Nigger: Just a Word, or Something More?

A Philadelphia Police Officer is in some hot water today thanks to racial comments he made while escorting a college student journalist. It brings to the fore a legitimate question: are words such as 'nigger', 'spic', 'gook', 'harp', 'nip', 'chink', 'fag' or 'gook' simply that, words, or are they more? I've heard this argument made any number of times, that these are just words, and if people are going to keep getting offended by words like 'nigger' then they are setting themselves up for a lifetime of taking offense. True enough in that any discussion on this issue, be it in the local newspapers, at the office water cooler, in an interview room at a police facility, on the internet, or in the halls of Congress or the United Nations is not going to change people's habits. It is not going to stop people from using these words, either in their most benign sense or their most derogatory. I have also heard the argument made that questions why, for instance, black people are so offended by the word 'nigger' when it is uttered by a white man or anyone from any other race, and yet they toss it around with ease among one another. 'Yo, he my nigger' or 'You one stupid nigger' or many other usages too numerous to mention come to mind. I have heard black people use these exact phrases among one another without anyone taking offense and without an eyebrow raised. For a long time in my life, I just didn't get it either. I thought that it was just another way for a black person to try to gain sympathy, to feign victimization by the white man, to play the race card. If I tried to list for you how many times in my life that I was called 'honkey' or 'whitey' or 'white boy' or 'cracker' or 'mick', it would fill a book. If I listed for you how many times those words offended me when used towards me, you could count those times on one hand. So I just didn't get it. Then one day about a dozen years or so ago I was involved in a conversation about this very topic with a fellow police officer who happened to be black. At the end of the conversation, I said to him "So your people can toss that word around all you want, can call one another 'nigger', can use it any way you want, but if I call you a 'nigger', that's wrong and you're offended?" His simple one-word response: "Exactly." Why it took a smart fella like me three decades of his life to understand a simple concept that was summed up by this cop's one word answer is fodder for another entire article. But the simple idea is this: some words offend people of ethnic, racial, or sexual groups. Period. They just do. And the fact is that those of us who may not be in their particular group will never, ever understand the emotions behind those feelings. But we don't need to understand the raw emotions. All we need to know is that these words offend, and so we should refrain from using them in most circumstances. So does that mean that we can never, ever use pejorative terms or slang words? No, of course not. Everything has its place. For instance, so far in this article I have used the word 'nigger' nine times, counting the headline and that last mention in this sentence. Using any word in a legitimate intellectual discussion is appropriate. There has been a major copout in today's society where people from Oprah to Obama use the phrase 'the N word' in public, but then aren't afraid to use 'nigger' in private conversations. Failing to use the word itself in an intellectual discussion helps to raise the word above it's meaning. It is the meaning that lies behind the word when used in a derogatory sense that releases its true negative emotional responses. This is particularly so when it is uttered by a member of one group that has historically been in a position of power and influence against some member of a group that has been historically deprived of that power. Now just because of my own personal enlightenment, don't take that to mean that I have never used the word 'nigger' in conversation, I have. And so has almost every single person who is reading this article: cop, lawyer, judge, politician, factory worker, businessman, whatever. It is one of the reasons that we all knew instinctively that Mark Fuhrmann was lying in the O.J. Simpson case. The man is a big city police detective and was asked if he ever used the word 'nigger', and replied that he had not. You might as well have painted a huge word 'LIAR' across his forehead in capital letters after that. He could have been, and probably was, telling the truth about most every other aspect of the case and his involvement. But no one was going to believe him after this point, particularly after the defense made a concerted effort to prove that he had lied about this issue. One thing that I can say for sure is that I have never used that word directly towards any black person, or in the presence of any black people, in any derogatory way. Even if I felt that I was in the presence of someone that I felt comfortable with and had no fear that they would take offense, I wouldn't use that word in that way simply out of respect. Now understand this, most cops are very comfortable around other cops. That thing about being white, black or yellow, but when the uniform is on we are all blue? That isn't just talk most of the time, that is how most cops genuinely feel. We toss around racial and sexual and other slang phrases and profanities among one another that would make a sailor blush. But we also know our place. We know when we are among friends, when we can let our hair down, and can toss around the bullshit without having to worry about anyone taking offense. The officer in the particular case that has broken in the local news was not among friends, and should have known better. He was driving a reporter around with him who was doing street-level research for a story that she was going to write. Was he trying to impress her in some way by acting tough and hard and macho? Who knows. Who cares. The fact is that this young rookie cop was stupid to make those comments to anyone, let alone a college journalism student writing for her newspaper. Now some would say that this officer should be off the police force simply for having those feelings. I disagree. We all bring a wide variety of personal experiences and backgrounds to this job. None of us can help the way that we were raised, what we were exposed to, or what was our 'normal' for a couple of decades before we ever considered police work as a profession. What we can do, however, is grow, mature, and learn how to set aside any personal prejudices and perform a professional job for all citizens, regardless of any background of theirs which may be different from our own. The young officer in question works in a tough area of North Philly, an area where he is exposed to a great deal of crime, hurt, pain, and even death on a daily basis. It is an area that is mostly black, and where most of the murder, drug dealing, and crime is perpetrated by blacks against other blacks. It is not hard to become jaded by all of that. For some white people who hear about blacks feeling oppressed by the 'man' or the 'system', that is a hard pill to swallow, that blacks in these areas expect more from us than they do of their neighbors. But they, and I believe the officer in this case, have it all wrong. Most of the people in that area are not bad people. They don't deal or use drugs. They don't rob folks. They don't expect more from white people, or the system, or the man, than they do from their neighbors. They expect their neighbors to treat them with courtesy and respect and perhaps even affection, and they have a right to expect these things. As always, it is the few who make it difficult for the many in these neighborhoods. There just happen to be more of those 'few' in that particular neighborhood for any number of reasons that are not the fault of those 'many'. So to white people everywhere, get it for once. You can't call a black person a 'nigger' at all. You can't use the term 'niggers' in regards to black people in any public discussion or forum where the term is being used in a derogatory manner. It doesn't matter how many times blacks use it among themselves, it is simply different, and you need to understand and respect that as a simple fact. The same goes for any other derogatory slang word for any other group as well. Words like 'nigger' are not just words, they are indeed something more.

Islamism Series: Back to Afghanistan

For a land-locked nation that is basically a pile of rock and sand, Afghanistan holds some serious sway in the international community. The reasons are many, but they are sometimes difficult to graps until you look more closely.

Afghanistan is bordered on the west by an Islamic nuclear-power wannabe ruled by a mad President in Iran, and on the east by the already nuclear-powered and increasingly fractious Pakistan. There is even a small slice of northeastern Afghanistan that borders up against a Communist behemoth known as China. Along its northern borders lie a trio of former Soviet states in Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan.

Its land-locked status means that it has virtually no natural water supplies. There are no seas against which it borders, no rivers running through it, no lakes in which water has gathered. In short, there is very little of the life-sustaining, not to mention economy-sustaining water that is necessary for a country and people to survive, let alone thrive.

The median age is less than 18 years, which might make you wonder where are all the adults? Many of them are simply dead, as the average life expectancy is only a little over 44 years. Because of the poor economic conditions there is a high risk of infectious diseases and wide-scale problems with other illnesses such as malaria, typhoid fever, hepatitis A, and 'bird flu' influenza strains. So why does everyone care so much about a country that is so desolate and so inhospitable? Simply because of its strategic location as a 'buffer zone'.

Afghanistan was founded in 1747 when Ahmad Durrani was able to organized the native Pashtun tribes into one people. For a long time it served as a buffer between the Russian and the British empires before gaining independence from Britain in 1919.

In the 1970's, the Soviets propped up a Communist government there, and then directly invaded the country in 1979 to put down rebellions from various native Afghan tribes and groups. This led to a decade-long war in which the rebels emerged victorious thanks to aid from the international community, most notably the United States (see the film 'Charlie Wilson's War'.)

In the aftermath of the Soviet-Afghan war there was continual civil war in the country, with the Taliban finally emerging with control in the mid-1990's. The population is 99% Muslim, and the Taliban demanded observance of a strict interpretation of Islamic Sharia law. They also allowed the use of Afghan territories by Osama bin Laden and his radical Islamic followers, which al Qaeda used to operate terrorist training camps.

Following 9/11, the U.S.-led coalition invaded, destroyed the terrorist camps, and drove the Taliban from power. This began a process of attempting to install a democratic government and elected leadership, which ultimately led to the current democratically-elected government of Hamid Karzai (pictured). Many felt that the U.S. lost focus from this important rebuilding program when it switched gears and invaded Iraq.

With the Afghan situation appearing under control, President Bush redeployed many American forces to topple the regime of dictator Sadaam Hussein in Iraq. As noble as removing the evil Hussein from power may have been, it did allow the Taliban to begin slowly regrouping and regaining some influence in Afghanistan.

The new American President Barack Obama inherited both the Iraq and Afghanistan situations when he took office. It is his position that Iraqi defense forces and the Iraqi government are becoming strong enough that they will soon be able to stand on their own, and is planning to slowly draw down U.S. presence in that area. At the same time he plans to increase the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan.

There is an upcoming international conference on Afghanistan that will take place at The Hague and which will be attended by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton along with leaders from all of the world nations having a stake in Afghanistan's short and long term future.

