL.

The Ides of March: A Chicago Original

The Ides of March were a Chicago garage band from the mid sixties who made good -- sort of.

Back in the era when radio stations were owned locally, rather than by distant conglomerates, they became regional favorites performing at a number of the old "sock hop" styled venues in the city and suburbs. WCFL and WLS -- the 2 main pop stations at the time, began to play their discs and they went to the top of the Chicago charts with several of them.

But they never seemed to be able to get the same radio exposure in other parts of the country, until they broke thru with their 1970 hit, "Vehicle."

They still play the oldies circuit locally.

The "Ides of March," a Chicago original -- appropriate to be recalled and celebrated today.

Memo to Dick Durbin: Santo Knew How to Handle Bunning

With U.S. Senator and Hall of Fame Hurler, Jim Bunning today tieing up Illinois Senator Dick Durbin in parliamentary knots on the Senate floor, we can take solace in the knowlege that at least one Chicagoan knew how to handle the Kentuckian:

Cubs Beat Bunning on Santo's 3 Run Blast

June 23, 1969

Ron Santo’s 3-run blast powered the Cubs over Jim Bunning and the Pirates at Wrigley. Bill Hands went the distance to improve his record to 7-6.

Cubs 3, Pirates 2. W: Hands (7-6) L: Bunning (6-5)

Natalie Merchant on Chicago's Filthy Weather

They say that some Eskimo tribes have as many as two dozen different words to describe snow. Well, I think Chicagoans need every bit as vast a lexicon to describe grey skies. Today, February 27th with temperatures struggling to crack the freezing point the sky is grey from one end of the horizon to the other. Today it's a kind of crayola crayon silver grey punctuated by little billows of bituminous grey.

And to think we only have four months or so left of this depression-inducing, filthy Chicago weather. They don't call it the land of the endless winter for nothing.

Natalie Merchant grew up in upstate New York, but she might as well have been writing about Chicago in her 1988 hit with 10,000 maniacs, "Like the Weather."

It is, to my knowlege, the only hit song ever written about clinical depression. She was such a cheery little leftist vegetarian.

So here it is from a live performance: the perfect paean to Chicago's filthy weather.

Please note that by the time of this performance, Miss Merchant had begun to clean up her aging Catholic schoolgirl appearance and was said to have been washing her hair at least once a month -- whether she needed it or not.

The dance steps in this video were choreographed by the Elaine Benes School of Dance, of which Miss Merchant seems to have been a graduate, summa cum laude.

"The color of the sky
as far as I can see
Is coal grey..."

Preckwinkle is Obama Clone: Russ Stewart Analysis

By Russ Stewart

(Russ Stewart, a Chicago Attorney and political analyst for the NW Side Nadig Community newspapers, is a frequent guest on WLS radio's "Political Shootout.")

Platitudes do not necessarily presage performance. In 2008, Barack Obama ran as a “reformer” who would bring “change.” Instead, he has governed as a typical tax-and-spend liberal Democrat.

But the proper platitudes do, however, presage victory, especially in a Cook County Democratic primary where minorities and liberals predominate. As proven by Toni Preckwinkle’s sizeable Feb. 2 victory for Cook County Board president, such buzz-words as “independent,” “reformer,” and “competent” have great impact, particularly when the incumbent, Todd Stroger, is perceived as the incompetent tax-hiking non-reformer.

In analyzing the outcome, here’s a few appropriate journalistic platitudes:

* Everybody hates Todd. Stroger’s demise eclipses mere defeat or rejection, even surpasses embarrassment or humiliation, and approaches abasement and sheer mortification. The incumbent board president got 13.6 percent of the vote. That’s an astounding personal repudiation, based on voter anger and abject loathing.

Stroger won four of 50 Chicago wards, and got a mere 41.3 percent in his home 8th Ward. Overall, he took 17.1 percent of the Chicago vote, and just 8.6 percent of the suburban vote. As for his 78,532 voters, rumors abound that there are counselors available to provide trauma therapy, either for their remorse in backing him, or for their shock in being so stupid.

The Toddler’s misguided, misgoverned four-year reign is proof positive that there is no DNA gene for political astuteness. And further proof that, in 2010, tax-hikers are doomed.

