Reflections on the Feast of St. Patrick

My father was the Co-ordinator of the St. Patrick’s Day Parade from 1956 to 1991. St. Patrick’s Day has always been a special day for me and my family. My dad had a great deal to do with making Chicago’s St. Patrick’s Day what it is these days. Particularly, the dying of the Chicago River. In recent years, I have not made a big deal of it. Frankly, it is somewhat painful. I miss my dad, Daniel P. Lydon.

I am beginning to appreciate what St. Patrick’s Day has become. It is now largely a secular celebration of Irishness and Ireland. The entire Republic of Ireland has about 5.5 million people. That is about the same number of people in Cook County. Yet, Ireland and the Irish occupy such a large place in American popular culture. Ireland, it patron saint and its people enjoy their own American holiday. Perhaps not exactly a feast day of a Roman Catholic saint intended to celebrate the evangelization of the Emerald Isle to Christianity in the Fifth Century. But I, and I think, the rest of Irish America, don’t mind too much.

I enjoy, and take considerable pride in, the outsized influence the Celtic island on the edge of Europe has had in history and particularly the history of the United States and Chicago in particular.

I take pride, in the good sense, not pride in the sinful sense, in my Irish heritage and Irishness of America. The Irish—Irish Americans—have made Chicago the place it is. A good place. A friendly and productive place that has contributed to America and her people. I hope that we have brought the Irish skills and traits of good humor, hard work, faith, wit, charm, good looks and devotion to the American persona—especially the good looks part.

Enjoy the holiday. Don’t forget about St. Patrick. He taught the Irish to love. He made us who we are, like so many before and after him.

Joy of Limited Jurisdiction

Today, the Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit reversed a federal district judge’s appointment of a special master to review documents seized by the FBI in a raid on former President Trump’s Florida residence.

I have this nerdy interest in the U. S. Constitution. As every first-year law student and even the occasional eighth grader studying for the constitution test knows, the federal courts are courts of limited jurisdiction. Basically, that means that one must provide a reason to be in the court based on the Constitution or some federal law.

Fast forward to my unhealthy habitual CNN watching for hours every evening and then again each morning. One will recall, if he or she habitually watches CNN, that our former president made off with documents and artifacts from his time in the White House and keep them in his Florida home.

The FBI and the National Archives asks for them back. The former president gave some back. They asked for the rest. He stalled. Then he gave some more back. Someone provided a false declaration, a fancy name for an affidavit, that there were no more documents.

Oh, but there were. The FBI raided Mar-a-Lago and seized the documents and is now investigating to find out what secrets were contained in the documents and who might have learned those secrets. That and who can be held criminally liable for illegally possessing secret documents.

A big story on CNN. CNN and its viewers like me, love an FBI raid.

A juicy story with an espionage angle took a turn to the truly exciting world of federal court jurisdiction.

President Trump surprisingly filed a lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida asking the court to appoint a “special master,” a lawyer unrelated to either Trump or the Government, to examine the documents and see if the Government really needs them.

Basically, the target of an investigation asked a court to interfere in the FBI’s investigation of the target’s crimes. Hmmm. Okay then. Can one do that? Therein lies the excitement of this jurisdictional query.

District Judge Aileen Cannon said her federal court “had the power” and appointed the special master who has for month know been looking at documents. I confess I kind of lost track of the story assuming that CNN would alert me if need be.

Today, the Eleventh Circuit reversed the appointment of the special master and dismissed President Trump’s case today for want of jurisdiction. “For want of juridiction.” Can the English language be more elegant? One can read the opinion here: https://media.ca11.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/files/202213005.pdf

The jurisdictional lesson, at least in my mind, is that the federal court’s equitable jurisdiction, a court’s inherent right to impose fairness, is limited, very limited and make no exceptions for former presidents. A former president is a citizen like any other, except with lots of security and a nice pension.

I won’t get into the four-part test based on the Richey case so let’s just skip to the end:

“In considering these arguments, we are faced with a choice: apply our usual test; drastically expand the availability of equitable jurisdiction for every subject of a search warrant; or carve out an unprecedented exception in our law for former presidents. We choose the first option. So the case must be dismissed.”

As is the case with most reversals, courts of appeal typically do not openly chastise a district judge, but one phase in part B of the opinion did stand out to me: “The district court was undeterred by this lack of information.”

