Writers

Eric Hogue

“Manny is to Baseball, As Jerry is to Politics”

by Eric Hogue

Being an Indians fan, I am a scorned lover of the game of baseball.

And it’s the same ‘love-hate relationship’ that has me very concerned about my love of California and her political future. I’ve pinned my hopes and dreams to a charismatic ‘player’ before; the outcome is always the same.

Charisma is never a substitute for the fundamentals of the game.

When I cheered for Chief Wahoo they featured a left-fielder by the name of Manny Ramirez.

Manny was a rookie back then, displaying a great looking swing that occasionally connected with the baseball. But it was the ‘rest of his package’ that brought the most trepidation.

After losing two World Series’ Manny left Cleveland for Boston; he added himself to a team that won a historic World Series. Eventually Manny soured in Beantown too. Boston let him go (do you ever wonder why?) and he now plays for the ‘Dodger blue’ of Los Angeles … a team that once believed that Manny would bring them fortune.

None of that has materialized in the land of plenty.

Manny’s dreadlocks, bagging uniform and lack of personal attention to anything that isn’t self-serving has caused the Dodgers – and their fans – great pause; wondering if this well traveled Manny is worth their investment.

Oh sure, Manny can swing a bat – he sure does look good.

But Manny can’t catch a line-drive if you gave him a fifty-foot tuna net.

Manny is a terrible base-runner who is in great need of his own dashboard navigation device. And his lack of substance at the plate often features his amazing talent of turning a sure double into a loafing single without breaking a sweat.

How can we forget his about Manny’s 50-days of suspension?

While Manny was vacationing during his suspension punishment, he took to braiding more dread-locks, visiting New York night clubs and displaying his nonchalant attitude, lack of concern and refusal to pay attention to anything accountable. All the while, everyone in baseball was racing to a microphone apologizing for his immature behavior.

It’s where the phrase was birthed; “It’s just Manny being Manny.”

I am beginning to sense the same as it relates to Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jerry Brown.

Here is another ‘well-traveled player of yesterday,’ seemingly more concerned about his next government job than the fundemental stability of the state he says he represents.

Like Manny, Jerry displays a good looking swing, but it’s his fundamentals that become the Achilles heel.

Recently Jerry took to criticizing Meg Whitman – his opponent come November – stating that Meg has only produced a 40-page pamphlet of ideas surrounding what she would do as Governor of California.

What is humorous is Jerry’s reply when the media asked of his ’budgetary batter’s eye.’

Jerry was hit a ‘can of corn’ – a fungo fly-ball to left field from the weak hitting media and Jerry’s stance was similar to the famous swing offered by the late Ted Kennedy when Roger Mudd asked, “Why are you running for President?”

Jerry’s play, “I’ll tell you after the election.”

A real crowd pleasure that Jerry, but way too costly if you’re considering the type of play needed to come back against the late inning deficit of Sacramento’s $20 billion hole.

Sure the crowd laughed as they walked away … mumbling under their breath, “Oh, that’s just Jerry Being Jerry.”/

The problem; the taxpaying season ticket holders of California’s citizenry, the shrinking private sector and burdened business holders believe it is time for a leader that instills the confidence of a California rally cap … not the hilarities of a low-budget stand-up act.

Upon a May weekend’s vigorous workout – as Jerry tells it – he literally ran across a news reporter in the Oakland Hills. Jerry, once again looking to make light of his play, struck up a controversial conversation that compared his opponent to Nazi Germany.

As Jerry tells it, “It’s what guys do … we get together and talk about these things.”

Really?

In this dialogue between guys Jerry referenced Meg Whitman’s campaign to that of the evil Nazi minister of propaganda. When Jerry was pressed to explain by members of the media his retort was that the reporter had misquoted him.

That the tenured reporter didn’t actually have a tape recorder (who uses such in 2010?), and that the reporter should have had a pencil to write down his quote if he wanted it to be used “on the record.”

