Random Thoughts

Is there a bigger schmuck on the planet than Adam Sandler? How does this guy do it? Makes one bad movie after another and people keep on paying to see him. Apparently, his signature comedic move is getting hit in the family jewels and then making really grimacy faces. He actually had the cohones to star in a remake of Frank Capra's "Mr. Deeds Goes to Town", originally starring Gary Cooper. That's like Tommy Sands filling in for Frank Sinatra.

Big flap in NYC over whether people who shovel out a parking space in the snow are entitled to save it by placing their garbage pails in the spot when they are not in it. Letters to the Editor of the Daily News are around 70% No, 30% Yes. Nobody owns the streets and it would be hard to justify saving a spot you had shoveled. On the other hand I'd be hard pressed to pull into a space I knew my neighbor had cleared.

Petty dictators like Hosni Mubarek should be on notice that sooner or later they will be toppled. Egypt's population in young and impatient with the old ways. They want freedom and jobs and futures for their families. Maybe other countries under the rule of despots will take heart and find the courage to do what must be done. It will unsettle this region to be sure, but it might help loosen the grip that fundamentalist Islamic clerics have on this part of the world.

There was an item in today's Staten Island Advance about Ray Larsen, a local man who was tragically killed while celebrating the New York Jets last win. After the game he went outside for a sleigh ride on the hill in front of his house. He traveled down the hill into the street into the path of a passing SUV. At a recent memorial family dinner at the Marina Cafe here in the neighborhood, the family was surprised and touched when the restaurant owner picked up the check for the 60-70 family members gathered there. "Ray was a regular here, a kind and good-hearted man" said the restaurant manager. It does my cynical heart good to read stories like this. There are still many good people in the world.

HBO ran a special on the great Sid Caesar, one of the most original and creative comedians of all time. Sid was smart enough to hire writers like Mel Brooks, Woody Allen, Larry Gelbart and Neil Simon to provide quality scripts for "Your Show of Shows" week after grueling week doing the show live...no do-overs. Its hard to believe that Sid was knocked off the air by Lawrence Welk. As middle America got television sets, they just didn't get Sid's humor, but soaked up Welk and his Champagne Music Makers. What a loss.

Every year the Super Bowl hype grows. Over 100 million watched this year's event and saw a good game between two old NFL rivals. The super audience has created a buzz for TV commercial makers. There are people who watch just for the ads, some of which have been great in past years. This year's event was disappointing, from Christina Aguilara's "Star Mangled Banner" to a crop of disappointing commercials. The mini-Darth Vader was cute but it was clearly the best of a bad lot. C'mon Mad Men, you can do better.

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Is Bigger Better?

A small hardware chain (Ace or True Value, I don't remember) aired a great radio commercial a few years ago poking fun at the big box super stores. In the commercial the poor customer, who was trying to find his way around one of these big Home Depot type places, desperately asked the indifferent store clerk where he could find a hammer. "Aisle 166" answers the clerk, "the next bus leaves in ten minutes from Housewares." That may not be the exact dialogue, but you get the idea. I can't help wonder just how big these stores can get. Is there a point of diminishing returns where size actually becomes a disadvantage? If there is, we must be close to reaching it.

Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the great selection of products and low prices in places like Home Depot, Lowes, Walmart, Stop & Shop and Ikea, but there are times when I wish they did run buses in the aisles because the item I need is always a ten minute walk away. The other issue is that sometimes you can have too many choices. I've done a lot of painting around the house and even I am constantly amazed at the specialized painting products they offer. I think they have a brush just for edging around aluminum bathroom windows! My father's entire tool and home maintenance kit fit into a large Maxwell House coffee can.

Then there is the variation in the caliber of staff in these places. When Home Depot started out, one of their selling points was that employees in each department were experts in the products sold there. And that was true in the beginning...you could be confident that that kindly looking gentleman in the orange apron could tell you anything you needed to know about tile grout. Not so any more. When you open so many stores there are just so many experts to go around. The suburban stores are pretty good, but the inner-city stores (where these chains are learning there is money to be made) draw on local kids when they hire. Now this is great for the local economy, but when you ask them a question, their eyes glaze over and they immediately start the search for somebody who knows the answer.

