Barney Frank is gay.  Just in case you didn’t know, Frank, a Congressional Representative from Massachusetts is openly gay.  If I hadn’t already known this a caller to my talk program made me aware of it.  Frank is also the sponsor of a House bill which would grant special civil rights protections for gay Americans.  This I bring up as I mentioned it during the course of my radio talk program. 
 

It was mentioned with no malice or judgment about any proposed changes to law.  The host of the program wanted to know his listeners thoughts about the issue. 
 

Making it clear for those of you unfamiliar with me I’m a conservative and a Roman Catholic.  My church officially sees homosexuality as a disorder.  As a Catholic I follow my church’s teachings.  If I ever disagree then it’s time to shop for a new church with no fear of reprisals, which is a great thing about living in the United States, we’ve religious freedom.
 

While my church calls homosexuality a disorder it also extends a very Christian view of forgiveness.  I believe it was Andrew, remember I’m a Catholic so this can be a bit vague, who spoke about rebuking our fellow Christians when they stumble and when fellow Christians stumble we pray for them.  We aren’t supposed to stone those stumbling and we aren’t supposed to burn them (despite some historical precedence) and we aren’t supposed to put them behind barbed wire.   
 

Sometimes there are even folks who don’t want us praying for their souls.  Understood but we still pray.  We pray for those addicted to substances, for those facing great challenges and for those not perfect.  We pray, as you can see, for everybody.  Christians are compelled to pray for every soul. 
 

Which brings me back to Barney Frank?  I can’t begin to understand the choices he makes in his personal life and I don’t believe that we need extra-judicial rights for our fellow Americans.  The Constitution offers the same protections to us all.  This is why I oppose Barney Frank’s legislation and not because of the choices Barney Frank makes in his personal life.  Taking such proposals to extremes we’ll have special laws for short citizens, plump citizens and left-handed citizens. 
 

“Barney Frank is gay!” the caller reminded me.  Yes Frank is gay.  Would the caller feel better about the law if the sponsor had been someone like the former conservative member of Congress, Steve Largent?  Do you get my drift?
 

The other day I mentioned a comment made by CBS’ Andy Rooney.  I prefaced it by saying some may not like him but a comment Rooney made about the news media was a correct one.  Rooney, responding to charges much of the news reported is bad news, replied that a man walking down the street and not getting hit in the head by a falling piano isn’t making any news.  This tale was prefaced because I once offered the Rooney story on a radio program and a caller immediately joined me and angrily shouted, “Andy Rooney is a liberal”.  O.K., Andy Rooney is a confessed liberal.  And how does this change the definition of what makes news? 
 

Frankly, and that isn’t slang or an endorsement for Barney Frank’s lifestyle, how can we begin an intelligent conversation about the Representative’s civil rights proposal if we just shout the man is gay? 
 

Does it bother you to the point that you want these people locked in encampments?  Or stoned to death?  Are you campaigning for the Presidency of Iran?  This is America and what two consenting adults are doing behind closed doors and if hurting no one else then it isn’t your business.  You don’t have to look at it.  You don’t have to condone it and you’ve enough to be concerned about in saving your own soul.  The courts also aren’t concerned with saving any souls and, for now, still leave the chore to churches. 
 

The flip side of the argument is Representative Frank’s legislation would disturb the constitutional equation by making impoliteness to his own kind a crime.  Government isn’t God, and it isn’t a nanny and it shouldn’t be a scold. 

from WGMD News:

The man known as the Bi-state shooter, Allison Lamont Norman, has been sentenced to death. Sussex County Superior Court Judge T. Henley Graves took the jury’s recommendation that Norman should die by lethal injection. Norman went on a shooting spree that began in Laurel with the death of 24 year old Jamell Weston and ended in Salisbury – with a total of two dead and 4 injured. Lethal injection in Delaware is currently on hold until a class-action lawsuit on behalf of death row inmates

A juror for the trial called my radio show yesterday to give her reaction to the verdict. Although, I felt a little uncomfortable announcing the news on the air of the verdict as she was on the phone with me, we heard her reaction live. This juror, I believe her name was Marianne, called the program a few months ago as well. You know, after her original call, I think a lot about that experience. I guess you could say, her story kind of haunted me a little bit. The idea of sitting on a jury in a case that horrible, I know that it would stay with me. Heck, I can’t even watch too many episodes of CSI without feeling it. Here’s the audio from her most recent call in… listen to her story… at times it’s hard to listen to, but, it’ll stay with you.