Again – really; this from the same man who, as California’s Attorney General, was found to be recording (blamed it on a staffer, who was fired) phone conversations to the AG’s Office without the callers knowledge?

Jerry played his ”Nazi comment” explanation into a ’three-run error.’ And just like baseball’s Dodger, Jerry never apologized – he left everyone else in the Democrat Party to explain his lack-luster play in left-field.

For those trying to make sense of his immature, abrasive and illogical comments we scratch our heads.

Why does the media chuckle and respond with a short tenured laugh during each Jerry Brown press conference? To help you understand this disconnect you only have to consider the reality of the political mentality surrounding the coverage of Jerry Brown.

Baseball explains it as “Manny just being Manny,” and California’s political media explains it as “Jerry just being Jerry.”

Hogue News
WWW.HOGUENEWS.COM
1380 KTKZ / Sacramento

Poppoff!
Mary Jane Popp

Fat Talk

www.poppoff.com

Obesity has become an epidemic in our country. The Surgeon General told us back in 2001 that more than 61% of adults are overweight…31% obese. Obese means 30% over ideal weight. Kids fare no better at 13%. According to research done in 2002, people overweight at 40 are likely to die at least three years sooner than those who are slim and trim. Would you believe being fat at 40 and beyond is just as bad as smoking for your life expectancy? Dr. William Parsons says it’s time for “Tough Talk About Fat”…How to Reach and Maintain Your Ideal Weight. 10 pounds or 100 pounds, you can lose it. “Tough Talk” doesn’t scold you for being fat. It teaches us how to get rid of it…all of it!

Dr. P says it works like your bank balance. Take out more than you put in, and it goes down. There are some other incredible edible facts like, don’t fret about protein vs. carbs or whatever. Calorie control is everything. Then there’s the exercise thing. Although important for fitness, exercise plays a minor role in weight control.

Dr Parsons also put it very bluntly when it comes to books on weight control. There are thousands of ideas out there. According to Dr. P, in the U.S., the weight loss industry is a $58 Billion business with a 98% failure rate. Encouraging huh!? But Dr P says he is more concerned that obesity is now a major risk factor for Heart Attacks and Diabetes. He added that by wearing out weight-bearing joints, obesity is a major cause of disability. Then there’s the big surgery surge movement for morbid surgery. Dr Parsons says it saves lives, but he feels “Tough Talk” can save more.

He gets into a lot of great tips like reducing our eating by 500-700 calories a day can drop 4-5 pounds a month. He goes into tips on how to design your own program to lose weight, along with special strategies for your weight reduction program like:

1. Buy small…not the largest banana, apple, melon, other
2. Cook smaller amount
3. No nibbling while cooking
4. Use smaller plates
5. Stop eating when you feel satisfied not stuffed
6. Leave some food on your plate…contrary to what mother told you about cleaning your plat

The list goes on and on, and it’s pretty simple reading with basics to follow. Dr Parsons even gets into Legislation Congress should pass for a major attack on the epidemic of obesity.

With the July 4th just around the corner, you may want to fortify yourself from the mounds of desserts and taste desires by boning up on “Tough Talk About Fat”. You can find all the information you need about Dr Parsons and his books at www.cholesterolnodiet.com. Just a bit of tough talk to make a difference in out life. Happy Eating I mean nibbling!!

Phil Cowan

Rock On, Home Schoolers

In our inexorable march toward Orwellian-style government control over all that we do and think, another attempt has been made to corral those dangerous radical anarchists, the home schoolers. Judge H. Walter Croskey, of the Second District Court of Appeals in Los Angeles, recently ruled that California law requires school-age children be taught by credentialed teachers, whether in a public or private school, or even at home. Got that, home schoolers? Without a teaching credential, you’re not qualified to teach your kids, and you might be subject to criminal prosecution if you try.

This isn’t the first time the state has attempted to squash home schooling. Back in 2002, then-State Superintendent of Public Instruction Delaine Eastin issued an ominous memo that said essentially the same thing, warning parents who home school that they were in violation of California law without a credential, or unless they had their child’s education supervised by a credentialed teacher. That memo didn’t change a thing, and neither will Judge Croskey’s decision.