I think of all the mega stores, Ikea is my favorite. First of all, they don't saturate neighborhoods with stores on every other corner, so the quality of their help is usually good, inner-city stores notwithstanding. Their products are attractive, durable, and most important, especially for young couples just starting out, affordable. They cleverly display their goods in a room setting so that you can see how that sofa would look in a real home with all the finishing touches. Of course you're so impressed by what their decorators have done that you are tempted to buy the whole room, and many customers do just that. Smart people, the Swedes.

I also like their on-site cafeteria where you can get a good basic bacon and eggs breakfast for 99 cents, coffee extra. They also serve lunch and dinner for the convenience of shoppers. I had a little tiff with the Ikea store in Elizabeth, N.J. recently over having to wait in line for an hour to pick up some replacement parts only to find out they weren't in stock. I wrote a letter of course, (its what I do) and the store manager sent me an apology along with an invitation to enjoy a free dinner for two any time. Although I haven't told my wife yet, I think I'll cash in that offer for a romantic Valentine's Day dinner.

Bottom line, things go in cycles. When the big box stores over saturate the market, small store owners will look for ways to fill a niche and draw off some disgruntled customers. (Is the opposite a "gruntled" customer? Nothing to do with this blog, but words interest me.) For example a new chain called Save-a Lot offers greatly reduced prices on store brands...up to 40% over supermarket prices for comparable items. Their stores are typically 20,000 sq. ft. compared to 46,000 for the average supermarket. Fewer brands, less shelf space translates into grocery bill savings and people are responding. That's called Capitalism folks, and you know what, it works!

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The Beat Goes On

Time for another therapeutic rant...it's cold outside and I'm hot inside. Here are a couple of things I need to get off my chest:

They released a list of all fifty states showing each state's debt per capita...not the personal debts of the state's people but the amount of state debt owed per resident. Free-spending Connecticut was highest at $4900 per capita while thrifty North Dakota came in at an astounding $15 per capita. Now you can argue that there's not much to spend money on in North Dakota, but that's only part of the equation. States like Connecticut, New Jersey, Massachusetts and New York have simply lost track of the value of money and where it comes from. They whine about budget cuts forgetting that so much of their current bloated budgets are loaded with unjustifiable giveaway programs that have proliferated unchallenged for years. Maybe we should bring in the politicians from North Dakota and give them a crack at running these fiscally irresponsible Northeast state governments. I think the fat would fly.

There was an item in today's news about a Valley Stream man named Martin Heidgen, 29, who was the first drunken driver ever convicted of murder in Nassau County. His lawyer argued his client should have been charged with manslaughter, not murder, in the deaths of 7-year-old Katie Flynn and limo driver Stanley Rabinowitz after colliding with their limo. The basis for the appeal: his client was too drunk to commit murder and should be charged with the lesser crime of manslaughter. It could take the court months to come to a decision on the appeal. Heidgen is serving a sentence of 18 years to life in prison. Maybe they should release him early from jail just to give family members of the victims whose lives he took a chance to run him over.

Meanwhile, back in the courtroom, a foul-mouthed Brooklyn defendant, after being found guilty of murder during a botched robbery, promptly shot himself in the foot during his sentencing hearing. Zaire Page, 24, was hit with 107 years to life for killing Lethania Garcia and wounding four others in a brazen October 2008 Fort Greene shootout. Before getting the maximum possible sentence, Paige tried to get one last dig in at the judge, Vincent Del Giudice, telling him, "With all due respect and from the bottom of my heart, suck my d---." There's a sensible young man. I'll bet his appeal hearing will go well.

