Two Thousand

Earlier this month, we passed the fifth anniversary of the founding of this blog. Within the next day or two, we'll reach 216,000 unique hits.

And this is the 2,000th post to this blog.

I'm very proud of what I've achieved with this blog, but that's not to say that anyone should be especially impressed.

With this blog, as I said in my initial post, I set out to place my ideas and my remarks into the marketplace of ideas. I set out to compete with professional pundits and journalists, to bear witness to my opinions, to put forward and defend ideas, and to have an outlet for my reactions to the world around me. And I have done so.

You may not have known this, but in the years leading up to the American revolution, many, many American colonists took up a new pasttime. They began keeping diaries and journals. They wrote, often for no audience at all, of the great issues of their day, and how those issues affected themselves, their families, and their communities.

Did they, as has been suggested, somehow sense the momentous events that were soon to take place in America? Was this foreknowledge of what was to come the thing which impelled them to record for posterity their own perspectives on history as it unfolded around them?

Or, as I now begin to think, could it be that it was the fact itself of their becoming diarists that spurred in them the habit of reflection on the world around them, and that provided them the insights and the motivations to attempt to influence the world?

In the last several years, literally millions of people have taken up blogging and similar on-line activities. What will be the long-term effect of so many people taking an increased interest in the doings of their communities, their states, their nation, and their government? It's impossible to say what will ultimately be the result; there are many possibilities. But the least likely outcome of all is that, with all the increased levels of attention being paid and information being available, nothing will change.

It pleases me to be part of this tide of history. I pray that God will bring about a positive result.

Commander Kirk's Military Awards

Amid all the upset about Mark Kirk's claim to have been named "Intelligence Officer of the Year" for 1999, now belatedly corrected on the Congressman's campaign website, I cannot help but notice that all the criticism seems to coming from people who hold military personnel in contempt, and who never themselves served.

My view is that it's the sort of unfortunate error that occurs when a civilian campaign aide is inadequately supervised by someone who understands the military. It appears to have been a misguided effort to render an actual award into terms more accessible to civilians, rather than to make the Congressman appear more "puffed up" than he ought.

(For the record, I achieved the rank of Sergeant in the Air Force, and Staff Sergeant in the Air Force Reserve, and earned the Air Force Achievement Medal, the Air Force Good Conduct Medal, and the Army of Occupation Medal, for my service with the U.S. Army of Occupation in West Berlin, 1982-85. I am not a combat veteran.)

On Memorial Day, Take A Moment To Remember

How I Spent My Tuesday Evening

I've been jumping from meeting to meeting the past few weeks, and so much of what I've seen, heard and learned in these meetings has deserved to be blogged about, but I just haven't had time and energy (at the same moment) to blog about them.

But I had to go back and mention the little gathering I attended Tuesday evening in Lake Forest hosted by Heroic Media.

The hook was speeches by two speakers, WIND's Guy Benson, and former gubernatorial candidate Adam Andrzejewski. I'd met Benson briefly before, when he introduced me at a political picnic last year of which he was the MC; I was very flattered that he remembered me. Adam I know better, since we endorsed in other in our respective races last year.

They were both excellent presentations, but then we got to the real reason for the gathering: a chance for Allen Ptack and Jeanne Hamilton from Heroic Media to strut their stuff. Here's an example:



This should whet your appetite. Go check out Heroic Media, see what they do!

(Cross-posted to Lake County Right to Life Blog.)

Tea Party Comes To Libertyville

The newly reorganized Lake County Tea Party has received a permit for its inaugural event, a Tea Party rally in Libertyville's Cook Park, in downtown Libertyville, IL:

The summer experience in downtown Libertyville will include a new type of party in Cook Park.

A reconstituted Lake County tea party has received village permission to host a "family friendly" voter education event from 1 to 4 p.m. July 5.

Modeled after events held in Palatine the past two years, the nonpartisan organization hopes to draw 200 to 300 people for speeches by area political figures, according to Chairman Lennie Jarratt.

It also will have "respectful protest signs and people waving flags," he informed the village in a request for a permit.

