And we're back!!!!
So Happy New Year and I hope all of you have been able to avoid the post holiday blahs for the most part. It's tough, January, for my money is the most depressing moth of the year. Well, that and September, but at least in September you get decent weather. In January, it's cold, it either rains or snows a lot, and it's back to the grind, and not seeing the folks that you reconnected with during December. Just a tough time of year.
And for many, it will be even tougher this year because this coming Friday, we will say bon voyage to President Obama.
I've decided to end the embargo on political talk here. At least for this week. This week, we'll take a hard and honest look at President Obama's legacy.
So Happy New Year and I hope all of you have been able to avoid the post holiday blahs for the most part. It's tough, January, for my money is the most depressing moth of the year. Well, that and September, but at least in September you get decent weather. In January, it's cold, it either rains or snows a lot, and it's back to the grind, and not seeing the folks that you reconnected with during December. Just a tough time of year.
And for many, it will be even tougher this year because this coming Friday, we will say bon voyage to President Obama.
I've decided to end the embargo on political talk here. At least for this week. This week, we'll take a hard and honest look at President Obama's legacy.
*********************************************************************************
A friend of mine recently said to me that Barack Obama would go down as one of the greatest Presidents of all time. He laughed as he said it, not because he didn't believe it, (he does) but because he figured I wouldn't believe it.
A friend of mine recently said to me that Barack Obama would go down as one of the greatest Presidents of all time. He laughed as he said it, not because he didn't believe it, (he does) but because he figured I wouldn't believe it.
But he is right. Barack Obama will most definitely be considered one of the all time greats. It's already happening. Go into any magazine shop, there are a whole bunch of commemorative editions of different magazines celebrating the Obama's. There have been TV specials, interviews, the whole 9 yards. I don't remember any of this stuff when George W. Bush was leaving office.
So the question to me isn't whether or not Obama will be considered one of the G.O.A.T Presidents. The question is , does he deserve to be.
Certainly, what is helping his cause is that is administration looks like it's going to be sandwiched between two disastrous ones.
Lots of bad stuff happened when Bush 43 was President, and while I don't blame him for all of it (much to many of your chagrins) he certainly didn't help. He economy was in the toilet, gas prices were sky high, unemployment was up, and there was no end in sight for the two wars we were in, and a whole lot of folks not wanting us to be in either one of those wars to begin with.
That progress has been made is undeniable. The economy has improved, gas prices are reasonable. Unemployment has gone down, and al-Qaeda has been mostly put out of business.
But many feel the economy still hasn't fully recovered, the unemployment numbers don't reflect those who have given up looking for work, not to mention that wages have been stagnant. And we now have ISIS to deal with.
What's aggravating to me is that while you have many who believe he is the second coming, there are others who claim he is the worst President to ever occupy the Oval Office.
I think both positions are ridiculous.
Obama wasn't perfect, far from it. Too often in the beginning of his administration, it was apparent that his game plan was to do everything the opposite of his predecessor, and let the sheer force of his personality do the rest. And while that seems like a good idea, what with all that went wrong and it would fire up his base of supporters, the reality ended up being different.
Some of his early ideas were good, like cash for clunkers, and the auto bailout But he also took down a missile defense shield in Poland without gaining any other concessions from Russia. He in fact sent the secretary of state with some stupid reset button, thinking that just because he wasn't named Bush, that the Russians would be willing to work with him. It's why I have to laugh when people act as if he is the jock who is going to slap around that bully Vladimir Putin. Mitt Romney called Russia our number one geopolitical enemy. People laughed at him, including the President.
No one is laughing now.
He also vowed to close down Guantanamo Bay and hold any terror hearings just mere blocks from where the towers were knocked down. Gitmo remains open and he thought the better of having those scumbags tried here in NY.
And Obama was not totally honest with his signature domestic legislation, the Affordable Heathcare Act (and yes, I know Obamacare and AHA are synonymous, I'm not THAT idiotic) While I don't agree that it should be repealed and replaced, I do understand the frustration with it. I work in healthcare, and I know plenty of folks who had to change their insurance, or change their doctor, or pay much higher premiums than they had. The President is too smart of a man to have not seen that coming. He probably figured that the benefits would far outweigh and negativity that was caused by the changes he insisted wouldn't happen. But even the Clintons acknowledged that the premiums were too high. Factor all that in, and it's hard to paint everyone who opposes Obamacare as a heartless a$$hole. Again, maybe it needs a wrench and a hammer as opposed to a demolition, but I know where some of these people are coming from.