With both the historical and current instability in that region of the world, and with their significant strategic locations, successful democracies in both Iraq and Afghanistan are worthy and important efforts. The Afghans absolutely need and deserve more U.S. support, not just military but also economic and in other areas. But the Iraqis cannot be abandoned to fend for themselves to the point where the loss of 4,000 American lives over a half decade ends up being for nothing.


President Obama is basically taking us back to Afghanistan, and that is a good and necessary thing. But at the same time we need to be very careful in the process of drawing down in Iraq. In the 'big tent' meeting at The Hague, two groups with a stake in Afghanistan's future which will not be represented are the Taliban and al Qaeda. But the groups who do meet should not forget their presence or their interest.

Radical Islamic forces are still fighting in both countries to undermine the American-led efforts, convinced that if they just wait us out we will eventually retreat to our own homeland and leave these Middle East countries with little defense against their continuing Jihad.

NOTE: This is a continuation of the Islam Series, all items of which can be read by clicking the below label of that name.

Conquering Fear

Just one week until Palm Sunday, and just two until the glory of Easter Sunday. For those Christians who go to church next weekend and receive their palm branches, do you know what it is that they are supposed to help you recall and what they represent? The palm branches are representative of those waved by the adoring crowds at Jesus Christ during his triumphant entry into the city of Jerusalem in the days prior to his arrest, persecution, sacrificial death, and His rising from the tomb. Before any of these events had taken place, there was a true sense of excitement and urgency among many of the people as the sacred occassion of the Passover approached. The Passover itself is the perhaps the single most important event on the Jewish calendar. It is a rememberance of the night that God struck down the first-born of Egypt in a show of power that led directly to the deliverance of the Jewish people out of the bondage of centuries of slavery. As the angel of death moved about the nation taking the lives of those Egyptian first-born, it passed over those houses whose doors were marked with blood, a sign that God had told Moses to pass along among his chosen people so that they might be distinguished and saved. It became a great custom among the Jews to travel to the great city of Jerusalem in order to celebrate this day, and in fact an entire great festival had been set up around the feast. As the time came, many wondered whether Christ would even show up in Jerusalem at all. It was well known among the people that the chief priests and the Pharisees had given orders that if anyone knew where he was, that person should inform them, so that they could place Jesus under arrest. Jesus had been involved in his public ministry for a couple of years at this point, and his teachings and reputation had grown so strong among the people that the traditional Jewish leaders felt severely threatened. There was talk that Jesus was going to become a king, and was going to establish a new kingdom, something directly threatening to the power of the Jewish leaders, but which would also possibly bring the wrath of the Roman empire down on them should these events leak out. The Jewish leaders wanted greatly to eliminate the threat which they believed Jesus was becoming, either by debunking him or, if necessary, killing him. The final straw came when Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, a feat that overwhelmed even those who had already seen Christ perform any number of miracles in the previous months. The scribes and Pharisees saw the swelling numbers and the passion of his following, and plotted to eliminate him as a threat. This word reached Jesus and his disciples, and they went 'underground', no longer moving about in public. So as the Passover feast arrived, the people wondered whether Jesus and his followers would indeed challenge the authorities and come out in public. They got their answer in a big way. Not only did Jesus arrive at Jerusalem, but he arrived in the manner that had been foretold for centuries by the prophets, entering the city while riding on an ass and through the city gate that had also been prophesied. The great crowd which had already begun gathering for the Passover celebrations heard that Jesus was arriving, and they rushed out to meet him, waving palm branches as he passed them. The palm branch was the traditional item used to hail the arrival of a conquering hero from a triumphant battle, and this was how many of the people were beginning to view Jesus. His message of love and peace was taking root. His message of conquering fear and even death itself was spreading like wildfire. The Bible says that one of the Pharisees on seeing this outbreak of affection said to the others "You see that you are gaining nothing. Look, the world has gone after him." This is how large and emotional and affectionate the crowds were as they jubilantly waved their palm branches at him and shouted among one another "Hosanna!" which meant "Oh Lord, grant salvation!", a true sign of how they viewed Jesus. Just after Christ entered into the city a group of Greeks came wishing an audience with him, and to them he spoke plainly: "Now is the time of judgment on this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out. And when I am lifted up from the earth, I will draw everyone to myself." The message was clear to all. Jesus was a wanted man in the eyes of the authorities, a threat to their rule, and perhaps a threat to the entire Jewish nation if the Romans found out about his coming 'new kingdom'. But he entered into the great city not through a back door, but through the front gates in a manner indicating that he was the Messiah, the promised Savior, the coming new king. He entered publicly, and on entering he proclaimed that the current ruler would be driven out. He showed no fear. He had conquered fear, he had raised a man from the dead, and in just a matter of days he would rise and conquer death itself. Many among even the ranks of the authorities began to believe in him, but because of the Pharisees they did not acknowledge it openly for fear of being expelled from the synagogue. They preferred human praise to the glory of God. It is the overcoming of this worldly fear that Jesus Christ showed in his triumphant entry in Jerusalem. It is the overcoming of this fear to which he calls us all. You should not fear shame in publicly declaring your Christianity, in publicly celebrating your belief, and in publicly calling others to salvation in Christ. Conquer your fear as Christ conquered it, directly and loudly and openly, and envision the palms waving around you in triumph as you receive them next weekend.

AIDS: Serious Problem Requiring Serious Solution

In July of 2008, the World Health Organization in conjunction with the United Nations released a report which stated that approximately 33 million people worldwide were living with HIV/AIDS. With a world population of over 6 billion people, that means the percentage of human beings with this illness is about .0055 of the total world population. In other words, while we may be talking about a lot of people, we are not talking about a significant number. Better than 99% of the people on earth do not have this illness, and there is a reason for that. The reason is that it is spread in its greatest numbers by far through irresponsible sexual practices, and the greatest number of those by far in the advanced world come through homosexual practices. By far the highest numbers of AIDS cases in the world can be seen in sub-Saharan Africa, that area of Africa below the Sahara desert, where approximately 2/3 of all the cases on earth can be found. It is highly likely that this area of the world is where the AIDS virus first found its way into the human population. There are serious problems in this part of the world largely attributable to poverty and a lack of education, which themselves are perpetuated by the autocratic and despotic governments. At the individual and familial level the results are involving shortcomings in personal hygeine and the overall lack of cleanliness, combined with the social problems of acceptance of multiple sexual partners at any one time. In short, AIDS came out of Africa and remains at its strongest there, and around the rest of the world it has spread largely due to irresponsible and deviant sexual practices. Anyone who tells you anything else is simply perpetrating a fraud on you. Is it possible to get the AIDS virus from a bad blood transfusion or some freak exchange of bodily fluids? Sure, but that possibility is extremely low so as to not be nothing more than a smoke-screen when discussing the best ways to attack the spread of AIDS and to begin putting it into reverse. This past week, Pope Benedict visited the African continent in a tremendously successful mission to his flock. Catholicism and an acceptance of Jesus Christ in general is growing on the Dark Continent, and the Pope went to personally deliver Christ's message of love to these people knowing that Christianity can inspire hope there as it has the world over. On the flight to Africa, the Pope was asked about the AIDS problem and specifically the Church's position that condoms are not the answer. There are many around the world who scoff at this assertion, and who truly believe that condoms save lives. These people either do not understand the position of the Church on this matter, or do not care. The Pope reiterated his position on the flight, saying that distributing condoms was "not the answer to the problem of AIDS", and that instead the best strategy is the Church's efforts to promote "sexual responsibility through abstinence and monogamy." Kudos to the Holy Father for so succinctly expressing simple, basic truth. The usual array of European nations and homosexual groups fired back at the Pope, but the truth is that the world needs to follow this simple, straitforward, moral message. A message that will, if followed, in fact work as a realistic solution. Let's try on this hypothetical, just for arguments sake. Every homsexual male on earth stops having sexual intercourse with a member of the same sex. Every human being on earth who is diagnosed with the AIDS virus stops having sex completely. And finally, every human being on earth decides to commit to a normal, healthy, monogamistic relationship for child-bearing and family-building purposes, if in fact they decide to have any sexual relationship at all. Now pardon me if I haven't run the numbers through the WHO computers, or past some expert from the U.N., or especially past the gay leadership, but my bet is that AIDS cases would eventually plummet to the point where the illness was almost a non-factor. The simple fact is that the Pope is right. The answer to AIDS is not in keeping people perpetuating the same old practices that helped spread the illness to begin with, but in educating them in the direction that God has set for them to a higher calling. Far too many of us who are not involved in an AIDS-related lifestyle fall into habits or even just the occassional incident that is immoral. If we all simply would allow ourselves to understand the beauty of the true meaning of sex, its true importance, its sacred role in our lives, then not only would the world be a better place, but it would be a more AIDS-free place. Sex was meant by God to take place in a loving and committed relationship between married persons for the purposes of procreating and sustaining a loving familial relationship between the couple. That is a lesson that it has taken me personally a long time and a few hard times to learn. But it is one that the entire world needs to learn in order to truly overcome the AIDS virus. Someone once said that serious problems require serious solutions. The bandaid of a condom is no solution at all. Pope Benedict and the Catholic Church's message of abstinence and monogamy is just that serious solution that is needed.

