BEWARE!! DANGER OUTSIDE!!

Why is it that people on the TV news keep on telling me to pull down the shades and turn out the lights? Why are these bubble heads all telling me that we're all doomed? Why do they think they've earned the right to tell me how to live my life from their environmentally controlled ivory towers? Who do they think they are?

The fucking Pope?

Yes, there's danger at your door. He usually wears the disguise of a mailman. He brings you bills that are tough to pay. Welcome to wonderland. Buy a 6 pack and a lotto ticket and go home and cry into your mommie's Irish linen table cloth. Open up a pack of stale saltines and a can of sardines and crawl off to bed with the woman who can't bear to be near you anymore.

Let the world beat you down and cite statistics that show you're not the only loser. Become an expert at the crab barrel mentality. Find overwhelming proof that there's no way to go but down. Revel in your misery.

Or....

Refuse to accept defeat. Refuse to accept anything other than the best for yourself and for all those around you. Be compassionate to those less fortunate, but do not enable them to continue to be losers. Demand that they set their jaws and become determined to be winners.

Look each other in the eyes. Demand excellence. Settle for nothing less than the best from yourself and those around you. Stop going with the flow and accepting lame excuses. Step up to the plate and swing.

This Mother Earth that we temporarily live on has been spinning around the sun for billions of years. She has seen all kinds of creatures walk thru her pastures, climb her mountains, trek her deserts, swim her waters, and reproduce under her moonlight. Nothing surprises Mom, nor will anything overcome her wisdom. We're just a blip on her radar screen.

We can overcome our man made mess the same way a child can tidy up his own toy box. It's about time we start looking inside ourselves for the danger we pose to ourselves.

The danger ain't outside our doors. It's between our ears, and we're the enemy.

Grow up. Be a resilient human being. Nobody on this planet owes you a damn thing. Go out and earn it, build it, create it. Read, write, learn how to use tools and build things.

When your time on this planet is over, don't you dare believe it wasn't all right there in front of you. It was and it is.

It's up to you to figure out what to do with it. Get moving.

I DON'T CARE ANYMORE

I don't care if you don't like me. As a matter of fact, we'll get along better if you don't. Because I despise you. Every breath you take is a breath of air wasted. You're a stupid, drug addicted, unthinking, oblivious moron. You're an obese, diabetic, confused fool who truly believes Oprah is a god-like presence in your life.

I wish I could muster up enough emotion to hate you. As it is, all I can do is feel pity for you. I'd respect you more if I hated you.

Your contributions to the greater good began & ended with you bringing a 10 year old can of Campbell's tomato soup to a food drive the last time you went to church. You left before the sermon given by the priest who had a naked choirboy tied to his bed in the sacristy. You didn't know or care that the kid about to be raped by a man of the cloth was your nephew.

The world is burning down around us as our newly minted bi-racial President fiddles with health insurance issues that will never be resolved until & unless we blow the whole thing up and start over. Band-aids do not cure mortal wounds or treat pre-existing conditions. Only a complete purging of all health care legislation and an enema applied to all practitioners will cure what ails the American health care system.

As I progress into middle age, I feel ashamed that my generation has not done better for the generations coming up behind us. We have done nothing to prepare our children for the shit storm we're sending them into. We gave them Sesame Street and a creepy purple dinosaur and threw them off the bus and told them "Good Luck". Oh. And go to work so you can pay for me in my dotage. I'm gonna be "retired" for the next 25 years, feeding from your trough.

If I was 25 or 20 or 16, working my first job with 1/3 of my wages taken out to pay for benefits I'll never see, I'd be fucking pissed.

As it is, I'm a 50 year old white guy who's already been kicked out of heaven once and had the Last Rites said on me several times. I've been shot, stabbed, and have crawled out of more burning wrecks than a Hollywood stunt man. I have a helluva lot more days behind me than I have in front of me. I'm not afraid of my inevitable meeting with Jesus, although he keeps on delaying it himself.

There's nobody alive on this planet who cares more about the human condition than I do. I just can't fight anymore. I just can't bring myself to care anymore.

I'll take my victories in small places. I'll feed needy children and teach them to read in church basements. I'll assist the elderly people in my neighborhood where I live with their daily chores.

The rest of the world will have to do for itself. I just don't--I just can't--care anymore.

WEARY STORY LINES

I've become weary of the pathetic story lines that fill up the newspapers and other publications I subscribe to. I couldn't care less about a drug addicted child molester meeting his demise with a "hot dose" administered to him by the dermatologist who disfigured him.

I care even less about our half breed President giving a speech at the NAACP. I care even less than that about some "wise Latina" fielding bullshit questions from idiots who wear suits to work to try to disguise their hypocrisy.

In Chicago, we have a tin man who calls himself mayor who has raped the city blind and is now attempting to shove the 2016 Olympics down our throats. In our county, we have an illiterate moron who couldn't connect the dots in a Sunday cartoon section in charge of the 17th largest economy in the United States.

You read that right: Toddler Boy Stroger , President of the Crook County Board, State of Illinois, USA, is personally in charge of the 17th largest economy in the United States. This little schmuck can't even find his way around his own bathroom without a road map!