The minute Donald Trump is sworn is as the President, he will automatically become the most thin skinned commander in chief our nation has ever had. It won't even be close. But at times, Obama came off very thin skinned as well. He complained a bit too much about Fox News for my liking, given that every other network rolled out the red carpet for him. I understand that pea brained goobers like Mitch McConnell (for my money, he's more evil than Trump or Pence) made Obama's life miserable, but hey, the truly great ones found a way. Shoot, Bill Clinton was able to get things done with a Congress that was trying to impeach his a$$.
Obama bragged that he feels he could have won a third term. Part of me shakes my head at his braggado, part of me knows he's right.
And part of me acknowledges that I probably would have been one of the ones who voted for him.
Because even as I wrote above how much I disagreed with him, I always got the feeling that his decisions came from the heart. He took this job to help people. And he did his office proud.
I ask the folks who wanted Hillary Clinton to win so badly solely based on her gender this question.. Is this really the person you wanted to break the glass ceiling? People say they have been lied to my old white men for over 200 years, so why not get lied to by an old white lady.
Why not? Because you can do better.
Barrack Obama proved you can do better. If the next African American President can do the job as well, carry himself with the class that the first one did, then I'll gladly vote for that person, male or female. Republicans talk about family values, President Obama and his family lived them.
One of the all time greats? Maybe, maybe not. But definitely better than what we had, and probably what we are getting. I wouldn't start re carving Mt. Rushmore, but I can't say I'm not sorry to see him go.
Thank you Mr. President
******************************************************************************
RIP to a true hero.
I was 13 years old when Officer Steven McDonald was paralyzed by a criminals bullet in 1986. The older I got, the more I appreciated just how special a man Detective McDonald was.
If he and I had met at a bar, we probably would have gotten along famously. An Irish Catholic, Queens born and a die-hard Ranger fan, he was my kind of guy anyway.
But then you don't have to be Catholic to appreciate his remarkable ability to forgive. And you don't have to be a Ranger fan (or a sports fan for that matter) to understand why several of the Rangers who won the Steven McDonald extra effort award counted that as amongst the highlights of their careers, and I'm talking about guys who won Stanley Cups.
If you didn't live in the NY area, you might wonder why a cop could have such a huge turnout for his funeral, that he was able to fill St. Patrick's Cathedral. Read his story and his inspiring words, and then you'll appreciate how tough he had to be to push on and be not only an incredible husband and father, but an asset to the NYPD. Hell, just getting through a normal day required fortitude that most of us wouldn't dream of having.
The fact that he had what happened to him and was able to forgive his attacker, to the point where the attackers mother said she felt that McDonald and her son would have worked together to help end street violence (her son died in an accident within days of his release from jail) is all you need to know about this remarkable man.
Detective Steven McDonald was everything we all wished we were. And that's why a city mourned his loss last week.
*********************************************************************************
***BOOK REVIEW***BOOK REVIEW***BOOK REVIEW***BOOK REVIEW***
Bulletins from Dallas-Reporting the JFK Assassination
Author: Bill Sanderson
Bill is a fellow Postie, a long time reporter and an all around good man. So no, I'm not unbiased here.
The JFK assassination has been covered so often that coming at it from a new angle seemed impossible.
But Bill pulled it off by recounting the life and times of UPI White House Beat Reporter Merriman Smith, and how he was able to fire off the first reports of what went down in Dallas on November 22, 1963.
Having done some reporting myself, I got a real kick out of the challenges that reporters had in the pre internet era. Bill tells the story of how Smitty, as he was known used his news sense and street smarts to beat all the other news outlets and wire services to get the first dispatches about what was going down in Dallas on November 22, 1963. Amongst other things, Smitty was able to bogart the radiophone in the press car with the AP reporter literally smacking him to try to get him off the phone.
