My family and friends think my appearance on NJN’s Reporters Roundtable with Michael Aron was wonderful.
My brother emailed me that his wife said I looked good. I responded, “No wonder you love her, she is very generous!” “Yes, she is,” was his reply.
The final broadcast of the first “Bloggers Roundtable” featuring yours truly, Murray Sabrin, and BlueJersey’s Jay Lassiter and Jeff Gardner is at 10AM this morning. NJN is channel 23 on Comcast in Monmouth County. Check your local listings if you have a different TV provider.
If you miss the broadcast you can view the video here.
Written for the first Small Business Saturday in 2010 and reposted
By Art Gallagher
American Express has created a self serving campaign to support small businesses by encouraging shoppers to patronize such establishments tomorrow. Today is known as Black Friday. Monday has become known as Cyber Monday. The two days are the busiest shopping days of the year. Amex wants to make the Saturday after Thanksgiving a new shopping day.
While the goal is laudable, this campaign will serve American Express at the expense of the small businesses they are purporting to support. As most small business owners know, the fees that American Express charge businesses that accept their card are often 50-150% higher than the fees other credit card companies charge.
You’ve probably used and heard the word “happy” more in the last few days than you have all year. How many “Happy Thanksgiving” greetings have you given and received? We’ve entered happy season.
For the rest of the year, and for a few days into next year “happy” will replace “nice” as in “Have a nice day” as our standard hello and good-bye greeting. Really happy people will allow themselves to say and hear “merry.” People who are not so happy will be offended when they hear the “merry” phrase. Those who are moderately happy won’t be offended by hearing merry, unless there is someone else within ear shot that is offended by it. If two or more people who want to say merry but are concerned about offending each other if the say it discover that none of them are offended by merry, they will be happy and jolly, momentarily.
After January 4, you must go back to saying “nice”, unless you’re addressing someone on or about the anniversary of their birth or marriage. Then you can say “happy”, but not “merry.” “Merry” is reserved for the truly happy and only to be used after the 4th Thursday in November.
Why do I say “merry” is reserved for the truly happy? Only a conservative would unapologetically say the merry phrase without concern for PC BS. As Dennis Prager points out in his column, Why Unhappy People Become Liberals, in the National Review Online, conservatives are happy and liberals are not.
Prager identifies four reasons for this phenomena.
1) Liberals view society as out to hurt people. Prager uses racism as an example.
“Take black Americans, for example. It makes perfect sense that a black American who is essentially happy is going to be less attracted to the Left. Anyone who has interacted with black conservatives rarely encounters an angry, unhappy person.
Why?
Because the liberal view on race is that America is a racist society. Therefore, for all intents and purposes, a black American must abandon liberalism in order to be a happy individual. It is very hard, if not impossible, to be a happy person while believing that society is out to hurt you. So, the unhappy black person will gravitate to liberalism and liberalism will in turn make him more unhappy by reinforcing his view that he is a victim.”
2) Life is hard.
“The unhappy gravitate toward the Left for a second reason. Life is hard for liberals and life is hard for conservatives. But conservatives assume that life will always be hard. Liberals, on the other hand, have utopian dreams. At his brother Robert’s funeral, the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy recalled his brother saying: “Some men see things as they are and say, ‘Why?’ I dream things that never were and say, ‘Why not?'”
Utopians will always be less happy than those who know that suffering is inherent to human existence. The utopian compares America to utopia and finds it terribly wanting. The conservative compares America to every other civilization that has ever existed and walks around wondering how he got so lucky as to be born or naturalized an American”
3) Conservatism demands self-reliance, which makes one happy.
“Imagine two Americans living in essentially identical socioeconomic conditions. They earn $45,000 a year, they have the same amount of debt on their homes, and both have the same number of dependents. One seeks governmental assistance wherever possible; the other eschews any governmental help. Which one is likely to be the liberal and which one is likely to be the happier individual?
This is not a question only an oracle can answer. The one who yearns for governmental help is the one who is likely to be both liberal and less happy. Conservatism, which demands self-reliance, makes one happier. The more a man or woman feels like captain of his or her ship (as poor as that ship may be), the happier he or she will be.”
4) Liberals are governed by their feelings. Conservatives know that behavior, not feelings, is what matters and that to be truly happy, one must govern their feelings.
“A fourth explanation for greater unhappiness among liberals is that the more people allow feelings to govern them, the less happy they will be. And the further left one goes, the more importance one attaches to feelings.
It is liberal educators and liberal parents who have clamored for protecting young people from the pain of losing games. The liberal world came up with the idea of giving trophies to kids who lose; they don’t want their children feeling bad. Conservatives, on the other hand, teach their kids how to lose well. They are less worried about their children feeling bad.
Those who know that feelings must not govern us, but that we must govern our feelings, are far more likely to be happy people.”
Prager concludes that given his thesis, defeating the Left is amazingly simple.
There is an amazingly simple way to defeat the Left: Raise children who are grateful to be American, who don’t complain, who can handle losing, and who are guided by values, not feelings. In other words, teach them how to be happy adults.
Prager’s right, but his solution will take a least a generation.
In the meantime, encourage all people to be happy and merry. This is the perfect time of year to do it. The Lefties won’t even notice.
I was privileged to join Murray Sabrin along with BlueJersey’s Jay Lassiter and Jeff Gardner as panelists on Michael Aron’s Reporters Roundtable on NJN.
The video is just under 27 minutes long. The show will be broadcast on television Friday evening at 7PM and Sunday at 10am.
I’m looking forward to being with family today, even if it means several hours of driving round trip. Last year much of my extended family was scattered geographically during the holidays. As I look forward to sharing today with them I realise how much I missed them throughout the past year.
Thank you for being a MMM reader. Five years ago when I started musing on the Internet, I never imagined I would have the voice I have today. Thank you for that.