* Preckwinkle is another Obama. Preckwinkle, a 19-year black Chicago alderman who rarely dissented from the council’s Daley majority, and has no governing experience, rode a tide of anti-tax, anti-Stroger sentiment, and won countywide with 50 percent. She amassed 281,905 votes, to Terry O’Brien’s 131,896 (23 percent), Dorothy Brown’s 83,150 (14.4 percent), and Stroger’s 78,532 (13.6 percent). Total turnout was 575,483

Derided by some as the “white liberal” candidate, and by others as the “Daley stealth” candidate, Preckwinkle, age 62, assembled an Obama-like coalition of blacks, Hispanics, and Lakefront and suburban white liberals, while running exceedingly well in white ethnic wards and townships.

According to official tallies, Preckwinkle won 34 of 50 wards, getting 47 percent of the Chicago ballots. She won 6 of 8 Hispanic-majority wards. She won 14 of 20 black-majority wards. She won all 6 Lakefront wards.

And she won 24 of 30 suburban townships, racking up 70 percent-plus in Barrington, Evanston, New Trier, Northfield and Oak Park townships. Preckwinkle also garnered over half the vote in white-majority Elk Grove, Hanover, Lyons, Maine, Niles, Palatine, Rich, River Forest, Riverside, Schaumburg and Wheeling townships.

In 2004, when Obama ran for the U.S. Senate, he got 301,199 votes (66.5 percent) in Chicago, and 163,718 (60.8 percent) in the suburbs. Obama ran exceedingly well in white liberal areas, and got 25-35 percent of the vote in white ethnic wards. The 2010 difference: Obama got near-unanimous black support, and Preckwinkle only 40 percent.

* Liberals love Toni. In Chicago’s Lakefront wards, which cast 43,187 votes, Preckwinkle got 29,944 votes (69.3 percent), to O’Brien’s 7,052 (16.3 percent) and Stroger’s 2,391 (5.5 percent). Preckwinkle also had huge margins in suburban liberal enclaves Evanston (77.9 percent) and Oak Park (73.8 percent).

* More blacks voted for the electable black than for the racially pandering black.
Stroger ran on the premise that the one-cent sales tax hike was “needed” to provide health services to minorities. That was a racist appeal. But many black voters intuitively understood that, with three blacks running, O’Brien would win if they did not coalesce behind a single opponent. In effect, a vote for Stroger or Brown, the Clerk of the Court, was a vote for O’Brien.

In the 20 black wards, turnout was 142,493. Preckwinkle got 57,892 votes (40.6 percent), carrying 12 of 14 South Side wards. Stroger got 43,430 votes (30.4 percent), winning the 8th, 21st, 24th and 34th wards. Brown got 33,645 votes (23.6 percent), winning the 29th and 37th wards.

In the suburbs, Preckwinkle won the black-majority townships of Bloom, Bremen, Calumet, Proviso and Rich, getting 53.4 percent of the total suburban vote, to Stroger’s 8.6 percent and Brown’s 11.7 percent.

Representing the south Lakefront Hyde Park area, where Obama resides, Preckwinkle is an intellectual, not a streetwise black activist. But her goal was to get 40 percent of the black vote, and at least half of that number came from black voters who wanted to keep a black in the board presidency.

* The Daley/Madigan/Burke/Lipinski/Hynes Machine did not fare thee well.
Or did it? O’Brien, the elected 14-year president of the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District, is a longtime Daley ally with ties to the South Side. But he ran an insipid campaign, failing to establish himself as the principal alternative to Stroger. He promised to rescind the hated sales tax hike, but not cut additional taxes or spending.

To win, O’Brien needed to be a demagogue. He needed to make a vote for him a vote against Stroger. He needed to make promises that appealed to white middle-class voters. He didn’t. And getting an anemic 23 percent of the countywide vote means his future political prospects are nil.

O’Brien did, however, carry ten city wards and six townships. He won the mayor’s 11th Ward (51.2 percent), Ed Burke’s 14th Ward (53.5 percent), Mike Madigan’s 13th Ward (42.1 percent), Bill Lipinski’s 23rd Ward (54.4 percent), and Tom Hynes’ 19th Ward (46.3 percent). But even in those wards, Preckwinkle ran well, getting 36.3 percent in the 11th, 27 in the 14th, 36.1 in the 13th, 36.4 in the 19th, and 31.8 in the 23rd Ward.

Pre-primary rumors abounded that Mayor Daley really wanted a black board president going into the 2011 mayoral election, so as to minimize black discontent. If so, he got his wish. If Daley wanted O’Brien to win, he would have gotten 70 percent in those wards.