I’ve known many home school families over the years, some who are close friends, and not one of them has produced an uneducated dunderhead. One cannot say the same for the public education system, which has produced millions. For those who would point out that my evidence is purely anecdotal, I invite you to go online and look into a number of studies that clearly indicate that home schooled students achieve consistently higher scores on standardized tests than public school students. Most of these studies, especially the more recent ones, were conducted by home school advocates, but that’s largely because public education gave up such research years ago. It kept making them look bad.

There is a primary reason why these kids are better educated, regardless of where the child is taught: parental involvement. In any education setting, when a child’s parents take an interest in their outcome they have a much higher opportunity for success. A public school teacher can have the highest qualifications imaginable, and it won’t matter one bit to a child whose parents don’t care. Parents willing to send their kids to private schools obviously have a keener interest in their education hence they tend to outperform public school students. Home schoolers, by definition, care deeply about their child’s education, and the results speak for themselves. The failure of kids in public schools isn’t an education problem nearly as much as it’s a parenting problem.

So why, if the state is really acting in the best interest of the kids, would they attempt to undermine such success? Some of it is big government, nanny state goons, who think anybody who chooses to educate their own kids is a religious-zealot-gun-nut on a par with the Branch Davidians. Some of it is teacher’s union stooges who fear any threat to their funding or power, which is based on the universal need for more teachers, more teachers, MORE TEACHERS! The good news is this court decision won’t stand. It will be appealed, and if a higher court won’t overturn it, Governor Schwarzenegger has made it clear that the issue will be addressed in the legislature, allowing home schoolers to keep on schooling. How about that? Arnold, standing up for a conservative principle!

Catherine Moy

Move America Forward Takes Action Against 'Counter-Recruitment'

by Catherine Moy
Posted: 03/14/2008

A well-organized campaign of anti-war, anarchist groups and homegrown terrorist groups has caused an escalation of violent attacks on military recruiting centers across the nation, according to an in-depth report by Move America Forward, the nation’s largest pro-troop nonprofit organization.

Attackers since Sept. 11, 2001, have used bombs, human blood, feces, chains, guns and other weapons to destroy government property, block individuals trying to enter recruiting centers, close down recruiters, and terrorize the general public, according to the Move America Forward report being released today.

“This report took a lot of work, but it was necessary to show to the public that the attacks are well-planned, well-orchestrated and they are a threat to our society,” said Melanie Morgan, chairman of Move America Forward. “The conspiracy has reached all the way to Berkeley City Hall where the City Council encourages radicals to impede recruiters and even pays their way to harass U.S. Marines.”

Move America Forward (MAF) will release the report and a related TV commercial at a press conference this morning at the Press Club in Washington D.C. The commercial focuses on the growing problem of attacks on recruiters.

The report highlights more than 40 recruiting sites across the nation that protesters have attacked. Some of the sites have had more than one incident, such as Berkeley, Calif., where the left-wing group World Can’t Wait has assaulted and battered people entering a Marine recruiting center and employed juveniles in masks to beat elderly people with skate boards and picket signs, set fires and hit police officers.

Among the 40-plus cities and incidents in the report are:

• Bremerton, Wash.; Jule 29, 2007: A 19-year-old Bremerton man slashed 42 government tires at a recruting center to protest the Iraq. He was charged with a Class B felony in Kitsap County Superior Court.
• Pittsburg, Pennsylvania; Oct. 6, 2006: Jeb Bush, brother of President George W. Bush and governor of Florida at the time, was harassed near a demonstration at a military recruitment station and forced to flee. Police tasered two people. After the march left, the front door of the station was smashed.
• Lufkin, Texas: July 3, 2007: After a spate of attacks at a recruiting center which included vandalizing recruiters cars and breaking windows, somebody shot up recruiters’ cars in an escalation of the attacks.
• Santa Cruz, Calif.: April 2006: Military recruiters were forced off the U.C. Santa Cruz college campus when a mob of attackers surrounded them.

