Some of you were worried that the world-famous Golden Moutza of the Month award would end, now that I’ve left “the paper.”

Don’t fear, my friends, don’t fear.

Am I not a river to my people?

“The Moutza lives on!” said reader Adam Ingles. “Yia Mas!

The Golden Moutza of June awards was delayed a few days. Forgive me, but things have been just crazy around here at johnkassnews.com.  I just had to offer tribute to Kristen McQueary, my friend and former editorial page editor, in “And then there were none.”

And then Independence Day arrived, a perfect time to re-tell the story of “How to Catch Wild Pigs” which we did on The Chicago Way podcast.

Hope you had a great Independence Day, or as President Joe Biden calls it, “you know, you know, …the thing.”

The web designers at YellowBox agency were working overtime on email notification of new content for you new subscribers. It should be up and working now.

Know that tens of thousands of you have subscribed, with more coming every day. The web guys said that overwhelmed the email notification system—apparently you fried it (a good thing) — but I’m told it’s on track now and email notifications are up and running.

So, let’s Moutza!

Adam Ingles is right. And “Yia Mas” is perfect, what I say to family and my Greek friends when we raise a glass. I suppose the English translation means “Cheers,” but it’s more than that, it means “cheers for all of us.”

So, for all joining me in this great adventure in new journalism, I raise my glass of ouzo (straight, no ice) or single malt scotch if you prefer, to you.

“Yia Mas!”

A heck of a month has passed. A new one begins. Let’s get to work on the Golden Moutza of June.

“Oh Lord,” whined Marilou Wilschke, “there are so many contenders this month, just thinking about them makes my head hurt.”

We didn’t bend the knee to Xerxes at the Hot Gates. And for a thousand years, we held off the barbarians before the walls of Constantinople, buying time for the rest of Europe. We didn’t back down to Mad King George and his redcoats. And we won’t bend the knee now, Marilou. The Moutza is here to stay.

“Geez there are so many (candidates),” cried Peter V. Bella, the Cooking Cop, who, on Facebook, posts his brilliant photos of delicious food that I can’t eat. “This is effing work!”

Yes, Pete. It is work. So is writing columns for free (for now). But I like to work, and without a paycheck from “the paper” I’ll eventually have to do something for my bread.

“After all,” said Don Barzini, “we are not communists.”

You already know how this goes. Readers find me on social media at the end of the month under the sign of the Golden Moutza.

You nominate your candidates, offer a credible news link, and seal your nomination with the Magic Words, from a lusty “Nah!” (Here, take it) or simple “Feesah etho!” (Blow on it).

“Where do I start?” moaned Mary Lynn Pelzer. “Gosh, there are more choices than Baskin-Robbins!” whined Lin Strzelczyk.

Let’s Moutza.

Gwen Berry, the American who finished third in the Hammer Throw and turned her back on the National Anthem and the flag?

“Gwen Berry,” said Susan Kunz Hood. “How can you be willing to represent your country at the Olympics and turn your back on the National Anthem? Un-American? Nah!”

Or multi-national corporations with their pet politicians sucking up to China? Like that Budweiser “Go Fourth” commercial, addressing our “freedom” to drink beer after the pandemic—that most likely originated at the Wuhan Lab—and all the while Bud is busy selling beer in China?

Blow on it Bud. Feesah!

Scottie Pippen for calling Phil Jackson—the original hippie Zen coach—a racist for designing a “racist play” at the end of a game decades ago?

“Scottie Pippen for a useless and terrible shot at Jackson so long after the fact,” said Steven G. Mulligan. “He just wants some way to make himself worth talking about by playing the race card. Nah!!”

Lori Lightfoot? Or the moronic “sign lady” who caused the terrible bicycle crash at Tour de France? Is she competing with “Florida Man” for idiocy?

Nah!

Or Chicago’s police superintendent channeling “The Charge of the Light Brigade,” as the city is overwhelmed by violent crime and the political class congratulates itself on Jean Point Baptiste DuSable Lake Shore Drive?

Gary Radville nominated “the sign lady” at the Tour de France. She walked out onto the track waving a sign which said “Go Grandma and Grandpa” in French and German and created the crash.

