Mark Knows It All

I wanted to write something profound for this very important Thanksgiving holiday this year.  But my gut tells me there is something terribly wrong in the nation...at our nation's very core.  While I thank God for the many blessings he has bestowed upon us, I also feel that we are on the cusp of losing it all as the commonality of belief of our nation's core values is being eroded from all directions.  That uneasiness makes it difficult to write.  Tonight I came across the address given by Bishop Mark Hollingsworth, Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Ohio, at our convention two weeks ago.  The Episcopal Church is the most liberal of the liturgical churches.  That has caused lots of problems within the national and local churches.  Bishop Hollingsworth, however, acknowledged the problem, then gave a blue print on how the differences that are pulling our church apart can also be the path to bring it together. A great message for this Thanksgiv...

By Mark Mangie. Driving home this afternoon from my bi-weekly trip to Hogan’s with my little pal Vinny the Pooch, my radio happened to land on Channel 70 on Sirius/XM radio.   Those of you who are Hallmark Channel aficionados will know the significance.   Blaring from my extremely high-tech speakers was Gene Autry, the Singing Cowboy, warbling Here Comes Santa Claus .   He first recorded the song in 1947.   He re-recorded it in 1953.   Why?   Who the hell knows.   The song sucked then.   The song sucks now. The second version conjures up one of my earliest memories…playing that Gene Autry gem on my little brown 45 rpm record player when we lived in a second-floor duplex on Prestwick Drive.   I was three going on four…in 1953!!!   That makes 65 years of Gene Autry singing "Click Click Click" ad nauseum.   It's time to bury Gene Autry once and for all.   I am oft reminded of what my grandmother told me years...

By Mark G. Mangie. Midst all of the political falderal this past week, this story was hardly discussed. The "List" of local Catholic priests with pedophile issues was a stunner and disturbing.  The population of Mahoning County has been historically overwhelmingly Catholic. Me too. I was raised Catholic, attended a Catholic school for 2 years, and CCD classes through high school. There are lots of jokes about going to Catholic school and the rules and regulations surrounding being a Catholic. Over my lifetime mortal sins evolved into venial sins then into no sins at all, depending on the circumstances. When I was 22 I decided it wasn't for me. I joined the Episcopal Church which was more in line with my personal belief system.  All of my ministers have told me...there is no such thing as a lapsed Catholic. The religion becomes part of your core. A Lutheran minister told me that as lapsed Catholics get older, they revert to their core beliefs. As he counsel...

I believe it is time for conservatives to support a modified single payer health system. It is coming whether we like it or not.  We can do it better than they do.   What happened in Washington last week was political theater at its worst.  It sounds all so complicated.  But the fact of the matter is that it is not complicated at all.  There two, and only two, big issues that must be resolved to solve the health care problem: 1)            Any health care insurance system must maintain a certain level of healthy participants in order to sustain payments to those who are sick.  Obamacare tried to resolve the problem by mandating participation of all citizens.  If you don’t participate, you get taxed (fined).  The problem is it didn’t work. People opted to pay the fine because the coverage that was offered was too expensive, and if you bought it the deductible was so high you coul...

Last week Denny Hastert, former Speaker of the House, was indicted by a federal grand jury in Chicago for violating Federal banking laws and lying about it to the FBI.  Hastert had been withdrawing large sums of money from his personal bank account for a period of years.   Cash transactions over $10,000.00 must be reported to the Federal government.   Hastert was withdrawing $50,000.00 per.   When questioned by bank officials, Hastert then reduced the withdrawals to under $10,000.00.   That is against the law and was reported to bank regulators.   The FBI questioned Hastert concerned that he was being extorted. Hastert denied giving the money to anybody.   Further investigation discovered it was being paid to an unnamed individual who was blackmailing Hastert related to “sexual misconduct” when he was a high school teacher and wrestling coach prior to 1981. Total payments were $1.7 million. Hastert and his problems aside, this demonstrates the...

On Saturday night around 8:30 PM Officers Benjamin Deen (34) and Liquori Tate (25) were shot to death after making a routine traffic stop in Hattiesburg, Mississippi.  Deen was a former “Officer of the Year."  Tate had just graduated from the Police Academy in 2014 proud and anxious to serve his community.  As of today, four suspects are under arrest; two charged with capital murder and two more with obstruction of justice and being accessories after the fact. I saw the story late Saturday on the Drudge Report.  When I turned the news on Sunday morning I waited for the story to be reported.  I waited some more.  Then I waited some more.  Eventually it made the news…but always the 3 rd or 4 th story on the air, and that included Fox.  Monday night brought more of the same.  CNN barely reported it at all.  Fox had some righteous indignation, but that was it. One of the two deceased officers was black.  All of the arre...

