R.I.P. Michael Jackson (and Farrah)

I'm going to start this post with a plain statement: I don't believe that Michael Jackson was a pedophile at all. I don't believe that he ever had any type of inappropriate sexual relations with any child whatsoever.

And I hope that the man, who I do believe was a tortured soul thanks to a traumatic upbringing, is finally at peace now in God's glorious heaven.

Michael Jackson, the 'King of Pop' and a true American cultural icon, died yesterday at the age of 50 of what is believed to have been cardiac arrest.

Those who saw him in recent months have reported that he looked skeletal, emaciated, and unhealthy. A fan who got to watch him on Monday in training for a hoped-for comeback tour said that she thought "he could die."

Michael lived a life mixed with blessings and curses. He was blessed with phenomenal gifts in his natural talents for singing and dancing. Unfortunately, these very gifts led to the curse of his father's abuse.

The elder Jackson unmercifully whipped and beat him as a young boy in a misguided effort to push him to stardom. His father's abuse, emotional and verbal as well as physical, would reverberate through the entirety of his life.

I remember as a young boy watching television cartoons of Michael and his brothers, their singing and dancing, and hearing their songs performed as the 'Jackson Five'. Hits that he recorded both with the group and in his solo efforts in those 1970's days included "ABC", "I Want You Back", "Rockin' Robin", "Ben", "Dancin' Machine", and the gorgeous "Got to be There" as AM radio staples of my youth.

In the 1980's, Jackson's solo career truly took off into another stratosphere.

Will April's Showers Bring May Flowers?

April was a pretty rough month in any way that you want to size it up. Record spending, debt, unemployment. A major shift towards socialism by our government. Increased attacks on the sacrament of marriage by homosexuals and liberal thinkers. And then finally ending with an attack by a Swine Flu pandemic.

It's all a bit much for a normally happy soul such as mine to take in for one big reason. There is no end in sight.

President Obama was only recently elected, and just took office three months ago. He still has more than three years at a minimum in office, and if the magnitude, scope, and pace of his 'Change' continues as it has thus far it will be an agonizing three years.

One thing that I have come to appreciate over the course of these past three months is the utter joy and euphoria that Obama elicits in his followers. It makes me jealous, because frankly I have never, ever had that feeling for a President of the United States.

Forget Kennedy and Johnson, I was just a baby. As a young child, Nixon and Ford certainly were not high on my priority list. I liked Jimmy Carter at first. He spoke to my youthful desire for progressivism.

Carter was a minister and brought a certain amount of credibility and morality to the office, which was important to the country after the dishonesty of Nixon's Watergate. And he was intelligent too, a genius, at least that's the rep that the media was passing around.

But it was also Jimmy Carter who began to ruin things for my early liberalism.

Turkey Tails

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day here in America, and at some point in the morning my wife Debbie will awake and unpack our turkey for the traditional dinner.

At some time tomorrow afternoon she is scheduled to slide the nice 17-pound Butterball out of our oven. I'll move into position with the electric carving knife, and peel off nice slices and pieces of white meat. Then I'll flip that bad boy over and go after the dark meat on the bottom.

We will then put the turkey out on our table with some veggies and fixings that will most definitely include mashed potatoes, stuffing, corn, spinach, rolls, and gravy. Then we will join my daughter Kelly and her boyfriend Jay in digging in to the annual feast.

Ours will be a relatively small dinner, but there will be many around our town, region, and nation that will be much larger. Families will gather from far and near, taking days off from work, returning from school, going back home for the holiday.

At the vast majority of these dinner tables, the turkey will be the featured attraction. But why? Where did this all start? Why turkey and not roast beef, or pork chops, or spaghetti (no, my South Philly Italian friends, your pasta course does not count.)

Turkey is the main dish at Thanksgiving, what we all look forward to so much on this particular day that we don't have this dinner much, if at all, at other times during the year.

The turkey was a wild bird original to North America, native to the eastern United States and northern Mexico.

R.I.P. Tony Snow

There is plenty of coverage across the Internet and on television news programs on the death of Tony Snow, but to just let it pass without an entry here would be wrong. Tony Snow was that rare modern-day newsman who was accepted and respected by the mainstream media even though he did not subscribe to their usual liberal school of thought. Born in 1955 in Kentucky, Snow was raised in Cincinnati by his father, a school principal, and his mother who died of colon cancer when Snow was just 17 years old. He graduated from Davidson College in 1977, and began work as a newspaper editor in North Carolina for The Greensboro Record in 1979. His editorial career eventually led him to take over the editorial page at the prestigious The Washington Times from 1987-1991. Throughout the 1990's he worked as a regular columnist at USA Today, made numerous television news appearances, and also was syndicated to over 200 newspapers throughout the country. He took a sabbatical from 1991-1993 to work in the administration of President George H.W. Bush as a speech writer and media assistant. In the mid-90's, Snow took over as the regular substitute host for The Rush Limbaugh Show on radio, and in 2003 began The Tony Snow Show on Fox News radio. Snow had become one of the leading conservative voices in America, making numerous Fox News appearances and often substituting on television for Bill O'Reilly, but his professionalism and fairness gained him the respect from both sides of the aisle in Washington and from his media colleagues across the ideological spectrum. In April of 2006, Tony Snow was named as the new White House Press Secretary, the main face and voice of the administration of President George W. Bush, a position that he held until being overwhelmed by the same colon cancer that had taken the life of his mother 35 years earlier, that would eventually take his life yesterday. Tony was an avid musician who played the flute, trombone, piccolo, accordion, saxophone, and guitar. He was a part of a cover band called Beats Workin' and got to play publicly with members of Jethro Tull, the Doobie Brothers, and Steely Dan. Tony Snow is survived by his wife of 21 years, Jill Ellen Walker, two daughters and a son. Not many come along like Tony Snow, who combine class, intelligence, humor, and a general overall good-natured demeanor that comes through no matter what your opinions of his political views. During a time of severe political partisanship in America, the loss of men like Snow and Tim Russert, who passed away a few weeks ago, is a serious blow to American journalism, and a loss for us all.

Finding the 'Right' Way

Embed from Getty Images

Gingrich (L) and the Contract With America led to my vote for Dole (R) in 1996

On a brisk November morning back in 1996, I walked into a polling place located inside the H.A. Brown elementary school in the Kensington section of Philadelphia, signed my name in the register, and walked into the voting booth.

Though I was about to turn 33 years of age in just a few weeks, I was about to experience a first in my life.

As I pulled the handle and the curtain closed behind me, I faced the list of elective offices on the ballot, including that of the President of the United States of America, and searched the list for the one name that I was looking for above all others.

When I found the name of Bob Dole, I pulled over the small lever next to his name, forcing an ‘x’ mark into a tiny window, signifying that he would receive my vote. I pulled the handle back and locked in my first-ever vote for a Republican candidate for President of the United States, marking the beginning of a new era in my life.

It was the first time that I voted the Right Way.