Aging Evanston Feminists Critical of Sexy Bar Proposal

A request to grant a liquor license to a proposed Hooters-styled restaurant has run into fierce opposition from several aging feminists on Evanston's City Council.

Last Friday, Evanston businessman, Ted Mavrakis, approached the Evanston Liquor Control Board asking for a license for a "Tilted Kilt" franchise restaurant and bar in the downtown Fountain Square building, which he owns.

The Tilted Kilt franchise features pub food and drinks in a Celtic pub setting. It hires waitresses, which it calls "cast members" and dresses them in regalia designed to display their Celtic assets to good result. (see photo above left)

This incurred the wrath of 7th Ward Evanston Alderman, Jane Grover who said: "From what I see on their website, I would probably not take my family there."


She said it appears the business exploits young women, and only hires women who fit a certain physical type for its waitstaff.

"My young sons couldn't get a job there, and I couldn't get a job there either, because I don't fit the profile," said the very realistic and sensibly-attired Ms. Grover. (photo right)

Grover's reservations were echoed by Mayor and Liquor Board Commissioner, Elizabeth Tisdahl. She lauded Mavrakis' complaint-free ownership of Evanston's Giordano's over the past 28 years, "but the Tilted Kilt is a different kind of restaurant than what Evanston has had," the sextagenarian feminist Mayor said.

And Liquor Board member, Patrick Hughes, in search of expert opinion said he had asked his 11-year-old daughter about the business and she said she felt it was inappropriate. "I'm going to have a hard time with it right now, from what I'm hearing of it," moral guardian Hughes said.

Mavrakis' Fountain Square property is one of an increasing number of downtown Evanston retail storefronts to have been vacant for more than a year.

The Liquor Board voted to postpone action on Mavrakis' application pending further study.

Mavrakis said he has received "active encouragement" from Morton Grove Mayor, Dan Staackman and can consider locating there as an option.

So in addition to being a "Sanctuary City" for illegal aliens and a "Nuclear Free Zone," the ever politically correct Evanston leftists may soon designate their North suburban enclave a "Tilted Kilt-free zone," or perhaps a "Fun-Free Zone."

Preckwinkle on Illegal Alien Costs: See No Evil, Speak No Evil

Former Cook County Board President, Todd Stroger is -- for incoming President, Toni Preckwinkle -- the gift that keeps on giving.

Stroger was on WLS radio last week actually defending Cook County Assessor and County Democrat Party Chairman, Joe Berrios, who has been getting raked over the coals for giving his son and sister fat jobs in his office only days after his election.

In contrast to the absurd Stroger, Preckwinkle looks like a positively serious person.

But she is not.

While positioning herself as an "independent" by criticizing her party boss, Berrios, and advocating across-the-board 20% budget cuts by all the branches of Cook County government, the long-time Chicago Alderman is really not all that independent and not all that serious. (See photo of her campaigning with boss Berrios below right.)

She refuses to risk alienating the Democrat machine's Latino voting bloc by auditing the costs imposed on County taxpayers by the tens of thousands of illegal aliens here.

She voted to make Chicago a "sanctuary city" for illegal aliens.


Ms. Preckwinkle is on record as saying she has no intention of assessing or taking action on the cost burden to County Government posed by services provided to illegal aliens.

She said this very thing to Carol Marin at a candidates' forum in West Rogers Park this past February.

See coverage here.

Yet several people, who are in a position to know, have said that medical services to illegal aliens are a major source of the County's $300 million budget shortfall last year.

Back in 2007, the chief of Cook County medical services, Dr. Robert Simon, was almost run out of town on a rail when he dared to testify that uncollectable services to illegal aliens were a major cause of the county medical system's budgetary problems.

"The taxpayers are paying the entire bill for all these undocumented aliens and our primary concern should be for the taxpayers and citizens," he told the Daily Southtown.

He said that the county was providing long-term care to nearly 30 illegal aliens at its Oak Forest Hospital facility at a cost of $800 per patient per day.

By my calculations, that alone comes to almost $3 million in services to just these few indigent people, who aren't legitimately even supposed to be in the country.

And immigration control activist, Rosanna Pulido, said at the time that nearly 40% of all services rendered by the Cook county medical system went for the illegal alien population.


So long-time pol, Preckwinkle, can make all the noises she wants about cutting waste in Cook County Government. And she can burnish her image by daring to mildly disagree with her party's boss.

But as long as Cook County remains a provider of free, costly medical services to any alien from anywhere on the planet, she might as well be bailing out a leaky boat with a thimble.

Ron Santo's Impeccable Timing: Snaring Line Drives and Beating the Obama Tax Hike

Ron Santo took his final victory lap around Wrigley Field yesterday. This time he was in a Hearse which was bedecked with flags representing his #10 pinstriped Chicago Cubs uniform. Thousands lined the streets along Clark and Sheffield, snapping digital photos and silently paying their respects to this Chicago baseball legend.

Having finally succumbed to a diabetes-induced frailty, the old Cubs 3rd baseman passed away on December 2nd.

A nine time All Star and five time Golden Glove 3rd baseman he ranked sixth in National League history in putouts (1,930.)

A fair percentage of those were certainly the 3rd baseman's trademark leap into the air to snag a hot line drive pulled down the 3rd base line.

Anyone who has ever played the "hot corner" knows that it is one of the most difficult feats in all of baseball. The fielder has to set keenly eyeing the batter with knees slightly bent, ready to leap up and snare a ball driven at perhaps 50mph, with only seconds notice.


It requires impeccable timing. Ron Santo, in his prime, certainly had it.

And he displayed that same impeccable timing by deciding to check out a mere 29 days before the inheritance rate would soar from 0% to 35%, at Obama's urging under the compromise tax bill to which Republicans are strangely acquiescing.

That means Ron Santo's family will get to keep the fruits of his many years of labor.

Santo missed the era of mega-bucks baseball salaries by a few years. But toward the end, he did okay salary-wise. He always showed an entrepreneurial streak as well. In the mid 60s, he cut a deal with P.K. Wrigley that gave him the franchise on the sale at Wrigley of "Ron Santo pizzas. They were little 6 inch pies which came in a box with Ronnie's picture and facsimile autograph and were hawked by vendors in the stands, just like hot dogs and peanuts.


