Clear and Unfiltered

    Ric Albano

This article was orginally published at Big Blue Bullfrog on October 3, 2012.

First Presidential Debate in DenverYesterday was the final day of the regular season in Major League baseball, and what a regular season it was. Miguel Cabrera of the Detroit Tigers won the triple crown (finished first in home runs, RBIs, and batting average) a feat accomplished for the first time in my lifetime, the Oakland A’s won their division on the final day, the Washington Nationals became the first team from DC to make the postseason in merely 80 years, and the Baltimore Orioles made the playoffs for the first time in 15 years. But the baseball regular season wasn’t the only thing that ended last night.

With the first presidential debate last night in Denver, the fog of deception that was fabricated to make Mitt Romney look like he is an unacceptable choice for the highest office in the land has been permanently dispensed. In fact, some of the more enjoyable moments of the debate were those when President Obama appeared absolutely lost because Mitt Romney refused to accept the caricature of his positions created by the left. But Mitt Romney is not a caricature and his legitimacy shone brightly in contrast with the president last night in this debate which focused exclusively on domestic policy.

Without the filter of campaign commercials or slanted media analysis, the candidates were presented bare (without teleprompters) and had to rely on their own knowledge and wits. In this setting, it was clear who had command of the issues of the day and that was the challenger. A long running CNN poll, which has been taken after every Presidential debate since 1980 had Romney winning by an astonishing 67% to 25%, shattering all previous margins.

A lot of the initial analysis of the debate claimed that Romney won because he was more “aggressive” and one analyst actually said Romney got the edge in time using a football analogy. Actually, President Obama clocked in with nearly five more minutes than Governor Romney and it only felt like Romney spoke longer because his words had so much more substance than Obama’s well used platitudes and stereotyped preconceptions.

There are still two presidential debates remaining this month along with one vice presidential debate, so this race is far from over with 33 days until the election. However, anyone who paid close attention last night has got to like Romney’s chances at this point.

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Goodnight, Good Guy

    Alpha Dog

August 21, 2012
by J.D.Cook
 
Pap Pap and Me, 2008The following is the eulogy, written and delivered by J.D. Cook at his grandfather Pat Albano’s funeral on August 20th.
 
On behalf of my family I’d like to thank you all for coming to honor my late grandfather’s memory.

Born Pasquale John Albano; his friends and family came to know him best as Pat while his grandchildren dubbed him Pap Pap. Pat’s childhood home became the sight of many happy Christmas’s for his grandchildren. He would entertain his grandson Jake and granddaughter Erin with silly stories created over misheard phrases or words. His grandson Bryen would often find himself being chased through the house by Pat pretending to be a ghoul or ghost and whenever I needed a ride to football practice or home from school he was there.

This is, of course, a snap shot into Pat’s life near its conclusion. He was born in Hazleton Pennsylvania; the 9th of 10 children and spent the vast majority of his life here; taking an interest in local politics and serving the community for 31 years as a mail man who would ring the door bell for the elderly folks when their social security checks arrived. Pat was one of the great unsung pillars of the Hazleton community who never asked for anything in return for the years of service and effort he put into the city. He was the back bone of an American generation that emphasized hard work, generosity and friendliness.

This is best emphasized by his relationship with Morris and Bessie, two Jewish Russian immigrants, who he met while on his mail route. Although originally virtual strangers to him he became friends with them and as they grew older he helped them run errands, visit doctors and provided friendship for them in the twilight of their lives.
Of course he did the same for his family; taking care of his sister Theresa for twelve years.

Pat AlbanoPat graduated from the Hazleton High School which many of us know as “the castle” in 1954 and many years later he worked to preserve the building which has since been reopened as a middle school. It was a great source of pride for him while he lived. After high school, he spent a short time in the army visiting Texas, Kentucky and Washington D.C. Perhaps it was during this time that he picked up his love for Johnny Cash as he stayed near the base in San Antonio where Cash wrote his famous tune “Folsom Prison Blues”. Not long after returning to Hazleton and starting as a mailman, he married Peggy Fay, my Nana, whom he had two children with. Although their marital relationship did not work out; they remained lifelong friends and my Nana was always near Pat’s side in his last days.

Pat spent his life as a member of the Democratic Party and was always willing to discuss politics; although the debates between him and his son Ric, a conservative, tended to become pretty energized around the dinner table of Pat’s childhood home at 671 Monges Street on Nanny Goat Hill. This home has stayed in the Albano family as his daughter Cindy moved in and took care of him before his health deteriorated to the point of requiring a nursing home where he continued on into his own personal sunset long after Doctors had all but wrote him off.

Life is a garden that one sows throughout life. Moments like Pat’s 65th Birthday; where he danced his feet off; attending a Neil Diamond concert and singing at the top of his lungs with his Daughter-in-law Karyn; or just driving through New York City to see the World Trade Center with his son were the metaphoric fruits of his garden. Simple times like these are the measure of a man’s life. Pat’s garden was full and his 75 years on Earth are something to admire and marvel at but I will not say do not weep; for not all tears are sad.

I’ll leave you all with a quote from the 19th century poet Ralph Waldo Emerson which has been at the forefront of my mind since I received news of my Pap Pap’s passing. It is striking because it not only relates to those of us left in Pat’s absence but to Pat himself wherever he has transcended to.

Finish each day and be done with it.
You have done what you could; some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can.
Tomorrow is a new day; you shall begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.

Thank You.

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J.D. Cook

 

The R & R Music Express

    Ric Albano


Mitt Romney and Paul RyanI was a professional disc jokey for several years starting in the late 1980s through the early years of this century. One of those incarnations of my DJ business was called R & R Music Express, which was a partnership between my buddy “Rico” and me . This morning I found that we have a new “R & R express” as Mitt Romney chose Wisconsin congressman Paul Ryan.

I love this choice as Ryan is brilliant, bold, young, and from a modest working class background. In the last two years, he has become the clear fiscal leader in Congress and has put out a bold budget each year as a fiscal guru. This has made him a lightening rod from some quarters, but shows his willingness to put himself out there as an agent of change in an era when the Senate hasn’t passed a budget in over three years. In this health care summit in early 2010, Ryan shows his absolute mastery of budgetary matters:

Ryan is 42 and has been in congress for most of his adult life, having been first elected in 1998. This makes him a good counter-balance to Romney’s vast business experience (as well as in several other factors). Yet, in a near-hilarious article in The New Yorker this morning, Ryan Lizza lamented Paul Ryan’s lack of private sector experience by stating he has no business-world experience “…besides summer jobs working at McDonald’s or at his family’s construction company, or waiting tables as a young Washington staffer…” As if to say we don’t want anyone who has had to work THOSE kind of jobs. No, Ryan does not fit into the left wing’s narrative about Republican “Wall Street” elitists. In fact, even though Ryan has been in Washington for nearly 14 years, he still sleeps on a cot in his office when congress is in session and returns to his wife and three children in Wisconsin at every possible opportunity.

In announcing Paul Ryan as his VP running mate this morning, Romney mistakenly called him the next PRESIDENT of the United States. Well, perhaps not the NEXT President.

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