Conspiracy, Betrayal, Denial

We are now just three weeks away from Easter Sunday, which along with Christmas Day is the celebration of one of the two greatest events in the history of mankind. On that day of Easter we will celebrate the great victory of Jesus Christ over death, his rising from the grave into which he entered as a repentance for the sins of man. But besides that sin for which his death was payment, there was a human process of actual conspiracy and betrayal that served as the mechanization leading to his crucifixion. And near that end there were a series of denials from his most beloved and respected friend and follower. As the Bible tells it in the New Testament gospel of Luke, with the Passover festival about to begin the chief priests and scribes were looking for a way to put him to death. They feared Jesus' popularity among the people, and that many of his teachings were outside the bounds, some directly in conflict with, the tenets of the Jewish faith. The Gospel of Matthew tells that they assembled in the palace of the high priest, Caiaphas, and consulted on how best to effect his arrest and eventual execution. Their initial plan was to have this plot carried out after the festival was over, because as both Matthew and Mark tell us, they feared "a riot among the people", such was Jesus' popularity. Their plots against him came together more suddenly than they wanted because the fact is they were not in charge of things. As Luke tells it, Satan "entered into" one of Jesus' twelve disciples, Judas Iscariot, who approached the temple guards and the chief priests with an offer to betray Jesus and turn him over to them in exchange for money. When the chief priests agreed to pay him 30 pieces of silver, the conspiracy was in place, and Judas began to seek an opportunity to lead them to Jesus when there would be no crowds around to cause a disturbance. When the time came to celebrate the Passover meal, Jesus gathered with his disciples in the large upper room at the home of a Jerusalem man who was a supporter of their group. During the meal, Jesus instituted the Sacramental expression of the sharing of His body and blood. In breaking bread and passing it among his friends he said "This is my body, which will be given for you; do this in memory of me." After they ate, the Lord then took the cup of wine and said to them "This cup is the new covenant of my blood, which will be shed for you." As they further celebrated the meal, an argument broke out among them as to who was the greatest of Jesus' followers. Rather than select anyone of them, Jesus instead told them that true greatness comes not from lording it over others, but through service, saying "I am among you as the one who serves." When his closest follower and dearest friend, Simon Peter, told Jesus that he was prepared to go to prison and die for him, Jesus replied that "Before the cock crows this day, you will deny three times that you know me." He also told the twelve friends that one of them sitting among their group would betray him saying "It would be better for that man if he had never been born." As we know through history, late that very night while his followers slept in the garden at Gethsemane at the foot of the Mount of Olives, Judas saw the opportunity to turn him over. He led a group of soldiers to that location, approached Jesus, and identified him to the soldiers by kissing Jesus on the cheek. Jesus was taken into custody and brought before the Sanhedrin, the council of elders, chief priests and scribes who would begin the process of a sham legal proceeding leading to his death. While Jesus was in custody, three different times that day his friend Peter was approached and accused of being one of Jesus' followers, and all three times Peter denied that it was so, just as Jesus had foretold. As the celebrations of Easter approach we should all be reminded of these moments when the very Savior of mankind was conspired against, betrayed, and denied by his very closest friends and followers. We need to remember that while our friends and family are important, no one is beyond Satan's grasp, and no one is beyond doing the exact same thing to each of us. In the end, we hope to count on the people in our lives at the most important moments. But the fact is that in the end the only one whom we can really count on is Jesus Christ himself. He was the one who stayed faithful to us. He is the one who went to the cross so that your sins would be forgiven. He was the one who suffered and died for each of you reading this. Do not turn your back on him as his followers did. Use the approach of this holy and blessed season to set your lives on a path that draws you closer to Jesus Christ.

2009 World Baseball Classic Reaches Finale

While many sports fans are preoccupied this weekend with the opening rounds of the NCAA men's basketball tournament and their own bracket pools, another big tournament is coming to a conclusion. The 2nd-ever World Baseball Classic has been taking place over the past two weeks, and the original 16 competing nations have been whittled down to a Final Four through two rounds of play. Opening round drama was provided by a tremendous pair of upset victories by the Netherlands in eliminating the powerful team from the Dominican Republic. In this past week's 2nd round, it was a dramatic 3-run rally in the bottom of the 9th inning by the U.S. against Puerto Rico that enabled the Americans to advance into the semi-finals. Meanwhile the Cuban team was eliminated, meaning that for the first time in almost five decades they will not reach the finals of a major international tournament. Advancing into those semis which will take place tonight and tomorrow night are the United States, Venezuela, Korea, and the defending WBC champions from Japan. While the game of baseball was invented in the United States and became our 'National Pasttime', and while the depth of talent in America remains far above that in other nations, the fact is that the rest of the world has caught up at the top levels of competition. The team rosters in Major League Baseball are now made up of 40% players from nations outside the United States. Teams from the South American nations such as Venezuela and Mexico, from the Caribbean such as Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Dominicans, and from Asia in Japan and Korea, as well as the team from Canada are all highly competitive and most are now capable of winning any international competition, even one involving professional players. In today's first semi-final, Korea will battle the Venezuelans. The Koreans advanced to the semis back in the first WBC in 2006, and used that success as a springboard to winning the gold medal at last year's summer Olympics in China. They have just one Major League player in young Cleveland Indians outfielder Shin-Soo Choo, and have perhaps the youngest team in the semis. They also have the best defense in the tournament and a pitching staff that is sporting a 3.05 ERA. Their offense is led by third baseman Bum Ho Lee, who is hitting .375 with 3 homers and 6 rbi and first baseman Tae Kyun Kim, who is hitting .364 with 2 homers and 9 rbi during the tourney. Venezuela is loaded with 21 players from MLB, including stars such as Bobby Abreu, Miguel Cabrera, and Melvin Mora. They have the best offense in the tournament, hitting .309 as a team with almost half of their hits going for extra bases. It is a classic matchup of great pitching and defense against big bats. The pitching matchup will feature Carlos Silva for Venezuela against Suk-Min Yoon for Korea. Yoon has not yet allowed a run in the tournament. The other semi-final will take place on Sunday night pitting the United States against defending champion Japan. The Japanese are fully capable of winning again with a veteran cast of formidable players led by living legend outfielder Ichiro Suzuki and two of the best pitchers in the world in Daisuke 'Dice K' Matsuzaka and young phenom Yu Darvish. The Japanese team suffered a serious blow in their last game when slugging first baseman Suichi Murata, who was hitting .320 with 2 homers and 7 rbi, suffered a torn right hamstring and will miss the rest of the tournament. His loss takes most of the power from Japan's lineup, but they still have the pitching, speed, and experience to win it all. The Americans' 9th inning rally against Puerto Rico advanced them to the semis after missing them in 2006. This year's squad is led by third baseman David Wright, shortstop Derek Jeter, and a pair of Phillies in Jimmy Rollins and Shane Victorino, along with a number of other familiar big leaguers including Ryan Braun, Brian Roberts, Brian McCann, and Evan Longoria. The depth of American talent has allowed them to overcome injuries to Chipper Jones, Dustin Pedroia and Kevin Youkilis. The semi-final pitching matchup will be one of talented veterans, with the Red Sox ace 'Dice K' going for Japan against Houston Astros ace Roy Oswalt for Team USA. The weekend's semi-final winners will advance to the championship game of the WBC on Monday night. Whichever teams are involved, it will surely be a baseball classic worthy of your attention. In the 2006 WBC, the Japanese offense opened up on Cuba for a 10-6 win that ended a classic three-week period of play, and this year has been no less exciting. So while you follow the NCAA basketball tourney this weekend, remember too that on the next three nights you can also follow the best that international baseball has to offer with the conclusion of the 2nd-ever World Baseball Classic. NOTE: The games of the WBC can be followed on ESPN and ESPN2, and the title of this story is a link to further information on the topic, in this case to the official WBC website complete with video, stats, and feature columns.

