9/11 Photo Books Available Now

Be sure to check out the new books New Jersey 9/11 Memorials - A Photographic Guide and The National 9/11 Memorials - A Photographic Guide. One is a photo book of more than 80 different New Jersey September 11 memorials with information about each, a chapter on the history leading up to the terrorist attack, a timeline of the day itself and events of the following years. Also included is a chapter with all of the victims and first responders names, as well as a foreword by Thomas Kean, former governor of New Jersey and Chairman of the 9/11 Commission. 

The other book, The National 9/11 Memorials, has dozens of photos of the four nationally important 9/11 memorials with information about each, a chapter on the history leading up to the terrorist attack, a timeline of the day itself and events of the following years. Also included is a chapter with all of the victims and first responders names.

When Oppression Comes in Round

Round, Iron Manhole Cover

What brilliant civil engineer decided to place manholes and their attendent, round manhole covers in the middle of the road?

Is this ancient Rome's fault (as so many things are), or Thomas Edison's, or is there someone else whom we can blame for persisting in the use of these iron banes to a commuter's existence?

Maybe it didn't matter as much when cars were going 14 miles per hour or when horses were pulling buggies and wagons through dusty city streets, but it matters now.

As if potholes, train tracks, and buckling New Jersey asphalt isn't bad enough, the brain surgeons in charge of roads, sewage, or utilities in New Jersey (and America at large) persist in increasing the wear and tear on our cars and the crappy driving conditions by placing manholes in the middle of side streets, and highways alike.

And not only do they place them on roads where you will hit them every few hundred feet while you are going 50 or 60 miles per hour, but they seem to indent them into the road surface just for a little bit of extra fun -- or at least for maximum discomfort on people and wear to vehicles. (Perhaps this was a deal with auto makers in Detroit to shorten vehicle life.)


Manholes in all cases should be placed under the sidewalks near the street, or at least as close to the edge of the travel surface as possible. How about placing them at the shoulder of the road, whether that shoulder is dirt or paved? It doesn't seem like a difficult requirement, at least going forward. (But then again we'll all be in flying cars soon, right? So the point will be moot. Or will it? Leave it up to the civil engineers and they will find a way to add potholes to the sky.)

I don't appreciate this travel malady, this civil engineering oppression, nor have I ever done so and I think the next president of the U.S. should address the malplacement of manholes.

I think it's an issue we can all support.

Butt-Ugly Political Discourse – Par for the 21st Century

At present, the political discourse in my home state of New Jersey is butt-ugly. There’s no more apropos way to say it. Just look at the replies to newspaper blogs and web-posted articles. Look at the political forums on Craigslist, or on the Usenet newsgroups. Look at many of the writers of political blogs and the commenters posting there. (Letters to the editor at newspapers are less venomous, but that’s because there’s an editorial filter there that the Internet doesn’t tend to have.) Is this butt-ugliness confined merely to the Web, where anyone with a computer and an alias can sling mud without personal repercussion? Just imagine if this kind of language was what you could expect when you went to the grocery store, the mall, or work? Not to slander middle-school students unnecessarily, but the communication being displayed is really grade-school/middle-school level communication. Nothing more.

Hmm…it’s not just New Jersey where the discussion lacks decorum. I get that. Pretty much all of the U.S. has the same problem. We’ve all seen it on Facebook. And it’s not just the Internet either. Media personalities engage in mud-slinging too. Bill Maher does it, Michael Moore does it, Keith Olberman and Ed Schultz do it, Mark Levin does it too (though he consistently discusses policy in a high-level manner as well).

So Why? Why does the discussion devolve to middle-school personal attacks, instead of arguments for or against a policy? Sarah Palin is dumb. Joe Biden is a clown. Chris Christie is fat. So-and-so has big ears.

It could be because the easiest attacks to hurl at someone are the ones you don’t have to think about. Or the ones you make up. Look at the person and the first thing that comes to mind is the source of your disparagement. Easy. For Maher’s recent sexist slur, that was Sarah Palin’s gender. Sometimes it’s race, sometimes it’s the size of someone’s nose, sometimes it’s someone’s weight or even age. And many times the personal attacks are just baseless jabs using generalized, well-worn insults.

I have this theory that serious people don’t ever read the comments on blogs, or the comments to online articles because they know that a bunch of uneducated yahoos and uncivilized lurkers are the progenitors of the insults and vitriol that are usually found there. And it is part of the same theory that serious people rarely comment on blogs or online articles for the same reason.

For instance, it’s really disgusting to me to read blog comments like the following:

• “I’d love to see Christie’s response if his food allowance was cut. When you are fat, dumb and happy (and well off your whole life) you cannot connect with working people...”
• “Just another fat cop that thinks he is above the law”
• “She is, as I have said before, hyper-partisan, painfully ignorant, pathologically dishonest, chronically unethical, intellectually unconscious, and jaw-droppingly stupid. And those are her better qualities.”

