Anyone who watched the President address the nation the other night would be hard-pressed to say that new White House Press Secretary Tony Snow didn’t have his handywork all over the layout of the speech. The way that the President laid out his plan in five steps and the way that he continued to emphasize that his plan was not amnesty was exactly what his previous national addresses were lacking.

I would say that during this Presidential Address, President Bush looked and sounded more like Bill Clinton, George Bush the First, and Ronald Reagan than ever before. Depending on where you fall on the political spectrum you may find that comment to be more of an insult than a compliment, but I intend for it to be a compliment.

As far as the illegal immigration situation goes, you can all make up your own minds. The point of this post is that Tony Snow seems to have interjected a degree of clarity in the President’s message that the press hates. How do I know the press hates it? Did you see the White House Press Briefing the day after the speech? Those poor White House correspondents tried every which way they could to spin the President’s speech, but Tony wouldn’t let them get away with any bullshit. It was nice to watch, really.

This is a good thing! When the Press Secretary will not allow reporters (who are supposed to just report the facts) to make up their own stories, that is good reporting! Hopefully, Tony Snow can help bring a level of clarity to the White House that we have not yet had with this administration and hopefully, this will lead to better reporting by the White House Press Corps.

I graduated from Rutgers today with my Master of the Arts in Public Policy Degree.

I’m a Master.

Pictures will be up later in the week…they’re currently stored in my brand new laptop computer (Graduation gift).

:o)

Mitch of Mitchelaneous was successful in having the hosting company of Absolute-Soft.com shut down. Congratulations, Mitch!

For those of you that don’t know what a bunch of no good bastards they were over at Absolute-Soft.com (and some other internet-based companies), please take a look at this post to see how many unsuspecting people got blasted from these and other scoundrels.

Once again, congratulations to Mitch – now let’s see what else we can do to get these bastards to pay for their assholery!

I got back a little while ago from watching my younger brother play some state sectional playoff football in Ridgewood. He’s one of the captains of the Roxbury football team and he and his teammates did a good job in upsetting two-time defending Section 1, Group IV champions, Ridgewood.

As far as reflections on the game, from a football standpoint – the Roxbury football team has really come into their own. They played an outstanding 4 quarters of football on an opponent’s turf and walked away with a clear victory (21 to 7). I take nothing away from the Ridgewood team – they seemed to be well-coached and well-fired up for the game. However, the Roxbury team finally seems to be getting back to basic Roxbury football – pretty much a “going to work” attitude where you eat up the clock on offense, and send your opponents three-and-out on defense. Really a terrific job by Roxbury this afternoon.

I can’t wait to see them play against Montclair next weekend (another Saturday filled with driving for me, huh?)!

If anyone out there has a chance to go and support your home team in the football sectional playoffs, you really should go and cheer them on. The end of my younger brother’s Roxbury football career (which will happen either after he wins a state championship or after his team is eliminated) will mark the end of a nearly fifteen year run for my family in Roxbury football. My older brother played in the pre-high school league and eventually went on to play for the high school. He was followed by myself and my cousin (same age as I am). We both were on our high school’s only state championship football team. And now we have my younger brother who is one game away from a state championship final game.

Yeah, it’s pretty exciting, but it’s also weird to know that next season there won’t be a family member playing football for Roxbury. Besides one of my good friends who coaches over there now (former state championship member, my age), after this season is over, there will be little left tying my family to Roxbury football games.

I have a feeling, though, that we’ll be there in the stands again at some point watching the boys play in the IHC-Iron Division. We were talking today and I think my Mom has watched something like close to 150 Roxbury football games. That’s insane! But I’m sure that she, just like the rest of the parents who have watched generations of their family play football at the rest of the schools in this state, will still want to go and be a part of that mysterious “Go Team!” feeling that is a local high school football game.

Anyway – go out and support your home town team! High school football in New Jersey is great!

It’s definitely not a happy time in the Roman Catholic Church. While it’s certainly not a dramatically sad time in our Church’s history, there is a universal feeling of mourning that has accompanied the death of Pope John Paul II.

You could easily flip on the television and watch the excellent coverage of the Pope’s life and death on any of the news stations, so there’s no need to go into any of that here. But think about some of the things that this man did in his life…

He survived Nazi Germany and defiantly held prayer sessions underground while Poland was occupied.

He helped to break the back of communism and totalitarianism.

He visited something like 120 countries in the past 26 years to spread the word of the Church. One hundred and twenty countries! I haven’t even been out of one!

He was universally regarded as the most viewed man in the history of the world (i.e. he has been seen by more eyes than anyone else who ever lived).

At the age of 84 – with Parkinson’s and while gravely sick – he continued to practice his faith and perform his duties up until 72 hours before he fell deathly ill. He appeared at his window to bless the faithful this past Wednesday.

The man spoke 16 languages! In a time when people are divided over how to speak English, he spoke SIXTEEN languages!

He traveled something like 750,000+ miles in the past 26 years.

He was shot by a terrorist in an assassination attempt…and after healing from the wound he forgave the terrorist for trying to kill him.