Yet, he's in charge and wants more of your hard earned money so he can go to dinner at swanky downtown steakhouses and hire violent felons as chiefs in important departments. Toddy Boy doesn't even possess the skill sets necessary to be an effective busboy, and we hired him to balance a $12 billion checkbook. Are we all daft?

Are we all that freaking stupid?

Some wise man said once that we get the government we deserve. Excuse me, but I don't think I deserve a sputtering Irishman spouting nonsense into my face about how it was a good idea to sell off bridges and parking meters for the next 100 years. I don't think I need an illiterate nigger threatening Carol Marin with a coffee cup full of booze on the set of "Chicago Tonight" telling me that we'll all die if he doesn't get his tax increase. I don't need a Polock from the south side introducing legislation on the size & weight of carry-on luggage on airplanes.

I most certainly don't need a little Napolean Italian gangster as the mayor of my town, but that's what I got, thanks to a humptdy dumpty who didn't listen to people who knew how to turn the tide in his favor.

I could fill several clown cars in several circuses performing in several venues with the clowns & their accomplices I have profiled here. My initial shock, dismay, anger, and rage has now evolved into resolve.

My seething anger is evolving into resolve. I resolve to ridicule every single one of these bastards and the people who empowered them until I take my last breath.

Look for Clown Car Magazine, coming to a Chicago street corner near you.

Soon.

I'm mad as hell, and I'm not gonna take it anymore.

Johnny

PULL UP YOUR PANTS

I love Barack Obama. I especially love him when he speaks to black audiences and tells them in no uncertain terms to stop making excuses for their bad behavior.

President Obama has made it very clear to black Americans that he will not tolerate mobs of young black men wearing their pants around their ankles and their ballcaps turned sideways. He has made it very clear in his hiring & firing practices that he will not tolerate a culture of laziness and entitlement anymore.

In other words, get off your ass, you stupid, illiterate Maywood crack nigger! We're not carrying your ass anywhere anymore.Put yourself to use or I'll put you out to pasture. Either way is just fine with me.

Mr. & Mrs. Black America, you've run out of excuses. You cannot blame anybody for anything any more. You have electoral majorities in many major American cities and one of your own in the White House. You can never claim "discrimination" about anything ever again. You now have to earn the privileges you've been given.

You can never claim "victim status" ever again. All you can ever claim from here on out is what you earn thru your own efforts. That's all you're owed and that's all you get.

It's a statistical fact that African-born immigrants to the United States are far more advanced in their thinking and achievements than black people of African heritage who have been here for generations. Why is that? I chalk it up to the crab barrel mentality, but that cannot possibly be all of it. I cannot for the life of me figure out why so many black Americans walk around epitomizing the stereotype of "nigger".

My hopes for my country were realized when Obama was elected President of the United States. I was in Grant Park on election night. I will cherish that night and that moment in American history every day for the rest of my life.

I just wish that black Americans could put away childish things and grow up. Black America is running out of excuses for its continuing underachievement. The rest of the world doesn't care about slavery 200 years ago or bigotry 100 years ago. We all live in a "What have you done for me lately?" world, and black Americans are a net liability.

Black America, please. Do the world a favor. Pull up your pants, put your ballcap on straight, tie your shoes, get your hands off your balls, and look the world squarely in the eye. Tuck in your shirt. Speak in coherent sentences and paragraphs.

Stop claiming victim status. Start earning the respect you loudly demand.

Earn it.

2009 WORLD CHAMPION CHICAGO WHITE SOX

This is the story of the Under the Hill Gang, the Over the Hill Gang, and the Kid who came outta nowhere. This is the story of the unlikeliest World Series Champions in baseball history. This is the story of the 2009 Chicago White Sox.

This is the story of champions on their last legs, and of prospects who hadn't found their sea legs yet. It's the story of a kid pitcher who sacrificed everything to set himself free from oppression. It's a baseball story. It's an American story.

Carlos Quentin, the Sox' best hitter, is on the disabled list shortly after the season starts with a debilitating tendon injury in his foot. Nobody at 3rd base can catch a 2 hopper. Where's Joe Crede? Alexi Ramirez daydreams at shortstop as if he's on a 7th grade field trip to the zoo. Who's the guy at 2nd base? Don't worry about writing his name down. It'll be someone else next week.

Paulie's at 1st. OK. AJ's behind the plate. I'm feeling better. JD's in right. Beurhle's on the mound. Oz & Coop & Joey & Harold & Walk are in the dugout. I'm starting to feel real good about this.

Who's in center? Um, Twinkletoes.
Podsednik?
Yeah.
Uh oh.
He's hitting .315 with an obp 0f nearly .400
Pods?
Yeah.
You're kidding.
Nope.
What about the pitchers?
Buerhle, Danks, Floyd, Contreras, Colon, and Chapman may be one of the all-time greatest pitching staffs ever assembled. Bobby Jenks closes 'em out, and Thornton & Linebrink are lights out. Did I tell you about Carasco & Dotel?
Who's Chapman?
The Kid who came outta nowhere.