The person who wrote this last blog comment at the DailyKos blog could not prove or support one of the hate-filled statements that flow with ease through his slanderous blog post. In fact, “painfully ignorant”, “intellectually unconscious”, and “jaw-droppingly stupid” all mean the same thing, so his list is unnecessarily padded, perhaps to bolster the word count for his “editor”, or just to express more completely his hate for a successful woman.  I feel sorry for mal-educated people like him and Bill Maher, and for the fact that they want to exist in this gaseous fog of venom, or as Sean Hannity has put it Palin-derangement syndrome.

All this being said, I have seen useful, thoughtful comments, replies, and blogs all over the Internet, so there’s no need to throw the baby out with the bathwater, but sometimes it’s no inviting bath either. I think it will take a major rejiggering of our society to expect any change on this front, however. When we learn to respect each other more as human beings, each of us struggling to survive as individuals and providers for family members, maybe then we’ll see improvement. When we begin to treat each other with some measure of honor, as is still done in some societies, perhaps then we’ll see more respect. But I’m not holding my breath.

It is indeed hard for me to feel that sort of compassion for a weasel-punk like Bill Maher when he says something like he did about Sarah Palin. I am not a saint after all.

(Comments excerpted from an Asbury Park Press weblog, and the DailyKos)

Elections in U.S. a Boon for Liberty

This is a good week with plenty of political sun shining in the USA. Tuesday's mid-term election has been called a "historical win", "a wave election", "a tsunami", "an earthquake", "a drubbing", “a repudiation”, and "a shellacking". While we don't have a new Captain for our ship, we do have a fine new crew, and they were put there by the restless people of this great land to keep the ship from hitting any more icebergs. Or, to use President Obama's (wrong) overused analogy, "to get us out of the ditch", that he and Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid have driven us into.

Republicans won 240 seats in the House of Representatives, gaining 60+ seats and taking the majority in that body. The GOP also gained 6 or more seats in the Senate, improving their number there to 46+ and leaving Democrats with a slimmer majority in that body. What this historical shift in power means is that there won't be one party rule any longer and there will be an actual check in the system of "checks and balances".

Some of the bright spots of the day include: Marco Rubio winning a U.S. senate seat from Florida against political chameleon Governor Charlie Crist. Pat Toomey grabbing a senate seat in blue Pennsylvania was also great. Michele Bachmann winning re-election to the House was excellent since she is a big Tea Party booster, and Nikki Haley winning the governorship of South Carolina is good news for that state. State legislatures were also greatly affected with Republicans gaining 680+ seats in all statehouses.

Being originally from Michigan I should also express happiness that the Democrat chokehold there has been relieved somewhat, which I hope will bring some fiscal economic relief to that downtrodden state. They have a new Republican governor, senator, and a state legislature firmly in Republican hands.

Unfortunately, in my district in New Jersey, the Tea Party backed candidate for the U.S. House, Anna Little, did not beat the entrenched Democrat Frank Pallone, who brags that the Health Care bill was "his bill". However, she did put up a hell of a fight. He is a hard-core liberal this Pallone and I am sad to see he won, but happy to know that now he will be in the minority party.

Christine O'Donnell of Delaware and Sharon Angle of Nevada were two high profile Tea Party backed Senate candidates who put up good fights but lost mostly due to voluminous slander by their opponents and the mainstream press.

And in the greatest puzzle of the day, I will never understand how someone (Jerry Brown) who wrecked the economy of California in his previous eight years as governor there could be elected to do it all over again (at this critical time!), over a candidate (Meg Whitman) who ran many companies successfully and made billions of dollars doing it. But it’s not like she'd have the financial chops to run California compared to someone who already failed at the job, right? One has to question what the voters, even Democrats, were thinking in CA.

There were two other big winners in this election: The Tea Party movement and Sarah Palin. Mrs. Palin was a big winner because she took her star power, her political capital,  and conservative ideals into every nook and cranny of this country in support of conservative Republicans, many of whom were running for the first time in their lives for office. And in most every case it helped the candidate greatly. This increased Palin's visibility as well as her political savoir faire.

The Tea Party movement, which is basically the voice of the quiet majority, showed that it has the clout to get people elected, the ideals to attract a large membership, and the power to sway law makers. This despite slander from the media and politicians. But the Tea Party movement is just a frame for a large number of Americans who are dissatisfied with an out-of-control government.

In the end, it was just the American people who came out on Tuesday and demanded change with their votes. A fine example for a democratic republic like the United States of America.