Juror Call-In

If you are a parent who has a son or daughter in college, or if you are a student yourself, you might be worried about the level of security on college campuses, particularly at Delaware State University following the shooting incident last week. People are expressing concern after rumors circulated about the environment at DSU pertaining to the security there. However university spokesman Carlos Holmes insists that the campus is safe overall. Holmes states:

“The campus was safe prior to the incident, and the campus is safe now.”

And regarding the rumors, he adds:

“These rumors are unsubstantiated. Much of what is out there is inaccurate and off base.”

Because of these rumors, they have increased manpower on campus to help students and parents to be more at ease. Some of the concerns about security stemmed from the time frame in which the 18 year old suspected of shooting two students was arrested. The shooting happened early last Friday. The 18 year old—Loyer Braden was arrested Monday at 3 a.m. in his dorm room. Officials at Delaware State University stressed that the guy was under surveillance throughout the weekend, that they knew where he was at all times, and that he was NOT on campus during the weekend.

However more controversy has surfaced. Testimony by a university police officer contradicts the claims by school officials that Loyer Braden was being watched when he returned to campus three nights later. Today campus police Lieutenant Donald Baynard said that he didn’t know where Braden was Sunday night! Again police found him in his dorm room at around three in the morning on Monday. University officials are still adhering to their earlier statements about Braden being under surveillance when he returned to campus.

At Virginia Tech, there was a window of time between the first shooting incident and the second one, which was a couple of hours. In this case three days went by, and this student was allowed back on campus.

How do you feel about this? Do you believe the campuses are as safe as they should be? Are campus officials hitting on all cylinders when it comes to security? University spokesman Carlos Holmes mentioned that they can’t cover every square inch. But should more be done?

Delaware State Senator James T. Vaughn (D) is out.  More to come from WGMD’s Maria Evans…

 

Stay tuned.

This fellow telephoned my show the other day and attempted to silence me.  The topic was Governor Ruth Ann’s foreign vacation under the guise of inspecting wind power, as if there wasn’t enough emanating from Dover and from talk radio shows.  This man telephoned me and gave me the business.  He instructed me I didn’t have the right to criticize the liberal beacon because I’m not from here.
 
Less than 2 weeks ago I got my first check from WGMD.  It’s when I noticed I had been squeezed for state taxes.  Until then I was feeling great because of the cheaper gasoline prices you folks pay but I’m under no allusions that it costs money to operate a state government.  Which is why I believe I have a say in how MY Governor spends what she takes from ME. 
 
Later that day another man told me off-air that his ancestors were the first people living on this peninsula and in his view the rest of us are all outsiders.  Guess it’s all just a matter of perspective.  It can also be said that the fellow with the aboriginal ancestry objects to Ruth Ann’s European tour. 
 
A message for the first caller would be along the lines of “Thanks for the warm welcome”.  Maybe I’ll move to Maryland and just sweep in and collect a check and buy my groceries elsewhere. 
 
Oh, and the last I looked, I’m an American citizen.  While I may originate in the liberal, sneering and condescending north I come from some pretty good folk.  Not far from where I was born is the gravesite of a Civil War Union Colonel.  A man who kept a dairy of his experiences at Andersonville Prison and preserved it for posterity.  I was also born a couple of miles from where Charles Ingalls was born.  He was there a long time before me and while he didn’t have great success in life his daughter’s works are still read by children around the world.  There was also a story I shared on the program earlier this week.  The one about Marine Corporal Jason Dunham, a young man who grew up in Scio, New York. 
 
Scio isn’t Manhattan.  There may be fewer than 1,000 people living there and the major industry is dairy farming.  Pretty much like my hometown.  Jason Dunham was an ordinary kid growing up with all sorts of aspirations, including the dream of being a Marine.  Because he accomplished the goal some of his fellow Marines are still alive.  They lived to share his story, how he threw himself on a live grenade to save his friends.  Not long ago Jason Dunham was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor. 
 
So the next time you hear somebody running down those people from somewhere else I hope you keep in mind that there are a great many Americans and some very great Americans who don’t come from Delaware.  Not to besmirch the young people from here who put on the uniform but to remind you that these kinds of people from across the country ensure we can all speak our minds. 
 