If you need a respite from food or football today, check out NJN’s Reporters Roundtable with Michael Aron, featuring Jay Lassiter and Jeff Gardner of BlueJersey, Murray Sabrin, and yours truly. I’m thankful that NJN posted the show early. It will be broadcast on TV Friday at 7PM and Sunday at 10AM. Channel 23 on Comcast locally. Maybe a commenter will post the Cablevision channel in the comments.
The link to the Reporters Roundtable video is here.
Governor Chris Chrisite dissed former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin last night during his appearance on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon. Asked by Fallon if he thought Palin could be President, Christie shook his head and said, “It’s an amazing world.” Fallon followed up with “Crazier things have happened?” Christie said, “I don’t know, it’s an amazing world.”
Christie’s dislike of Palin has been well known in Republican circles for quite some time. He did not invite her to participate in his successful gubernatorial campaign last year and he instructed New Jersey’s Republican congressional candidates this year that his support was contingent upon Palin not being invited to New Jersey. Palin cancelled an appearance in Ocean County for Jon Runyan during the last week of the 2010 campaign.
His slight of Palin during the Fallon show was the first public show of dislike between the national Republcian “rock stars.”
School Superintendents who stand to take pay cuts and loss of generous perks when Governor Chris Christie’s pay caps take effect are starting to squeal like pigs in the press.
Bloomberg must be sharing their headline writers with the Asbury Park Press. The article doesn’t report on enraged Republican towns. It quotes a superintendent that will take a pay cut, McGreevey’s education commissioner, and a school board member from Franklin Lakes. Senator Ray Lesniak was quoted as saying that superintendents will “convey the message to the families and to the students. They are going to be very upset.”
Why are these superintendents upset? I thought we had to pay them $200,000 + because that is what the market is for good superintendents. If that is what they can get elsewhere, why don’t they shut up and go get it? Because they are really love to the kids they are superindenting now and don’t want to leave them? They love them all right. They love they lifestyle the kids provide that the supers could never earn in the competitive private sector and will not be found in school districts in other states.
The market has changed. Superintendents are going to have to deal with that like the rest of us.
Legislation to Be Introduced At the December 6 Session of the Senate
Senator Michael Doherty, a member of the Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee, issued the following statement regarding legislation he is drafting to curb the abuses of civil liberties by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA).
“I am of the belief that our society is founded upon our ability to exercise our individual civil liberties freely, and I stand ready and willing to defend those liberties when they are threatened. It is with great sadness that I have come to recognize that one of our greatest threats have been presented by officials of the TSA that have begun to implement intrusive searches of law abiding Americans who are traveling within our borders,” Doherty stated.
“In response to the attitudes and actions of the TSA and top Obama Administration officials, I am drafting new legislation that will make it perfectly clear that in New Jersey, our constitutionally granted civil liberties are treasured and will be protected. I am calling upon my colleagues in the legislature to step up and co-sponsor legislation that will protect the rights of citizens in New Jersey,” Doherty continued.
“If an individual is touched in a private area during a search, when there is no arrest or probable cause that is affirmed by oath or affirmation, the person who violated that individual’s privacy will be guilty of the crime of “sexual assault”, and will not be immune from prosecution in the state of New Jersey.”
“If an image is generated that provides detail of an individual’s private parts that violates New Jersey’s privacy or child pornography statutes, the person who generated that image will not be immune from prosecution in the state of New Jersey.”
Finally, if imaging technology that uses technologies that are believed by the legislature to be dangerous to individuals due to their broad or random use in security applications such as airports, the state of New Jersey will prohibit such use and will provide no immunity to individuals who violate any New Jersey state law in New Jersey.
“When the federal government is actively limiting the liberties and rights of law-abiding American citizens, the Several States have both a right and obligation to respond to misguided leadership at the federal level,” Doherty concluded. “I believe that one of the founders of the nation addressed this issue most eloquently: ‘They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety,” Ben Franklin.
Assemblyman O’Scanlon today responded to the Democrat press conference concerning arbitration reform. At that press conference, Senate President Stephen Sweeney and Speaker Sheila Oliver announced a bill with a 2 percent cap that allows for raises above the cap as long as the average yearly raise does not exceed 2 percent. After three years, the cap would be lifted and the arbitration process would be evaluated.
“This is not real reform; these guys just don’t seem to get it. It’s astonishing, frightening actually, that our legislative leaders don’t seem to understand the most import policy reform we’re likely to discuss this session.” Said O’Scanlon (R- Monmouth/Mercer). “Any legislation allowing for a sunset does not help our towns. This is merely a temporary salary freeze that the unions can contract around a few years down the road.
“The legislature passed a 2% budget cap last year, but we did not give our towns the tools necessary to live within that cap,” O’Scanlon continued. “Arbitration reform is one of the keys to existing within that cap. There is no sunset on this budget cap, so why should there be a sunset on arbitration reform? This is not reform, it is pandering of the first order. The Democratic leadership is looking to preempt Governor Christie, and is doing so at the cost of true, workable reform.
“This sunset requires towns to go through this fight all over again three years from now. How does this help towns or relieve the property tax burden on our tax payers?” O’Scanlon asked. “It doesn’t. This is a token measure which allows the Democrats to declare a political victory when, a few years down the road, we’ll revert back to the same, unsustainable County and municipal budget crushing policy we have now and this ‘reform’ will be but a memory.
“Some people are arguing – or accepting – that the arbitration cap is only needed in these ‘tough economic times’. We must make clear the problem we’re addressing. It is the long-running property tax issue that we’re trying to tackle here, and that problem won’t be gone in three years,” O’Scanlon concluded.
My family and friends think my appearance on NJN’s Reporters Roundtable with Michael Aron was wonderful.