This one makes my blood run cold. Shannon Johnson, age 34, of Fort Lupton, Colorado was arraigned January 14 for her son’s death on September 20. He drowned in the tub while she was playing Cafe World on Facebook. She’s being held on a $100,000 bail for a felony charge of child abuse and knowingly or recklessly causing death. Unfortunately, it's not the first time we’ve seen a violent death related to Facebook addicts. One of the most trafficked posts of all time on Facebook: Alexandra V. Tobias, a 22-year-old from Jacksonville, Florida killed her baby for crying during a Farmville Game. I feel for these lost children, and even for their mothers when it dawns on them what they have done. People’s addiction to Facebook can have some very disturbing consequences.

Not a day goes by that a story like the ones above pops up in my morning newspaper and gets my pulse racing. I know there will always be evil, brutality, ignorance and incompetence in the world, I just wish there was less of it.

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Man Up America

There's a creature called Jabba the Hut in George Lucas' Star Wars trilogy. Jabba ia essentially a huge blob who sits around his palace waiting for his minions to bring him food, entertainment and whatever else blobs need to get by. Sometimes I think modern man is on the road to Jabba-hood. If you look around, it's no secret that as a people we are definitely tubbier than our forefathers. We eat too much, exercise too little, and generally live life vicariously in front of our 54-inch plasma TVs. Our sense of adventure has been dulled by too much technology and convenience. We're spoiled to the point where we rely on government instead of ourselves. Contrast this vision of a fat, complacent America with the remarkable lives of those who preceded us in the greatest country in the world.

It started with the American Revolution against a monarchy that abused its colonies and bled them dry. Had George Washington not achieved the impossible by beating the world-class British army with a ragtag but passionate band of patriots, we'd all be having afternoon tea about now. If those brave colonials had the attitude that prevails in the average American today, many of them would have called in sick on the day George was planning to cross the Delaware. The common man in the 1700's was pretty uncommon.

The same holds true for the 1800's. Throughout the Civil war War both sides exhibited extraordinary courage . If there were bookies around back then, any bettor foolish enough to back the South would have received pretty thin odds. But those Southern aristocrats and farm boys alike, led by Generals like Lee, Jackson, Longstreet and Jeb Stuart came within a hair of winning it all. It wasn't just toughness that set them apart but their intellect. If you saw Ken Burns' PBS series on the Civil war some years ago, and heard the letters written home by 'common' soldiers with less than a grade school education, their eloquence was astonishing. By way of comparison, ever eavesdrop on a conversation when a local high school is letting out? I rest my case.

What about standing up to Germany in World Wars I and II the way Americans of their day did? Men lied about their age or disabilities so they could get into the fight before it was over. The women left behind pitched in by holding down critical defense manufacturing jobs while holding the family together, waiting (and praying) for Daddy to come home. Nobody firebombed their draftboard or hopped the first plane to Canada, they did what their country asked of them. This in no way diminishes the brave men and women who answer their country's call today; my beef is with those who enjoy the liberties this country offers, hard won on battlefields around the world, but who are content to let others do the fighting.

Would the West ever have been won by modern-day Americans. Doubt it. America's western border would probably be Pennsylvania if it was up to us. We whine when the heated seats in our SUvs take too long to warm up. We winge about having to wait in line at airport security, but call for the heads of whoever was in charge when some terrorist lunatic breaches the defenses. When we screw something up there's a rush to find somebody else to blame it on. MAN UP AMERICA and try to be worthy successors to those who paid the ultimate price so we could sit in Starbucks and sip out Mocca Lattes in peace.

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MENSA Meeting Cancelled

My daughter recently gave me a book with clippings from her local Portland, CT paper, along with her funny comments on each story. We share an appreciation for the ridiculous things people do in life, proving once and for all that one commodity that we will always have in abundance is stupidity. I wonder what goes through people's heads just before they throw their hats into the ring for the annual Darwin Awards. Is there a thought process that can actually lead them to conclude that what they are about to do is a good idea? Do they lack that second sense that alerts most of us to the fact that skating past that "Thin Ice" sign is a poor decision? Here are a few of my favorites.

