A struggling soap-opera actor has reportedly taken his own life following regret after euthanizing his dog due to pressure from his Upper West Side condo management. The New York Post reports that friends of 47-year-old Nick Santino say that the actor wrote in his suicide note “Today I betrayed my best friend and put down my best friend.” “Rocco trusted me and I failed him. He didn’t deserve this.” US Weekly reports that Santino had appeared on seven episodes of All My Children and six episodes of Guiding Light , and had been feeling “harassed” by his building management company, according to his neighbor Lia Pettigrew. US reports on the sad turn of events: “He was allegedly threatened with a $250 fine for having a barking dog, but according to neighbor Kevan Cleary, ‘the dog was not a barker, but somebody complained that the dog would bark.’ Santino phoned a former girlfriend at 2 a.m. Wednesday. Police found Santino’s body in his bedroom later that afternoon. The actor had overdosed on pills.” Rocco was Euthanized on Santino’s birthday. The Post reports that Santino was born in Brooklyn and raised in an orphanage and foster homes. The actor adopted Rocco from a shelter several years ago, and often mentioned his pet on Facebook, writing “I did not rescue Rocco, Rocco rescued me.” The Post reports that Rocco has been cremated, and friends said Santino’s remains will be too, and they will be reunited. NY Post : A member of the condo board that soap actor Nick Santino said pressured him to euthanize his pit bull — a “betrayal” that drove him to suicide — refused to accept any responsibility for the double tragedy yesterday. “I’m sorry the man is dead,” board member Marilyn Fireman barked to The Post, “But it has nothing to do with the pet policy.” “You just assumed that [his suicide] was a result of a board’s decision,” Fireman said, even though Santino routinely griped about the building’s anti-dog policies. Heartbroken relatives of the actor — who had stints on “All My Children” and “Guiding Light” — have retrieved the ashes of Rocco and plan to place them beside Santino’s body when he is laid to rest. More: Soap Actor Commits Suicide After Having to Put Down His Own Dog
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Soap Actor Commits Suicide After Having to Put Down His Own Dog
During the heady days of the 2009 protests against the “Porkulus” bill, Obamacare, and big government in general, many people spoke of the rise of the Tea Party movement as the result of Presidents Obama and Bush having “woken the sleeping giant” of pro-liberty America. But that giant may turn out to be a pygmy when compared to what Barack Obama, Harry Reid, and Occupy Wall Street have awoken with their incessant and intensifying class warfare. Americans who consider themselves Tea Partiers are a minority of the country, even if a significant and motivated one. The real majority, one which Democrats are foolishly antagonizing, are those of us who refuse to accept the left’s claims that Americans of one economic class are the enemy of those in another economic class. A recent poll by Gallup shows that the efforts of Obama and the Occupiers may be backfiring against the beggar-thy-neighbor Alinskyite left. To be clear, while the poll shows that “Americans’ views of their own position as ‘haves’ or ‘have nots’ have been remarkably stable,” the percentage of Americans who believe that the nation is divided along those lines has plunged since the last similar poll, done just prior to President Obama’s election in 2008. During the Bush years, people were beginning to think that lower-income Americans were in a form of conflict with the elite, now called “the 1 percent,” or were perhaps even their victims. Those views became particularly intense during the depth of the 2008 financial crisis when politicians of both parties, parroted by media everywhere, blamed the real estate crash and ensuing stock market plunge on Wall Street bankers who fooled unsuspecting borrowers into buying houses they couldn’t afford and then securitized “toxic” derivatives and sold them to unsuspecting investors. The mess was far more a failure of government than of markets, something which one might think would be difficult for the American people to learn, especially since politicians of both parties have a lot to answer for when it comes to pushing “affordable housing” aka “vote buying” on the nation. But Barack Obama has given the nation a tremendous object lesson by posing the federal government as the solution to all problems — and then proving that it isn’t. When the president said that spending a trillion dollars of our children’s future earnings would keep unemployment below 8 percent only to see us spend the last two and a half years with only three months below 9 percent unemployment — and none below 8.5 percent — the public begins to see the economic emperor as wearing no clothes. Even if the voters don’t think about it explicitly, if the Obama administration’s claims about government fixing the economy are so obviously false, then just perhaps the other charges made about evil capitalists being the source of all evil may also be false. At least, they’re worth skepticism. And thus the public has become skeptical. The Occupy Wall Street movement has likewise had the opposite effect of what its anarcho-socialist hygiene-challenged spoiled middle-class kids intended. When you see “protesters” defecating on a police car or an American flag, instigating violence, and generally being incoherent, the ordinary American is likely to see those people as a greater threat than a bunch of villainized bankers could ever be. Again, when the messenger is so utterly without credibility, the internalized message among the public is likely to be the opposite of what the preachers of radicalism offer. Among those 19 groups for which Gallup broke out the “haves” versus “have nots” responses, only one, those earning less than $30,000 per year, had a majority who put themselves in the latter category. Even the unemployed, non-whites, those without a college degree, and Democrats all have a majority who self-identify as “haves.” While a majority of Americans believe