That's just one of many fascinating stories that Sanderson tells in this incredibly well written book. I'm a news junkie and a history buff, so this was right up my alley. But even if you're not, I think you'll get a kick out of this book.
4.5 Auggies
***MOVIE REVIEW***MOVIE REVIEW***MOVIE REVIEW***MOVIE REVIEW**
SING
STARRING: Matthew McConaughey, Reese Witherspoon, Seth MacFarlane, Scarlett Johansson
SAW IT AT: Long Beach Cinema 4
SAW IT WITH: Tara, Timmy and Timmy's friends Joanna and Johnny
McConaughey plays Buster Moon a koala bear who owns the run down Moon Theater. Looking to return the theater to past glory, he decides to hold an open singing competition. A printing snafu by his eldery administrative assistant posts the grand prize as 10 Grand as opposed to his intended 1 grand.
After hundereds tryout, including my personal favorite, a snail who sings christopher Cross' Ride Like the Wind, the field is narrowed down to a housewife Rosita Pig (Witherspoon) teen headbanger Ash porcupine (Johannson) bank robbing Johnny Gorilla (Tyler Eggerton) street hustler Mike Mouse (MacFarlane). Buster hires Meena the Elephant as a stage hand, because stage fright is preventing her from singing to her potential.
All these kids cartoon movies follow the same arc and this one was no different. I don't know if it was the time of year, with everything going on, but at the point of the movie where the chips were down, I was really down in the dumps. I knew how it would turn out and I still felt bad.
A cookie cutter kids flick. But I have to admit the singing was good. A Great Week
3 Aces.
Some of his early ideas were good, like cash for clunkers, and the auto bailout But he also took down a missile defense shield in Poland without gaining any other concessions from Russia. He in fact sent the secretary of state with some stupid reset button, thinking that just because he wasn't named Bush, that the Russians would be willing to work with him. It's why I have to laugh when people act as if he is the jock who is going to slap around that bully Vladimir Putin. Mitt Romney called Russia our number one geopolitical enemy. People laughed at him, including the President.
No one is laughing now.
He also vowed to close down Guantanamo Bay and hold any terror hearings just mere blocks from where the towers were knocked down. Gitmo remains open and he thought the better of having those scumbags tried here in NY.
And Obama was not totally honest with his signature domestic legislation, the Affordable Heathcare Act (and yes, I know Obamacare and AHA are synonymous, I'm not THAT idiotic) While I don't agree that it should be repealed and replaced, I do understand the frustration with it. I work in healthcare, and I know plenty of folks who had to change their insurance, or change their doctor, or pay much higher premiums than they had. The President is too smart of a man to have not seen that coming. He probably figured that the benefits would far outweigh and negativity that was caused by the changes he insisted wouldn't happen. But even the Clintons acknowledged that the premiums were too high. Factor all that in, and it's hard to paint everyone who opposes Obamacare as a heartless a$$hole. Again, maybe it needs a wrench and a hammer as opposed to a demolition, but I know where some of these people are coming from.
The minute Donald Trump is sworn is as the President, he will automatically become the most thin skinned commander in chief our nation has ever had. It won't even be close. But at times, Obama came off very thin skinned as well. He complained a bit too much about Fox News for my liking, given that every other network rolled out the red carpet for him. I understand that pea brained goobers like Mitch McConnell (for my money, he's more evil than Trump or Pence) made Obama's life miserable, but hey, the truly great ones found a way. Shoot, Bill Clinton was able to get things done with a Congress that was trying to impeach his a$$.
Obama bragged that he feels he could have won a third term. Part of me shakes my head at his braggado, part of me knows he's right.
And part of me acknowledges that I probably would have been one of the ones who voted for him.
Because even as I wrote above how much I disagreed with him, I always got the feeling that his decisions came from the heart. He took this job to help people. And he did his office proud.
I ask the folks who wanted Hillary Clinton to win so badly solely based on her gender this question.. Is this really the person you wanted to break the glass ceiling? People say they have been lied to my old white men for over 200 years, so why not get lied to by an old white lady.
Why not? Because you can do better.
Barrack Obama proved you can do better. If the next African American President can do the job as well, carry himself with the class that the first one did, then I'll gladly vote for that person, male or female. Republicans talk about family values, President Obama and his family lived them.