A 19-year old music student borrowed the cello of another student and then lost it. There are several actions the young man could have taken at this point to resolve the problem, but the one he chose was to stab the other student to death! Excuse me, did I miss connecting a dot somewhere. How in the wide world of sports do you go from losing someone's musical instrument to killing her? Fortunately the killing never took place. The the would-be killer fled the victim's home and deliberately tried to crash his car and kill himself. The local East Hampton Police Chief, clearly a master of understatement said: "This appears to be a unique situation." Well just in case it isn't Chief, maybe you should assign a crime code number to describe it. "Dispatch to car 54: we have a 219 in progress on Main Street (citizen threatened at knife point over missing cello). Please respond."

How about the guy who broke into a local home and was in the middle of looting it when the home owner walked in. Most of us, if placed in the situation this burglar found himself in, would mutter something like "Oh s**t, and run past the homeowner to our waiting car. This Einstein calmly walks out of the house carrying some stolen coins and continues strolling along on Middle Haddam Road until police arrive and pick him up. The burglar explained that he thought he was in a friend's house (that sounds plausible). So if I understand this, it's your friend you meant to burglarize! Police explained that there had been a string of burglaries in the area lately, and it was just the heroin addicts. Phew, I was worried there for a minute.

The Connecticut Lyme Riders, Inc. decided to host an 80-mile motorcycle ride through southeastern Connecticut as a way to raise funds for Lyme disease. Each participant and passenger was charged a fee to participate. So far, so good. Problem is the route of the ride included rest stops at The Pour House, The Lyme Tavern, Family Corner Restaurant and Ernie's place, all bars. Somehow I can't imagine a gang of bikers and their bitches sidling up to Ernie's Bar and saying: "Just club soda for us Ernie, we got a charity ride to finish." I love that these rugged souls took the time to schedule an event to raise money for a good cause. Just a suggestion here: maybe next year they should make Mothers Against Drunk Drivers the beneficiary of their efforts.

It's hard to find any definitive research on American IQ trends over the past 100 years. One study I saw on average IQ ranked the United States at number 19 in the world, behind such countries as China, Japan, South Korea, and most industrialized European countries. Just from what I see around me, I'll go out on a limb and say we're getting dumber as a country. My totally non-scientific research consists of reading stories in newspapers about the incredibly stupid things people do. I'm not talking about book learning here; our clueless educators have a solution to that problem...they just keep lowering the standards and patting themselves on the back. I'm talking about our population becoming so stupid that iron manufacturers have to put warning labels on their product cautioning users against ironing clothes while they are wearing them!

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Think You Have It Tough?

Our idea of "want" has changed over the years. Some people today feel deprived when they can't afford that third plasma TV, but it wasn't always that way. The ancestors, on whose shoulders we stand had it a lot tougher. For so many of them, "want" meant something to eat, or a coat to keep them warm. Those who lived through the Great Depression knew hardships most of us can only imagine. It would have been easy for them to just throw in the towel, after all, there were few jobs to be had, and unlike today the government wasn't giving away free money as fast as they could print it. They didn't quit though, instead they tightened their belts and found a way to get by. Here are a few "Now vs. Then" comparisons to illustrate:

We get impatient when our automated central heating or air conditioning systems don't make the house comfortable fast enough. My grandfather Pasquale got up before work every morning at 3:00 AM and walked along the Long Island Railroad tracks in Brooklyn picking up coal that had fallen off the railroad cars hauling it to the freight yards. He burned what coal he was able to gather in the coal stove to heat their cold-water flat on Dean Street. Grandpa worked as a steamfitter, a laborer laying sewer pipes, and finally for the old Brooklyn Union Gas Company before using the family's meager savings to invest in his own business, a hat shop and shoeshine parlor. Not only did Pasquale make a good living for himself, but created jobs for 5 or 6 people during the worst depression this country had ever seen.