“Then she flees the country under the threat of lawsuit. Nah!” Radville said.

She was arrested after a manhunt.

“Oh, I agree with my hubby that the lady really goofed,” said Lisa Radville.

And I agree with you Lisa.

Tour de France Sign Lady? Feesah etho. Blow on it.

Most of you demanded the Golden Moutza of June be awarded to “the paper.” And my answer to that?

No. Sorry, but no.

There are still good journalists there. I wish them well. Newspapers are important to the life of a city.

But the woke liberal bosses of the newspaper union didn’t like my politics. They defamed me last year and wanted me out. So now I’m out. You’ve come with me.

Hope they enjoy themselves.

I have written that I didn’t leave “the paper,” but “the paper” left me. But now a few deranged Jacobin trolls are barking that I slammed ‘the paper’ on the way out. I hear a few little barking dog.

Bark little doggies. Bark.

They’re full of (nonsense). I gave most of my life and heart to ‘the paper. ’Yet they cling to their deranged theories to cover their own backsides. I won’t waste a Moutza on them.

If you really want to make a statement, don’t be a chumbolone. Do it The Chicago Way. Don’t demand the Golden Moutza for “the paper.”

Subscribe to johnkassnews.com

And please tell your friends and family to subscribe and join us on the great adventure.

In the meantime, can we get back to the Moutza of the Month?

“Lori Lightfoot hands down,” said Renee Simkus of the unbearable lightness of Lori. “But can you just give her permanent Moutza status so we can nominate other idiots?”

She’s working hard to be inducted into the Moutza Hall of Fame.

Reader John Thompson nominated me:

“John Kass, you get the nomination for not going out on your own sooner.”

Sorry, Mr. Thompson, but I already gave at the office.

Nadine Scodro nominates the entire Chicago political class for spending so much energy renaming Lake Shore Drive for Jean Baptiste Point DuSable Lake Shore Drive, for the first non-native founder, even as violent crime is out of control in Chicago.

“While people are dragged and murdered from their car, stabbed in broad daylight, shooting at others like they’re in a shooting range? NAH!”

Not to mention that Chicago has the honor of now having three sitting aldermen under indictment. And former Ald. Danny “I like Asian” Solis was on a federal wire for years, although things must have been tricky for him at the massage parlors.

But why stop at the Drive? As far as I’m concerned, why not change the name of Chicago and call it DuSable, and name everything in it after him too?

The DuSable Arlington Heights Bears, the University of DuSable, the DuSable Museum of Fine Arts, DuSable City Hall, the DuSable Museum of Science and Industry, the DuSable Sox and DuSable Cubs.

Thick crust DuSable pizza, DuSable hot dogs.

Happy now?

Will that put a stop to all their pathetic virtue signaling as they play symbolic politics, while people are gunned down in the city’s street gang wars, as the city’s public schools continue to fail low-income children, as taxpayers flee?

And what about the one person forgotten in all this?

DuSable’s long-suffering wife, Kitihawa?

Where’s the “equity” for Kitihawa? Doesn’t she deserve recognition, too?

How about the Magnificent Kitihawa Mile or the Kitihawa Sears/Willis Tower?

Forget Kitihawa? Nah!

“The city council and mayor for spending time, effort and money they don’t have on things they don’t matter. Nah!” said Janet Klinger-Scalatine.

Yes.

I’ve consulted the sacred Moutzatution on the matter. There must only be one winner. But there is an “emergency clause” allowing for a class on rare occasions, just as you might the Nobel Prize, but here we’re seeing a great city being strangled by ideology fused with incompetence.

And, so, this is one of those occasions.

For Chicago’s insufferable virtue signaling, preening, symbolic politics spewing leftist political class, that willfully ignores the reality staring everybody in the face, sometimes at the point of a gun.

When they speak, the donkeys break wind.

And for Mayor Queeg (look it up) and for the “progressive”, i.e., law-enforcement hating Marxist members of the council shouting “white supremacist” at white liberal aldermen who didn’t want to rename Lake Shore Drive, for chanting their Jacobin slogans while doing nothing about Chicago’s street gang wars.

The Golden Moutza of June is for you.

Feesah etho.

Blow on it.

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Copyright 2021