One of the all time greats? Maybe, maybe not. But definitely better than what we had, and probably what we are getting. I wouldn't start re carving Mt. Rushmore, but I can't say I'm not sorry to see him go.
Thank you Mr. President
******************************************************************************
RIP to a true hero.
I was 13 years old when Officer Steven McDonald was paralyzed by a criminals bullet in 1986. The older I got, the more I appreciated just how special a man Detective McDonald was.
If he and I had met at a bar, we probably would have gotten along famously. An Irish Catholic, Queens born and a die-hard Ranger fan, he was my kind of guy anyway.
But then you don't have to be Catholic to appreciate his remarkable ability to forgive. And you don't have to be a Ranger fan (or a sports fan for that matter) to understand why several of the Rangers who won the Steven McDonald extra effort award counted that as amongst the highlights of their careers, and I'm talking about guys who won Stanley Cups.
If you didn't live in the NY area, you might wonder why a cop could have such a huge turnout for his funeral, that he was able to fill St. Patrick's Cathedral. Read his story and his inspiring words, and then you'll appreciate how tough he had to be to push on and be not only an incredible husband and father, but an asset to the NYPD. Hell, just getting through a normal day required fortitude that most of us wouldn't dream of having.
The fact that he had what happened to him and was able to forgive his attacker, to the point where the attackers mother said she felt that McDonald and her son would have worked together to help end street violence (her son died in an accident within days of his release from jail) is all you need to know about this remarkable man.
Detective Steven McDonald was everything we all wished we were. And that's why a city mourned his loss last week.
*********************************************************************************
***BOOK REVIEW***BOOK REVIEW***BOOK REVIEW***BOOK REVIEW***
Bulletins from Dallas-Reporting the JFK Assassination
Author: Bill Sanderson
Bill is a fellow Postie, a long time reporter and an all around good man. So no, I'm not unbiased here.
The JFK assassination has been covered so often that coming at it from a new angle seemed impossible.
But Bill pulled it off by recounting the life and times of UPI White House Beat Reporter Merriman Smith, and how he was able to fire off the first reports of what went down in Dallas on November 22, 1963.
Having done some reporting myself, I got a real kick out of the challenges that reporters had in the pre internet era. Bill tells the story of how Smitty, as he was known used his news sense and street smarts to beat all the other news outlets and wire services to get the first dispatches about what was going down in Dallas on November 22, 1963. Amongst other things, Smitty was able to bogart the radiophone in the press car with the AP reporter literally smacking him to try to get him off the phone.
That's just one of many fascinating stories that Sanderson tells in this incredibly well written book. I'm a news junkie and a history buff, so this was right up my alley. But even if you're not, I think you'll get a kick out of this book.
4.5 Auggies
***MOVIE REVIEW***MOVIE REVIEW***MOVIE REVIEW***MOVIE REVIEW**
SING
STARRING: Matthew McConaughey, Reese Witherspoon, Seth MacFarlane, Scarlett Johansson
SAW IT AT: Long Beach Cinema 4
SAW IT WITH: Tara, Timmy and Timmy's friends Joanna and Johnny
McConaughey plays Buster Moon a koala bear who owns the run down Moon Theater. Looking to return the theater to past glory, he decides to hold an open singing competition. A printing snafu by his eldery administrative assistant posts the grand prize as 10 Grand as opposed to his intended 1 grand.
After hundereds tryout, including my personal favorite, a snail who sings christopher Cross' Ride Like the Wind, the field is narrowed down to a housewife Rosita Pig (Witherspoon) teen headbanger Ash porcupine (Johannson) bank robbing Johnny Gorilla (Tyler Eggerton) street hustler Mike Mouse (MacFarlane). Buster hires Meena the Elephant as a stage hand, because stage fright is preventing her from singing to her potential.
All these kids cartoon movies follow the same arc and this one was no different. I don't know if it was the time of year, with everything going on, but at the point of the movie where the chips were down, I was really down in the dumps. I knew how it would turn out and I still felt bad.
A cookie cutter kids flick. But I have to admit the singing was good. A Great Week
3 Aces.
Sorry I was late on this one.
Have a Great Week
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