After his retirement, he opened a string of family friendly restaurants in the Northwest suburbs of Chicago. He also pulled down a pretty good salary from WGN as a radio broadcaster from 1990 to the end of last season.

So he had a nice little estate to hand down to his wife and kids.

And just with his almost intuitive ability to hone in and snare a sharp line drive, his timing was impeccable on this as well.

Ronnie Santo beat the taxman.

PBS' Lennonyc: John Lennon's Life As Stuff, Nonsense and Balderdash

When Mary Schmich swoons over something, you know there's got to be something fishy about it.

Schmich is one of the few remaining columnists at the ever-contracting Chicago Tribune --as predictably banal as she is predictably liberal.

Last Sunday she phoned in a cutesy column listing her favorite things, among them -- the lights at Lincoln Park, an obscure Russian organic tea and the new PBS documentary about John Lennon's New York days: Lennonyc.

Being in the middle of re-reading Albert Goldman's definitive 878 page biography of Lennon The Lives of John Lennon-- the product of 6 years of exhaustive research, I felt impelled to check out the PBS offering, Schmich's endorsement, nonwithstanding.

The film can be seen on-line here.

And sure enough, the documentary emits the olifactory sensations of a Norwejian herring factory.

Lennonyc is arguably the greatest whitewash of Lennon's life since Hunter Davies' The Beatles came off the presses in 1968. That officially authorized tome was censored in advance by everyone from Lennon's Aunt Mimi to Brian Epstein and offers little of reality. Lennon called the book, "bullshit," just as I suspect he might this documentary.

Yoko Ono's dissembling fingerprints are all over this film.

Make no mistake about it, Yoko is and always has been as PR concious and censorious as Joseph Goebbels. She has spent the past 30 years studiously concocting and maintaining the "Ballad of John and Yoko," a fairy tale picture of her as the loving supportive spouse tragically thrust into the role of grieving widow.

Ono's newly engaged press agent in 1978, Charles Cohen, said that he was immediately impressed by Yoko's keen grasp of the machinery of self-promotion. "She knew exactly what she wanted and how to get it." She kept voluminous files containing every notice and clipping that she had received since 1961.


Fred Seaman, who served as Lennon's valet and gopher during the New York Years, expressed shock and amazement at the eccentricity of the Lennon household and "the total disparity between the Lennons' real life and the image that they presented to the world."

The film was written and directed by native Chicagoan, Michael Epstein. He assures us on the PBS website that while Yoko Ono contributed private footage of their personal lives, she had no control over the film. She was not the witch who broke up the Beatles. She was not a controlling influence in John's life, he assures us.

Yea, sure.

For starters, Ono repeatedly appeared on camera for this film. Prima facie, that is evidence of her controlling influence. She does not cooperate with media entities she does not control. In the mid-80s she incurred the wrath of a Washington Post reporter for holding a news conference at which she refused to take any questions from the members of the media.

She vetoed the casting of an actor for an early 80s made-for-TV movie about Lennon, simply because his last name was Chapman, same as his assassin.

Practically speaking, the movie is at variance with the untidy, violent and hypocritical reality of John Lennon's life in many, many ways.

Here are but a few:

The role of May Pang. May Pang was a Lennon household retainer who Yoko Ono actively told to sexually accomodate John during his "Lost Weekend," foray into California. They conducted an affair that lasted well after his return to New York. According to Goldman, Ono viewed it as finding a controllable geisha mistress for her man -- one much like that enjoyed by her Japanese banker father, during her childhood in Japan.


May is interviewed in Lennonyc, but we are kept in the dark about the true nature of her relationship with John.

Lennon's support for political violence.The PBS film tries to portray Lennon as the subject of evil persecution by the FBI, the INS, Nixon and Republicans, due to his heartfelt desire for peace in Vietnam.

The political commentary is offered by left-wing activists of the era: Jon Weiner, Tom Hayden and Dick Cavett. Their mischaracterization of Lennon's violent sympathies is punctuated by shots of Vietnam body bags and grotesque footage of Vietnamese civilian casualties.


In this vein, Yoko Ono assures us that "John did not want to do it like Abby (Hoffman) and Jerry (Rubin,)" who overtly advocated violence in the streets.

Yet according to radical activist, A.J. Webberman in Goldman, Lennon had provided funds to Hoffman and Rubin to transport two busloads of Yippies down to Miami to disrupt the 1972 Republican National Convention as they had the Democrats' conclave in Chicago in 1968. John Lennon was abetting precisely the same act for which Rubin and Hoffman had been indicted.

Little wonder that the feds wanted John and Yoko out of the country.

Lennon's Lost Weekend. John was totally out of control during his 6 month "lost weekend," exile to California, yet the film, while admitting some improprieties, wildly understates the reality. No where do we even hear the word, "heroin" although it was a daily feature of Lennon's (and Ono's) lives.

We do not hear that Lennon was forcibly thrown out onto the street outside the Troubador Lounge after he was loudly and drunkenly disrupting the Smothers Brothers television comeback show. We do not hear about the event where Lennon drunkenly waded into a mob of fans and began shouting obscenities and throwing punches and from which he had to be extricated by his friends before the fans beat him to within an inch of his life.


Instead the PBS film apprises us that Lennon was "a little over the top at times," that he "said things he shouldn't have," and that he was "in never-never land-- I think you know what I mean."

Lennon as doting father.The PBS film degenerates to the level of a Hallmark greeting card near its end, when it shows us footage (no doubt supplied by and orchestrated by Ono) of Lennon as loving father and househusband, lavishing affection on his son and baking bread.

According to a neighbor of the Lennon's, Marnie Hair, whose children played with Sean Lennon, John couldn't stand having his son around for more than an hour or so. On one occasion, days before he died, Lennon flew into a rage and physically threw his son across the room. "He couldn't stand the kids for more than an hour. That's about all he could take. He just broke out into a rage. Yoko was down in the studio. She didn't want any part of this stuff. Sean was crying and screaming and cowering. He had to be taken out of the city to get away from all this," Hair said.