Unlike Ruth Ann Minner the men and women in uniform have gone overseas for a much more important purpose.

When I was a young man I was indestructible.  It’s why I used to drink heavily and then drive.  It’s why sometimes when I woke in the morning that I had no idea where I’d been or how I managed to get home.
 

By the grace of God…
 

Then I was scared straight.  I must have been 24 years old at the time and was underemployed by a local radio station and had dropped out of grad school and lost a girlfriend and my dad was hospitalized following a series of strokes and a serious heart attack.  You can make every excuse you want for drinking.  It’s a friend’s birthday, it’s the 4^th of July, and it’s the cold weather.  Yeah, there was always a reason to go out and drink.  Besides, I lived just two miles from the bar where I would decamp. 
 

Which I did one night coming home from visiting the old man at the hospital.  In fact I decamped until closing time, just after 2:00 A.M.  It was raining when I started home and I missed my last turn and put my old Delta 88 into a ditch.  A big car can sometimes withstand a great deal of punishment and I backed it out and then managed to make my turn.  I hadn’t seen the police officer behind me but it didn’t take him long to catch up.  The fellow knew me and knew I was a few hundred feet from the driveway.  He followed me home and I never heard another word about that night from local law enforcers.  Heck, many of those guys were my drinking buddies.  You realize today they wouldn’t have a choice.  Cameras in police cars remove discretion from the traffic stop.  I got very, very lucky. 
 

The next morning I got out of bed and looked in the bathroom mirror and realized things needed to change.  It changed my drinking habits and it changed my driving habits.  Thank the Lord I never killed anybody.  Two guys from my high school killed themselves driving drunk.  One was one of my closest friends from childhood.  I still miss him and I wish he had taken to heart the message.  You see he had been stopped many times and finally charged.  It didn’t change his behavior.
 

Another kid I went to school with, and he wasn’t a friend, was driving drunk a few years ago when he struck and killed a little girl playing on her front lawn.  This guy was a self-centered and callous low-life at school and it didn’t change when he became an adult.  Some folks back home told me he continued to find ways to drink and drive while awaiting trial.  And the prison time probably won’t straighten him out.  What’s the solution?  I’ll go out on a limb and recommend solitary confinement for twenty years.  His walls would be papered with pictures of the little girl. 
 

Drinking is part of the American culture.  It’s what colonialists did to pass the time and isolation caused by great distance.  Entertainments were sparse.  The liberal commentator, Bill Moyers, states it simply as, “Colonial America was perpetually three sheets to the wind”.  I’ll give him credit for making an important point in a very simple manner. 
 

Our sporting culture is intertwined with the alcohol industry.  As well as a good part of the entertainment culture.  It reminds me of all the TV movies I watched growing up.  Leslie Nielsen and all the other movie of the week characters always had a rock glass in one hand and a barbed quip on the tongue.  Mike Hammer seemed to live in a bar. 
 

So I’m not offering any solutions as I still enjoy a good drink at home or just one with dinner at a restaurant.  I will say this, however.  Culture isn’t to blame for a lack of personal responsibility.  If I ever fall off the wagon or put it into a ditch it’ll be the fault of no one but the fellow I see every morning in the mirror. 

News broke this week in the Christy Freeman case leaving many people shocked and outraged. Freeman is the Ocean City woman originally accused of killing her newborn child in 2004 and keeping remains of other infants around her home. We learned from the Worcester County State’s Attorney Joel Todd that all charges against Freeman were dropped because there was no proof that the fetal remains found at Christy Freeman’s Ocean City home were the result of a live birth. Here is part of their conclusion:

Assistant Medical Examiner Dr. Tasha Greenberg testified that the remains could have been stillborn first. The medical examiner said Freeman had a history of stillborn births, a history of seizures, an infection in the placenta, plus she used tobacco and, allegedly, cocaine. Based on those and other factors, the medical examiner concluded there was no proof of live births.

What I can’t understand is what several callers had brought up. Freeman had admitted to investigators that she gave birth to a live baby sometime in 2004, but allowed the infant to drown in the toilet. In addition why aren’t there charges based on evidence of tobacco and cocaine use?

Dr. Greenberg also testified:

“cocaine use alone can lead to “increased placental eruptions” which cuts off the flow of blood to the baby and can also cause vaso constriction which also cuts off the blood supply to the baby.”