For some modern women, their $50,000 kitchen is the least used room in the house. My grandmother Caterina , in between sewing linings in coats, baked bread and pasta, bottled tomato sauce, made and preserved sausage, made her own root beer and sarsaparilla, and even home brewed beer. She was not only a talented seamstress, but also had a keen knowledge of electrical, plumbing and carpentry repairs, and could handle a paint brush better than most. Every day she made a hot lunch and carried it to my grandfather's shop on Rockaway Avenue where they ate their mid-day meal. During her "relaxation" time, she did crocheting and embroidery.

We board ships to take lavish cruises with endless meals and extravagant entertainment. If we hit a bit of rough water we are downing Dramamines and complaining to anyone who will listen. My wife's grandmother Gelsomina was also a ship's passenger when, as a girl of around 14, she was sent to America by her parents to work as a domestic for a family in Brooklyn. Sadly, her people in Italy could not support her, and so, huddled in the rough accommodations in steerage class, she made the lonely journey to a foreign land where she knew not a soul. She later married, gave birth to eleven children, and became one of that amazing generation of immigrants who helped make America great.

Gelsomina's husband Vincenzo also came to America from Italy, and worked as a ship's cook for the Merchant Marine before saving enough money to open his own candy store on Hicks Street in Brooklyn. Vincenzo did a little bootlegging during Prohibition, and like many Brooklyn candy store owners, took a few "numbers" bets on the side. As an older man, Vincenzo walked his granddaughter (my wife) to school, and she remembers him asking her to pick up discarded bus transfers from the street so that he could enjoy a free ride downtown to pick up his groceries.

I think a lot about how hard it must have been for my grandparents' generation to survive the Great Depression. I also think about their courage and resourcefulness... how, despite the lack of even basic necessities, they managed to provide for their families and helped pull the country out of its tailspin. They didn't look for a bailout or handouts, but rather pulled themselves up by their bootstraps got things done. Their motto preceeded the Nike commercial by about 80 years: "Just Do It." I didn't want this blog to be about gloom and doom but rather a tribute to the amazing men and women whose indomitable spirit lives on in us. If only a small part of their strength survives in us, I think we'll be OK.

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The Reason for the Season

Seems like Christmas has gotten (is gotten a word?) more complicated than I remember it. Saw the old Dragnet episode recently where, on Christmas Eve, Father Rojas at the Old Mission Plaza Church in Los Angeles discovers that the statue of the Infant Jesus is stolen from the crib. The statue's worth is only a few dollars, but it is of great sentimental value for the parish. Joe Friday and his partner Frank Smith promise to try to get it back before mass on Christmas Day, but this means that they have less than 24 hours to catch the thief. The detectives pursue a few leads, but come up empty. As they return to give Father Rojas the bad news, a small Mexican boy is pulling a wagon up the aisle with the statue in it. The boy had prayed for a new wagon and promised the baby Jesus the first ride if he received it.

That charming little story reminded me that, as the saying goes, Jesus is the reason for the season. It's hard to focus on the true meaning of Christmas with all the hubbub surrounding it. For example, we are now fighting what has become an annual battle over whether it's OK to wish someone a Merry Christmas, or if it's more politically correct to say Happy Holiday. Christmas Nativity scenes that adorned many public places are now banned because some intolerant morons are too tight-assed to just get in the spirit of the season and wish their fellow man (or must I say man and woman) peace and goodwill. I don't have the time or space, nor you the patience, to argue this out here. For so many years there was no problem, why all of a sudden are we under attack by the Christmas haters? It's so stupid.

Saying that Christmas has become over-commercialized is stating the obvious. We have glassy-eyed shoppers lining up, zombie like, on Thanksgiving night, when they should be home giving thanks with their families, to be the first on "Black Friday" to stampede into Walmart to buy that 60-inch television they can't afford. We have people sitting home at their computers on Cyber Monday buying stuff online to avoid the insanity in the stores. We stopped in at Saks Fifth Avenue store in Rockefeller Center while visiting the famous tree. Ladies handbags were "on sale" for $1800. There used to be three or four classic Christmas movies, but now there are dozens of holiday movies featuring untalented hacks like Adam Sandler and Vince Vaughn, none of them watchable. There was also an ill-conceived remake of Miracle on 34th Street... please, make them stop.