John Lennon was a genius in the sense that Cole Porter, Jerome Kern and George Gershwin were geniuses. Yet he was often an extremely unpleasant, cruel and overtly violent man. He was also haunted by more demons than most of us will ever conjure up.


There's nothing wrong in appreciating Lennon's vibrance and the wonder of his music. But that's all PBS seems to want to do in this wildly unrealistic film portrayal.

Funny, when PBS airs a documentary on United States Founding Father, Thomas Jefferson (a genuine genius) all we seem to hear about is his slave ownership and his tawdry affair with Sally Hemmings. When PBS deals with Kit Carson, he is portrayed as a bloodthirsty Indian killer. When PBS deals with Senator Joe McCarthy, he is shown as a mean and hopeless drunk.

Yet with a left-wing icon like Lennon, all is sweetness and light.

And that is unrealistic. And that is bad art.

South Side Has Chicago's Wackiest Named Aldermanic Candidates

All the nominating petitions for the February 22nd Chicago municipal elections are in. Once again, the South side Wards have heaved up the strangest sounding cast of characters. Any one of them would fit quite well into that bizarre legislative body known as the Chicago City Council.

Here are my nominees for wackiest Chicago Aldermanic candidates (The names are written exactly as they will appear on the ballot):

#1 For Alderman 5th Ward

Sylvester "Junebug" Hendricks ---(Homeless) 5th Ward 45th Pct. Chicago, IL 60619

(This is obviously the kind of people's representative the Founding Fathers envisioned when crafting the Republic)

#2 For Alderman 4th Ward

Valencia "Mother Diva" Dantzler --- 5219 S. Greenwood Chicago, IL 60615

(I would guess she is a seer and Tarot card reader by occupation)


#3 For Alderman 13th Ward

"Zsa" Zdzislawa Popielarczyk --- 6201 S. Kedvale Chicago, IL 60629

(My formal name is Zdzislawa Popielarczyk, but you can just call me Zsa Popielarczyk -- Harry Caray would have had a field day with this name)

#4 For Alderman 21st Ward

Catherine D' Tycoon --- 8320 South Kerfoot Ave Chicago, IL 60620

(She is obviously a scion of the famous Tycoon family)

The election is Tuesday February 22nd. Be sure to vote early and often.

South Side Voters Asked to Ban Sale of Malt Liquor and Fortified Wines (With Weird Exceptions)

Chicago has always had more than its share of crazy electoral goings-on, but for voters on the South side's 3rd Ward, this looks to be an especially zany year.

In the February 22nd election voters in the 35th precinct of the 3rd Ward (Grand Central area)will be confronted with a ballot referendum that is likely the weirdest that I have ever seen anywhere.

Seems that some do-gooders in that area have gotten a burr in their britches over the activites at one "200 Cut Rate Liquors," located at 204 E. 47th St.

So these paragons of civic decency have drafted and gotten on the ballot a referendum question asking the city to ban the sale of all malt liquor and fortified wines there, except for Night Train, Wild Irish Rose, and Thunderbird.

I am not making this up.

Here is the precise ballot referendum question straight from the Chicago Board of Elections:

200 Cut Rate - Alcoholic Liquor - Ward 03 Pct. 35

Shall 200 Cut Rate Liquors, located at 204 E. 47th St., stop selling all malt liquor, high gravity alcohol and fortified wines (ex. Night Train, Wild Irish Rose, Thunderbird?)
Yes---------No

I can only guess at the reasoning behind making exceptions for the sale of these 3 el-cheapo high-octane wines.

Perhaps the drafters of the referendum fancied themselves sophisticated oeniphiles and reasoned that fine rare vintages such as Night Train, Thunderbird and Wild Irish Rose were much too exquisite to be lumped in with the tawdry Mad Dog 20/20 and its ilk.


Or perhaps they did a cold-blooded analysis of the 3rd Ward electorate and decided that their proposition didn't have a chance of winning if it alienated the powerful voting bloc of regular Night Train, Thunderbird and Wild Irish Rose drinkers.

In any event, it will be on the ballot there in February.

So on the evening of February 22nd, I'll be sitting in front of my TV, nursing the contents of my paper-bag-ensconced bottle of Mad Dog 20/20, anxiously awaiting the voters' judgement on this critical issue.

Loyola Academy's Link to John Lennon

Earth shattering news today. New Trier High School of North suburban Kenilworth will not be admitting Rahm Emmanuel into its Hall of Fame.

Good for them.

They did, however, today, admit former North suburban Congressman and Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, over the noisy objections of several noisy left-wing alumni.

Good for them.

But nearby Loyola Academy can boast a much more colorful alumni connection which extends all the way to John Lennon -- and his assassination.

Loyola Academy (1909-1994) was a Jesuit College Prep School for boys. First located on the grounds of Loyola University in Chicago, it moved to Wilmette in 1957 -- just down the road from the New Trier West campus.

(A school using that name still exists at the same locale today, but it has only a tenuous connection to the Jesuits and now admits non-Catholics, non-Christians and females -- basically anyone whose parents can manage to pony up its gold-plated tuition.)

Loyola Academy, during its 85 year history, managed to produce one minor and 2 major movie stars.

The bona fide Hollywood superstars were Bill Murray (Caddyshack, Ghostbusters, Lost in Translation)and Robert Ryan (The Dirty Dozen, The Wild Bunch, The Longest Day), both Oscar nominees. It also produced flash-in-the-pan pretty boy, Chris O'Donnell.

According to the definitive 1988 biography of John Lennon, The Lives of John Lennon, by journalist, Albert Goldman, the Loyola Academy -- John Lennon connection is this:

In 1972, Robert Ryan's wife of more than 30 years, Jessica, died. He was so inconsolably bereaved, that he could no longer bear to live at their Manhattan co-op apartment. The apartment was #72 at the famed Dakota, located at the corner of 72nd St. and Central Park West.