AIG: Angina-Inducing Greed

For those of you who may have just read the headlines and listened to the featured story blurbs on the news with passing interest, I will try to give you a simplistic version of what all the ruckus has been about 'AIG' and explain why you should care. Let's start with the basics. Who or what exactly is the American International Group. Well, AIG is by their own information "a world leader in insurance and financial services" and "the leading international insurance organization with operations in more than 130 countries and jurisdictions." Heady stuff, right? I mean, we are talking about the worldwide leader in insurance services and one of the largest financial services organizations on earth as well. We are talking here about the real money. Not just big money, but 'real' money. The kind of money that moves governments and shakes nations. The folks at AIG are just one of many financial services companies that have undertaken huge losses and faced dire straights as the American economy has gone into reverse over the past year. They blame their particular problems largely on what are called 'credit default swaps" (CDS) in the industry. Now a CDS is basically a financial instrument representing the exchange of risk that some entity will default on their debt. For instance, you own company 'A' and it is at risk of defaulting on its debt payments because the economy is turning sour and your business is drying up. Now some other company 'B' owns a bond investment in your company, they see you are in bad shape, and they want to hedge their risk against you going belly-up. So they go to the operator of a 'hedge fund' and basically purchase insurance, the CDS, against you defaulting. A 'hedge fund' operator is someone who takes on the risk of a company defaulting in the hopes of making a profit, since most companies over time have historically not ended up actually defaulting. They get that profit as the managers of company 'B' will pay interest to the hedge fund operators. Should your company 'A' never actually default, then the hedge fund loses nothing and gains all of the interest it has been paid by that 'B' company. If you do actually default, then the hedge fund loses because they have to pay the full amount of the CDS to company 'B' covering the loss in their investment with you. The worse position that your business 'A' is actually in, the higher the interest rate that the hedge fund will demand from company 'B' for that CDS insurance. So with the AIG situation, they basically said that there were huge amounts of actual defaults, massive losses, and that they would collapse without government intervention. This would mean the loss of one of America's and the world's major suppliers of capital and insurance funding, and what some said would be a major blow to the national and world economy. Of course there are many others who dispute this, who believe in the free market system, and believe that if you run an operation poorly or with risk that is too high, then you pay the price when you lose just as you make great profits when things are going well. The theory is that even if you do collapse and disappear, someone will emerge to step into the breach and take over that business need. But those of us free market individuals are not in charge right now. The power in America has shifted to a more socialist viewpoint espoused by new President Barack Obama and the Democratic Party. So rather than allowing AIG to collapse and pay the price for its riskiness, they decided to give it a 'bailout', or what was spun in positive terms as part of a 'stimulus' package. The government basically gave AIG the money to cover its losses and stay in business. But then AIG kept adjusting the amount that is said it had lost, and the government ended up bumping up the payments twice, until our government had given AIG a total of $180 billion dollars. Listen to that in the voice of Doctor Evil: "One hundred and eighty billion dollars!" From the government. That means from you and me, because the government gets its money from us in the form of taxes to begin with. So now you and I, 'We the People', literally own approximately 80% of the American International Group. So when AID got all that money to prop up their business and stay afloat, what did they do with it? Begin to invest it safely back into their operations and the markets, making them and the entire system stronger? Put it out into the world financial system and kick-start a recovery? Uh, no. Within days of receiving their first government funds, AIG sponsored a little company weekender bash at a swank California hotel with a price tag on the soiree' of nearly a half million dollars. Now this is a direct slap in the face to the American people, but it wasn't nearly the worst of AIG's greedy spending spree. The company then began to dole out hundreds of 'bonuses' to individual employees totaling approximately $165 million dollars. Bonuses! Most them going to employees in their financial products division, the exact same people with oversight of the very products that allegedly drove AIG into this mess in the first place. Now correct me if I am wrong, but people usually get a bonus for doing something good for the company? Something profitable? The theory being that any bonuses are coming out of that increased profit, right? Okay, just wanted to make sure that I did actually understand what a bonus was supposed to represent. So that is what has been happening in all the headlines that you have been seeing and hearing regarding AIG. On finding out about these bonuses, politicians and the media have shown righteous anger. You should care, and you should be angry as well. Because it is into your pockets that President Barack Obama and his Democratic Party cohorts are about to dig in order to get the money to pay for all of this 'Socialism', the government takeover of what should be private industry business. If you voted for Obama because you wanted 'Change', I hope that you knew exactly what that meant. It didn't just mean a change from Bush, who you hated. George W. Bush was leaving office anyway, his term was up, there was going to be change in any event. But the type of change you voted for was to change the very fabric of America, from a world-leader in a capitalist system to just another experiment in socialism, which has always failed everywhere it has been tried. The people at AIG are simply greedy and were looking to get nice chunks of your money out to their top executives as quickly and quietly as possible. They likely felt there was so much floating around that no one would really notice. We did notice, and now we should demand that at the very least the 'bonus' portion of the monies be returned to us. Of course this whole thing could have been avoided had we just not given them the money in the first place.

The Best There Ever Was

At age 36 and still competing at the highest level, he is the best there ever was at his position in professional sports. And this isn't some easy position either. Take the biggest and baddest NFL lineman, the toughest NBA front court player, or any hard-nosed MLB catcher and put them in his position for just one practice and that player would be running for the bench within seconds. Well, not running, more like skating. Because the sport that we are talking about is professional ice hockey, the position is that of the goaltender, and the player is named Martin Brodeur. He is the goaltender for the New Jersey Devils in the National Hockey League, a position which he has manned for that fortunate team for the past 15 seasons. The lucky local favorites, our own Philadelphia Flyers, have been forced to play in the same division as Brodeur and the Devils for the entirety of his career, and more often than not his presence has been the difference. In those 15 seasons the Devils have won the NHL's Atlantic Division title 7 times while the Flyers have won 5 division titles. The two teams have finished 1-2 in the division nine times in that span. This is what is termed a legitimate rivalry, folks, and so the Flyers and we fans have gotten to see far more of Marty Brodeur between the pipes than most any other opposition goaltender. Lucky us. While the regular season battles have been epic and usually tight, there is no comparison when it comes to the post-season. Brodeur has led the Devils to three Stanley Cup championships in his career: his rookie year in the spring of 1995, again in 2000, and most recently in 2003. The Devils also reached the Cup finals in 2001 before losing to Colorado. In that same time span the Flyers have played for Lord Stanley's Cup only one time, over a decade ago now in the spring of 1997 when they were drubbed in four straight games by the Detroit Red Wings. Before the arrival of Brodeur, the Devils were almost a hockey laughingstock. Born in 1974 as the Kansas City Scouts, they played two seasons in KC before relocating and becoming the Colorado Rockies. It was here in Colorado that the Flyers got their first taste of real competition with the franchise, eliminating the Rockies in a 2-game mini-playoff sweep in 1978. The franchise then finally moved to North Jersey for the 1982-83 season and did not make the playoffs for its first five seasons in New Jersey. The Devils finally began to become a regular playoff team in the early 90's, and it was then that Martin Brodeur came on the scene. He had been the Devils 1st round draft choice, the 20th player selected overall, back in the 1990 NHL Draft. The Flyers selected Mike Ricci as the 4th overall pick that same year, and a number of future NHL greats went before Brodeur including Jaromir Jagr, Keith Primeau, Owen Nolan, Derian Hatcher and Keith Tkachuk. In 1994, Brodeur won the Calder Trophy as the NHL's Rookie of the Year and led the underdog club to a dramatic 7th game loss in the Eastern Conference finals against the New York Rangers. The following season the Devils eliminated the Flyers in six games in the conference finals before defeating the Detroit Red Wings for their first-ever Stanley Cup victory. This period launched the great pro career of Martin Brodeur, one that has included those 3 Stanley Cups, 4 Vezina Trophy awards as the NHL's top goaltender, 4 Jennings Trophy awards for allowing the least goals in the NHL. Brodeur has also starred internationally for his native Canada, leading them to a 2002 Olympic gold medal and a 2004 World Cup championship as the starting goalie. He also shares the distinction with the Flyers' Ron Hextall in being the only two goalies to score goals themselves in both the regular season and the playoffs. Brodeur is the only goalie in NHL history to score a game-winning goal. And last night, Martin Brodeur became the winningest goaltender in NHL history when he made 30 saves as the Devils defeated the Chicago Black Hawks by a 3-2 score in front of his home fans at the Prudential Center in Newark. I became a hockey fan as a 10-year old at the end of the 1972 season when the Flyers missed the playoffs by allowing a last-second goal in the final game of the season, and have enjoyed almost four decades of the best goaltending in NHL history. I watched the greatest 2-year display of playoff goaltending in the games' history by the Flyers Bernie Parent, who won back-to-back Stanley Cups and playoff MVP's in 1974 & 1975. I have seen some of the greatest goaltenders in the history of the game play in the prime of their careers including Parent, Hextall, Ken Dryden, Tony Esposito, Grant Fuhr, Dominik Hasek, Billy Smith, Pelle Lindbergh, Eddie Belfour, Tom Barrasso, and the great Patrick Roy. But for my money none was greater over a sustained period of time than Martin Brodeur. With his 552nd victory and the achievement in becoming the NHL's all-time winningest goaltender added to all of his other team and individual achievements, and in appreciation of him as a tremendous rival to my own beloved Philadelphia Flyers, it is no stretch at all for me to consider Martin Brodeur as the best there ever was.

Too Big For His Britches

When I was a kid our older relatives used to have a saying for when someone got too full of themselves, or got too arrogant, or when someone was constantly pushing the limits too far. They would say that this person was 'too big for his britches', an analogy relating to someone who got so big they were about to burst out of their pants. This would often be followed by an admonition that the person was going to 'get what they had coming to them' one of these days when the 'chickens come home to roost'. Well, the far-too-big-for-his-britches Vince Fumo finally welcomed home the chickens yesterday. After decades of shady backroom politics, the former State Senator and political giant was found guilty yesterday on 137 counts including fraud, obstruction of justice, tax offenses, and conspiracy. When the time comes for sentencing, prosecutors will be seeking to send the now 65-year old Fumo away to prison for more than a decade, meaning that the once mighty kingpin could spend the rest of his life behind bars. Just a day earlier, with the jury holding its deliberations, his typically slimy but skilled defense lawyers attempted one final bit of legal tap-dancing in an effort to free their client. They tried to have a juror thrown off the case and possibly a mistrial declared that would at least temporarily free their client. The reasoning? One of the jurors potentially posted on Facebook that there would be a "big announcement on Monday" in regards to the case. Oh no, the entirety of a lengthy criminal court case with numerous witnesses and mountains of evidence tossed out because one juror made an innocuous comment on a social networking website! The horror of this violation of prudential conduct! Why perhaps because of this simple remark which revealed nothing more than the possible day on which some unknown announcement might be made that possibly involves some event in the juror's life which may or may not involve the trial the justice system should come grinding to a halt? The court should not only halt the deliberations, remove the juror, ignore the evidence, and free the defendant, but perhaps even publicly disgrace the juror, and maybe even fine them or toss them behind bars for contempt? Yet another ridiculous move by the defense team in an effort to toss some 11th-hour Hail Mary in a desperate attempt to delay the inevitable. And boy was this verdict ever inevitable. When interviewed afterwards the comments from the jurors signified that they tried to find a way to acquit Fumo, but that "The evidence was so clear", and that like many disgraced politicians before him that "greed" was his motivation. To list the length and breadth and depth of Vince Fumo's political power and influence would take a full-length book, which someone will inevitably one day write. Suffice it to say, however, that this power did not come from honest political work over the decades. It came from the accumulation of power that itself came from the sale of his office and from political patronage. Vince Fumo is the poster boy for everything that is wrong with Philadelphia politics. The only thing that the vast majority of politicians in the city care about is retaining their power at the cost of service to their constituents and what began as conscience in their dealings. Philadelphia's one-party system invites corruption as politicians feel they must be registered and run as a Democrat or have little to no chance of election. This then causes them to become dependent on the Democratic election machine and money in order to retain their elected positions. This dependency comes at the cost of thier voting for liberal causes that perpetuate the tax-and-spend policies that have driven residents and businesses from the city by the hundreds of thousands over the past few decades. The power that Fumo wielded was from or near the very top of the political power pyramid of this Democratic Party domination process. The FBI may have been concerned with illegalities, misappropriations of funds, and abuse of office, but there is a bigger fish to fry here. The City of Philadelphia is in desperate need of a true conservative political power presence, and I believe that many of Philly's people and pols actually share those tendencies at heart. With a competitive political system that forced elected officials to truly be accountable to the people, the city would be far better off than it is currently under the system which holds it hostage to the Democratic Party alone. It will take a group of political, social, community, and business people to have courage and to organize and drive this effort, but it is an effort that must be made if Philadelphia is to reverse course and again become a world-class city. Fumo is certainly not the only politician at the state or local levels using his power and influence in these ways, and perhaps there are more who are under investigation right now without even knowing it. Shaking ourselves free of political corruption, greed, and scandal is a good beginning. Vince Fumo got too big for his britches a long, long time ago. With the chickens now home to roost, he will finally get what he has coming to him. Hopefully it doesn't result simply in someone else stepping in to fill a power vacuum, but instead marks the beginning of major changes in Philadelphia politics which are necessary and long overdue.

