Vacation

Beginning Friday, April 30 and continuing to Friday, May 14 "The Last Word" will not have as many posts as usual. We will be in sunny Naples, Florida for Sandi's post tax season melt down. I will be posting blogs from time to time but not as many as usual. I will have my laptop so I will continue to have access to my emails and I will continue to make periodic posts to Facebook. So definitely do check here periodically but don't expect to see my usual frequency of posts. Thanks and I'll be back soon with more timely observations on various issues.

Obama Must Act Now

The internet is buzzing; TV talking heads are babbling; and newspaper headlines are blaring. Arizona has decided to go it alone. Fed up with the waves of illegal immigrants coming into its state, Arizona has passed a law giving state police broad powers to stop people in order to make 'inquiries' of their immigration status. The most generous observers call it a desperate measure by a desperate state. The least generous observers call it racial profiling which is illegal. President Obama has roundly criticized it. Whatever you may believe, it is a taste of things to come unless the Federal government stops stalling, takes the bull by the horns and handles this problem for the whole nation. States like Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, California and actually throughout the nation are forced to provide health, education and general welfare to folks who entered this country illegally. I'm not by any means suggesting that we should activate the National Guard and round them up wholesale and send them back. But let's at least come up with a solution to the problem so that we can determine who these folks are, where they came from, how many there are and how much they're earning so that eventually we can devise a system whereby they're contributing toward most, if not all, of the services they receive. Notice I haven't said anything about the crimes they may or may not be committing. I suspect they're not responsible for any where near the number their critics claim. On the other hand, no one really knows. It's an important issue and now that Obama has accomplished pretty much what he set out to do with health care reform, it's time for him to take this on. Yes, it's a political hot potato and yes he's going to get major grief from the republicans but, hey, what else is new? They opted out the minute he was sworn in. So get on with it.

Take Cover! Incoming!

Ah, if only I had a nickle for every forwarded email I get from conservative and liberal friends alike (mostly conservative) that contain attachments of articles, news items, so-called fact sheets and the like supporting one position or another. I'd be one rich guy. But instead I just have an in box full of junk. The one I just received, for example, purports to 'educate' the recipient on the finer points of Obamacare. Without going into a lot of detail, let's just say that I took a few minutes to research the content of the attachment and found it to have been written by a conservative columnist who took partial truths, distorted and omitted facts to tell us how we're going to get screwed when health care reform finally takes hold. The truth of course turned out to be much different. And so it goes. It just keeps coming. The overwhelming majority of these messages are from conservative friends who are genuinely concerned with the way the country is going. Fine. Let them rant. But there's also a smaller but no less significant amount of this stuff that's racist and cruel. That's the stuff that troubles me. What's one to do? See that key in the upper right area of your keyboard. Let me spell it for you: d-e-l-e-t-e. Just press it-and move on to your next forwarded message. Maybe for once it will be a good joke!

The Words of a Wise Man

The more I hear this woman talk the more I agree with the wisdom of Sinclair Lewis who was in my view an extremely astute observer of the political scene. Sarah Palin is a self-serving, conniving prima donna who runs around this country making a lot of money speaking out against 'big government' while hypocritically expecting people to adhere to her value system. She has absolutely no tolerance for varied beliefs and that, my friends, is the very definition of fascism. Beware.

Happy First Birthday To Nicholas

Happy 1st birthday to Nicholas George Stockwell. For a slide show of Nicholas's first year, click here: georgeswebpage.com/photogallery

This Day in History

In preparing for my volunteer News Group I discovered that this is a rather eventful day in history. Here are just a few of the things I thought to be noteworthy.
The first thing I discovered is that it was on this day that Abraham Lincoln was shot.
Second, it was on this day in 1912 that the Titanic struck an iceberg.
Third, on this day in 1828 Noah Webster copyrighted the dictionary.
Fourth, on this day in 1860 the Pony Express reached Sacramento (and it's been downhill from there for the Postal Service)
Fifth, on this day in 1965 the two men that were the subjects of the great Truman Capote book, In Cold Blood, were executed by hanging in Kansas.
And finally on a somewhat more trivial note, on this day in 1935 Babe Ruth started his last season in professional baseball.

And there you have it. Quite a day. Is your day going to shape up to be just as important??

The 'Expert' Speaks

She's at it again, folks. Speaking to a group of discontents somewhere, Sarah Palin decided to take on President Obama's recent signing of a nuclear disarmament agreement with Russian president Dmitry Medvedev. Unbelievable. Now she's an expert on foreign policy and the delicate art of negotiation. This woman is so pathetic it's beyond description. Fortunately, most rational people recognize her for what she is: a conniving, self-serving prima donna.

Global Warming?

Two things have come to my attention recently. First, it's hot-very hot. To be in the nineties at this point in the year is extraordinary. In fact yesterday was the hottest April 6th in recorded meteorological history. The second thing is the news that National Glacier Park has been reduced in size by several thousand acres. I forgot what I heard constitutes a glacier as opposed to just a big chunk of ice. It's something like a mass of about 25 acres in size. That's pretty big. As a result of these two things, some scientists are declaring global warming to be absolute fact. I find that to be unfortunate because first of all there are few if any 'absolutes' in science. Second, the fact that the glaciers are melting is definitely evidence of global warming but an unusually hot day now and then does not. Global Warming is something that has to be measured over a very long period of time. One day here and there isn't going to do it. Scientists who run around screaming the sky is falling are doing the field a great disservice. That's the reason why some people are so skeptical now about Global Warming. Tone it down, guys. Stay cool-as it were!

The Life of An Actor

Today was a great day with my two best little girls. This morning Courtney and I went to Mathies Memorial Park in Beacon Falls. We played on the slides, swings and see-saws. Then we spent a fair amount of time trying to sneak up on geese to pet them but they were too sharp for us. Finally, we went to a picnic table and she assigned me jobs for when we returned home. On the way back to the truck she tripped and scraped her foot. I bandaged it with a first aide kit I had in the truck. Then we went home. After we picked up Brooke, we had lunch and then Courtney took her nap. The afternoon was spent with me switching back and forth from being Keila-my usual identity-to the school nurse. As the school nurse, I was responsible for administering an eye exam for Brianna (Brooke). We finally determined that none of the four sun glasses she was trying were suitable so I had to write a prescription for the appropriate glasses. Brianna went on her computer, ordered them and-presto!-there they were. She tried reading the eye chart with her new glasses and they were perfect. That problem being resolved we turned to show-and-tell. She had a Yoo Hoo hamster and I had a dull old ball. Then Brianna's (still Brooke) daddy came home and I left to do more mundane chores e.g. get gas, pick up a scrip, get a box of wine, get epoxy for the deck and swing set, all very dull stuff by comparison. All in all a great day with two sweet little girls. And to think, tomorrow I get to be with my two best little boys!! There's nothing like being a grand parent:)

Don't forget Newtown.patch.com

Don't forget to see my columns in newtown.patch.com I will continue to write blogs here but for longer, more local, issues I think you'll find newtown.patch.com of interest.