* Adios, idiota. As in the 2008 Obama-McCain election, Chicago area Hispanics showed no hesitation in supporting a black (Preckwinkle) over Stroger. In the eight Hispanic-majority wards, which cast 30,826 votes, Preckwinkle got 13,795 votes (44.7 percent), to O’Brien’s 9,127 (29.6 percent) and Stroger’s 2,207 (7.1 percent). However, O’Brien won suburban Cicero (45.7 percent) and Stickney (56.7 percent) townships.

As with white ethnics, Hispanics clearly wanted to be rid of Stroger, and Preckwinkle was the best instrument.

* Whites will vote for the least objectionable black, especially if it means ousting the most objectionable black. On Chicago’s Northwest Side, where O’Brien, as the sole white candidate, was presumed to have appeal, only three wards carried for him: The 45th Ward, where O’Brien got 47.8 percent (3,827 votes), to Preckwinkle’s 43.5 percent; the 36th Ward, where O’Brien got 45.9 percent (3,341 votes), to Preckwinkle’s 38.6 percent; and the 41st Ward, where O’Brien got 51.9 percent (5,030 votes), to Preckwinkle’s 41.6 percent. Preckwinkle won the 32nd Ward (66.3 percent), 33rd Ward (55.5 percent), 38th Ward (49.4 percent), 39th Ward (49.8 percent), 40th Ward (56.9 percent), 47th Ward (67.5 percent), and 50th Ward (51.3 percent).

Why did Preckwinkle do so well? Four reasons: First, Stroger was deemed an abomination. He had to go. Second, O’Brien failed to click as a candidate. Third, Preckwinkle, by campaign’s end, loomed as the frontrunner. For voters determined to oust Stroger, a Preckwinkle vote did the deed, while an O’Brien vote was a waste.

And fourth, as demonstrated in the 2004 U.S. Senate primary (won by Obama) and the 2008 presidential primary (also won by Obama), there are substantial numbers of independents and liberals in the area who will vote for a non-white, non-conservative candidate.

“She (Preckwinkle) has never voted independently of (Mayor) Daley, has never implemented any reforms, and has not actually changed anything,” said Roger Keats, the former state senator who is the Republican candidate for board president. “I am change. She is business-as-usual.”

Another platitude: You can’t beat somebody – however vacuous – with nobody. Preckwinkle is the midget-killer, the woman who purged Todd Stroger. To many, she’s the good Samaritan. Keats is unknown, and it will cost him $2 million to run a viable campaign.

A final platitude: Perception defines reality. Preckwinkle is perceived by a plethora of adjectives: independent, competent, and a reformer. Like Obama, her platitudes may not presage her performance. But they are enough to enable her to win in November.

Ald. Berny Stone Defends Nepotism: "They All Hate Us Anyhow."

In the wake of a Chicago Tribune investigative report which showed that Chicago Aldermen were hiring relatives and political cronies from a $1.3 million stealth fund, the Chicago City Council voted Feb. 11th to discontinue the practice.

The little noticed Finance Committee slush fund enabled the Alderman to circumvent Federal Court oversight of the city's hiring practices and which outlaw such favoritism. By using the stealth account, Aldermen managed to hire at least 2 fathers, a mother and a daughter and a bevy of favored ward heelers including one on the city's "do-not-hire" list for sexual harassment charges.

Alderman Isaac Carothers, who recently resigned after pleading guilty in federal court to bribery charges, implied that the practice is more widespread saying, "All us Aldermen have family members on the payroll -- that's nothing new."

Chicago Aldermen have long been the subject of popular derision. Mike Royko, perhaps Chicago's all-time greatest journalist used to call them "Alderboobs" and pea-brained.

So it was no great surprise when, during the debate on the measure, one of the defenders of the nepotistic practice, Alderman Berny Stone (D-50th)should put forth one of the most novel defenses for shady political practices ever uttered by man.

"The general public's opinion of the aldermen themselves is so low, that if you are going to sit and worry about what their opinion is of hiring members of the aldermen's family, it's probably no greater than it is of the aldermen, "Stone said.

In other words: "They all hate us anyhow -- so why bother to reform?"

When you think of it, Stone's philosophic defense of the Chicago Way is kind of liberating. Kind of refreshingly nihilistic. It has kind of an Alfred E. Neumann, "What Me Worry?" tinge to it.

Reminds me of Randy Newman's satiric "Political Science" song from his 1972 Sail Away album. In it he advocated nuking the entire world.

"They all hate us anyhow
So Let's drop the big one now.
Let's drop the big one now."

Alderman Berny Stone (who has a daughter on his Aldermanic payroll)was first elected to the City Council back in 1973 when Randy Newman's debut album was first working its way up the charts.

Maybe that's what gave him the idea.