TV Watch: American Idol

On September 4th, 2002, Justin Guarini and Kelly Clarkson stood on-stage for the announcement of the winner of the first-ever 'American Idol' television singing contest. 'Idol' was supposed to be a simple little summer 'replacement' series, something to fill the summer months when viewership and advertising revenues are lower due to the main network programs moving into reruns. The show proved a stunning success, and the finale drew over 50 million viewers for this final announcement.

The program's three recording industry judges: industry executive and manager Simon Cowell, producer and manager Randy Jackson, and former hit recording artist and choreographer Paula Abdul had selected the participants from a national casting call, but it was the public who voted via cellphone for the finalists. When their results were tabulated and announced on that early September evening, it was Kelly Clarkson who was crowned as the first-ever American Idol winner.

In the ensuing years, Clarkson has gone on to become a major pop star with nine Top-10 chart hits including 'A Moment Like This', 'Miss Independent' (for which she received a Grammy nomination), 'Breakaway', 'Never Again', and the Grammy-winning 'Since U Been Gone' among others. Her latest hit, 'My Life Would Suck Without You' is the #1 song in both the United States and Great Britain. Clarkson has proven to be a huge success story and beloved alumni for the show which is now in it's 8th season, but she is not the only one.

Season Four was dominated almost from it's first show by Carrie Underwood, who has gone on to become one of the most popular and award-winning 'country' artists in America. Underwood's songs have made her a hit on the Pop, Country, and Christian charts with variety that ranges from 'Jesus, Take the Wheel' to 'Before He Cheats'. That same season saw another finalist, Chris Daughtry, emerge with a strong rock following that has enabled him to enjoy sustained success on the Pop, Rock, and Christian radio airwaves with songs like 'It's Not Over', 'Home', and 'What About Now'.

Season Six winner Jordin Sparks dominated last year's charts with her hits 'One Step at a Time' and 'Tattoo', and last year's season Seven winner David Cook may prove to be one of the best Idols of all over time.

Some of the Idol finalists who didn't make it into the top five on the shows voting have gone on to successful film, stage, or recording careers as well. Season Three back in 2004 yielded a 6th runner-up in Jennifer Hudson who went on to win the Academy Award, Golden Globe, SAG, and Grammy in 2007 for her work in the previous years' motion picture 'Dreamgirls'.

Will any of the remaining 2009 finalists reach these levels of success? It's hard to say, but a number of them have shown incredible talent already. My own list of favorites goes three deep and includes two of the males, Adam Lambert and Danny Gokey, as well as female Alexis Grace.

Every once in awhile the singers lay a dud with a performance, and it can get tiresome hearing Randy Jackson call someone 'Dog', watching Paula Abdul praise nearly everyone and struggle with criticism, and listen to Simon Cowell and host Ryan Seacrest act like they are involved in a feud. New fourth-wheel judge Kara DioGuardi brought a lot to the early rounds, but seems to have settled in to a 'you've got the pipes, you've got the chops, you picked the wrong song sweetie' level of repetitiveness here in the Finals. And the 'group song' choices are often so lame as to become boring and contrived.

But the fact is that the program is a juggernaut, one of the most popular programs in the history of American television with well over 30 million loyal viewers. This season has perhaps the deepest field of legitimate talent, and the final ten weeks of the competition should be extremely competitive and entertaining on the Fox television network's 'Death Star', a nickname that the program has been given by industry experts from other networks who want no parts of matching up with the media giant that 'American Idol' has become.

He Who Sows Discord Among Brothers

For the past six weeks this regular 'Sunday Sermon' series has covered Proverbs 6:16-19 in which the Bible speaks of "6 Things the Lord Hates (7 an Abomination)", and today we wrap the discussion with that 7th and final item. This item speaks particularly to families, and serves as both a calling and a warning not only to brothers and sisters, but to anyone who would sow discord within a family situation. In past weeks we have spoken of people with 'Haughty Eyes', basically those who think they are better than others. We have spoken of 'A Lying Tongue', but the seventh item addresses not only liars but also those who use truthful situations to sow discord. We have spoken of 'Hands That Shed Innocent Blood', but the seventh need not lead necessarily to physical bloodshed in accomplishing what is still its own brand of violence. In 'A Heart That Plots Wicked Schemes' we spoke very much of the person in this seventh item and the intentional nature of their actions. In 'Feet That Run Swiftly to Evil' we spoke of how some just can't wait to pounce on an other's misfortune and also who seem almost joyful when approaching evil. Last week we spoke of 'The False Witness', the gossiper among man and he who not only will lie among friends, but who also is willing to take his lie all the way into an official proceeding or on to an official document. It is all of these six things which the Bible says that the Lord hates which together lead to perhaps the worst of them all, the seventh which is an abomination in his eyes. In the earliest book of the Bible, 'Genesis', God teaches us that the family is of utmost importance, and warns against turning against your family. He begins to teach the lesson in the story of the very first brothers, Cain and Abel. When Cain becomes jealous of Abel, God says to Cain "If you do well, you can hold up your head; but if not, sin is a demon lurking at the door; his urge is toward you, yet you can be his master." When God becomes aggrieved and tired of early man's wickedness He decides to wipe man from the earth in a great flood. He finds one man and his family worthy of saving, worthy of starting mankind anew. Not a group of friends. Not a town of neighbors. Not some tribal leaders and elders. One family is chosen, the family of a man named Noah to whom God said "With you I will establish my covenant; you and your sons, your wife and your sons' wives..." Later when the flood was over and the land had dried, and Noah and his family exited the ark, God blessed them and said to them "Be fertile and multiply and fill the earth." But he also admonished them saying "..from man in regard to his fellow man I will demand an accounting for human life." God shows here that he not only wants the family of man to exist, but he demands from us that we care for one another. The further Genesis story of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is all about family and its import. God sets this family as his chosen people, those whom he will particularly bless, as well as all those who align themselves with this family. Jacob has his name changed to 'Israel' and produces twelves sons, the 'Twelve Tribes of Israel', down through time the Jewish people. The story of the beginnings of God's chosen people in its very first family, particularly in the story of the relationship between Joseph and his eleven brothers, talks about how we should and should not treat our own families. It shows the dangers in that very act of sowing discord among brothers, as well as provides the redemptive faculties that come with love and forgiveness. Throughout the Bible we hear of the importance of family. In Proverbs 12:4 we learn that "A worthy wife is the crown of her husband." In Deuteronomy 12:12 we learn that we shall "make merry before the Lord, your God, with your sons and daughters." In the fourth of the Ten Commandments the Lord orders us to "Honor your father and mother." God through Shemaiah in the Bible's 2nd book of Chronicles 11:4 says "You must not march out to fight against your brothers" and in Nehemiah 4:8 commands "Fight for your brethren, your sons and daughters, your wives and your homes." In Psalm 127:3 we are told that "Children are a gift from the Lord, the fruit of the womb, a reward." In Proverbs 17:6 that "Grandchildren are the crown of old men." In Sirach 3:3 we are taught that "He who honors his father atones for sins" and in 3:9 that "A father's blessing gives a family firm roots." The Book of Sirach is particularly helpful in its warnings as well, telling us in 16:3 "Rather die childless than have Godless children" as well as in 25:15 that "With a dragon or a lion I would rather dwell than live with an evil woman." There is the lesson of Mary herself, the humble mother of Jesus, the earthly mother of God Himself who gave birth to, raised, taught, suffered with, and has been exalted with the Lord. And then there is the lesson of her husband, Joseph, the stepfather to Jesus Christ who stood by Mary and who helped raise the Son of God. During our lives God gives all of us two families; the one into which we are born, and the one which we create ourselves. The first points to our ancestry and our family roots; our fathers and mothers, our grandparents and older forefathers, and our brothers and sisters. The second is formed with our husbands and wives, leading to our children and grandchildren and our descendants. God gives this first group to us as gifts to cherish, but this gift is of human beings. They, like you, will have faults and sins and will be imperfect. They may not have the faculty to comprehend the loving nature that they have been called to in the family, or may have been so damaged by the traumas of their lives that they have lost this capacity. It is up to you the learned, you who understand what it is that God wants from your familial relationships, to be the glue that keeps your family together as best you can. It is also directly on you to see to it that your own descendants learn directly from you this importance of family that God himself has established. Do not give in to the gossip and the discord, to things as vile as abuse and hatred, that you may find lurking within your family. You can only control where your family goes from here, not where it has been in the past. Do not become one who sows discord among brothers and sisters, parents and children, one whom the Lord actually hates. Instead draw closer to God, and in doing so become the rock upon which a foundation of love and support can allow your family to flourish. NOTE: This is the continuation of the regular 'Sunday Sermon' series, all entries of which can be viewed by clicking that below label.

