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| If you let him shoot, it's too late. |
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| If you let him shoot, it's too late. |
So in the wake of a tragic week in which African Americans and police officers have needlessly lost their lives as a result of gun violence, the solution our so-called leaders come up with are one-sided rallies so they can deliver diatribes against people who just don't think the way they do. The result is vilification, which just divides us more.
I believe we need tighter gun control laws, aimed mostly at mentally ill people who have displayed violent tendencies. We need to consider limiting the use of weapons like the AR-15, which have been used in several mass shootings. But I know many decent people with different views. Instead of talking at and demonizing each other, which is what tends to happen at these rallies, a lot more can be accomplished by having a dialogue with people who think differently.
We used to have dialogues and debates leading to common ground.
Now it is sound bites and signs.
Ironically, the people most impacted by gun violence, our local youth, were more focused this weekend on dribbling and dunking than in listening to a bunch of phonies.
The Morning Call's Keith Groller is no pundit. He's a sportswriter. But like me, he was in heaven this weekend as people of all ages, colors and economic circumstances came together to watch one great sport - basketball. On Thursday night, I saw a multi-millionaire sitting close to a person with no money at all. Me. I think we both had the same amount of fun.
Over the years, I've met hundreds of people I would never know, but for basketball.
Mentors include people like Judge Emil Giordano, who took kids who were just starting out and put them on the right path. He gave them a love of the game. Then Rodney Robinson, a TV Director, would spend weekend teaching first graders Dat Lambert or Mikey Esquilin to dribble with both left and right hands, and went on to coach a team that never lost a game. Chuck Rockmore became a father to hundreds of Allentown kids in the East side and Wall2Wall programs. "What's up, Youngblood!" I could hear him saying to ballers. Craig Golden is a living saint who has spent much of his adult life working with kids who would have no chance at all, but for him. He lead the 'Canes to three years of games without a loss. He made sure every kid had his own basketball, and even went out and bought them jackets for Christmas one year. The result is a Liberty High School team that shocked everyone at Stellar. Everyone except Craig. Then there are AAU coaches like Dawud Abdur-Rahkman, who took athletes like Dat, Jay and Sammy Vaughan (CCHS), Mikey Esquilin (Whitehall), John Bartholomew (Parkland), Kevin Kern (CCHS), Zach Sabo (Emmaus), Trevor Storm (Easton) and Ryan Young (Becahi) and turned them into a force on the basketball court.
Over time, these kids have all come to know and respect one another. They have their own brotherhood.
I like the way Groller puts it.
Basketball is one of those sports that brings the whole world together and while I don't like everything about the modern era of hoops, I love how the sport unites people in a way that many other sports do not.Dribbling and dunking trump diatribes. If you want to stem all the hate and gun violence, its ugly stepsister, it is time to engage in dialogues instead of diatribes in which like-minded people get together to condemn everyone else.
In basketball, skin color or nationality or social-economic background doesn't matter. Can you shoot, pass, rebound, defend and work hard? That's how you are judged.
One way to end the hate is to encourage more youth sports, especially in inner cities. East Side Youth Center should be three times its current size. Where are the phonies on that issue? Why not invite gun advocates and look for common ground instead of more division?
That's what the kids would do. They seem to have more sense.
By the way, this weekend we'll have Sportsfest and the A-town Throwdown. You won't find the panderers there.
Wow, O'Hare you have really sold out to the far right wing. Your multi-millionaire buddy, we all know, has trained you well. You use kids playing basketball as a thinly disguised excuse to attack people of good will advocating against gun violence. You are really going down fast.
ReplyDeleteShameful!
I pray for the Presidents safety in Dallas. The city has a violent history.
ReplyDeleteDallas is a southern city with little of the racial problems that exist elsewhere, North or South. My guess is that the President will be safer there than in Easton's west ward.
ReplyDeleteSorry, going to Democratic pep rallies is not on my dashboard.
ReplyDeleteFamily members of the slain Dallas police officers should refuse to participate in any service that includes President Obama.
ReplyDeleteHe stood at the podium in Poland and couldn't be bothered to mention the five police officers by name but sure as heck could name the two Black men in Minnesota and Louisiana by name.
How much do you want to bet Obama will blame white people and harps on gun control??
White lives matter/Blue lives matter
ReplyDeleteFacts speak for the truth, nobody at these rallies can relate facts to support their cause. Just a lot of hot air gibberish without facts such as: In 2016 so far, White deaths at the hands of law enforcement were 47%, Blacks 24%, Latinos 16% and others 14%. Between 2009-12 black on black killings stood at 98% or 4,472, while blacks killed by law enforcement were 2% or 112. These facts are undeniable and the liberal, slanted, press refuse to report this.
