Unasked questions
After refusing to comment to the New York Times on questions I raised in videos regarding Barack Obama’s hypocrisy, the Obama campaign instead turned to Carol Marin [’‘Low Blow Joe’s sneaky attack aims at Obama, column, Sept. 2], who was more than happy to trash my motives through yet another personal attack, without asking whether any of the facts I raised were untrue.
Joe Novak, the dark operative who honed his considerable political skills in the gritty corridors of Chicago’s blue-collar wards, today lives in a remote area of Montana. But his wily head and hard heart are still firmly planted in Illinois if the campaign he’s now waging against presidential contender Barack Obama is any indication.
Read More...Obviously, any discussion of Richard M. Daley begs for a comparison to Richard J. But, let’s start with the facts and let you draw your own conclusions.
Clearly, these are different times. No one back in the 70’s would have believed the newly-ensconced suburbanites would have moved back downtown.
Richard J. was a builder with big ideas: The Circle campus, O’Hare, the expressways, and public housing.
And it wasn’t easy. He had to contend with a city council led by the wily Tom Keane – a master dealer. In this first ever press conference over allegations of his financial interest in the O’Hare parking garage, Keane said he was whiter than white, like the soap – cleaner than clean. He said it’s not a Keane deal, “it’s a Daley deal.”
The city council then was filled with unusual outstanding and independent thinkers, Leon Despres, John Hoellen a Republican, and Ralph ... Read More...
In SSPX (Society of Saint Pius X) territory this Sunday, mass was old-style Tridentine as usual, and so was the calendar. We had old-style 13th Sunday after Pentecost readings, which meant we heard nothing of Isaiah 66 predicting proclamation “to the distant coastlands” of Yahweh’s glory by means of horses, mules, and dromedaries.
Neither did we have Hebrews 12 with its encouragement to accept trials in life as acts of discipline by a loving father, namely Yahweh, known as God to most of us. Nor Luke 13 with the narrow-gate warning by Jesus: “Many are called, but few are chosen” in the old translation, and “Depart from me, ye cursed” – in the new version sanitized to read “Depart from me, all ye evildoers.” The meaning is the same pastorally speaking, but the punch is about half-strength.
However, we did hear Father Michael sermonizing on the importance ... Read More...
I have spent the past week recuperating, taking a much-needed extended rest as I struggle to regain my strength and sanity.
For the better part of this year, things were going along just fine. But I knew what was coming; after all, I had gone through it just three years earlier. Although I appeared to be doing fine, deep down inside a feeling of dread was beginning to simmer. By mid-May, thoughts that were once subconscious had crept to the forefront of my mind. And by early June, coincidentally, just as summer break was beginning, those thoughts had become visions, all consuming visions of the inevitable…an all-out battle of wills; a psychological drama of monumental proportions that would certainly leave either broken hearts or broken budgets in its wake.
School had only been out for a few days, but Madison Avenue’s relentless marketing machine was already revved ... Read More...
