Free Press – January 4, 2007

TOPICS: Governor Rendell for President, Premarital Sex report, New Jersey same sex marriage and NJ Stem Cell Research, “Gross Clinic” painting update

Dear Friends,

Good morning. There are many topics for the column today…some good news, some bad.

Quakertown Council will expand Memorial Park (good); the region stepped up and raised enough money to keep the famous Thomas Eakins painting of the Gross Clinic in Philadelphia (good); 95 percent of the American population had premarital sex (that’s not just bad…that’s very bad!); and New Jersey has approved embryonic stem cell research and same sex unions (good).

But first, the Governor. Do you remember the column I wrote last summer about my conversation with Governor Rendell? I asked him if he’d be a candidate for Vice President in 2008? He told me that it wouldn’t make sense for Hillary Clinton to choose him as her VP. America wouldn’t buy into the notion of a president and a vice president coming from adjacent states. That’s probably true.

But, I should have asked him if he was considering a run for the Presidency?

When I read the recent stories about Rendell’s desire to privatize the Pennsylvania Turnpike, his plan to run as a dark horse candidate for the White House became clear.

“Rendell’s objective is to raise billions of dollars for Pennsylvania transportation projects that otherwise might require increased taxes,” the Morning Call reported (Dec. 22). “His model: Indiana, where an Australian-Spanish conglomerate owns a toll road.”

It’s vintage Rendell. Get the job done without raising taxes. Is Rendell trying to show America that he can combine the private and public sector to bring Pennsylvania up to speed on mass transit and not raise taxes? I think so.

To win the Presidency in 2008, the Democratic Party must run a candidate who is a healer. Rendell successfully moved his agenda through a hostile, Republican legislature. And to woo conservatives, a Democratic capitalist would be perfect. In Philadelphia, Rendell was known as a pro business mayor. Don’t forget, Rendell served a stretch as Chairman of the National Democratic Party. He’s very well known and respected in Democratic circles.

My bet is Rendell and Barak Obama in 2008.

And now, to the good and bad news.

First - Quakertown Council decided that the remaining 15.3 acres of the former Krupp foundry will be added to Memorial Park. Good! The unresolved question is where to construct the permanent band shell?

Second - the Thomas Eakins’ masterpiece, “The Gross Clinic,” will not be pirated away to the Wal-Mart heiress’ museum in Arkansas. Good! Thomas Jefferson University, which owns the painting, thought that the region would not match the $68 million price tag. Jefferson guessed wrong, fortunately, and has plenty of egg over its face. I know several Upper bucks residents who contributed to the effort.

Third - I was astounded to read the Associated Press story (Dec. 280, which says that 95 percent of Americans had sex before marriage. This is terrible news!

“The majority of older teens and adults have already had sex before marriage, which calls into question the federal government’s funding of abstinence-only-until-marriage programs for 12 to 29-year-olds,” the Guttmacher Institute reported.

“Under the Bush administration, such programs have received hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding,” the AP story continued.

Finally, for the first time in my 71 years of living in Quakertown, I’ve figured out why this borough of only 10,000 souls has 26 churches. Why do we need 26 churches? It’s because of all this illegal, illicit behavior. I used to say that with 26 churches, Quakertown was either the most saintly or sinful place in America. Friends, we have sin, right here in River City!

And now to more good news.

New Jersey Governor Corzine approved $270 million in tax money for state laboratories in embryonic stem cell research. He will ask voters this year to OK New Jersey borrowing an additional $230 million for stem cell research.

The next day (December 22), Corzine signed same-sex union legislation into law. New Jersey joins California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Vermont in granting all the rights and responsibilities of marriage.

Opponents cry “Wolf,” of course. They believe that the end of the earth is at hand.

Personally, I can’t see how same-sex unions…or same sex marriage, for that matter…endangers marriage. It seems to me that heterosexuals have endangered the marriage institution. The heterosexual divorce rate is 50 percent.

We should give homosexuals a chance. They couldn’t do worse.

So you can see that we need more churches, not less...more morality policemen, not less. And finally, we need the federal government to be in everyone’s bedroom!

There’s just too much hanky panky going on!

Sincerely,

Charles Meredith