Ouch. That’s pretty salty language about the Trump appointee.

So there you go. The Eleventh Circuit closes the courthouse door once again. CNN and the jurisdiction of federal courts, my two loves meet again.

I still love photography too. The Chicago Elite Classic starts tomorrow.  

jacklydon.com Website Review by Jared Polin

I have been watching his You Tube channel for years now. I respect his talent and his opinions. It’s not like he did me a personal favor. He does for anyone who asks (and pays him a modest sum). Early this year, Jared Polin, a You Tuber, photographer, content creator, etc., reviewed my website on video and let me have it.

My website has been basically the same since I started it about four and a half years ago, December 2017. I started publishing my photos and stories in the Center Square Journal about ten years ago. That local new website became Chicago Bulldog Media. I posted my photos on its website and Facebook page but unfortunately that paper went under too. Then the PublicLeague.com. It went under too. Then IL Preps Insider. Luke Druze gave that up a year or so ago. I don’t have good luck with publishers. I tend to kill them off.

Now I write for Inside Publications and mostly publish my photos on this website. Inside has been around for a while. It is a proper print publication and will undoubtedly survive, even with me on board.

My website has been the same for far too long. I played around with changes several times but I always liked what I had better. Late last year I saw that Jared Polin was offering critiques of photos and websites so I signed up. He actually did this critique about eight months ago. In typical fashion, I am just now getting around to posting it and changing the website now.

The video is posted here. I thought I would leave the website as is so my readers could look at it after watching the video and judge for themselves. My plan is to changer the website not look after the video is released. so you can decide for yourselves is the changes were beneficial. Let me know what you think. Let me know what you think of Jared’s critique and let me know what you think of the changes I will make.

DePaul Prep Rams Handle St. Francis de Sales 63-11

When I was a kid in the ‘70’s, St. Francis de Sales had one of the best football teams in the state. I remember going to Elk Grove High School to see them play St. Viator in one of the first IHSA playoff games. As I recall, the Pioneers beat the crap out of our beloved Lions. And that was no ordinary Lions team. They were good. The Lions won the ESCC in football every year when I was a kid.

Today, I am here in the Tom Winiecki Gym at Gordon Tech campus of DePaul Prep. The St. Francis de Sales sophomore team has 6 players.

It makes me kind of sad, but I understand that Catholic schools change with their communities. Hegewich of 1975 isn’t what it is today. For that matter, the 33rd Ward isn’t what it was in 1975.

I have learned over the years that Chicago Catholic League teams treat each other with respect (except for the Brother Rice football team and it current and thankfully outgoing coach, but that’s a whole other story).

I am glad St. Francis de Sales is here. Even though I was raised in the ESCC, I am a CCL guy. My dad was a graduate of St. Phillip, a long ago closed Catholic high school in Garfield Park. There was no high school at St. Benedict in the 1940’s. Even though he lived at Irving and Oakley, his widowed mother sent him to St. Phillip far away on the West Side so he could get a Catholic education. My dad taught me to love the Catholic League. I developed a healthy dislike for some of the fancy schools.

I don’t dislike the fancy schools anymore. I, myself, am Jesuit educated at the university level, but I still want to beat the crap out of their CCL schools.

I covered the DePaul Prep v. St. Francis de Sales game and not some other games today, like Lane at Lincoln Park, that I could have, and ought to have—the Jesuits taught me the importance of the word, “ought”) so I could get some shots of DePaul Prep players that don’t play much.

I’m glad I did. The young men at St. Francis de Sales should also have their effort recorded. No matter what else happens in their lives, they can always say, I played varsity basketball in the Chicago Catholic League.

I told that to my son some years ago. He rolled his eyes. But I suspect he will take some pride in years to come for having played varsity football and basketball in the Chicago Catholic League.

St. Andrew's or Saint Andrew?

Wait. Is it St. Andrew’s or Saint Andrew?

This morning Mark Brown’s column in the Sun-Times raises this age-old question and throws it squarely into the newspaper for all to ponder and debate. (I have the app on my phone. The last time I actually bought a paper copy of the newspaper was when it published a photo I took at a Lane Tech basketball game. But I digress.) Okay, maybe it’s just me who thinks about this St. Andrew’s v. Saint Andrew question. But that’s the point of this blog. (Again, I digress. Twice in the in the same paragraph. Enough already.)

