YOU said it ........... Coach .....................

Winthrop had a basketball game with Ohio State last night. In a  post game interview, their coach made the below comments. You can also listen to his comments HERE. The team has been on the road, and he has not seen his family since before last Friday.

There is no doubt the killing of 20 elementary school students and six of their teachers and administrators struck Kelsey hard. He has 4 and 5-year-old daughters at home and he referred to them in his powerful message.

“The last thing I wanna say is I’m really, really lucky, ’cause I’m gonna get on an eight-hour bus ride, and I’m gonna arrive in Rock Hill, S.C., and I’m gonna walk into my house, and I’m gonna walk upstairs, and I’m gonna walk into two pink rooms, OK, with a 5-year-old and a 4-year-old laying in that pink room, with a bunch of teddy bears laying in that room.

“And I’m gonna give them the biggest hug and the biggest kiss I’ve ever given them. And there’s 20 families in Newtown, Conn., that are walking into a pink room with a bunch of teddy bears with nobody laying in those beds. And it’s tragic.

“And I don’t know what needs to be done. I’m not smart enough to know what needs to be done, OK? I know this country’s got issues. Is it a gun issue? Is it a mental illness issue? Or is it a society that has lost the fact, the understanding, that decent human values are important?

“And our leaders – I didn’t vote for President Obama. But you know what? He’s my president now. He’s my leader. I need him to step up. Mr. Boehner, the Speaker of the House, he’s a Xavier guy, he’s a Cincinnati guy, OK, he needs to step up.

“Parents, teachers, rabbis, priests, coaches, everybody needs to step up. This has to be a time for change. And I know this microphone’s powerful right now, because we’re playing the fourth-best team in the country. I’m not going to have a microphone like this the rest of the year, maybe the rest of my life.

“And I’m going to be an agent of change with the 13 young men I get to coach every day and the two little girls that I get to raise. But hopefully things start changing, because it’s really, really disappointing.

“I’m proud to grow up American. I’m proud to say I’m part of the greatest country ever. And that’s got to stay that way. And it’ll stay that way if we change. But we gotta change.”

Where were YOU on 9/11?

Some comments from my FACEBOOK friends, and others ...............

Tami Harvey Spearman - I was working at A Printed Impression. Sheryl came in that morning she had just heard it on the radio. I got home, sat in front of the TV all day. The girls came home from school so scared.


Joe Dooley - I sat in front of the TV, speechless, I have never experienced a feeling like that.... really, it is hard to explain, but anyone who watched as we did, know what I mean.

Bernadette Dooley - I was only 3 blocks away...watching all happen from the 30th floor. Gil can tell you I looked like a dust bunny when I met him at the precinct.

Gil Vargas - was clicking on different TV channels trying to avoid documentaries of 9/11, but I couldnt help it. Hard to watch with tears in your eyes. I still have clothes,equipment from that day. I can still smell the "pile"

A message from Sarah Palin .................

The newly-released mind-boggling, record-smashing $3,400,000,000,000 federal budget invites plenty of opportunity to debate the merits of incurring more and more debt that will drown the next generation of Americans. Never has it been possible to spend your way out of debt. So... let the debate begin.

Included in the debate process will be opportunities for our president to deliberate internally the wisdom of this debt explosion, along with other economic, military and social issues facing our country. Our president will discuss these important issues with Democrat leaders and those within his inner circle. I would ask the president to show decency in this process by eliminating one member of that inner circle, Mr. Rahm Emanuel, and not allow Rahm’s continued indecent tactics to cloud efforts. Yes, Rahm is known for his caustic, crude references about those with whom he disagrees, but his recent tirade against participants in a strategy session was such a strong slap in many American faces that our president is doing himself a disservice by seeming to condone Rahm’s recent sick and offensive tactic.

The Obama Administration’s Chief of Staff scolded participants, calling them, “F---ing retarded,” according to several participants, as reported in the Wall Street Journal.

Just as we’d be appalled if any public figure of Rahm’s stature ever used the “N-word” or other such inappropriate language, Rahm’s slur on all God’s children with cognitive and developmental disabilities – and the people who love them – is unacceptable, and it’s heartbreaking.

A patriot in North Andover, Massachusetts, notified me of Rahm’s “retarded” slam. I join this gentleman, who is the father of a beautiful child born with Down Syndrome, in asking why the Special Olympics, National Down Syndrome Society and other groups condemning Rahm’s degrading scolding have been completely ignored by the White House. No comment from his boss, the president?

As my friend in North Andover says, “This isn’t about politics; it’s about decency. I am not speaking as a political figure but as a parent and as an everyday American wanting my child to grow up in a country free from mindless prejudice and discrimination, free from gratuitous insults of people who are ostensibly smart enough to know better... Have you no sense of decency, sir?”

Mr. President, you can do better, and our country deserves better.

- Sarah Palin