Specifics on attacks in the report also include more on the Times Square bombing last week, a firebomb at a Texas recruitment office, a “Molotov cocktail” bomb at a Buffalo, N.Y.; recruitment office; and gunfire at a Denver, Colo., recruiters’ office.

“Counter-recruitment” is so popular with anti-war activists that entire Web sites have been set up to describe the activity that often turns violent and destructive.

Anarchist groups and anti-war organizations such as the radical Code Pink encourage others to attack and vandalize recruiting centers in action they call “counter-recruitment.” After completing their violent acts, the groups often post about them on web sites.

Very few people are caught and prosecuted for the offenses, the report shows.

“We cannot sit by as this violence continues,” Morgan said. “Law enforcement has an obligation to our society to stop these actions by capturing the suspects and prosecuting them. Lawmakers must ensure laws are in place to properly punish these deviants of society.”

Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), who has introduced legislation to strip the city of Berkeley, Calif., of its federal earmarks for designer lunches and other pork because the City Council encourages forceful protests of the city’s sole recruiting center -- will speak at MAF’s press conference at 9:30 a.m. at the Press Club in Washington D.C.

DeMint has been an outspoken critic of “counter-recruitment” and especially the ongoing incidents in Berkeley, where the City Council gave free parking and sound permits to Code Pink and enacted a resolution labeling the Marine recruiters there unwelcome intruders.

The anti-war groups continue their siege on recruiters’ centers across the country. The fifth anniversary of the beginning of the Iraq War, March 19, 2008, will mark more attacks, according to Web sites of radical groups. The Pittsburgh Organizing Group (POG) plans to hold a “torch-lit march to a modern day castle of abominations -- our local military recruiting office,” according to its website.

The POG will try to shut down the office and evict “everything inside of it.” The group will bring a “movable cage” to capture recruiters and hold them.

“This violence will not stop until good Americans, lawmakers and law enforcement work together to arrest and prosecute the perpetrators of these attacks,” Morgan said.

MAF is calling on U.S. Attorneys to investigate all of the incidents and prosecute the criminals participating in the violence.

Catherine Moy is a nationally recognized award-winning journalist and coauthor of America Mourning: A story of two families.

Joyce Marcroft

An Interview at William Jessup

I wish everyone could visit the campus of William Jessup University! My previous times on the campus had been to attend a concert, a dinner, or a meeting with colleagues to plan an event. This time I arrived about 2PM during school hours to interview a student who is a senior and has attended William Jessup since her freshman year.

As I entered the quad area a group of students were talking and exchanging books but stopped long enough to smile and say "hello" to an obvious stranger. A couple minutes later, approaching the door of the administration building, I saw two faculty members talking. Both turned and smiled and asked if they could help me find a specific office or person. I said that I had an appointment and had been in the office before. They then held open the door and returned to their conversation. Everyone I met had a gracious, friendly courteous demeanor that is so refreshing in this hurried, harried life we live.

My interviewee, Erin O'Sullivan was waiting with a warm handshake and smile- a very poised young lady with obvious Celtic charm. With her was Christy Jewel, a William Jessup administrator. I explained that I was interested in talking to Erin about her experience at William Jessup University, reasons for her deciding on attending, and her future plans.

Erin comes from a family of five- her father Mark, mother Patti, and two brothers. Dan is 37 and Mike is 34 years old so Erin was able to experience some of the "only child" feelings and yet have two older brothers to provide support and guidance. She became interested in the "generational gap" that existed not only between herself and her parents but also between her older siblings and herself. She has long been interested in the psychological differences determined by age. This explains her double major of Bible/Theology and Counseling Psychology.

Growing up in Loomis, a suburb of Sacramento that has grown in population from what was once almost rural to one of the fastest growing area of California, Erin was able to experience the musical and artistic benefits of Sacramento and that of a quiet countryside. At Del Oro High School, Erin was a member of Talons- a chapter of the National Honor Society and was awarded the award of Golden Eagle of the year 2004.