Mark Brown’s column this morning features his heartwarming tale about ditching his out-of-town friends in order to attend a fish fry at Chicago’s “St. Andrew’s” Catholic Church at Addison and Paulina with his charming and lovely wife.

You see, St. Andrew’s is the next parish over from my parish, St. Benedict at Irving and Leavitt. But its more than that. St. Andrew’s has always been something of rival for St. Benedict. I am not proud of this but, at times, St. Andrew’s has not been spoken of in the most charitable terms.

In my mind at least, that was mostly because St. Andrew’s has excellent basketball teams that usually vanquished our beloved Bengals and often did so with the conference championship on the line.

And there was that time when my friend Robert was politely asked to either shut up or leave the gym when he argued a referee’s call a little too loudly, and repeatedly. Robert deserved it so I guess so I can’t hold it against a whole Catholic church community but they did hire the bad ref making calls in St. Andrew’s favor. Just saying.

Plus, and this is more of an unspoken thing. At one time, St. Andrew’s was more of lace curtain Irish kind of place. I come from an Irish family in the German parish. It’s not that way anymore, but I learned that perception my parents, my father really. He grew up in St. Benedict in the early part of the last century and for some reason that attitude printed on me.

I understand there was a time when St. Benedict were predominantly German and St. Andrew was largely Irish. St. Benedict had German pastors and St. Andrew’s had Irish ones. (Although interestingly, the one-time German pastor of St. Benedict, Fr. Bob Heidenriech, was born and raised in St. Andrew’s. Go figure. Again I digress.) St. Andrew has always been a little fancier—lacy curtain Irish rather than the working class, policeman/bus driver kind of Irish in my German parish.

But that’s not true so much anymore. St. Benedict is plenty fancy. I don’t know how many Irish policemen live in the neighborhood anymore but I bet one can count them on one hand. I only know one.

It was only a few years ago that I learned that St. Andrew’s name is actually Saint Andrew Catholic Church. No apostrophe and no “s.” As long as I can remember it’s been St. Andrew’s. It seems Mark Brown thinks so too and wrote it that way in the paper.

I am guessing it’s a “Jewels” v. “Jewel” Chicago-speak kind of thing. It’s just something one says for no apparent reason. As far as I know, the proper name of the place has always been Saint Andrew.

St. Benedict has always been “St. Ben’s” or just “Ben’s.” Kind of a shorthand. Not sure that applies to St. Andrew’s. I don’t recall anybody ever calling it “Andrew’s” or “Andrew.” It’s always been St. Andrew’s.

I had to give up my hard feelings almost a decade ago when Saint Andrew joined the 47th Ward with the 2011 map. I can’t be thinking poorly of a parish in the Ward. That can’t be good politics.

Plus, and more importantly, it’s not right to harbor ill feeling toward our fellow Catholics simply because my St. Benedict teams have suffered humiliating defeat after humiliating defeat wrought by the merciless hands of grade school kids. I mean I don’t feel that way about Queen of Angels or St. Mathias. They are wonderful people, worthy of love and respect. We must keep telling ourselves that no matter how many defeats we suffer. It is the Christian way. And this is lent after all.

So it’s Saint Andrew Catholic Church. And I’m okay with that.

I wonder if Mark Brown has any idea of the St. Andrew’s/Saint Andrew divide. But probably he does, he wrote St. Andrew’s all over the paper.

Took a Week Off

I didn’t shoot any football games last weekend nor any tonight (Oct. 12, 2018) evening even though there were plenty of games. I know there are only nine games in the high school regular season but I just wasn’t feeling it.

Last week was all messed up because of the game cancellations and the weather related early starts. I planned to go to the Nazareth v. Marist game but it started early and I couldn’t get there in time.

I am not all that broken up about missed a week. I needed a little time off. My photos haven’t been anything special lately. I have just been going to through the motions trying to quickly publish some shots on Twitter and get a lot of impressions. That distraction might be necessary but it doesn’t make for getting great shots.

I didn’t shot any games tonight, well frankly, because I was too tired. I had a long stressful work week. I went out for sushi instead with Mary and had a wonderful time. We talked.

I am going to shoot the DePaul Prep game tomorrow with no tweeting—well maybe a little. But I am going to concentrate on good shots.

No photos in this post.