Give It Back

If you want a quick example of how hard it is to take away a government entitlement, look at the NYC public schools this week.  You will have to look from the outside, though, because schools are closed all week.  They call it the mid winter break, which is not to be confused with the other breaks:  Christmas week, spring break, July & August summer vacation, religious holidays in September & October, Thanksgiving week, Election Day, Veterans Day, Columbus Day and others that I'm sure I left out.  Teaching is a great part time job if you can get it.

But the schools never used to have a week off in February. That all changed, however, under Obama's Presidential role model, President Carter.  In the winter of '77 or '78, the Arab world was squeezing the oil supply.  They sensed weakness in Carter, and sadly they were correct.  One of the initiatives was to conserve energy by closing schools for one week during the winter.  They called it "Energy Conservation Week."  We were told that once the crisis passed, the schools would reopen again for that week in February.

A couple of years later Reagan became President, and we had so much oil, it was coming out of our water faucets.  The oil crisis was like Carter-gone.  So the schools should have opened, right?  Wrong.  We gave the teachers a week off with pay and they had no intention of giving it back.  And our political leaders, cowards to their core, never demanded that they give that week back. 

And thirty-plus years later, teachers still have that week off. 

Because once the government gives you something, the post WWII generations of Americans have been brainwashed to think that you never have to give it back.

But those days are over.            

Enough With This John Lennon

December 7- Pearl Harbor Day

December 8- John Lennon Murdered Day

Yesterday, no media attention on Pearl Harbor Day.  Today, it's teddy bears and candles non stop for John Lennon.

Talk about a nation not honoring its own history.  But we know every John Lennon song by heart, right?  The misplaced emphasis is a disgrace.

Years ago Bill Buckley analyzed the lyrics of Lennon's "Imagine" and concluded it was the Socialist/Communist version of utopia.

Think about it:

Imagine no:

Heaven

Hell

Religions

Countries

Possessions

Please.  That's a commie paradise alright.

For a guy who imagined no possessions, he sure collected a lot of them.

Those songs weren't written by Lennon & McCartney; more like Lennin & McCartney

Reagan's Thanksgiving Words..

President Reagan's First Thanksgiving Proclamation:

America has much for which to be thankful. The unequaled freedom enjoyed by our citizens has provided a harvest of plenty to this nation throughout its history. In keeping with America’s heritage, one day each year is set aside for giving thanks to God for all of His blessings. … In this spirit, Thanksgiving has become a day when Americans extend a helping hand to the less fortunate. Long before there was a government welfare program, this spirit of voluntary giving was ingrained in the American character. Americans have always understand that, truly, one must give in order to receive. This should be a day of giving as well as a day of thanks.

Columbus

Happy Columbus Day to everybody. Columbus Day, and how you feel about it reveals a lot. My pal Ralphie went to law school at UCLA and his wife went to St. John's. At SJU, Columbus Day is very festive. The students crack open a bunch of kegs, play a lot of music, and a good time is had by all. At UCLA, it's a different story. Columbus Day is treated like a funeral, with the oh so somber students wearing black armbands to reflect that Columbus was a genocidal maniac.

Who you identify with, the UCLA students or the SJU students, will tell you a lot about a person.

God Bless Christopher Columbus.

No Comparison

Before A-Fraud Roidriguez hits his 600th steroids-aided homer, I wanted to post Ted Williams' last at bat, which of course was a homer. The whole world wanted Williams to acknowledge the fans by tipping his cap, but he hadn't done it in 19 years, ans wasn't about to do it then.

Here is how John Updike famously wrote about that moment in The New Yorker:

Like a feather caught in a vortex, Williams ran around the square of bases at the center of our beseeching screaming. He ran as he always ran out home runs—hurriedly, unsmiling, head down, as if our praise were a storm of rain to get out of. He didn't tip his cap. Though we thumped, wept, and chanted "We want Ted" for minutes after he hid in the dugout, he did not come back. Our noise for some seconds passed beyond excitement into a kind of immense open anguish, a wailing, a cry to be saved. But immortality is nontransferable. The papers said that the other players, and even the umpires on the field, begged him to come out and acknowledge us in some way, but he never had and did not now. Gods do not answer letters.