John Lennon and the ridiculous, Yoko Ono, had recently moved to New York City and their lawyer arranged for them to rent the apartment from Ryan at the rate of $1,500 a month with an option to buy in three years.

A year later, the Loyola Academy alumnus, Ryan, himself died of lung cancer. His estate asked Lennon if he would want to accelerate his exercise of the option to buy and he did for a mere $105,000. (It is worth more than $2 million today.)

And that is the address that John Lennon claimed when he was assassinated by Mark David Chapman at the entrance to that very building on December 8, 1980.


So New Trier can boast Ann Margaret, Rock Hudson Donald Rumsfeld and Rahm Emmanuel.

But Loyola Academy produced Robert Ryan, the movie star who sold John Lennon his most famous, and very last, domicile.

Wisconsin Badgers Are 1927 Yankees of the Big-10: UW 70 -- NU 23

Over the past decade or so, whenever Wisconsin would play Northwestern, I would make a point to dust off and don either my UW cap or WISCONSIN sweatshirt for the gameday.

This is not so odd. I was recently down in the chic Old Town section of Chicago and saw any number of post grads wearing Michigan State, Iowa or Illini regalia on game day. I saw one young family where mom, dad and the little kids were all wearing Iowa gear.

But over the past two meetings, for some inexplicable reason, pissant Northwestern got Wisconsin's number and upset them.

It would be more than a little embarassing sauntering thru Evanston with my UW gear on those days. I began to even think that the mere act of my donning that regalia was bringing the Badgers bad luck.

So this past Saturday, I hesitated in putting on the old Wisconsin cap, but finally relented.

My fears were unwarranted.

Wisconsin crushed the hapless Northwestern crew at Camp Randall by the whopping total of 70-23. The UW defensive juggernaut forced 7 -- count them, seven turnovers!

By the second half, the rout was so complete, that I found myself actually pitying the two green freshman quarterbacks that NU had thrust into this maelstrom.

Today the BCS rankings came out and Wisconsin is ranked #5 in the nation -- tops in the Big-10. So Big Red will almost certainly be going to the Rose Bowl.


Earlier this season, in disgust over their loss to Michigan State, I called them the Cubs of the Big-10 -- "loveable losers." I was wrong. I take all that back.

The University of Wisconsin Badgers have bcome the 1927 Yankees of the Big-10 --- "Murderers' Row."

Obama Stronghold Evanston Scraps HS Honors Programs -- Too Many Whites Qualified

WLS radio reported this morning that the Evanston Township High School, in the Obama electoral stronghold of Evanston, IL, was scrapping a number of its honors and advanced placement programs.

The reason, according to ETHS Superintendent, Eric Witherspoon, is that too many whites are qualifying for the program.

Make no mistake about it, Evanston is one of the premier, left-wing Obama strongholds in the entire State of Illinois. The North suburban berg voted 87.14% for Obama in the 2008 Presidential election. According to the Pioneer Press the black precincts of Evanston, delivered 98.03% of the vote for Obama, while even the traditional Republican precincts in that town heaved up 60.8% for him.

This is one very wildly left-wing town -- home of the overt socialist Congressperson, Jan Schakowsky, no less.

So you would think that the educational establishmentarians there, would get into the spirit of their beloved Obama's October 19th Executive Order on Educational Excellence.

In signing it, he said, "It is imperative to improve opportunities for all students and make sure each child has access to a good education ... so that every child has a chance to fulfill their God-given potential."

So you would think that such a lofty pronunciamento would signal a need to maintain special educational opportunities for the gifted student.

But not so for the overpaid unionized "educators" in Evanston. They're into levelling.

It seems that a variety of top-tracked, special honors classes for gifted students who scored in the top 95th percentile of nationally-standardized tests were attracting mostly white and Asian students. And hardly any blacks.

So the solution proposed by Witherspoon & Co.?


Eliminate the honors programs.

In past years they have eliminated senior English honors programs and now they propose to eliminate honors curricula for freshman biology and freshman Humanities.

Witherspoon, who pulls down $230,000 of the taxpayers dollars per year knows on which side his political bread is buttered. That is, of course, in pandering to the left-wing mob of Evanston levellers.

(You can see Witherspoon's salary and the salaries of all ETHS personnel here.)

Funny that this great Obama claque doesn't take the anointed one at face value when he talks about the need for all kids to be given a chance to "fulfill their God-given abilities."

Too bad for the gifted and above-average kids of Evanston, Illinois.

(Evanston Township High School is located at 1600 Dodge Ave., Evanston, IL 60201 | 847-424-7000, http://witherspoon.eths.k12.il.us)

McDonald's to Chicago: "P--OFF"

McDonald's -- the nationwide fast food hamburger chain, is ostensibly a Chicago based institution.

Their corporate headquarters is just outside the city proper, in Oak Brook, IL. Its founder was a Chicago native, by the name of Ray Kroc, who cut his teeth selling paper cups to the Chicago-based Walgreen's Corp. He lived in suburban Northfield, IL. He built his first McDonald's on River Road in Des Plaines, IL. That is now the McDonald's museum.

I know this because I once worked for Golin/Harris, the Chicago PR firm that pretty much made McDonald's what it is today.

On this particular Saturday in Chicago, the moribund McDonald's corporation told the people of Chicago to, basically, piss off.

Why do I say this?

Because there was an historic football game in Chicago today. The first football game to have been played in Wrigley Field in 40 years. It was a contest between two storied Big-10 Chicago teams -- Northwestern University and The University of Illinois. It was an unusual, and oddly interesting game since the NCAA ruled, only yesterday, that the offenses must only align on one-half of the field - due to Wrigley's weird and tiny configuration.

So you would think that the 2,000 or so McDonald's in the Chicago metropolitan area would have had the decency and good business sense to have aired this on the flat screen TVs in all of their hamburger joints.

But what did corporate McDonald's air?

(I am not making this up.)

The Virginia Tech v. Miami game.

There must have been well over 3 people in the entire state of Illinois interested in this game.