March Madness

The Temple Owls men's basketball team dumped the St. Joseph's Hawks by a score of 79-65 on Thursday, advancing Temple into the Atlantic Ten tournament semi-finals. The Archbishop Carroll Patriots boys basketball team overcame the Neumann-Goretti Saints in a 70-65 classic to advance into the PIAA Class AAA state semi-finals. These two results knocked my college and high school alma maters out of their respective tournaments and ended their seasons, but were just the beginnings of 'March Madness', the most fun and entertaining time of the year for true basketball fans. The conference and NCAA tournament championship tournaments in college basketball and the state championship tournaments in high school basketball which each take place this month are far more dramatic and entertaining than anything that the NBA can usually come up with in their pro playoffs that begin in May. In fact, the NCAA tournament draws the attention of even the casual sports fan both in watching the games and in following the progression of the 'bracket pools' that dominate many office conversations. The college teams are completing their respective conference championships this weekend, and these smaller tournaments will themselves determine many of the teams that will advance to the 'Big Dance' of the NCAA tournament. Tomorrow afternoon the NCAA, college sports governing body, will announce the field of 65 men's basketball teams that will compete for what is arguably college sports biggest prize. Over the next three weeks those teams will battle one another in a single-elimination tournament that will lead to the crowning of this year's men's collegiate basketball champions. At the same time the employees of many businesses and many groups of friends will copy the NCAA tournament bracket from the internet or from newspapers and will predict the outcome in a 'pool' format that has become a grand tradition of its own. They will find their efforts particularly difficult this year because there are a dozen or more colleges whose teams can claim to be legitimate title contenders. Beyond the top ten or fifteen teams in the national rankings it would surprise few prognosticators if a 'dark-horse' team takes a run at the championship this year. While my own St. Joe's Hawks will not be making the tournament this time around, both Villanova and Temple should receive calls to the dance when the opening matchups are announced tomorrow. At the high school level here in Pennsylvania, the top teams from around the state will be vying over the next week for the state title in four different divisions of play that are based on school sizes. This is the first season that teams from the Philadelphia Catholic League are involved in those state playoffs, meaning that now all of the major high school basketball powers around the state are officially competing against one another in a tournament format for a championship. My own alma mater of Neumann-Goretti was the top-ranked boys team in the state, the 14th-ranked team in the entire nation, and the favorite to win the AAA level title. But the loss to Catholic League rival Carroll in yesterday's state quarter-final game marked the Patriots first win over the Saints since 2001 and ended N-G's season. With just three losses all season, Carroll is now a legitimate threat to win the AAA title. There are also a handful of other local high school teams still alive in the state tourney in both the boys and girls competitions across all four levels. Spring is a great time for sports fans of every ilk, and amateur basketball's 'March Madness' may be the best of them all, a true slam dunk.

Real American Hero: Donald Rudolph

They are leaving us now on a daily basis, the American armed service veterans who served and fought during the greatest military conflict in the history of the planet Earth. The youngest of the men and women who served their country, whose efforts secured freedom and democracy for generations to come, and who have survived to continue as living representatives of those long-ago days are now in their 80's. On May 30th, 2006, the advancement of age and the ravages of illness finally took from us a man who the Imperial Japanese could not. On that date, 85-year old Donald Rudolph of Minnesota died from complications of Alzheimer's disease. He left behind his wife, Helen Rudolph, who remains with us for now to tell the story to their three grandchildren of a man on whom "the fellas in his platoon relied on for leadership" and who he had said was doing "his duty to protect them because they were going to protect him." The story of Donald Rudolph, particularly his actions on February 5th, 1945, is one that deserves to be known and remembered by all Americans. On that day few realized that the world was entering the final months of what had been a conflict which had raged across the globe for more than five years. Just a few weeks earlier, American forces fighting in the Pacific theatre against Japan had stormed the main island of Luzon in the Philippines and began a 110-mile drive on the capital city of Manila. They were involved in the process of liberating island-by-island the territories that the Japanese had invaded, conquered, and subjugated over the past few years. On that early February day, Don Rudolph was a Sergeant and platoon leader with the Army's 20th infantry, Sixth infantry division which was engaged in a pitched battle for the heavily fortified town of Munoz. Rudolph was administering first aid to a wounded soldier when his platoon suddenly came under heavy fire from a group of Japanese who were concealed in a culvert. He grabbed his rifle and some grenades, and moved forward with his men supporting him with their own rifle cover. He reached the culvert safely and was able to take out three of the Japanese soldiers there, and then he began to make his way across open ground to attack some pillboxes which were housing Japanese machine guns. On reaching the first he tossed a grenade through an opening there. Not thinking the job done, Rudolph then tore the cover off the pillbox with his bare hands and dropped another grenade inside. He moved on to a 2nd pillbox and utilized a pickax to bust it open, then took out its combatants with rifle fire and another grenade. He continued to move along the pillboxes, taking out six more, when suddenly a Japanese tank arrived and began to attack their platoon. Sergeant Rudolph leaped atop the tank and dropped a grenade through the turret, killing the Japanese crew. In the aftermath, for his actions he was given a battlefield commission to the rank of Lieutenant. On August 23rd, just ten days before the Japanese would formally surrender, President Harry S. Truman presented Lt. Donald Rudolph with the Medal of Honor stating that in acting in "complete disregard for his own safety" Rudolph had "cleared a path for an advance which culminated in one of the most decisive victories of the Philippine campaign." Unlike many of his fellow service persons in his 'Greatest Generation', Don Rudolph went on to live a long, healthy life. He finally retired from military service in 1963, and was later marching in a Minneapolis Veteran's Day parade in 1969 when he was interviewed and said "When I see that flag, it does something to me inside. I want to jump up and salute." What a sentiment. It is important that we not only share his sentiment, but that we also remember to jump up and salute the real American heroes such as Donald Rudolph whose actions have made and continue to make freedom possible both in the United States and around the world. NOTE: This is the continuation of the 'Real American Heroes' series remembering U.S. military heroes, all the entries of which you can view by clicking on to that below label. Thanks as always to the www.mishalov.com website.