We Are In Serious Jeopardy

You want proof that this country is doomed? Watch the video below. These kids are shown a picture and asked to identify the man in the picture. The man is Ronald Reagan. And none of them could do it.

Whether you like him or not, Reagan is a monumental figure in American history. And he is being written out of our history books in our own lifetimes.

The history classes in American schools spend about 10 minutes on the Cold War. It goes like this "The Soviet Union had their system, and we had ours. Their goal was to bring prosperity to the masses, and they were not able to achieve their goal because of the massive economic pressure applied by the American government. Now let's turn to the rise of Barack Obama.......

Here's hoping that there were 3 horrified fathers that took off their belt and whipped their kids once Trebek went to a commercial....

Get Rid Of It

Never forget that this health care law is such a massive runaway entitlement program, that if liberal hero FDR was alive, he would fall out of his wheelchair in disgust.

Grant

Check out the post below by a black writer who just finished reading U.S. Grant's memoir. He makes some excellent observations:


http://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2010/06/these-are-the-last-days-of-us-grant/58879/

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The Greatest Has Passed

With the passing of John Wooden, the greatest coach in American history, I thought it would be appropriate to link a prior Stoop post on Bill Walton and the letter he wrote to Coach Wooden on his 99th birthday:


Grateful Red

What A Man

Page 2: What is your most startling memory from your time aboard the USS Alabama?

Bob Feller: The biggest thing that I was involved in was known as the "Marianas Turkey Shoot" [June 19, 1944]. That was in the Philippine Sea off the island of Saipan with the Third Fleet and Task Force 58. We shot down over 470 Japanese airplanes in one day. And that was the end of the Japanese Naval Air Force.

Baseball Hall of Famer Bob Feller is 91. He broke into the majors at 17 in 1936. When the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, he joined the Navy the next day-becoming the first big leaguer to join the military after the attack. To hear Feller talk about his combat experience is always enlightening-he is a national treasure whose life should be studied in American history classes.

Here are some excerpts from recent interviews that Feller has given. You will surely note that Feller did not limit high hard ones to the batter at home plate-he saved his best stuff for the enemy:

PD: When did you first hear of the attack on Pearl Harbor?


BF: While I was driving to Chicago. I made up my mind right then and there that I was going to enlist. When I got to Chicago, I called Gene Tunney, head of the Naval Physical Fitness Program. I told him I was ready to sign up to join the Navy. He told me what I needed to do.

PD: Did you ever think about what you were giving up to enlist, and that you might lose not only your career, but your life?


BF: As soon as the war broke out, I was in, no matter what I was doing at the time. I wasn't concerned about anything but trying to do whatever I could to help my country.

PD: You were a gun captain on the USS Alabama in the Pacific theater. What did that entail?


BF: I was in charge of 25 guys -- 24 on the guns, one guy standing beside me. I pulled the trigger.

PD: Were you ever afraid to die during combat?


BF: Never gave it a thought. You always knew that if a bullet had your name on it, you were going to get it. But when you're young, everybody thinks it's got somebody else's name on it. That's why we have wars.
There was always a little panic, sure. Everybody had different emotions. But you had a job to do, and you needed to have a clear head. What they teach you in war college is, when you're on the guns, kill the other guy before he kills you. We had a few gutless people aboard, yes, and we got rid of them.

PD: What do you mean by "got rid of them"?


BF: Shore duty or something else way from the ship.

PD: Did you shoot down kamikazes?


BF: Oh, hell yes. We had Variable Density goggles, which I have in my museum in Iowa. Kamikazes would come out of the sun at high noon, and you supposedly couldn't see them. We could use the goggles to block out the sun and see the plane and splash it with the barrel straight up. We fired eight rounds a second out of the 40-mm quad.