David Cameron was just re-elected Prime Minister of Great Britain.  That matters to you how?   It matters because it was an epic battle between the Tories...Britain’s Conservative Party led by Cameron, and the Labour Party…led by Ed Miliband.   It matters because David Axelrod was imported to Britain to assist the Labour Party get elected.   It matters because one of the major issues in the election was Britain’s immigration policy.   And it matters because the pollsters got it wrong in a major way. Going into the election, polls showed a neck and neck race…dead even with neither party getting the necessary seats in Parliament to form a government.  It would require a coalition government. The pundits and American Press were giddy giving the advantage to the progressive Labour Party.  Surprise.  As I write this, the Conservatives not only won the election handily, it appears that they may achieve sufficient votes in Parliament to form a g...

Every 20 years or so America falls in love with liberalism.  It’s a feel good kind of ideology where Americans fraught with a combination of narcissism and guilt can wrap themselves in do-gooder's clothes while looking caring to those around them.  The old term was limousine liberals.  Ted Kennedy, the late liberal lion of the Senate, was a prime example.  While he was busy foisting busing on the rest of America, he was safely hidden behind the walls of his family’s compound in Hyannis Port sending his children to private schools. Barack Obama was supposed to be the pinnacle of liberalism….except now it is called Progressivism.  He was to be the Great Black Hope who could fix all the problems.  Buttressed by a fawning press which still refuses to examine his obvious and egregious flaws, he turned out to be nothing more than a throwback leftist 60’s radical who utilized Chicago style thug politics to punish his enemies and crony capitalism to rewa...

Do I sound bitter? Gee...do ya think?  I have always been a community minded individual.  I love the community in which I live. Over the years our community has oftentimes faced seemingly insurmountable problems so I tried to help in any small way I was able.  I tend to get overly involved and personally buy into whatever it is I am trying to do because I don’t do things half.  It takes 100% to get the job done.  Sounds good!  Well maybe not so much.  As the saying goes: the road to hell is paved with good intentions.  I have learned some hard lessons.  Community Service is not for the faint of heart, or for those looking for the best in mankind, or for those actually expecting to accomplish something or make a difference.  It is tough.  It is hard.  And common sense is at a premium. One of my first do-gooder ventures involved a church council whose Sunday night meetings would go on ad-infinitum.  One Sunday...

                                                                       Today I am 65.  Milestone birthdays are not my favorite thing.  I got a telephone call from my Medicare Supplemental carrier today to answer a series of automated questions.  “Do you need help getting dressed in the morning?  Are you happy?  Can you bathe yourself?  Do you use a walker?  You are doing a good job.  We are almost finished now.”  The last question the machine asked was if I suffer from depression.  I answered "Yes"….I am 65 telling my health history to a machine.  Of course I’m depressed.  My Dad taught me to always look forward and never look back.  I try to live by that rule.  But on my 65 th birthday it’s hard to do.  When I was b...

                    At my office Christmas gathering today we talked about our Christmas traditions.  Family is very important in the Mahoning Valley resulting in many traditions traversing the years through our very large, extended ethnic families.  Third generation Americans have turned up the volume on those traditions as we see our children marry outside of our ethnic group, have our grandchildren, and move out of the area in search of greener pastures!!  They have become Americanized as the Feast of the Seven Fishes morphs into beer and wings at Quaker Steak and Lube. For people like me, the transition has been somewhat difficult.  Those of us from very large families also attend lots of funerals.  My parents, aunts and uncles and many of my cousins are now gone. What began in my life as two huge Christmas gatherings on Christmas Eve and again on Christmas Day has become what restaurants are ...

University of Virginia students protest in front of Phi Kappa Psi Fraternity  Yellow journalism is a term coined in the late 19 th century to describe the battle between the Hearst and Pulitzer newspapers in New York City.   They used yellow ink to exaggerate their headlines.   Using trumped up stories loaded with factual inaccuracies has been around since the invention of the printing press.   After all, if the goal is to sell newspapers, you have to give the public a story they want to read. With the advent of radio, and television, and now the electronic media, the American public has come to expect, and even believe, that the press is doing a good job by reporting the news that needs to be reported in an accurate and objective manner.  That is misplaced trust.  Today’s press is anything but. Today’s rule of reporting is to define the political narrative you want the public to hear, then bend the facts of the story to fit the narrative....