Pay attention, kiddies. Just like an old soap opera, every baseball season plays itself out slowly. And then it's over before you know it.

This old Sox fan sees something that he's seen many times before. The trophies won when nobody thinks you're in the game are much more valuable than the ones everyone expected you to win.

The old guys will donate some of their hard bark to the bare trees. The kid from nowhere will fit right in, even if he doesn't know where he is.

Even more than 2005, these guys are my guys.

Johnny

WHO CARES ?

Everything bombards us at a million miles an hour every waking moment. It seems like just yesterday that everyone with a computer and internet access was becoming a billionaire. Now the whole world is broke beyond poverty and/or redemption.

The political climate in every city, county, state and region of the country is sinking into a deeper malaise than at any time during the Carter administration. Every single thing we were brought up to believe as industrious Americans has blown up in our faces and burned our buildings down. Literally burned them to the ground. Our banks are failing, our homes are foreclosed upon, and our leading industries are in bankruptcy.

The loudest and most foolish of us make the most ridiculous noise. That would be the extremists on all sides in all media who stand to profit the more we fail. Peace, tranquility, and prosperity are not good for ratings. Appealing loudly and repeatedly to the lowest common denominator of easily manipulated morons pays tens of millions of dollars a year in broadcast contracts.

Our easily manipulated emotions and non-existent attention spans make it easy for us to be controlled by those who are sucking us dry. Our 20% obesity rate among our children and frightening rise in the rates of adult onset diabetes speaks to our fat, lazy sloth. Young teens are being diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes in frightening numbers. We are resembling the fat useless blobs of humanity in the movie "Wall-E" every day.

Meanwhile, wars of our making burn down entire regions of the world while we barely pay attention. We click the remote to watch Oprah cry about Michael Jackson's demise. We reminisce about a love song to a killer rat while the death toll of American soldiers flitters by our glazed eyes unnoticed.

We wonder if those were real live bugs in Patti Blago's martinis in the jungle while we never question our own shallowness & stupidity. We obsess about what outfits Sarah Palin wears while never questioning our congressmen about the pork they attached to education bills.

What have we turned in to? How did this happen? How did we allow this to happen? How did we set off on a mission to be the city on the hill, the beacon of light for the whole world, and turn into sideshow clowns? Is there anything we can do to right the ship before it capsizes?

If there was ever a time to seek the answers to these questions, it's now. We have spent every cent of our goodwill capital on every imaginable front and have borrowed 25x beyond that. We have shown no intention of ever slowing down our consumption or dealing with our creditors honestly. Our fat, wobbly, numb, gout-ridden legs don't even know they're about to collapse. The feeling is gone, and we'd barely notice anyway.

We're contributing to our collective suicide while barely paying attention.

Who cares?

GRAVE ROBBERS

The story of the grave robbers in the Burr Oak Cemetery in Alsip continues to grow more grisly with each passing hour. The remains of hundreds of deceased people were dug out of their graves and thrown aside to make room for a few sick demented fools to make a quick buck.

Now comes word that a section of the cemetery called "Baby Land", where departed infants and small children were to rest in peace was violated. There are dusty remains lying all over the cemetery grounds, as if in a spooky Lon Chaney or Bela Lugosi movie. Or Michael Jackson's "Thriller" video.

But this isn't a 1930s horror movie. And MJ can't conjure zombies out of graves anymore. This is horror come alive in 2009. This is real.

All the sane, rational people will ask sane rational questions, such as, "How could anyone do this? What were they thinking? Where's their humanity? How could this have gone undetected for so long?"

These are all fair questions, and the people assigned to investigate this case of the macabre will never find all the answers. They'll never be the same, either.

The 4 men in custody in connection to this despicable case are being held in isolation for their own safety; even the most hardened convicts have dear departed loved ones in cemeteries.

No amount of psychoanalysis or any other rational approach will ever explain how these 4 men and their accomplices/enablers could perform such unspeakable evil. The need for money to feed addictions is nearly certain to come up. No sober person could perform the filthy physical labor required to carry out this horrible scheme. No person grounded in any faith or sense of decency could possibly do this. Only an insatiable hunger for some soul-stealing drug could possibly bring someone to do this. Only an empty, desperate soul could perform these inhuman acts of desecration.

People of compassion on the periphery of this unfolding story are now charged with comforting those whose departed loved ones were defiled. Those who care the most will be the ones with the lowest profiles; the quiet angels who do the quiet work will be the ones looked most favorably upon in the hereafter.

Those who seek to exploit this unspeakable crime will be dealt with severely long after the TV cameras are gone. The likes of Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, et al, had better be very careful and tread very lightly. If their profession of faith in a Christian God is indeed sincere, they had both better remember that their own day of judgement is coming closer with every tick of the clock. And they both have alot to answer for already.

Those of us who are not involved should stay that way. If any of us feel the need to do something, it won't take long to identify someone to pray for. In the face of unspeakable evil, prayer sometimes is the only weapon that peaceful people have.

Jesus prayed for the people who nailed him to a cross and gutted him with a sword. He also prayed that we all give each other the gift of peace.

Let us all pray for the souls of everyone involved, including the grave robbers.