Obama-Dem Mistake #4

Another week, another big mistake by an increasingly radical President Barack Obama and his leftist Congressional cohorts in the Democratic Party. The latest follows fast on the heels of the first three major mistakes during Obama's first 100 days in office: the closing of the terrorist detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, the ending of the 'Mexico City policy prohibiting the funding of foreign abortions, and the irresponsibly bloated Federal budget that has been mischaracterized and misnamed as a 'stimulus' plan. This week's entry? The President's ending of the ban on human embryonic stem cell research. In their 'Mistake #1', the Prez and the Dems set a course towards the release into the United States or other nations of individuals who have proven by their actions and words that they have made and intend to continue attacks on the U.S. and American citizens. In their 'Mistake #2', the Obama administration took its first actions against human life by opening the door for U.S. funds to flow towards entities that will provide abortions. In their 'Mistake #3', the President and his Congressional allies have foisted a massive budget on the people that can only be considered a first step towards the Socialism of the American government. Here in 'Mistake #4', the most far-left President in U.S. history again attacks human life under his usual guise of trying to better the human condition. In defending and even in promoting his decision he tosses out his old, reliable 'I am a man of faith too' argument. But what faith? What is it that Barack Obama has faith in, in what does he believe and hold sacred? Certainly not in the Word of God, or in the teachings of Jesus Christ, who taught us to respect and care for all human life at all times. No, this is a decision based purely on pressure from the very special-interest groups that the President swore with one side of his forked tongue to fight against, and yet with the other side embraces with abandon. This time it is morality itself that he is abandoning to those special interests in the science world. The fact of the matter is that in order to harvest the stem cells which his actions will allow experimentation upon will require the destruction of that human being embryo. Definite, no-doubt-about-it killing in order to potentially, possibly, maybe take some type of step forward in the research towards cures for diseases, illnesses, and conditions. And all for no reason. As quoted by The Washington Times, Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn stated "There is no valid reason for destroying human life when science is continually proving that the same cures and treatments can be achieved by using other, more ethical, avenues." This is a purely political and ideological move by Obama and his backers. They frame it as a progressive, humanist overturning of an ultra-conservative and religious-based Bush policy when in fact it is far more simplistic than that. It is a choice by the Obama administration to embrace the death of humans in pursuit of potential help to others. The President and backers of his new policy call the Bush policy barbaric in that they say it represented Bush's choice of ethics over science. In fact, President George W. Bush fully supported scientific research and advancements, when consideration of ethical matters was a part of the equation. Obama and his followers have tossed ethics out the window completely. You cannot claim to be trying to save lives when in doing so you are at the same time ending them. Obama and his ultra-liberal supporters believe in life only when you can cradle it in your arms, and in so doing forget from where we all came. And all of that killing with no guarantees, and as Coburn stated when there are other options for this research. So why do these scientific lobbying groups want to destroy more human life when they know there are other methods and sources? Because the current supply of embryos is not enough for them. They want more. More embryos means more research which means more funding which keeps them in business. Damn the lives lost, they will continue to put on their sham of a research program by directly destroying lives. They have foisted the lie on the American people that this research will lead to cures and treatments for cancer, Alzheimer's disease, diabetes, and any other bugaboo that they can use to conjure up sympathy from the American public. They have no proof of this whatsoever. If these scientists fail, they can always say "hey, we only said that it was possible." Meanwhile, just as in the abortion ruse, millions of human being embryos will have paid with their lives. They hate to hear it framed this way, but it really is quite simple. This is a direct matter of life and death. The lives and deaths of the human embryos involved. Philadelphia's own Cardinal Justin Rigali had this to say after the Obama decision was announced: "President Obama's new executive order on embryonic stem cell research is a sad victory of politics over science and ethics. This action is morally wrong because it encourages the destruction of innocent human life, treating vulnerable human beings as mere products to be harvested. It also disregards the values of millions of American taxpayers who oppose research that requires taking human life. Finally, it ignores the fact that ethically sound means for advancing stem cell science and medical treatments are readily available and in need of increased support." This choice of scientific experimentation over human life is the 2nd time that Barack Obama has chosen against life. I am certainly glad that whatever faith it is that he is practicing is not a part of mainstream America. I also hope that those average Americans are keeping an eye on all of the mistakes being made by President Obama and his Democratic colleagues in the Congress. The most heinous and irresponsible will continue to be listed here in the ongoing 'Obama-Dem Mistake' series, the entries for which you can access by clicking in to that below label.

Obama-Dem Mistake #3

President Barack Obama and his Democratic Party cohorts in Congress have done it again. In fact, they've done it a couple of times, and so both today and tomorrow we will take a look at these two most recent Obama-Dem mistakes. I am starting out today by playing catch-up with a mistake made a couple of weeks ago, that being the behemoth $3.6 trillion dollar Obama spending fiasco that he calls a 'stimulus' budget plan. This ridiculous-on-its-face plan to get out of our current financial crisis by taxing and regulating businesses both small and large while at the same time increasing spending at outrageous levels is a complete over-reach by the liberal wing that is now dominant among the Dems. I like to compare it to the famous episode of the television comedy Seinfeld in which Jerry and Elaine decide they need to have sex in order to save their friendship. Ludicrous on its face and a disaster waiting to happen, which indeed it does, which anyone with half a brain could see coming a mile away. The exact wrong solution for a difficult problem they were experiencing. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, Alan Chanrey, the director of USA Action, one of many ultra-liberal groups pushing Obama strongly and speedily towards the socializing of the American governmental system, stated "This budget is real change, the change Americans voted for last November." He is right in one regard, that 53% of Americans did indeed vote for a party change last November. But he and the rest of the Democratic Party, and Obama as the President, have been making one major error after another because they do not understand what kind of change the majority of these Americans voted to see happen. Americans wanted a philosophical change away from a war footing and a perceived antagonistic face in world affairs. They did not vote for Socialism. The financial budget and programs that Obama and the Dems are instituting will result in more layoffs, higher taxes, more business closings. Obama and his supporters will argue that it should create jobs. But these are jobs that will depend on the Federal government either directly as employees or through Federally funded programs and grants. They will argue that it creates an opportunity for all Americans to receive health care coverage, but they never, ever speak about the cost involved. The cost in financial terms of not only creating such a program, but then maintaining it and likely expanding it over time will simply be the largest expenditure ever incurred by our government. Part of their plan involves $650 billion dollars over a decade in a 'cap-and-trade' plan that is nothing more than a tax on businesses. Another is increased limitations on both mortgage interest and charitable tax deductions that will effect millions of Americans at tax time, as well as payment cuts to Medicare insurers, in order to fund their new medical coverage plan. Obama and the Dems are planning on allowing tax cuts instituted by the Bush administration to expire in a couple of years, thus raising the taxes of millions more American families. Further outlays in the massive budget plan include billions involving so-called 'green' plans to combat a controversial global-warming situation that may in the end be nothing more than a natural phenomenon. There are so many other huge spending programs in this plan that it is almost a joke. One of the leading conservatives on the Republican side, Newt Gingrich, actually says that he agrees with much of Obama's rhetoric on the financial issues. But Gingrich sees a "gap between the words and reality" in a plan that actually promotes "higher-tax, weaker-economy, fewer-jobs" in its practical applications. How can the government possibly expand like this when everyone else is contracting? The simple answer is that they cannot. The Wall Street stock market is reacting to the obviousness of this folly with its weekly free-fall. The administration of President Barack Obama surely inherited a difficult financial situation, and this situation required tough decisions. But it also required smart decisions, and the obviously dumb ones of the past few weeks are only turning the economy for the worse in both the short and long term outlooks. It is similar to Obama walking into a situation where there was a fire growing. He had the opportunity to begin to pour water over the fire and extinguish the flames. Instead he and his Democratic Party cohorts led by Nancy Pelosi in Congress have chosen to pour gasoline over them. Their logic is that by making the fire bigger and bigger, we whose property is actually going up in smoke will become more and more dependent on their government to eventually put it out. But the fact is that day will never come. What will actually happen is that their power will grow as our fire grows, until eventually one of two things happens. Either we vote them out of office quickly, or they burn our American house down to the ground. The gigantic, enormous, humongous behemoth of a budget that is misrepresented as 'stimulus' is the Obama-Dem Mistake #3. Tomorrow we will cover the most recent mistake number four. NOTE: All of the items in the Obama-Dem Mistake series can be found by visiting that below label.

The False Witness

She spreads the rumors that are not true, sometimes willing to do so even when she knows they are false. He takes the witness stand in court, swears an oath to God that he will tell the truth, and then lies knowingly. According to the Bible in Proverbs 6:16-19, one of those things that we have been talking about the past few Sundays which the Lord hates is 'The False Witness'. These individuals use many of the characteristics of those whom we have talked about in previous weeks: lying, plotting, scheming, stabbing people in the back, and often doing so enthusiastically. There is even a term for what this person is capable of in the police lingo of my own law enforcement profession: testilying. It is a merger of the words 'testifying' and 'lying', and basically refers to those times when police officers themselves lie under oath in a court proceeding. Shocked that it happens, and that a police officer with two decades in the field such as myself would speak of it? You shouldn't be. Every Judge, prosecutor, defense attorney, and cop knows that it happens. This is not to say that every cop lies, or that cops who are willing to lie in court do so all the time. This is not the case at all. But it does happen, and it happens for one simple reason that should be obvious to anyone with half a brain. That reason is that police officers are human beings, and human beings lie. Some more frequently or in more serious situations than others, but all human beings lie, from the police to the press, from paupers to the President of the United States. Now do all police officers lie on the stand? No, of course not. There are many with enough integrity that they would never even consider it. Think of the steroid scandal in baseball. Some abused steroids flagrantly, but most ballplayers never used the substance at all, and many never would even consider it. The problem becomes that when one ballplayer, cop, lawyer, politician, doctor, or judge is caught flagrantly lying or cheating, they taint the reputations of all in their profession. What Proverbs is speaking of in this item in the list of '6 Things the Lord Hates - 7 an Abomination' is when a person lies in regards to another person in an attempt to damage that others' reputation, possibly even to take away their freedom or their life. Sometimes people will do this because they believe sincerely that the person about whom they are lying deserves some type of justice and punishment, and this will likely not happen without the lie. In fact, these types of people will sometimes feel that they are not lying at all, or that they are telling a 'small lie' or 'white lie', in that their lie is simply a slight exaggeration or a made-up example of what their target is doing in reality. To them, getting that person's actions out in the open is more important than telling the truth. It is a perfect 'the ends justifies the means' scenario. The false witness is also anyone who lies on any official document or in any proceeding where they are required to swear an oath, or where they represent by their official authority or title that some action has occurred when it has not. Have you ever filled out and affixed your signature to any contract, document, or form involving public assistance, child custody, taxes, divorce, illness, insurance, accidents, criminality and anything else official where you lied, no matter how slight and no matter what your reasoning? Have you ever gossiped about a co-worker or a neighbor or a family member when you either knew that the story was false, or when you had no personal knowledge that it was true? Are you a professional on whom the public depends to tell the truth as a part of your professional reputation? Then you acted as 'The False Witness', someone who is hated by our God. It is one thing to sin, which we all are going to do at some point as human beings. It is an entirely different matter to have God actually hate you. Consider this as you consider continuing your behavior, and this time swear instead to never take these types of actions again. NOTE: This is the continuation of the 'Sunday Sermon' series which comes every Sunday here at the blog, each entry of which you can view by clicking in to that below label.