Don't get the impression that I don't love Christmas, I do, it's just all the baggage that distracts us from remembering that over 2,000 years ago, in a town called Bethlehem, a child was born who was destined to change the world. I want to feel Christmas in my heart the way I did when, as a boy, I stood in the choir loft at Our Lady of Lourdes Church in Brooklyn and sang these words:


O little town of Bethlehem
How still we see thee lie
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep
The silent stars go by

Yet in thy dark streets shineth
The everlasting Light
The hopes and fears of all the years
Are met in thee tonight.


Merry Christmas to all (3) my faithful readers. May the joy and peace of the Infant Jesus fill your heart in this blessed season.

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Do Not Go Gentle....

The other day I was watching a golf tournament and they mentioned that the tournament director, a great guy, had recently passed away at the age of 75. I thought to myself, well that's not bad, he certainly had a full life. Then it hit me...the guy was six years older than I am! Whoa, when did this happen? How can I be staring 70 in the face? It seems like yesterday that I was drinking and partying. Wait, that was yesterday! But I'm getting off the track.


I've written here before about the joys of getting older, but it's the gift that keeps on giving. Last week I skipped not one but two days of my maintenance medication because my routine changed a little. Older people rely on routine to help them remember stuff they are supposed to do like taking pills. I have this little pill box marked with the days of the week so I'll know if I took my pills on a given day. Trouble is by the time I realize that I've skipped a dose it's already too late. I didn't know where else to put the freaking pill box so that I will see it each morning, but then a solution presented itself.

I feel sorry for my poor wife, who by the way shows no signs of aging or slowing down. She never sits, and it's all I can do to lift my legs while she Swiffs under me. She pushes me to not sit at the computer all day and to move around instead. We walk every day, take vitamins, and she works so hard to cook healthy, but I feel like I'm losing ground. She's probably looking ahead to the day when that big sausage and egg breakfast turns out to be my last, and she can find someone in better shape who looks even a little like Johnny Depp. It would be hard for her to leave me before then though, because I'm deaf enough not to hear her dump me, and even if I do, I probably won't remember.

I've also become a major crank, and that's not fair to those around me, especially my wife. In the past few days here are some of the petty things that I've allowed to annoy me: my morning newspaper being delivered late; a new roll of gift wrap paper that barely goes around the cardboard tube once; double-parked cars, a permanent pet-peeve; morbidly sentimental e-mails with pictures of puppies and kittens, not only asking me to read them but to annoy 20 other people by passing them on; people in front of me in the return line who bring back merchandise to stores looking as if it came out of a trash compactor, and then taking up my valuable time trying to convince the skeptical clerk that it came that way in the box.

There's more....telemarketers who cold-call trying to sell me stuff, and who add insult to injury by feigning interest in me with rehearsed small talk: "Hey, those Jets are having quite a season, huh?"; I ordered an art print for my daughter and it arrived in a crushed, wet tube. I complained to the sender that if the print did not dry with no damage, I'd expect a replacement. They kindly responded with an apology saying they were shipping another copy and to keep the first print. Now I'm annoyed 'cause I feel guilty for complaining; my gardener applies powdered lime a couple of times a year as a fertilizer...maybe applies is too precise a word...actually he flings it into the wind, covering everything but the grass and bushes; did I mention double parking?

Now you have some idea of what my wife puts up with. There was an award-winning TV show on CBS Playhouse in 1967 (I looked it up) staring Melvyn Douglas and Shirley Booth who played an older couple fighting to maintain their dignity in the face of physical decline. The title of the show is from a poem of the same name by Dylan Thomas, who wrote it to convince his father, grown weak and frail with old age, to fight against imminent death. Here's the first stanza: "Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rage at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light."

Alright already, I'm raging. (Did I mention double parking?)

