Phillies fans gave local product Mike Trout a warm welcome home
Last night in the top of the 1st inning with the Los Angeles Angels batting against the hometown Philadelphia Phillies, the notoriously tough on the opposition Philly crowd did something highly unusual.
As the opponent batter was announced and stepped towards home plate, the crowd rose together as one and gave the handsome young kid in the visiting uniform a rousing standing ovation. There is no doubt that the kid got goosebumps.
The reason that this Phillies crowd was giving the young Angels centerfielder such an unusually warm reception goes beyond the uniform that he is currently wearing. The reception was because of who he is in particular. The player in question was Mike Trout, and the reason for the ovation was that he is a rarity in pro sports circles - he is one of us.
But Mike Trout didn't just cheer, he also played the game, and he played it very well. During high school, like many of the best athletes in the game at that stage, Trout was not an outfielder. He pitched and played shortstop, and even tossed a no-hitter during his junior year in a game against Egg Harbor Township.
I am a proud Republican, and more than that, a proud Conservative, which I happily type with a capital 'C' in front.
I do not support every plank that the Republican Party puts forth, nor do I support every politician that takes up the 'Red' banner.
Those who get my vote, such as George W. Bush, sometimes only get it because they are better than lousy liberal alternatives.
I am also a proud father and grandfather of three beautiful daughters and a wonderful granddaughter, the husband of a loving wife, and a brother-in-law, cousin, uncle, nephew, co-worker, neighbor, and friend to many outstanding women.
All that prefaces my position now in full support of a bill (HR3) put forth by New Jersey's outstanding congressman Chris Smith that would essentially end any taxpayer funding of abortions, as well as any tax breaks for health insurance that covers the same.
The usual suspects in the liberal community, from the radical fringe such as MoveOn, to the agenda-driven Planned Parenthood, to supposedly mainstream Democrats looking to protect their political power, are predictably against this legislative initiative.
However, as usual, they don't stop at simply voicing common sense opposition in a debate of ideas. Instead they have stooped to tactics such as using code words, spreading divisiveness, and misinterpretation.
The tactic chosen to oppose the anti-abortion legislation, or as those of us firmly on the side of right and good choose to call it, the pro-life legislation, is incredibly and intentionally ugly. They have chosen to paint Republicans as somehow supporting, denying, or minimizing the crime of rape.
Last night the local Fox News affiliate here in Philadelphia chose to devote a large portion of their 10:00pm news program spotlighting what they call "The Pension Problem" in Philadelphia, New Jersey and other places. In calling pensions the problem, Fox misled the public and missed an opportunity to highlight the truth for tax-payers.
Once again, the local news media, this time Fox in particular, cow-towed to liberal politicians and let them off the hook for a mess that they singularly have created. But not only that, they also portrayed hard-working city and state employees as the problem, seemed to be trying to pit tax-payers against pensioners, and never once keyed on the real problem.
That real problem? Out of control spending on issues, services, and frankly outright budgetary 'pork' over decades and decades as well as regular, intentional under-funding of employee pensions. All of that going on with little to no outcry from media watchdogs.
Fox missed an opportunity when they once again identified the real problems improperly in stating that "Pensions are at the heart of budget troubles in the state of New Jersey and in the city of Philadelphia."
Pensions are not the problem, politicians are the problem. Politicians who spend money that the city's citizens simply do not have and never did have on programs that make them feel and look better.
No, I am not going to take any time whatsoever to point out any particular program or project that I feel falls into this category. I will make one simple statement, however. If any fiscal conservative individual had been put in charge, this would not have happened.
All across the United States and all across the spectrum of ideas, liberals and progressives have been attacking traditional American values for the better part of a century now. These attacks have gained momentum in recent decades thanks to persistent, pervasive, and often subversive campaigns by leftist organizations.
One of the most recent attacks came in the State of New Jersey, where a bill that would legalize same-sex marriage was being pushed through the legislature and being vocally supported by ultra-liberal Governor John Corzine. In today's editions of the Philadelphia Inquirer, Corzine actually implied that gay marriage is a "fundamental human right" and to deny it would be a violation of civil rights and liberties.
Thankfully, the New Jersey Senate did not see it that way. They voted by a solid 20-14 majority yesterday to protect marriage as solely between a man and a woman, as God intended. The vote comes on the heels both of New York's rejection of the idea and the electoral victory of Chris Christie over Corzine in November. Christie will take over the Governor's office in 10 days and had promised to veto such a measure should it have passed.
The 'gay marriage' (sic) issue is yet another in a surge of issues over these last few decades that liberals and progressives simply could not win in referendums at the ballot box, and so they have resorted to pressuring and bribing politicians, infiltrating the media, and bringing law suits in jurisdictions where the courts are known to be solidly liberal in their rulings.