Classic Baseball

March 16th, 2006 was a huge day in the annals of the storied game of baseball, our national pasttime here in America. The occasion was the 2nd round game of the first-ever World Baseball Classic between the heavily favored team from the United States and the team from Mexico. The Americans came into this inaugural tournament pitting the world's best pro players against one another as the favorites to win it all. After all, the game was invented here, and the U.S. team was filled with mega-stars and living legends with names like Ken Griffey Jr., Chipper Jones, Roger Clemens, Chase Utley, and Derek Jeter. The Americans had moved through the tournament to that point with a lackluster 3-2 record, but just needed this win over the Mexicans to advance into the final round of play. Mexico was also 3-2, but due to the tie-breakers in place they had no shot at advancing. All they could hope to do would be to play the role of spoiler. On the day before St. Patrick's Day in 2006, they shocked the world and did just that, shutting down the powerful American bats in a shocking 2-1 win that eliminated the U.S. stars from the tournament. The favored Americans had not even reached the semi-finals. Tournament organizers and television sponsors feared that the all-international flavor would be a killer to their ratings and to this initial effort. Why would anyone, especially in the U.S., care about and follow the tourney now that the American stars were out? But then a funny thing happened on the way to international baseball oblivion. An entertaining tournament broke out among the final four teams. In a Latin American semi-final, the vaunted 'amateurs' from Cuba defeated a team from the Dominican Republic that featured its own collection of Major League Baseball stars such as David 'Big Papi' Ortiz, Moises Alou, and Miguel Tejada. The Cubans thrilling 3-1 victory was secured by a legendary multi-inning relief performance from big, imposing pitcher Pedro Lazo, and the team from the little baseball-proud nation would move into its 37th consecutive finals in international competition. Joining them would be the equally proud and even more historically baseball-crazed nation of Japan. The Japanese team used phenomenal pitching, team speed, and the leadership of superstar Ichiro Suzuki to defeat the previously undefeated team from South Korea by a 6-0 score. While the finals would not have the Americans, they would have a dynamic matchup of contrasting cultures and passionate fans as Cuba and Japan took the field. The Japanese had made it into the semi-finals only because of that stunning American loss to Mexico, and they decided to make the most of their 2nd chance by actually winning the whole tournament. Their bats came alive against Cuba's normally solid pitchers, and on March 20th, 2006 Japan's players mobbed one another on the field at San Diego's Petco Park in celebration (pictured) of winning the first World Baseball Classic by a 10-6 score. The tournament had not only survived the early American knockout, but it had thrived over the course of a two-week display of baseball prowess and national pride. So now here we are three years later about to begin the action and excitement all over again. Once again the team from the USA is favored. The 2009 American team returns Jeter, Jones, and Jake Peavy and includes younger stars like David Wright, Dustin Pedroia, Ryan Braun, and the World Series champion Phillies own Jimmy Rollins and Shane Victorino. But as we learned three years ago, there is plenty of talent in the baseball world, and a champion could emerge from any number of nations. The Cubans are actually favored by some this time. They play in what looks like an easy opening round bracket, so they should reach the semi-finals again. Led by Ichiro and starting pitcher 'Dice K' Matsuzaka, defending champion Japan will again be formidable. The Japanese team will show off perhaps the most talked about young pitcher on the planet in 22-year old sensation Yu Darvish. The Dominicans will again be strong despite the loss of Alex Rodriguez to injury. They will field an exciting club led by Big Papi's veteran presence behind young superstars Jose Reyes and Hanley Ramirez. The other semi-finalist from '06 was South Korea, who had gone through pool play undefeated. The Koreans used that experience as a springboard to the gold medal at the Beijing Olympics, and have a powerful offense. The teams from Venezuela, Mexico, Canada, and Puerto Rico all have enough talent that if they get a strong pitching performance on a given day, they certainly could knock off the big boys and pull a stunner to equal that of the Mexicans over the U.S. back in 2006. The other nations trying to reach the finals at Dodger Stadium are Australia, China, Italy, South Africa, Taiwan, and the Netherlands, and each will be fighting for at least one victory for national pride. The 2009 World Baseball Classic should once again prove interesting and entertaining for any fan to follow, no matter which nations are playing one another. The tournament is beginning now, and is being covered on television at both ESPN2 and the all-new MLB network. Check your listings and watch some of the WBC games, which especially as they move into the later rounds will prove to be truly classic baseball. NOTE: As always, the title of this entry is actually a link to more information on the subject, this time to the home website of the World Baseball Classic.

The Good Old Days

Do you know that weird sensation of connection to your roots that you often feel when you see an old family member, friend, lover, teammate, or co-worker for the first time in years, maybe even decades? Depending on the circumstances of your meet, it sometimes doesn't hit you until later. But almost always we go through that exercise in mental nostalgia which carries us back to those younger days and the experiences that we shared with this individual. The innocent memories of childhood. The fun times of high school or college. The struggles and amusement involved in our early work years. The thrills of victory and the agonies of defeat on sporting fields. The life, death, and love of family. Sometimes the person is linked to another or a group of others, and our memories will branch off towards those folks. Well these types of memories and feelings have been happening to me more and more lately thanks to the social networking website called Facebook. I have stumbled across more family members and old friends on the internet thanks to this popular behemoth than I could ever have imagined. People who I worked with years ago. Those who I hung out with on the corners of South Philly as a youth. Some who I played ball with as an adult. And being a police officer for the past 19 years there are cops, both old and new acquaintances. Lots of cops. The site allows you to mentally catch-up with these people. We share small biographies of what we've been up to, photos of our family members and friends, videos of some of our life experiences, music and other media that we enjoy, and conversations with one another and each other. These meetings of late have also driven home another point to me, that my own memories of what is classically referred to as 'the good old days' are truly long gone. For me those days would take me back to my childhood and teenage years growing up in the Two Street neighborhood of South Philly during the 1960's and particularly the 1970's. 'Two Street' is that section of 2nd Street that begins around Washington Avenue and continues south to Oregon Avenue, about a twenty block stretch, and which is bordered on the east by the homes on and around Front Street and on the west arguably by somewhere around 4th or 5th Street, depending on how far south you are. The area is a Mummers kingdom, the home to these merry men and women who star in Philly's iconic New Year's Day parade. Many of the clubs have their headquarters on 2nd Street or just off it, and you can't walk a half block without tripping over any number of residents who participate in the parade in some way. The times when I grew up there were the days of Vietnam, Woodstock, Watergate, Apollo, SNL, Nixon, Ford, Carter, drugs, disco, gasoline rationing, and the ever-looming threat of a nuclear exchange between the U.S. and Russia that was known as 'The Cold War'. But when your age is still in the single digits, and even into your pre-teen and early teen years, most of these big stories are simply not affecting your life as you know it. Your life at those ages is filled with things like family and school, sports teams and friends, movies and music, and eventually as we emerge into puberty becomes pre-occupied with the opposite sex. In my life, family was big, and there was a simple reason for it: geography. My grandparents were all raised in South Philly, and in those days you pretty much settled and raised your families in the same neighborhood where you started. Thus my parents and their siblings, my aunts and uncles, were all raised there as well. And most of that living and raising took place in a small stretch of no more than a half mile. Within those five blocks or so lived my own little family of myself, my younger brother Mike, my mom Marie, and my dad Matthew. We lived on the tiny 2300 block of south American Street which would star decades later in a scene in the film 'Invincible' about former Philadelphia Eagle Vince Papale. Those scenes where Papale plays a rough version of schoolyard lot football? They were real. I can't tell you how many dozens if not hundreds of such football games that I participated in over the years on the school yards, playgrounds and rec centers around Two Street. From 'touch' football to 'rough touch' and even tackle football on grass or when it snowed heavily. My dad had two sisters, and my mom had one brother, and they and their families also lived in South Philly. The LoBiondo family of my Aunt Bobbie lived just two blocks away. The Piernock family of my Aunt Pat lived about five blocks away. The Gilmore family of my Uncle Ray lived a bit further away but still in South Philly. My Uncle Ray Gilmore, my mom's brother, was a DJ with the old AM radio king WIBG which was known in those days as simply 'Wibbage'. His career opportunities in radio eventually saw him become one of the first to leave the old neighborhood, first for the New York area, and then eventually on to Boston. But my mom stilled had many other family members, aunts, uncles and cousins, living all along Two Street. One of the regular joys in those days was on New Years when most of the parade groups returned to their clubhouses along Two Street and would parade down the length of the street, serenading their fans and family members. The tradition remains today as a mini version of the full-scale parade that took place along Broad Street, and has a 'Mardi Gras' feel with costumed revelers jamming the streets. In my own good old days we had two family spots along the parade route that gave us a front row seat to these festivities. My mom's Uncle Bill and Aunt Helen lived right on 3rd Street at Cantrell, where the parade came right past their front door, and my dad's sister Bobbie lived just off 3rd & Jackson (pictured). Both families always had open house parties on those days, and we got to enjoy the parade, family reunions, and good food and drink. These gatherings were like familial glue in my youth, allowing my dad's family at Jackson Street and my mom's family at Cantrell Street to be together in a fun setting year after year. My brother Mike and I would jockey back and forth between the two houses, saying the requisite hello's to our aunts and uncles and then hanging out with our cousins. This was the essence of Two Street: sitting on the front porches and stoops, hanging on the corners, family, friends, Mummers, and all of it made possible, or at least far easier, by the simple geography of proximity. In future postings I am going to talk much more about the particular people and events of my childhood and teenage years, allowing my self to revisit and you to enjoy my own memories in a regular series that I will be simply calling 'The Good Old Days'.