Jay Hancock of the Ocean City Town Council says he is not completely surprised of the outcome saying he knew that this was going to be a difficult prosecution because of the very complex nature of the case. Don’t you think she should have been charged with SOMETHING? Or do you believe investigators made the right decision here in letting her go?

 

 

 

A few monts ago, Former Delaware Gubernatorial Candidate Frank Infante was arrested on false perscription drug fraud charges. When he appeared on the Jared Morris Radio Show on WGMD 92.7FM following the dismissal of all charges, he promised he’d have a big story for me in the future.

According to Infante, his girlfriend Carolyn Reed and papers filed by The Neuberger Firm and presented to the Smyrna Police, the trooper responsible for Infante’s arrest was also, at the time, propositioning Infante’s girlfriend Reed for sex (in exchange to drop the charges on Frank.)

Sound too unbelievable to be true? That’s what I thought, until I heard the tapes! Oh yes, there are tapes. Ranging from about 07-12-07 to 07-20-07, Infante and Reed secretly taped Smyrna Detective Torrie James while he engaged in illicit conversations with Reed, (note: he was investigating Reed at the time for a different offense!) eventually leading to a clandestine meeting with Reed at the Smyrna Rest Area off exit 119 in Smyrna.

During the course of Infante and Reed’s secret investigation, The Detective allegedely touched and tried to kiss Reed, phoned Reed whilst arresting Frank, offered to “Get Frank out of the way” and called a 6-year-old with a maybe broken neck a “dumbass.”  (end quote)

The tapes, of which I have heard a portion, have been also presented to State Police and the mayor of Smyrna and the Attorney General’s office.

Expect a press release in the coming weeks from Infante’s lawyers. But, i invite you to listen to the accusations from Infante and Reed themselves as they appeard on my radio program today.

Full Audio Interview of Infante and Reed 09-21-07 (mp3)

Yesterday on my program, We featured guest Estelle Nuebling to talk about a 24-year0old struggling with cancer and increased medical bills. They are holding a fundraiser/Garage Sale to help with his medical bills, and I promised that I would post the information here…

from stephenjkunitskyfund.org:In November of 2006, three weeks before graduating from the Delaware County Municipal Police Academy, Steve was diagnosed with a very rare and aggressive form of cancer known as neuronendocrine cancer.  He underwent chemotherapy and radiation treatments and had a large tumor surgically removed from his neck.  After countless scans, dozens of pain killers and a few too many trips to the doctor, Steve completely conquered the cancer. His only worry was repaying his astronomical medical fees which he learned would not be covered by his new insurance policy. He then discovered that the advice he’d gotten from the public assistance office was incorrect. Much of the financial aid received while undergoing his treatments now needs to be paid back.

Less than two months passed before the cancer returned, and as is so often the case was stronger than ever.  A new scan revealed tumors and traces of the disease in his spine, chest and neck. In response, he was given three new forms of chemotherapy.  The doctors are confident in the treatment they have administered but are concerned with the speed and aggressive nature of the cancer’s return. Steve left the hospital with an oxygen tank due to a large tumor in his chest which makes it hard to breathe. He must return to the hospital every three weeks for treatment, and has been told that going to work is out of the question. The day-to-day for Steve is very stressful, but generally, he keeps himself very positive. He hasn’t lost his sense of humor at all.  Those who know Steve will not be surprised by this information.

Estelle is looking for items for the garage sale… more informaiton to follow. Drop off points for merchandise include Kupchicks in Lewes, Bethel United Methodist Church, Antiques - Rt 9 in Harbeson and the radio station. For more information contact Estelle @ 302-875-8961 or her son Chris @ 302-745-4787

 

Delaware Today Fires Shot Over My Bow

 

Page 20 of the current Delaware Today magazine has a column by a fellow named Matt Amis.  Matt has made a funny.  The title of the piece is called “Dela Where?” and it looks at the other “Delawares” across the country.   Here is an excerpt:

 

Delaware, Iowa.  What has a population of 188 and is roughly 98.9 percent white?  No, it’s not Dan Gaffney’s listening audience.  It’s the hustling, bustling, middle-of-freakin’-nowhere town of Delaware, Iowa.  Does this even qualify as a one-horse town? Palomino, maybe?

 

I’m thinking of rallying my black listeners for a march on the offices of Delaware Today.