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Enough is Enough!

Time for a serious rant. Americans are becoming weak. Slowly but surely the social and political tamperers have taken all the spirit out of us. Surviving members of the "Greatest Generation" who made incalculable sacrifices to keep this country free must be shaking their heads wondering why they bothered. Politicians with real vision and courage like Harry Truman, Ronald Reagan and the great reformer Fiorello LaGuardia are pacing up in the clouds wondering what the hell happened to their country. Specifics, you want specifics? Okay, here they are:

The Great Depression was the worst economic period in modern American history. It would have been easy for people to throw up their hands and surrender, waiting for the government to do something, but instead they pulled themselves up by their bootstraps and made this country roar again. Men bartered work for food to feed their families. People banded together to help one another through terrible times. Now, when hardships come, people whine and look for the government to provide. Ninety-nine weeks of unemployment insurance is not enough...they want more. There are jobs out there, maybe not the ones they feel they deserve, or they might have to work two jobs to make ends meet, but instead they'd rather take even more of other people's money. Get off your fat ass and work.!

This punk Julian Assange from Wikileaks should be stood up against a wall and shot. Besides releasing classified diplomatic documents that could harm the country, he just released a list of facilities that the government believes are critical security sites. What purpose does he serve, this accused rapist...he's like a little kid in the schoolyard chanting: "I know a secret and I'm going to teeeelll." What bothers me even more than his traitorous actions are the people who hold this schmuck up as a first-amendment hero! If the authors of the first amendment were here today to rule on what should be done to Mr. Assange, they would have the bastard drawn and quartered.

I'm tired of apologizing. I don't care if people are so sensitive about what we call them that I have to check Google every day to see what the latest politically correct term is. Lady, don't hate me for offering you my seat on the subway or not letting that door slam in your face. It's how I was raised. And don't wish me a Happy Holiday. It reminds me of how we let the minority make us feel guilty for wishing people a Merry Christmas. I don't own slaves. Nobody in my family ever owned slaves. The people who should pay reparations for slavery are dead 100 years now, so don't hand me the tab. When I go to a restaurant with you and order a steak, don't tell me how horribly the cow died or how red meat will shorten my life. Just eat that pile of whatever is on your plate and shut up.

America is becoming a country that punishes success and rewards failure. Despite the government's best efforts to redistribute my money, I won't apologize for managing, through hard work and thrift, to save a few bucks and put three kids through college. I'm not sorry for having a little nest egg that my wife and I earned by getting our college degrees at night and working our tails off. What I am sorry about is that the people who are stealing my hard-earned money through wealth redistribution didn't have the ambition or the will to benefit from the same public school system we used, or the drive to start at the bottom and build a career for themselves. The American dream is still out there if you want to work for it; it's not as easy though as living off the labor of others.

And finally, I'm ashamed that our once respected (or feared if you prefer) country, the model for the rest of the world, is now reduced to playing catch-up. I was thrilled to see President Obama show some guts by sending American warships to join the Republic of South Korea in military exercises when that freaky little gnome from North Korea shelled and killed innocent civilians. Based on his track record as "The Great Apologizer" I naturally thought the Pres would apologize to North Korea for South Korean civilians having got in the way of their artillery shells and spoiling their naval drills. If Obama had been in Truman's shoes back in 1945, we might be having sushi for Thanksgiving dinner today.

We, as individuals and as a nation, have to rediscover our backbones and restore common sense to American life. When certain groups commit acts of terrorism or commit the bulk of crimes in this country, we should stop worrying about hurting their feelings and profile them for special treatment until their behavior changes. When people flout our laws and enter the country illegally demanding benefits, we should round them up and send them back where they came from. This country was built on the idea of democracy and majority rule; we need to stop letting the minority call the tune. Before we forget them entirely, let's get back to the values that built this country and made it great. Enough with the grovelling already.

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LOOKING FOR A WORTHY CHARITY? TRY THESE FOLKS: Children's Craniofacial Association