brunch with Mr. Dooley

...Also, as Mr. Dooley pointed out, "Ye are not subjict to interruptions be people who were there."

So -- who is "Mr. Dooley"?  We can figure it must be some Irish-brogue character...

The Free Encyclopedia online:

Finley Peter Dunne (July 10, 1867 - April 24, 1936) was an American humorist and writer from Chicago.  He published Mr. Dooley in Peace and War, a collection of his nationally syndicated Mr. Dooley sketches, in 1898.

The fictional Mr. Dooley expounded upon political and social issues of the day from his South Side Chicago Irish pub, and he spoke with the thick verbiage and accent of an Irish immigrant from County Roscommon. ...

Dunne's sketches became so popular and such a litmus test of public opinion that they were read each week at White House cabinet meetings....President Theodore Roosevelt was a fan, despite the fact that he was one of Dunne's favorite targets.

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Quotes -- (wit and wisdom of Mr. Dooley) --

"Trust everybody, but cut the cards."

"Comfort the afflicted, and afflict the comfortable."

"The world is not growing worse and it is not growing better -- it is just turning around as usual."

"Vice is a creature of such hideous mien . . . that the more you see it the better you like it."

"Don't jump on a man unless he is down."

"The past always looks better than it was.  It's only pleasant because it isn't here."

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"Comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable" is an expression that's been borrowed and applied in various contexts down through the years.

In a tribute to Eleanor Roosevelt, Clare Boothe Luce wrote, "Mrs. Roosevelt has done more good deeds on a bigger scale for a longer time than any woman who ever apeared on the public scene.  No woman has ever so comforted the distressed -- or so distressed the comfortable."

Several religious leaders (including one Archbishop of Canterbury) have said that to "comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable" is the goal of religion.

Social activist "Mother" Mary Jones and Appalachian political activist and attorney Larry Harless have both been quoted as saying that the "comforting-and-afflicting" is what they're here to do.

And the 1960 film Inherit the Wind contains the line, "Mr. Brady, it is the duty of a newspaper to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable."

--------------------- [excerpt, Mr. Dooley in Peace and War] --------------- Whin, lo an' behold, down th' street comes a ma-an fr'm th' country, -- a lawyer fr'm Ohio, with a gripsack in his hand.  Oh, but he's a proud man.  He's been in town long enough f'r to get out iv th' way iv th' throlley ca-ar whin th' bell rings.  He's larned not to thry an' light his see-gar at th' ilicthric light. 

He doesn't offer to pay th' ilivator ma-an f'r carryin' him upstairs.  He's got so he can pass a tall buildin' without thryin' f'r to turn a back summersault. ...[end excerpt] -- OK, "hick humor" -- only who's the bigger hick, the out-of-towner or the guy talking?  (You know you're a redneck if...) 

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