Traditional Americans are beginning to both understand these threats and to grasp the seriousness of their nature when taken individually and as a whole as threats to our society. True mainstream America has begun to fight back and win. In November 2008, California passed 'Proposition 8', which put an end to court-backed gay marriages begun months earlier and recognized marriage as only between a man and a woman. Maine voters then followed suit in November of last year.
The issue, of course, is not one of whether or not some State or Commonwealth may come up with some type of civil union legislation allowing couples of the same sex to reap the same civil benefits as opposite-sex couples. The issue is the protection of a particular type of union called 'Marriage' or 'Matrimony' the basis for which was established by God Himself as being between a man and woman at the creation and which has been in existence for millenia.
If there are men out there who wish to insert their penis in another man's anus or mouth and call that a normal, loving, sexual experience with a straight face, that is their business within the privacy of their own home. But for them to foist such an idea on the rest of society as something that we should all embrace as a normal, human act to be celebrated and sanctioned under the moral umbrella of 'marriage' is ludicrous on it's face.
Marriage about morality? You bet it is. How does that jive with the legality of divorce and the practice of adultery? It doesn't, frankly. Having gone through them myself, I can tell you that divorce and annulment are serious processes that should not be entertained, supported, or granted frivolously, and that certainly have no business being celebrated. And adultery may be the dumbest and most hurtful thing in which any married person could ever engage.
The marital ceremony is about bringing together a man and a woman as one, as were Adam and Eve by God. Marriage is about a loving celebration on a daily basis between a man and woman, husband and wife, in the course of developing more fully their own relationship with one another and with God, and in attempting to build a family. If you are not a man and a woman committed to these concepts, then you shouldn't be married or entertaining the idea.
I am extremely fond of my dog, Petey. He is a good dog. Loyal, faithful, fun. We have lots of great times together. In fact, I would say that I care more about Petey than some gay people care about their partners. Should I be allowed to marry Petey? I mean, I love him, and would love to have society pay for his veterinarian bills. If I have to pay for the medical bills of some gay person's 'partner' then why shouldn't they pay for Petey's vet bills?
Once men can marry men, and women can marry women, would we move next to allowing such further obscenities to the institution of marriage as me marrying my dog, or some farmer marrying his cow, or some shepherd marrying his sheep? What about a computer programmer marrying his computer-generated, life-like, animated, 3D female character? Where does it end?
Think that is stupid, inane, ridiculous, trivial? Well that is exactly how many of us in normal society sees the idea of men marrying other men, and women marrying other women. It has nothing at all to do with hate, or fear, or discrimination against gay men or lesbians. It is about protecting a particular God-given institution and Sacrament that is meant solely to be between a man and a woman. There is no Biblical or historical basis for, or constitutional right to gay marriage.
Currently there are 39 of the 50 U.S. states already fully and specifically prohibiting gay marriage with laws modeled after or pre-dating the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, including Pennsylvania, which thankfully despite the ultra-liberalism of the Philadelphia area actually remains the most socially conservative state in the northeast region.
We can no more make a gay person straight than we can make a stone come to life. Gay people were created that way by God. It is something with which they will have to go through life dealing. We don't need to hate, we need to be compassionate. But compassion does not extend to supporting every action of an individual. It also does not mean surrendering our most cherished institutions and our God-given Sacraments to the ideology of a tiny minority.
The State Senate of New Jersey got it right yesterday when they voted to hold back the abomination of same-sex marriage. They also got it right a couple of months ago when they tossed Corzine out on his typical high-taxing, low-morality, America-hating can. Here's to hoping that Americans continue to awaken to what has been going on in our country and continues to take it back, as New Jersey may have begun.
The results of electing a Democrat to a major executive office, especially at the state and federal levels as the Governor or President, can be seen no more clearly than what is happening in the state of New Jersey.
The residents of the Garden State elected the bearded hard-core liberal Jon Corzine as their Governor back in 2005 in a virtual landslide. Corzine won by a 53-43 margin over Republican candidate Doug Forrester. This was expected, as New Jersey is generally considered to be one of the strongest Democratic Party states in the nation.
That's fine, the residents there can vote for whomever they wish. Problem is, they stick with the Democratic Party over and over and over, the Dems continue to shaft them with tax and toll increases while lessening the actual services delivered, the voters then scream and holler and wring their hands...and then they go back out the next election and vote for more Democrats! It's always amazing to me when people continue to do things that hurt them over and over again.
Now comes the news that the toll bridges connecting Philadelphia and South Jersey are going up by a full dollar beginning today. Who will be hurt the most by this? New Jersey residents, who use the bridges far more than their Philly counter-parts.