When asked about this absurdity, several McDonald's franchisees and corporate managers apologized. They said there was nothing they could do about it since the decision was made by the McDonald's corporate lame-brains in the lavish Oak Brook McDonald's H.Q.

I guess if the Cubs ever make it into the World Series, all of the McDonald's fast food joints in Chicago will be airing the breathtakingly exciting Argentina v. Portugal World Cup Soccer match.

A decision by their Oak Brook McDonald's corporate nitwits, no doubt.

So much for McDonald's being a hometown Chicago firm.

So much for big-business flexibility.

Chicagoan Ray Kroc is probably turning over in his grave tonight.

Half-Court Big-10 Football At Wrigley Field

In perhaps the most stupid decision ever made in collegiate football, the NCAA ruled yesterday that the much vaunted Northwestern-Illinois Big-10 football game at Wrigley Field tomorrow, must take place on only 1/2 of the field.

This game has been in the planning for 8 months. Wrigley's proprietors made alterations to the field so that its spacial limitations would once again accommodate football.

They installed special protective padding to protect players from the wall.

Still, this was not good enough for the liability conscious weasels -- ever fearful of lawsuits -- who run the NCAA.

They ruled just today that all offenses must operate on only one half of the field.

They are afraid that the young college boys might run into the wall, on the small configuration, and hurt themselves.

They are also afraid that some ambulance-chasing, Chicago slickster, liability lawyers might sue them, should that happen.

Funny, the Chicago Bears, who played on that very same configuration from the 1920s until 1970, were not so namby-pampy.

Gale Sayers played there. Dick Butkus played there. "Da Coach," Mike Ditka, himself played there.

They are all football immortals. They are all in the Football Hall of Fame.

I guess the NCAA seems to be saying that Sayers, Butkus and "Da Coach," Mike Ditka were real men playing serious football -- whereas, today, Northwestern University and the University of Illinois have teams comprised of "girly men," who need the NCAA's nanny protection.


I'm just wondering. What happens with "half-court" football?

If a defender intercepts a pass, what does he do?

Catch it and make a U-turn?

This is nuts!!!

NU is apparently bowl eligible as of this writing. (For the "Weed Wacker Bowl," perhaps?) Should they win this ersatz, glorified tag-football game, it should be considered by bowl selection committees that this was a game with an asterisk. Kind of like Roger Maris' 61 homers in a 160 game season.

And should Illinois become bowl-eligible, by virtue of this game, they should be disqualified. It would be unfair to teams behind them, who had to play real football under the established rules of the past 100+ years.

In either event, it won't be of too great avail to Northwestern.

They will have to play the (#6 in the nation)University of Wisconsin Badgers juggernaut next weekend.

The Badgers won't be playing half-court football then.

BYE BYE BEANER, BEANER GOOD BYE!!

Today, Melissa Bean, aka The Beaner, finally conceded the victory of Congressman-elect, Joe Walsh over her in the 8th Congressional District of Illinois.

In my humble estimate, this was the greatest victory in the entire election of this past month.

What this meant, was that the people took back the seat that was previously held by the great conservative leader and the intellectual mentor to many of us area young libertarian-conservatives, the great Philip M. Crane.

Phil Crane was the only Illinois Member of Congress to have had the guts to support Ronald Reagan for President, during his (narrowly) losing campaign for President in 1976. (All the other Illinois RINOS were supporting the total loser, Gerald Ford.)

Phil Crane was a founding member of the Heritage Foundation and an early supporter and board member of the Constitutionalist-Libertarian Hillsdale College.

He was chairman of the national American Conservative Union from 1978 t0 1980 and under his leadership, that organization blossomed from a relatively esoteric group into a formidable force in U.S. political life.

Phil Crane was a legend.

This liberal-in-drag -- Ms.Bean -- masqueraded as a conservative for a full 6 years.

But she was finally exposed, and defeated, by Joe Walsh.

This, despite the opposition of the mainstream RINO Republican establishment and the frenetic opposition of the increasingly impotent, mainstream news media (aka the dinosaur news media.)

This is truly the most exciting news of this entire election cycle!!

Congratulations, Congressman Walsh!!

And Bye, Bye, Beaner, Beaner Good Bye!!!

(Her butch feminazi pals are really going to resent the second video -- which contains the singing and photos of what was, arguably, the most truly feminine and elegant woman of the entire past two generations.)



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Lynn Sweet Reaches a New Low in Chicago Journalism

Lynn Sweet is the most shameless stooge for Obamaism that one can imagine. She writes for the soon-to-be-defunct Chicago Sun-Times. Ostensibly she is their Washington correspondent, but really has been little more than an unpaid PR flack for, first the Obama campaign, and now for what remains of the Obama administration.

By doing this, I suspect that she had visions of vaulting into prominence as the national journalistic Obama expert, much as Lou Cannon became prominent as the Reagan expert and Jeff Greenberg the Clinton expert.

But now, the petals have fallen off the Obama bloom. On the few national talking head shows that will still have her, she simply comes off like a shrill, annoying shrew.

She single-handedly managed to drag what remains of Chicago "journalism" down to a new low in a "commentary" she posted in the CST today.

In it she simply reprinted an entire news release issued by the leftist shill for the illegal alien amnesty movement, "Little Luis" Gutierez, Congressman from Chicago.


He was arguing that the discredited lame duck Congress should sneak through the "Dream Act," before the people's representatives would have a chance to reflect the popular will. This absurdly named measure would provide amnesty for all illegal aliens under age 35, who were in the US for at least 15 years.

From the absurdly named Sweet, no commentary -- no analysis -- just a reprint of a handout from an open-borders hack reprinted in its entirety.

A new low in Chicago journalism. See it here.

Most suspected the Chicago dinosaur media were shamelessly biased.

Now everyone can know definitively.

But I'm keeping a bottle of Moet Chandon chilled and ready to pop open on the date when the struggling Chicago Sun-Times puts its lefty rag to bed for the final time.

The bottle will not be gathering too much dust.

Chicago Sucks -- The Blog

I don't know how she found the Chicago Lampoon, or how I found her.

