Personal Asides:

Congratulations Once Again, Frank Nofsinger…The Bush Adulation of Daley May Rest on One Thing…Brady Warmly Acknowledged at Topinka Fund-Raiser; Kjellander Not Mentioned…Marin’s Critique that Only Small Fry Were Indicted: a Study…Topinka’s Happy Birthday and Continued Good Health to the Late Steve Neal…Hillary’s Claim She Baby-Sat for Migrant Workers’ Kids Examined… The Trib’s Awful Front Page Article on Ireland.

Nofsinger

Once again Frank Nofsinger scores with his answer to the snippets of lyrics I posted, giving not only the title but the famous recording. It is “Cool Water” which was recorded by the Sons of the Pioneers. Scott Messick, another astute observer, comes in second with the correct title but says it was recorded as a smash hit by the late great Marty Robbins. Now I think the famous recording was by the Sons but if Scott can show me that Robbins made it a hit first, he wins. But I don’t think so. Maybe Frank can weigh in on this and anyone else. This is truly an issue that ranks up there with Iraq and immigration…



Bush

The adulation George W. Bush may have for Richard M. Daley may have to do with the fact that not only are they sons of famous fathers but both are regarded as somewhat dumb (in Bush’s case, unfairly). There is the story told by people I know who are close to the family and which I regard as true: when in the same year both George W. and Jeb Bush ran for governor, Jeb lost in Florida and George W. won in Texas. Whereupon George W. got a call from his father and mother which was supposed to be a call of congratulations for winning the election. Instead the two were saying over and over, “poor Jeb! Poor Jeb!” After they hung up, George W. was supposed to have remarked, “Poor Jeb! I’m the guy who got elected, after all!” The parental remorse was because when they were growing up, Jeb was regarded as the brighter, the more promising and the one who would carry the family’s dynastic name with the same verse that father and grandfather Bush had.

George W. was regarded as a slow poke, one who, because he had had trouble with liquor, was problematic. Indeed not until his 40s did George W. really amount to anything. Now on election day when George W. won and Jeb, the favored son didn’t, it was “poor Jeb!” From the day Richie Daley entered politics, he was compared to his father and the comparison was never really favorable. Neither man was good with English but Richard J. was supposed to be the genius and Richard M. the very small chip off the old block. In fact, Bill Daley was supposed to—and is—the bright one, certainly better with English. Maybe that’s the reason that George W. likes Richard M. so much. What do you think?...

Brady

Some who attended the recent President Bush fund-raiser-accolade for Judy Baar Topinka say that only one former competitor, State Sen. Bill Brady, was acknowledged. Fitting since without Brady’s blasts at Jim Oberweis—and his refusal to get out of the way even though it was certain he couldn’t win—guaranteed Topinka’s nomination by a hair. Listed on the president’s script for recognition was Bob Kjellander who nevertheless wasn’t mentioned in the love-fest…

Marin

Carol Marin’s goofy critique of the patronage federal indictments—that only the small-fry were accused—which she repeated yesterday in the Sun-Times fails to take into account a longtime prosecution style: that you get the smaller fry first and then, when they squeal, you move against the bigger fish. That’s what happened in most prosecutions including the George Ryan one where two score smaller fish were indicted, then Scott Fawell and then Ryan. By not even taking that into consideration, Marin certifies she’s in the wrong business: political columning…

Topinka

That politicians have huge mailing lists which occasionally are not culled to eliminate dead people is well known. Yet, if Alan Keyes had sent a birthday card to a well-publicized dead man, the mainstream media would never forget it and ridicule it as the utmost in bad taste. Judy Baar Topinka sent a birthday card wishing the late Steve Neal best wishes and continued good health, notwithstanding that Neal’s death was banner-line in the Sun-Times in 2004 and Topinka went to his funeral. Aside from being noted in a Neil Steinberg newspaper column yesterday, how much do you want to bet that her gaffe will go unrecorded by the mainstream liberal media followers of Mike Madigan’s fortunes? They tend to pass over Topinka’s failings. For one reason: Topinka’s win would be essential for Lisa Madigan with Topinka serving one term, raising taxes and bowing out for Lisa to run in four years…

Hillary

This Blog is nothing if not fair. Last week Hillary Clinton observed that she is compassionate concerning illegal migrants because as a child she baby-sat with some of their children. The Wall Street Journal did a census search and found that Park Ridge, where Clinton was reared, had no Hispanics in the years when she purportedly baby-sat and certainly no migratory workers. That’s true, but not so fast. As one who far antedates Hillary’s period in the area, this Blog, which was reared in next-door Edison Park, points out that a stretch of vegetable farms adjacent to Park Ridge, where O’Hare is now located, had migratory workers in the summer. Lots of `em. It is very possible that she baby-sat for these workers’ kids at that time. Just in the interest of accuracy…

Trib

The Tribune’s front-page article on the decline of the Catholic Church
in Ireland by its foreign correspondent Tom Hundley is a casebook example
of ignorance in action. There is no doubt that the Church is failing in that
nation but not for the reasons Hundley, who evidently belongs to the same
secular thinking as the editorial board, ascribes. Secularization is one reason
but why? The same cause that pervades the troubles of the Israelites in the
Jewish Bible (aka the Old Testament). Prosperity and ease have invaded the
Emerald Isle and with it laxity: a story that has been repeated for millennia.
Poverty and hardship serves as a magnet to draw people to God. The potato
famine and British persecution drew the Irish close to religious despair. Pius
IX sent a key curia figure to Ireland as bishop, then archbishop, then
Cardinal. His name:: Paul Cardinal Cullen. Cullen it was who reinvigorated
Ireland and re-converted them to the fervor that has lasted until recently.

By quoting the scandalously inaccurate Irish pop novelist, Frank
McCourt who won a series of literary prizes because his views that happen
to accommodate fashionable U. S. secularist critics, Hundley spreads the
recent myth that the Church in Ireland was (in McCourt’s words)
”miserable [and] unforgiving.” If there is any singular misunderstanding of
The Church was and is it is portrayed in McCourt’s work. “Unforgiving?” Why does he think the sacrament of Reconciliation was invented by Christ
Himself and carried on by the Church? What’s unforgiving about that unless a penitent refuses to acknowledge sin or is loath to agree to what theologians have called “firm purpose of amendment”? This Blog would recommend the Trib get a new foreign correspondent but only after a good many other changes more essential are made.