ReplyDeleteI guess there are many people doing the unseen job of helping their communities, good job pointing this out, Bernie, you need to find another word to describe when one action outweighs another, putting the word trump in there will probably raise some peoples blood pressure.
ReplyDeleteBernie,
DeleteI am guessing this person trump never played penuckle and I probly can't even spell it right
I did notice, via Mcall pics, that FedEd had a photo-op with "Officer" Spang. Yes, that sexual deviant....
ReplyDeleteAllentown politics is too, too ridiculous.
Bernie,
ReplyDeleteLast night had to try to understand word diatribe?!)$ The comment made must have been from one of the toilet brigades glory hole stalls media advertismentalists performing locally for its own designs?!)$
That particular statement in itself has many many multifaceted variables in the hole equation of things that is redd in local lame media advertisementalistZ advertisement and cupon clipping main stream media'Z designs spoon feed to the public as positives?!)$
As said before, feet on the street does not make a commerce spreadsheet unless the are fictisiously faked facts
put to print and we can never forget a palumpa PowerPoint express?!)$
RE:publican redd
3:53 just keeps the hate train rolling. You and the other Trump U grads delight in this stuff,
ReplyDeleteGod help you.
"In basketball, skin color or nationality or social-economic background doesn't matter."
ReplyDeleteYeah, but your height does.
In basketball, we all know that white guys can't jump
ReplyDeleteObama has been stirring up racial hatred since he came into office. If you are looking for the reason for all these riots, look at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and you'll find the cause in the Oval Office.
ReplyDeleteThis is all about Gun Control. But he won't lift a finger about the killings each and every week in Chicago, where more people are shot than there is in Afghanistan.
Race relations in the United States has been set back 50 years by Obama, and it will be several generations until another black gets elected as President. Because every time one will run, people will look at him or her and say, "Another Obama".
What these disruptions need are high pressure fire hoses and Great Danes to give them a sense of civil order and decency.
ReplyDeleteThe shooter in Dallas did not use an AR15. The daily shooting deaths in Chiraq do not use AR15s. More people die daily from automobiles than AR15s. More die every year from medical malpractice than from AR15s (or the other maligned black rifles).
ReplyDeleteThe problem is not the proliferation of guns or the easy access to guns. If someone is such a horrible person that they can no longer be entrusted to have a gun based upon their past behaviors then they must be locked in a cage. All of the gun laws in the world will not stop a determined person. Gun control advocacy is intellectual low hanging fruit. It's the rallying cry from the "we must do something" crowd who in reality are not willing to get their hands dirty with solving the problem through incarceration. We also have an over abundance of community organizers who remind that there are downtrodden people whose voices must be heard. It's all nonsense that is masked by silly words like no justice no peace. It's more like no free stuff no peace.
Thank you for sharing this and the post yesterday regarding Officer Jay Stalien.
ReplyDelete""In basketball, skin color or nationality or social-economic background doesn't matter."
ReplyDeleteYeah, but your height does."
Heh, heh. Height helps, but plenty of players at the HS level are short by NBA standards.
Basketball . Who cares.
ReplyDeleteBernie's subconscious mind at work as he's writing? It's probably not a coincidence that he follows his fawning comments about "kids of all ages and all colors" with the word 'dong'.
ReplyDeleteScary stuff.
The only dribbling BO is capable of is in his drool cup.
ReplyDeleteThe above two comments are an insult to any person who enjoys following high school sports. The point is so ridiculous that I will allow them to stand, to show the twisted minds of haters at work. Those are the people who in the end are responsible for the divisiveness that has in turn led to the violence we experience. These are cowards.
ReplyDeleteWhen Former President Bush spoke of unity and hope, Obama praised Black Lives Matter, a racist organization.
ReplyDeleteObama at Dallas Police Memorial: Easier ‘to Buy A Glock’ Than a Book
ReplyDeleteIf there is one thing about Obama, he doesn't disappoint....
It's funny someone mention east side youth center that place is a joke the president and financial secretary Rob the place blind and no one cares that place went down long time ago cause of the ass holes that run it
ReplyDeleteI know some of the people running sports programs there and they have very good hearts. If the finances are bad, why not step to the plate?
ReplyDeleteAnon 5:26 you are spot on. Since when is a frickin' book ever as expensive as a Glock 9? Even a used computer is cheaper. But the criminals who buy guns have no desire to own a computer, except to use it for identity theft. Another dumb analogy by our Apologist in Chief.
ReplyDelete