But there is a very cool, stay-at-home, mom in the Northern suburbs of Chicago, who has a very cool and funny blog page called, "Why I Think Chicago Sucks."

Here is the link:http://darcsfalcon.wordpress.com/2008/02/22/why-i-think-chicago-sucks/

She is a 40-something girl, with a good hard- working husband and more than a few kids.

She is originally from California and is only stuck in this god-forsaken frozen wasteland, due to her husband's job necessities.

She, like I, has had the good fortune to have lived in nicer climes and nicer places on the planet.

So we both agree -- Chicago sucks.

She is an obviously very nurturing and supportive mom -- since, as she gets various remarks from post-collegiate kids who are just fed up with Chicago --with everything from its crappy weather to its crappy Democrat machine politics to its onerous parking restrictions -- she patiently and supportively agrees and solaces them.

I am a native Chicagoan. Yet,unlike most of the mindless Chicago boosters, I have had the good fortune to have escaped this icy berg, for more than a decade.

I am a Cub Fan and a Bud Man.

One of my ancestors was a Hall of Fame Baseball pitcher for the Chicago White Sox.

My first date in my life was to the Art Institute of Chicago with a really pretty and cool girl from Alvernia High School for Girls on the NW side of the city.

But while appreciating some of what this city has to offer -- I totally agree with Vanessa (aka DarcNess) when she recommends that:

Chicago Sucks!!

Old Soldiers Never Die -- Remembering MacArthur (aka Mackie) 1992-2006

Mackie chilling out after a spirited swim in Lake Michigan

Editor's note: This is a reprint of the life story and obituary that I wrote 1 year ago about my dog and faithful canine companion, MacArthur, on the anniversary of his passing. It is the longest, and perhaps, most soulful thing that I ever wrote and posted here.

He was my true and fine companion thru everything from blazing Virginia summers to bone-chilling Chicago blizzards.

It has been 4 years since his passing and I haven't yet been able to bring myself to find a replacement for him -- which probably says as much about my personal limitations as it does about his unique and irreplacable qualities.

One thing about the headline, that many may not understand. When the great 5 star General, Douglas MacArthur -- under whom my father served -- gave his famous speech before a joint session of Congress on the occasion of his retirement, his famous statement was "Old soldiers never die -- they just fade away..."

What he meant by that was that many very wonderful American boys in their late teens and early 20s -- like my dad -- who served in his army, died in hellish fighting on the beaches and in the jungles of obscure places -- fighting to preserve our freedom and unique and exceptional American way of life.

And those who survived became "Old Soldiers."

The great General MacArthur was actually belittling himself and paying homage to the young men who died heroically, rather than just "fading away" as old men.

I hope you enjoy the tale of my own, wonderful, MacArthur -- aka -- "Mr. Mackie."





The Tale of MacArthur -- the Extraordinary SuperDog -- First Published in the Chicago Lampoon on November 7th, 2009

Some years back, I was sitting in a bar in River North and as the after work crowd began to filter in, a 20-something guy in a business suit sat on the stool next to me. He was obviously distraught -- actually fighting back tears -- and he explained to me that his dog had just died.

I tried to be as sympathetic as possible, but I thought it rather peculiar at the time -- almost unmanly.

Today I certainly wouldn't entertain such thoughts.

Three years ago today, my faithful canine companion of almost 15 years passed away.

I first met MacArthur at a farm in Winchester, Virginia.

A farmer by the name of Robert Jewell had posted an ad in the Valley Trader, a local farm newspaper that a co-worker had brought in for me, notifying that he had lab-setter puppies, free to good home. So I called him, got a general description of the 6 week old pups and told him that I would be out to pick up one of the long-haired buff colored males.

I made the 1 hour or so drive from Washington D.C. out to get him.

At Jewell's farm, I saw a group of about 8 or 10 little pups, playfully climbing onto each others' backs and onto the back of a tolerant farm cat.

Jewell said, "Yours is over here," and he went over to a barrel and pulled out little MacArthur. "I knew you were coming and I didn't want him to get away."

Apparently Mackie was the hellion of the litter -- the obvious alpha-male. The farmer's children had named him "Sebastian," after Sebastian Cabot, the rotund Mr. French in the Family Affair reruns that they watched -- because he ate more than any of the other pups and they figured he would end up being fat.

He obviously had a vigorous spirit and a powerful life-force, something that I would come to fully appreciate over the next decade and a half.

So after letting him say goodbye to his mother and his litter mates, he made the drive with us back to the Nation's Capitol.

I had just read, How to be Your Dog's Best Friend, by the Monks of New Skete, a best selling dog training book at the time and a classic today. The authors suggested that the first few days away from the litter are traumatic for the new pup and suggested that for the for the first few weeks, you should try to recreate the warmth and intimacy of the litter environment by sleeping on the floor with him.

So like a damned fool, I spent the next few weeks in a sleeping bag on the floor with him at night. I was periodically awoken by the sensation of his little snout, nuzzling thru my hair searching for a source of milk.

But it really worked. In our regular walks it became apparent that he had recognized me as the new central force in our new "2 man "litter."

Our new "2 man litter"
Mackie and me at 8 weeks

The Clintonistas had just assumed power in Washington, so I was out of a job and had lots of time to devote to him in those early days. That was fortuitous. On the floor of the apartment, we would play with a little ball that I would toss and he was easily coaxed into bringing back to me.

He was an unusually smart dog.

Before long, to my great amazement, he was catching the ball in his little mouth and prancing back pridefully in recognition of my applause.

He was a glutton for attention.

I recall sitting on the floor, reading The Washington Post, only to have a little head push thru the bottom of the paper as if to say, "aren't we supposed to be doing something more important, like playing ball?"

After a month or two, he was so totally bonded with me that when we took our walks in the famous Meridian Park with its massive marble stairway, I could let him off the leash and he would bound down the stairs, turn the corner by a fountain, and when I would whistle and call his name, he would come exuberantly scurrying back up the stairs.

It amazed a friendly National Park Policeman there, that a pup so young would not simply run off. It amazed me too.