The Greatest Play In Baseball - Rick Monday Saves U.S. Flag

The idiot fan who rightfully was tasered for running around on the field during the Philles game made me think of this great moment in baseball history:

Illegal Elian 10 Years Later

It's been 10 years since the Elian Gonzalez thing went down. It was the first time in American history that liberals wanted strict enforcement of our immigration laws. There argument was: "How dare we deprive that child of a proper communist upbringing?" As you can see from the article below, Elian's brain has been fully -washed in communist dogma. If that was the goal, we could have sent him to NYC, Washington or San Francisco instead of shipping him back to Havana at gunpoint.

How awesome would it be if the kid who came here for freedom and a better life grows up to be the next brutal dictator of Cuba?


Now 16, Elian Gonzalez shown at Cuba youth meeting‎ -

Always Remember

President Lincoln died 145 years ago today. It was 5 days after the end of the Civil War. Here is the famous poem Walt Whitman wrote about Lincoln's death:


O Captain My Captain

O Captain my Captain! our fearful trip is done,
The ship has weathered every rack, the prize we sought is won,
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring;
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up--for you the flag is flung for you the bugle trills,
For you bouquets and ribboned wreaths for you the shores a-crowding,
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;
Here Captain! dear father!
This arm beneath your head!
It is some dream that on the deck,
You've fallen cold and dead.

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still;
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will;
The ship is anchored safe and sound, its voyage closed and done;
From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won;
Exult O shores, and ring O bells!
But I, with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.

It's Disrespectful

When we think of April 15, we all know what comes to mind: tax day. This is the day we have to settle up with the government. Even the 47% of you that don't pay a dime in federal income taxes know April 15.

But April 15 is should be very important to Americans for another reason. Abraham Lincoln died on this day. It was 145 years ago today that the greatest American of them all passed from this earth.

We are a nation suffering from historical Alzheimer's. We don't know our own history; but we know Lady Gaga.

It's disrespectful to Lincoln's memory to have the day we have to file our tax returns overshadow the day that he died.

Move it to another day.

Happy March 17th to Ya

The American idea is a free church in a free state, and a free and un-sectarian public school in every ward and in every village, with its doors wide open to the children of all races and of every creed. It goes still further, and frowns upon the constant attempt to divide our people according to origin or extraction. Let every man honor and love the land of his birth and the race from which he springs and keep their memory green. It is a pious and honorable duty. But let us have done with British-Americans and Irish-Americans and so on, and all be Americans - nothing more and nothing less. If a man is going to be an American at all let him be so without any qualifying adjectives, and if he is going to be something else, let him drop the word American from his personal description.

Henry Cabot Lodge Sr. (Speech given in Brooklyn: December 21,1888)

There is one question that we are all asked and my response drives some people crazy.

What is your background? "I'm Native American" I always reply.

Some people think that is an unacceptable response. Why? I was born here, raised here and schooled here. My history is American history, my people are the American people.

Some refuse to accept that response. They think only Indians shall be identified as Native Americans. But this is my native land. I know no other. How can I be a native of a place I have never been? Those who think that Indians are the only people who can legitimately claim "Native" status must think that people are like potatoes, that they sprout from the ground, and that's how you define ones origin.

But people do not sprout from the ground. The history of civilization shows that humans are nomadic, always on the move. So yes, I am a Native American.

Another pet peeve I have is a malady that afflicts many. You may even suffer from it. It's called "Hyphenated-American Syndrome".

If you have ever said the following words: "I'm Irish-American" you suffer from this.

I got news for you; you're not. And that's not coming from me; that is the response you will get from any native of Ireland. Or China. Or anywhere else. They see you as American. You should too.

Truth be known when the chips are down, you see yourself as an "Unhyphenated American" as well.

How do I know?

Take the "Tank Test".

Say tanks from the Italian (or any other country) army are rolling across the Brooklyn Bridge. Are you going to join their efforts? Or do you want those tanks destroyed? As Patton said, "trust me, you'll know what to do."