During her high school years, Erin's involvement with Sports Medicine and Peer Helping she says "the Lord made it extremely clear what would be her calling in life. What first showed up was my passion for people, the deep care I felt for the emotional, physical, and spiritual well being for the people with whom I spent my time".

When father Mark suggested Erin think about attending William Jessup University, she was fairly resistant ( close to home, would rather experience a new area, etc.- all the reasons high school students have for selecting a college away from home). And she already had her life planned down to the most m minute detail!!!

"Coming to William Jessup was a large leap of faith for me" continued Erin. " I set down the plans I had to attend a university in Washington state, a place I love very much. But I felt so strongly that WJU was the place God wanted me to be...and since being at Jessup the Lord has helped me mature so much and brought me through so many rewarding experiences."

"I have been thinking a lot about graduation and evaluating my time here(at WJU) and have come to the conclusion that what I am going to miss most about being at this university is the professors! Jessup is flat out blessed. The faculty is a real gift from God. They will be truly missed and not having their influence on a daily basis will be the biggest shock for me. I have grown so fond of them and will miss them dearly... I am so thankful for the years spent at William Jessup University".

Attending college not far from home has given many advantages to Erin- being close to her family, watching her three nieces grow up, while she was able to find her own independence.

Erin has her post graduate studies all planned also. "I will be attending Alliant in Sacramento and getting my PsyD in Marriage and Family Therapy- and hope to practice there. It's obvious she "likes her space" and yet "appreciates the familiar".

Erin looks forward to having the closeness of family and her friends from William Jessup University. Being in Sacramento will also enable her to continue attending her church The Rock of Rocklin where she is the administrative assistant to the Youth Pastor.

This very mature young lade refers to her faith as a "gift from the Lord Jesus" and goes on to remark that she feels a relationship with Him that guides her through life.

Yolanda Knaak

Proposition 8 California Protect Marriage Act

Proposition 8 will be on California’s Ballot in November. There was an attempt to get it removed by the ACLU, although this was denied by the California Supreme Court. The Constitutional Amendment, also referred to as Same-Sex Marriage Ban, amends the California Constitution to provide that ‘only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California’. Last May the California Supreme Court ruled to allow gay marriage and overturned Prop 22 which had come into law in 2000 as a result of 61% of voters. Now it will be the voters of California that ultimately make the conclusive decision this November.

Common concerns with gay marriage are the fundamental change in order of the pillars of society (Marriage, Family and Faith) and a change of the foundational law of society. Homosexual behavior has existed throughout time, yet there is no common knowledge of any societal sanction of gay marriage (until recently). Making this recent change to gay marriage is new and different for civilization, and ramifications have not been explored.

The advertising opposing Proposition 8 has already begun. The first television ad portrayed a man standing at the altar and his bride walking down the aisle, but someone with a stick was holding her back. The message was, “what if you could not marry the one you love?”

We can feel sympathy and compassion for homosexuals, but not necessarily feel compelled to change the marriage laws. Can those grappling with homosexuality make other choices? Those grappling with promiscuity or alcholism can choose not to act on their drives for such behavior. According to Exodus International, thousands of homosexuals have left the gay lifestyle, and many are happily married to a partner of the opposite sex. This indicates that a homosexual lifestyle can involve elements of personal choice.

We can compare this gay marriage dilemma to that of a woman who falls in love with a married man. She can not marry the one she loves. We may feel sympathy and compassion for her as she struggles, but that does not mean we ought to change our society and open the door for polygamy.

When we cast our vote this November, we need to consider our motivation. We need to decide whether we want to continue with such a foundational change to our society as gay marriage, or to make a decision for traditional marriage and vote Yes on Proposition 8.

For comments or questions, feel free to contact me at Yolanda@skyq.com. About the author: Yolanda Knaak is a RN, has a Masters degree from UCLA, and works in home health. She is also an elected member of the Sacramento County Republican Party Central Committee.