The Monks of New Skete
"How to be your dog's best friend"

So, one thing led to another and we packed up the Mercury Cougar and headed back to Chicago.

A few months later, in our first summer together, some guys saw us along the Lakefront and commented that since he would go about 10 yards, leap in the air and catch a tennis ball in his mouth, I should try throwing him a frisbee.

They handed us theirs and on the second throw, he caught it and brought it back to me.

It was the beginning of a career that would span 21 of the Alpo/Friskies Canine Frisbee Disc Tournaments. The next summer, when he was 1 1/2, we went into the community dog frisbee tournament in Park Ridge and he scored 18 points in his very first competition.

That is like a ballplayer hitting .275 in his rookie season. In a few years, at his athletic prime, he would win that tournament.

We would play frisbee with almost each walk in the park and his dexterity and flair brought amazement and joy to innumerable people who witnessed it -- not the least of which was me.

He lived for it. It was his work -- his job. When I would pick up the leash for a walk, he would run back in and emerge with his frisbee in his mouth -- only then were we ready to take on the outer world.

But it wasn't all work. Mackie had a canine sense of humor as well.

When a good looking chick would come over to chat and ask me about his athletic prowess, he would run over and begin humping my leg with this silly grin on his face as if to say, "buzz off baby, this guy is spoken for and we have important work to do out here."

So much for his being a chick magnet.

General of the Army
Douglas MacArthur

And it wasn't all just bird dog retrieving. He was protective too.

On one warm August night, I was sitting on a park bench in Chicago under a lampost, reading a book and he assumed the spot on the cool packed earth underneath the bench. Three punks approached me and said, "hey man, you gotta quarter?" I told them no. Seeing me smoking, they said, "you gotta cigarette?" I said, "not for you." The leader said, "what the hell you mean you don't gotta cigarette for us?" And all of a sudden this white canine head emerged from under the bench -- growling. The growls transformed into loud barks as he moved forward and the three punks began running off with MacArthur in hot pursuit.

He wouldn't have hurt them, but they didn't know that. His protective and herding instincts had kicked in and he was simply herding them out of the vicinity.

Mackie got an extra can of Alpo on his kibbles that night.

As time went on, MacArthur and I engaged in a wide array of activities together. When I would manage a political campaign, he would become the official campaign headquarters dog and would sit under my desk as I pecked away at the keyboard or he would entertain the kids of the volunteers when we adults were having a meeting.

He marched with various political groups in no fewer than a half dozen 4th of July parades, always carrying his trademark frisbee in his mouth and invariably being the main attraction.

And we had our quiet personal moments as well.

When I would be depressed at the events of a given day, the sympathetic Lab in him came out and he would gently put his snout on my knee as if to say, "It's alright buddy."

And in his waning days, he would come up to me and bury his head in my chest as if to say "Can't you make this all better for me, pal?"

I couldn't.

In his fourteenth year, cancer had begun to eat away at his once invincible constitution and in the early morning hours of November 7, 2006 the distress became untenable.

I insisted that the nurses at the 911 veterinary clinic in Skokie give him as much morphine as possible, because I didn't want him to go out writhing in pain. They did. And he had a peaceful look on his face as I caressed his face and uttered soothing words as he crossed the River Styx.

He is buried in a peaceful corner of the yard along with his favorite blanket and a ball and a frisbee and his tags and a little note for archeologists to find.

The Catholics and the mainstream Protestants suggest that a dog is merely a soulless chattel, put here for our benefit, but incapable of living on. The Buddhists, however, believe that they are part of the eternal life force and do have a soul.

I would like to believe the Buddhist view.

I would like to believe that at some future time, I might see him again under a warm, blue summer sky on the Elysian Fields and that he would be restored to his full youthful vigor and I in my 30-something vigor would be flinging frisbees 40 yards and he would leap in the air and snare them and afterwards we'd chill out in the waters of the clear, cool spring.

So until then,

Good Night,

Sweet Prince.

Getting Coffee and Free (Hi-jacked) Wi-Fi at the Dunkin' Donuts

I don't know if most Americans have noticed this, but in most major metropolitan areas -- and certainly in Chicago -- it seems a critical mass of Dunkin' Donuts are owned by Muslim Pakistanis.

So, I was told by my old Muslim friend, Moin, are most Subway and Quiznos sandwich shops. He bought a Quiznos franchise in the Northwest suburbs for his son.

According to my friend, Brent, a Texan by birth, anyone who has ever done business with a Pakistani, will do it once -- get burned -- and never do business with one, ever again.

Brent, for some mystifying reason, relocated from Texas to Skokie, Illinois where he opened a marble factory.

He buys marble from around the world. Once some Muslim Pakistanis offered him a deal on marble and they agreed on the price. My Texan friend then committed to doing a project, based on the Paki's promises.

Then when the marble arrived at the Port of New Jersey, the Middle Easterners arbitrarily said the price was about 300% higher than what they had earlier agreed to.

My Texan friend had to buy their product, because he was committed to the end-user, but he told me: "I will never do business with any Pakistani or Muslim -- ever -- again."

And to this day he hasn't.

Brent said that the word is in the marble trade, that Pakistanis are the most ethically challenged business people on earth.

I was reminded of this by an experience at a store owned by one Mr. Amyn Ali of Rosemont.

He is a Muslim who owns quite a few Dunkin' Donuts stores in the Chicago area.

All his stores have a sign in the window which says, "FREE WI-FI."

So when I went into his Dunkin' Donuts at the corner of Howard and Western in Chicago at about 7:30 AM this past Sunday morning, with my laptop in tow, I thought, I'd just enjoy their coffee, check out the traffic to my blog and check out news on the web.

The barely literate, exotic donut girl who gave me my coffee and a French cuiller pastry, said, "use this number to access the wi-fi."

The code, which was as elaborate as the combination to a vault at Ft. Knox, did not work.

When I told her as much, she summoned the manager, "Ali" who came about 15 minutes later, because he was busy doling out donuts at the drive-thru window.

The computer guru, Ali, could not get the secret, ultra cryptogric code # to work on their own Dunkin'Donuts wi-fi site.