Jarratt, a website designer from Round Lake Beach, said the village was a natural selection because of its central location and motto: "The Spirit of Independence."

"Libertyville was the perfect place to do a tea party," Jarratt said. "Just the name, the whole freedom movement."

Village code requires that any public meeting, concert or public entertainment within the park system be approved by the mayor and village board. Groups in excess of 25 people using the park must also obtain a permit.

The village board on Tuesday unanimously approved the request...

Lake County Sheriff Mark Curran, the only confirmed speaker so far, said Wednesday the gathering should be educational, particularly regarding fiscal issues.

"If we're not the most fiscally irresponsible state in the U.S. we're in the top three," he said...

The idea of a Lake County tea party chapter took root last fall but stalled, according to Jarratt.

"We're finally reconstituting it and getting it going again," he said. "Everybody is tired of taxation."

Directors of the Lake County chapter are not new to the public spotlight.

They include: Michael Carbone, a District 46 school board member who is working on getting more documents on the district's website; Paul Mitchell, who in February lost to state Rep. Sandy Cole in the House District 62 Republican primary election; and Peter Karlovics, a Gurnee activist.

(Pioneer Press also has the story.)

As of this date, we have several more confirmed speakers:

• David Schippers, lead counsel on the Clinton impeachment hearings and trial
• Lake County Sherriff Mark Curran
• Libertyville Mayor Terry Weppler
• Maria Rodriguez, Executive Director, For The Good of Illinois
• Tea Party board members Michael Carbone and Paul Mitchell

With more coming soon!

Organizations interested in sponsoring a booth may contact me directly.

Welcome Team America Readers!

Thanks to Team America 10th District Blog for the link and the invitation to his readers to check me out to judge if I am an ideologue. Please feel free to register your opinions on the question in the comments to this post. I'd also be interested to know whether you think it's a Bad Thing to be an ideologue.

"Aborted" Baby Almost Cremated Alive!

We see it time and time again. A baby survives an abortion attempt, and then is left for dead.

As an Illinois State Senator, Barack Obama actively defended this practice.

But sometimes it gets even worse. We recently reported on a baby who survived 22 hours of such postpartum neglect, only to be found by priest who had gone to pray over the body.

Now from China, we have this story of a baby who not only survived the abortion, and the ensuing neglect, but who was disposed of as medical waste and nearly cremated alive (Hat-tip to Hawaii Right to Life):

AN aborted baby declared dead by doctors in south China's Guangdong Province cried before he was due to be cremated, but died hours later as doctors refused to treat him.

A mortuary worker at Nanhai Funeral Home in Foshan City said the baby cried and scared him as he was about to throw the coffin into a furnace, Information Times reported today.

He opened the box and found the seven-month fetus moving, but apparently choking on some cotton wool in his mouth, the report said.

After the worker cleared his mouth, the baby yawned and breathed peacefully. Workers rushed him back to Guanyao Hospital which delivered the baby as medical waste earlier that day.

But doctors left him in the lobby, and confirmed after an hour that the baby died. [Emphasis added.]

As tragic as this story is, there's a lesson to be learned here, that should be obvious to anyone who ever watched a crime drama on American television: when someone escapes alive from murderers intent on killing him, it is neither helpful nor humane to return that person to the murderers who tried to kill him in the first place.

Remember, there's nothing magic about location. The baby is here, the baby is there, the abortionist doesn't care. Once the decision is made to kill, the baby is not safe anywhere, neither in the womb, nor out of it.

(Cross-posted from Lake County Right to Life Blog.)

SNEAK PEEK: Bill Brady's New Campaign Video

Brady Campaign Commercial from Bill Brady on Vimeo.

Blogaversary

Wow. Five years. I launched this blog on May 10th, 2005. Happy birthday to me.

And thanks to each and every one of you for reading!

A Few Favorites

Something Had To Follow The Hitler Downfall Parody Videos

The phenomenon that was the Hitler Downfall parody videos has passed. They were certainly fun while they lasted.

The next YouTube fad is the Google "SearchStories" tool, that allows you to tell a short story through the medium of Google Searches, as in the great SuperBowl commercial.

Here's one I made for the Lake County Right to Life Blog: