Mark Knows It All

Have you ever read a travel magazine? There are several of them around from local mags like Pittsburgh or Cleveland Magazine to those dealing with world travel such as Conde Nast Magazine and Travel and Leisure Magazine. They are filled with wonderful photographs, timely tips, site seeing and restaurant recommendations, and all sorts of things to make your travel experience more enjoyable. Even the advertisements are spectacular including ads for exotic airlines that offer sleeping quarters, gourmet meals on trains, hotels with penthouse suites, and $10,000 watches and $75,000.00 cars all demonstrated by beautiful people the likes of which I will never see at the Elmton in Struthers. I used to subscribe to several of these literary gems and daydream about what it would be like to travel to exotic places, go on a luxe safari with servants scurrying about catering to your every whim, staying at the Ritz in Paris or experiencing a private audience with the Pope in Rome, or dancing a...

Okay. So it’s 4 AM. I am awake with my eyeballs on my cheeks and can’t go back to sleep. I turn on the television and what to my wondering eyes does appear but a PBS show showing me how grow things green…nevermind that green is exactly how I am going to look come noon. Notwithstanding, I dutifully poured myself a cup of coffee and watched the show to find out everything they are so willingly ready to tell me I am doing wrong. I get tired of these lecture wag the finger kind of shows. These folks are all alike. They all have that “peace of God” expression on their face because they have insights into life I must be lacking. Everything will be alright if only we are green, environmentally sensitive about every aspect of our lives. Just do this or do that…it only takes a minute…and all the world’s problems will be solved. Today, they showed me how Thomas Jefferson grew his green garden. I didn’t know gardens were any other color. Most things that grow are green. It’s called ...

Call me suspicious. But the Democrats have opened the Pandora’s Box of speculation with an awesome display of party disunity. This past week important Dems like Diane Feinstein, Cory Booker, Ed Rendell, Mark Halperin of Time Magazine, the Huffington Post…and last but not least…Bill Clinton have opened a barrage of pokes and jabs at Barack Obama. Starting with Cory Booker who defended Bain Capital and then moving to Bill Clinton who called Mitt Romney’s business background “sterling” and then undercutting Obama on the Bush tax cuts saying they should be extended…well…this type of stuff just doesn’t happen. The fact that all of this occurred within the space of 10 days should give one pause, or at least a raised eyebrow. Why would they do this? This is a party that has been in lockstep with the Obama administration for the past three years. Barack has used the bully pulpit to bully his party members into submission. So what’s with the dissention in the ranks? Something is askew...

I have been warning about the erosion of freedom in our country for several years now. We as Americans have been too willing to accept the crap handed out by government official do-gooders with agendas. The most dangerous of these governmental whack jobs is Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York. It is clear that he has a food fetish, and he ought to check himself into a mental institution to find look for an explanation as to his pre-occupation with what you put into your mouth. Mayor Bloomberg, who is obsessive compulsive about weight, has now proposed a ban on Big Gulp drinks in New York City. This goes with his ban on trans fats, his ban on salt (he actually tried to make it illegal for restaurants to put salt shakers on tables); his calorie display on restaurant menus…ad nauseum…no pun intended. What is NOT funny is that there will be no end to his desire to determine what you are allowed, or not allowed, to eat. If he can Big Gulp drinks, he can begin to issue edicts as t...