A main symptom of this Hyphenated -American syndrome are these ethnic parades in NYC. It never ceases to amaze me with how native born Americans self identify with these ethnic parades more so than their own American heritage.


People burst with pride by wearing green, playing bagpipes and wearing kilts on St.Patrick's Day.

Don't get me wrong: Baldman is not saying that these parades should be banned, we all have the 1st Amendment Right to Associate, to freely express ourselves.

But where is the burst of pride for our own country? And don't tell me we do it by lighting bottle rockets on July 4th.

Do yourself a favor. Celebrate the red white and blue. Go to Prospect Park, where the American Revolutionary War was fought. Go to lower Manhattan, visit Federal Hall on Wall Street, where Washington was inaugurated. Walk down the block to the Trinity Church graveyard and pay your respects to the incomparable Alexander Hamilton, who is buried there.

Know your heritage. Honor it. Treasure it.

Its Like Finding Out Nancy Pelosi Shot Down Ho Chi Minh

Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, 90, is the longest serving and most liberal member of the Court. Obviously, Baldman is not a fan of his legal opinions. But in this week's New Yorker, Baldman read something about Stevens that deserves high praise.

During World World II Stevens was a Navy cryptologist stationed at Pearl Harbor. His mission was to analyze and interpret enemy transmissions.

In April 1943, Stevens decoded a very important Japanese communication. The intelligence Stevens (and his team) gathered was used by American aviators to track and shoot down the plane of Admiral Isoroku-the architect of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the leader of the Axis forces in Midway. It was a straight up assassination-bravo.

The Stoop applauds Stevens for his service during World War II.

Maybe he should have stayed in the military?

Ronnie & Pat: It Doesn't Get Any Better

A Man For All Times

The 3 minute Ronald Reagan chat to the American people linked below should be shown in every classroom in this country. Reagan, in his last year in office, warns young Americans that an informed patriotism and love for our common heritage has fallen out favor with the popular culture. That they must resist that wayward thinking. And seek knowledge of our glorious past. And honor it. The more you think about it, Ronald Reagan was simultaneously a man of his time and a man ahead of his time. Everything he warned about in these 3 minutes is even truer now. Check it out:
Reagan responds to Obama and his supporters "But change would not mean rejection of the past. Like a tree growing strong through the seasons, rooted in the Earth and drawing life from the Sun, so, too, positive change must be rooted in traditional values—in the land, in culture, in family and community— and it must take its life from the eternal things, from the source of all life, which is faith. Such change will lead to new understandings, new opportunities, to a broader future in which the tradition is not supplanted but finds its full flowering. That is the future beckoning to your generation." -Ronald Reagan
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Endless Debate

Some subjects lend themselves to endless debate: Williams vs. DiMaggio; Creation vs. Evolution; and the actual number of face lifts Nancy Pelosi has had are just some of the topics that have sparked numerous discussions on the Stoop.

Yesterday we had another debate. It was between Baldman & the Chairman of Stoop Research. The subject: Oswald. Baldman said he acted alone. The Chairman says it was a Communist plot.

His reasoning:

Say someone commits a terrorist act in the United States. And the terrorist is captured. Upon capture, we learn that the terrorist spent a lot of time in Afghanistan, and we even have the video which shows him on the monkey bars in Afghanistan engaged in Al-Qaeda training. We would have no trouble saying it was part of an Al-Qaeda plot, right?

Now look at Oswald. The fuc*king guy LIVED IN RUSSIA. AND HE WAS A COMMUNIST. What more do you need to know?

While the Chairman's argument is very convincing, Baldman still maintains that he acted alone. However, if a video tape ever emerges that shows Oswald training with the KGB on some monkey bars, he reserves the right to change his mind.

Happy Birthday To Them

Two legends were born on this day: Ronald Reagan & Bob Marley. Reagan would have been 99, & Marley 65. Perhaps Reagan should have named Marley the Chairman of the "Joint" Chiefs of Staff. It would have changed history as we know it. Reagan's most famous line would have been "Mr. Gorbachev, light up that spliff."