Jersey residents come across into Philly to work every day. They come across to attend sporting and cultural events at places like Lincoln Financial Field, Citizens Bank Park, the Wachovia Center, etc.
The toll increase is a de facto tax on New Jersey residents, yet another by the Democrats in charge there.
I've written before about the Wildwoods, New Jersey. But it's summer time, and you can never get enough of that Jersey shore town once the bug has bitten you.
The bride and I drove on down last week and stayed overnight at one of our favorite Wildwood Crest beachfront motels, the Olympic Island Beach Resort, and it was a fantastic little getaway as always.
Spent the first afternoon down on the beach for hours, and I can report that the water is really starting to warm up. For me, the ocean water temperature has to be around 70 degrees at a minimum to really enjoy it, and we were actually surprised that it was that warm already.
Often up in the northeast section of the country, the air temps can be hot and muggy, but the water temps remain a bit cool well into July. Not anymore, so be ready for wading into the waves if you head down now.
We soaked up a very sunny and warm afternoon just hanging on the beach, taking advantage of the umbrella rental joint. The young guy who popped in our umbrella was down for the season, staying with a bunch of friends from his Delaware County neighborhood. Ah, to be young and have nothing to do but work and hang down the shore all summer!
Apparently the officers of the unit stopped by a Hooters restaurant in order to enjoy some of those great wings. Someone snapped some racy photos of the cops posing with the Hooters girls. So what, right? Boys will be boys, after all.
Problem is, the boys in these photos were in SWAT garb, had gone to the location in their fully-equiped SWAT van, and let the girls play and pose with their equipment. Pun fully intended.
The actual incident happened about two years ago. The SWAT team had gone on a road trip to help the victims of Hurricane Katrina, and stopped by the restaurant in Alabama while on their travels.
As you can see by viewing the photos available through some of the links supplied here, the Southern Belles seemed more than happy to meet these Yankee heroes.
The story was broken earlier this week by a local investigative news reporter, and Hoboken responded by naming a new Public Safety Director who was formerly the Chief of the Hoboken Fire Department.
There is peaceful serenity in the clear blue skies and the fast-rising sun, in the swooping and squawking of the seagulls, in the clatter of bicycle tires along the boardwalk on a typical laid-back summer morning in the Wildwoods.
There is excited chaos in the colorful lights of the amusements, in the smells of the incredible variety of foods, in the dull roar of thousands of conversations taking place among the throngs along the boardwalk on a typical free-wheeling summer night in the Wildwoods.
For my family and me, and for countless others for nearly a century now, summer means “Wildwood Days”, a trip “down the shore”, where every day’s a holiday, and every night is a Saturday night.
The place is known by many names: Wildwood, the Wildwoods, Wildwood-By-The-Sea. There are the old names: Anglesea, Holly Beach, Wildwood Crest.
Today we have the three boroughs that include Wildwood, North Wildwood and the Crest. But whatever name it goes by to you and yours, the place is known by all of us as the epitome of the family summer sun and fun vacation spot.
As a boy, my family had a place on Magnolia Avenue, just about a half-block off the boardwalk, not far from the famous Groff’s Restaurant. It seemed that every night the line would form outside Groff’s for the dinner crowd, stretching all the way down Magnolia away from the boards. We had a small place, usually crowded with parents and kids, aunts and uncles and cousins, and many friends.
After a few years, a few of the aunts and uncles organized and bought a place farther away from the madness, on Leaming Avenue at the far southern end of Wildwood, about 2-3 blocks from the Crest and about five blocks from the boardwalk. It was much farther away from the action, but it was still down the shore, and the new house was bigger with a number of bedrooms and a nice sized backyard.
For most of the 1970’s and even into the 1980’s, this was the Wildwood of my youth. A family shore house filled with uncles rising early to go crabbing and then coming home and playing pinochle on the front porch, aunts cooking up those crabs and many other meals while keeping the conversations flowing on family news, and us cousins running around the house, the streets and the boards.
These guys must be nuts. In the New Jersey gubernatorial race, Republican businessman Doug Forrester and Democratic U.S. Senator Jon Corzine have already spent over $46 million between them to get elected. Can you imagine how much good these guys could do for their perspective constituents by simply agreeing to spend no more money on the campaign, and instead diverting it to programs and benefits for those constituents? And now, with the race considered a dead heat, the two will likely be spending tens of millions more in the final month. I can tell you one thing for sure, the spending of these huge sums simply to secure power is something that I find personally offensive. I cannot wait until this race is over in a few weeks, and I no longer have to look at their tired faces and hear their vitriolic TV and radio ads. In Joisey, apparently, money is growing on trees!