So then he just summoned up the AT&T site which was owned by the Starbuck's just across the street.

It had all the Starbucks' logos and all their corporate promotional information.

This, theoretically, is blatantly illegal, but I have only ever heard of one person prosecuted for it and that was in Kentucky.

So the moral of the story is -- go to this, Pakistani Muslim-owned Dunkin' Donuts and, if the breezes are right -- they'll be happy to hi-jack the Starbuck's wi-fi signal for you.

My friend, Brent, still chafing at his experience, insists that Pakistanis are the most ethically challenged business people on the face of the planet.

But that can't be true.

What about the Somali pirates?

"It's All in The Game," Charles G. Dawes' Rock Anthem to Republican Normalcy

With the smashing victory of the Republican Party in yesterday's elections (and not just RINO's -- but mostly Constitutionalist, Reaganite conservatives) I think it is time to recall the top 40 anthem of Republican normalcy.

If you want to win money in a bar bet, just ask this question.

"Who was the only Vice-President of the United States to have written a Top-40 rock hit -- in what party was he -- and under which President did he serve?"

The libs will all recommend long-forgotten nitwits like Walter Mondale, Al Gore (well he says he invented the internet) and Hubert Horatio Humphrey.

But the answer is Vice President of the United States, Charles G. Dawes of Evanston, Illinois.

In fact, there is now an elementary school named after Vice President Dawes at the corner of Dodge and Oakton, in Evanston (see photo below)-- and a huge park there named after him, and his mansion off Sheridan Road in Evanston is now an historic landmark (see photo below left.)

He was the Vice President of the United States under the great Republican President, Calvin Coolidge -- who presided over what was, perhaps, the greatest period of American economic prosperity ever to be seen until the eighth decade of the century when the esteemed Ronaldus Magnus, worked his conservative magic from 1980 to 1988.

But how did this 1920s old-timer, Mr. Dawes, have a rock n roll hit in the 1950s?

It turns out that the debonaire Republican Vice President from Evanston was something of a Renaissance man.

For fun, he was an amateur violinist and composer.

So in 1912, in his leisure hours, he composed a work for violin, which he entitled: "Melody in A Major." They liked it back then and it became his signature campaign tune.

In 1951, some pop musicians rediscovered it, appreciated its soft, romantic strains and put words to it.

It was recorded that year by the great, melliflous, black crooner, Tommy Edwards.

It flopped on the charts.

But in 1958, they put 50s- styled do-wop piano strains to it and Tommy Edwards re-released it.

It became the #1 national pop hit.

Listen to it below. You can almost see formally dressed college kids at an Eisenhower-era Sorority or Fraternity formal dance, quietly swaying cheek-to-cheek to this as the slow dance interlude between rollicking bits by Elvis and Buddy Holly.

Interesting that when it was released in 1951, it didn't catch on.

Then the silly Democrat haberdasher from Missouri, Harry Truman, was in the White House.

It only succeeded in 1958, during the calm, prosperous days presided over by the Republican President and former liberator of Europe and North Africa, Dwight D. Eisenhower.

I would guess that GOP Vice President Dawes, would see the cosmic righteousness in that.

We've not yet attained the desired and likely inevitable plateau of Conservative/Republican normalcy. But with yesterday's election results, we just got a whole helluva lot nearer.

Hey -- It's all in the game!!

A Haunted House in Rogers Park: My Encounter with a Ghost

I am not the kind of person who wallows in tales of the mystic. I do not dabble in ouija boards nor attend seances. I was never a regular Art Bell listener. I have never seen a UFO. I was imbued with a firm grasp of logic by the Jesuits.

But, I have seen a ghost.

This happened in early 1993.

I had just returned to Chicago, and my old college roomate told me that my dog, Mackie and I could crash at his place, until I found an apartment. In fact, he said that since he was leaving town on business, I'd be doing him a favor by staying there and letting various home remodelling workmen into the house.

It was an old, stately-looking two-flat at 1515 W. Touhy in the Rogers Park section of Chicago. (photo above)

So on the second night that I had the place to myself, I was sitting on a sofa in the living room, drinking a beer (but I was not by any means drunk), listening to some old vinyl records that he still had from our college days. My dog was quietly sleeping in the corner.

At that time, I began to roll my own cigarettes, since I was appalled by the outrageously high price of cigarettes in high-tax Chicago (they were at least 2X the price that I had been paying in Virginia.)

I was not very good at rolling cigarettes, back then, and as I fumbled with the cigarette paper and loose tobacco, --- I am not making this up --- a woman appeared. She had reddish/brown, auburn hair and wore a faded green house dress that had red and blue dots on it.

She was sitting on the coffee table right in front of me and said, "Let me help you with that." She took the cigarrette materials from me, rolled a cigarette and handed it back to me.

That I distinctly remember.

I have vague memory traces of having spoken with her at greater length. I recall that it was amiable, but cannot recall exactly what we talked about.

Then she was gone.

The next thing I remember was a sense of waking up -- as if from a dream. But I had not been asleep. I felt something that was akin to shock as my mind began to come to the realization that something very strange had just occured.

I felt an extreme sense of calmness and wonder -- a strange kind of high.

I looked over and my dog was still sleeping quietly in the corner.

The next morning, that shock-like calmness still permeated my senses. I was, in a word, dumbstruck.

When my former college roomate returned from his trip, a few days later, I asked him if he knew anything about the history of his house. If he had heard of anyone having died there, perhaps.

He told me that sometime in the 1920s, there had been a serious fire in the house. In fact, you could still see burn scars on the brick in back, off of the upper floor.

"So maybe someone might have died in that fire," he said.

Some of it makes sense. Back in the 1920s, cigarette rolling was quite common, as compared to today. And the faded housedress that the young woman wore was not of a style that girls would wear today.

Maybe someone started a fire from errant cigarette smoking on that day in the 1920s.

Maybe the girl died in the fire and came back to help me so that it might not happen again.

I'll never know.

But I can quite sensibly assert that I am one of the 40% or so of Americans who have seen a ghost.

Happy Halloween!!