Election Day 2010 -- A New Dawn for Liberty

November 2, 2010 is going to be a grand and ebullient day! The political party in power is going to be given a political spanking that, while it may not be unprecedented, is certainly one of the most memorable and necessary of recent history. There have not been many high points politically since the Democrats monopolized federal power in 2008, but the first Tuesday in November will be a pinnacle. (Actually the citizen activism of the past year or two has also been a heartening high point.)

November’s peaceful shift of power will be one of the beautiful strengths and wonders of our representative democracy. It shows that when most of the people don't like the way things are going they vote to get rid of "the bums".

Unfortunately, in most years the people who already hold the office, the incumbents, win elections hands down, almost by default, due mainly to voter apathy, but also to political machinery. Things are different now. In 2006 and 2008, there was general discontent with Republicans and, incumbents included, they were voted  out of the House of Representatives and the Senate, giving Democrats control of the Legislative branch in 2006 and the Executive branch in 2008.

However, in 2010, a huge swath of voters feels that Democrats in the Congress and the Obama White House have overreached, overspent, overlegislated, crippled the economic recovery and changed the country in other damaging ways.

The people who will be voted into office in November in many cases are not professional politicians, they are people who are fed up with the status quo, who will actually do things differently because they have a mandate and will be voted into office with many, many like-minded individuals. They and the Tea Party will hold the political establishment’s feet to the proverbial fire.

That's the good that the Tea Party process has brought to the political landscape --highlighting the bad stuff that's going on and supporting those who want to reverse it.

Of course you don't like the Tea Party and how it resonates with most Americans if you are for spending trillions of dollars, if you're against enforcing our border laws, if you're for weakening our defenses, if you're for higher taxes, and if you’re for redistribution of wealth.

Liberals can rail against the Tea Party, and Independents, Conservatives, and Republicans all they want to, and they can lie and make claims about how great things are and all the wonderful things the Democrat congress and the President have done, but in the end, the truth is plain in the economy, in the housing market and job market, in the promises that were made and not realized. On November 2, checks and balances will be restored to the government. Not as much will get done, and that's a damn good thing because in general Congress isn't doing much that's good anyway. On November 2, two party government will be restored to the United States government.

And speaking as a New Jerseyan, what would make November 2 even better would be if New Jersey's two liberal/socialist senators were standing for re-election because a Lautenburg and Menendez defeat would be the icing on the electoral cake.

But don’t take election day victories for either side for granted – get to your polling place and vote!

ACLU vs. God

The American Civil Liberties Union (aka The Progressives for Litigation Union, or the Anti Christian Lawyers Union) on behalf of Sharon Brenner Cadalzo has brought a lawsuit against the town of Point Pleasant Beach, New Jersey to stop a Christian prayer from being said before every town council meeting.

Ms. Cadalzo, who is Jewish, said it made her uncomfortable to hear the Christian prayer. The prayer she was "subjected" to was The Lord's Prayer. My question for Ms. Cadalzo, Why would it make you uncomfortable to hear a prayer to your own God? The Lord's Prayer was spoken by Jesus and his disciples and followers and refers to the Judeo/Christian God – the same God and creator of the universe the Jewish people pray to. The words of this prayer are hardly foreign ideas to Jews and the prayer is in fact similar to some Jewish prayers and phraseology contained in the Jewish Bible. So in my mind it engenders some incredulity and some suspicions as to the motivation for her taking this action.

So by now you may think I'm heading in one direction about this topic. But you'd be wrong. While I absolutely disagree with the idea of taking celebratory symbols and decorations like Christmas trees and Menorahs off of public property, because cultural celebration is not proselytizing, in this case I have to agree with the ACLU and Ms. Cadalzo.

Though the Christian prayer wouldn't make me uncomfortable being Catholic myself, I do think in this day and age when there are so many other religions interacting in public life (and so many atheists, bless their souls) that perhaps it is unfair. The prayer certainly does seem to run afoul of the state and federal constitutions, though in the end, that is an interpretive matter for the Judges or Justices to decide.

I have to say that if I was at a town council meeting and the council president, or clerk kneeled and said a prayer towards Mecca, I would be uncomfortable. Additionally, there are lots of people in New Jersey from India. Maybe some of them would like prayers said to the Hindu gods Vishnu or Brahma. And where would the line be drawn.

In this one case regarding the ACLU, I have to agree. That's one can of worms that should not have been opened in the United States and in New Jersey. Public officials, performing public duties should not be reciting the prayers of any religion before or during public business. It is an activity leaning too close to the sanctioning of a particular religion. 

Two books you might enjoy...
The ACLU vs. America: Exposing the Agenda to Redefine Moral Values.....

In Defense of American Liberties, Second Edition: A History of the ACLU