that the nation is not divided along these lines, a majority of Democrats do buy into the class warfare rhetoric , with 58 percent saying we are split between “haves” and “have-nots.” However, even that is down three percent from 2008. Independent voters reject the class warfare concept with only 37 percent believing we’re divided, a stunning drop of 11 points from three years ago. Similarly, self-identified moderates are at 38 percent, down 13 percent. Not surprisingly, barely one quarter of Republicans (26 percent) and conservatives (27 percent) see class warfare as real. Interestingly, while the numbers for Independents and moderates were nearly identical, as were Republicans and conservatives, there is a significant gap between Democrats and liberals, with the latter group showing a 66 percent majority believing in the “haves” versus “have-nots” divide, eight percent more than Democrats. While this might mean that there are liberal Independents adding to the number, a bigger take-away is likely that there is a fair number of slightly conservative Democrats, those we used to call Reagan Democrats, who might drift away from their party’s presidential nominee. As if to reemphasize the point, another Gallup poll released Friday shows that “More Americans say it is important that the federal government enact policies that grow the economy and increase equality of opportunity than say the same about reducing the income and wealth gap between the rich and the poor.” Only 46 percent of poll respondents thought that government efforts to reduce income or wealth gaps between rich and poor were “extremely important” or “very important.” However, when it comes to increasing equality of opportunity, the number is 70 percent, and for “grow and expand the economy” the number jumps to 82 percent. Somewhere Thomas Jefferson is smiling; Karl Marx and Saul Alinsky not so much. We are all Americans, all endowed with an unalienable right to the pursuit of happiness, and most of us with aspirations to the American Dream of upward economic mobility. When you hate your neighbor because of his success, you shred our national fabric. Barack Obama may want to go down that road, but most of the rest of the nation properly finds his intentional attempts to divide us somewhere between dubious and abhorrent. As Gallup notes, “Americans as a whole are no more likely to see the country as divided into haves and have nots than at any time in the past two decades.” This is bad news for Barack Obama and other Democrats running for reelection in 2012. Their siren song of divide-and-conquer is falling flat on the ears of the majority of Americans. But the annoying political tinnitus is awakening the real sleeping giant — those Americans who recognize that our nation did not become great by thinking like V.I. Lenin, Che Guevara, or Chairman Mao.
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The Real Sleeping Giant
Monday A grueling drive down from rainy Los Angeles to Rancho Mirage. It is about the drabbest drive there is anywhere on earth. The New Jersey Turnpike is like the 17 Mile Drive in Carmel by comparison. We always make a lot of stops because, well, because we’re old and get tired easily. I visited with people at a hotel in Ontario, then at a CVS and a gas station in Calimesa, and at a Bob’s Big Boy. I am like a small town politician and my district runs along Highway 10 from Los Angeles to Rancho Mirage. In Rancho Mirage, we stopped at Pavilions to buy a few animal food things. The immense superstore was eerily empty. Only a few elderly men and women, alone, not in couples, shopped carefully for cat food and casually for frozen TV dinners. They looked desperately lonely. What if I were one of them? And how much it evokes my father when my mother died. He was miserable until he met a woman who took him to concerts at the Kennedy Center. Then he was happy. A good woman is everything. I had wandered far away in the store from Big Wifey and suddenly I could not see her any longer. I got frightened. What if she were gone? What if I were alone without my wife? I was totally scared. I don’t want to be 67 and alone. Or any age and alone. I scurried around and found her smiling her big Denman grin at the checkout counter. Now, it’s Christmas. My gift from God was standing there looking at magazines. The most beautiful, kindest, smartest, most loving, most generous woman, with the best sense of humor on this earth. The best creature I have ever encountered and I get to have her as my wife. It is Christmas all year long. I think my wife has more of the spirit of “love thy neighbor as thyself” than anyone else I have ever met. She’s literally the best person on the planet and I get to call her Big Wifey! CHRISTMAS! EVERY DAY! We got home, unpacked, rested, then went up to the clubhouse for dinner. There was almost no one else there. We watched C-Span, by far the best reality channel there is, as we ate. On air was a calm, extremely thoughtful debate between the next President of the United States, Newt Gingrich, and the next Vice President, Jon Huntsman. This was a scholar’s debate. Long, intelligent answers, no glib bullet points, no wisecracks, no zingers. Just a super smart analysis of foreign policy and defense issues. My wife and I were awed. These guys have it over Barack Obama and Joe Biden by so much it’s almost unbelievable. They are truly impressive. Newt’s position on defense — get the best defense you can and need and then figure out how to pay for it; sequestration — the worst possible way to play the budget game; Iran — the greatest threat on the planet — all of these were brilliant. He loves America. He loves Israel. He loves freedom. He is not bent over with self-loathing and conflict. I like him. This is vital: Newt stands up for America. So does Mr. Huntsman. I see them as dynamic campaigners and I see Newt knocking Obama out in every debate. Comparing Mr. Huntsman with Joe Biden is just plain cruel to my neighbor from Delaware. I like these guys and now I have hope. If I were Mr. Obama, I would be worried. Then, back home and a long, long swim under the stars. Perfect. We have a lot of worries at home in town with intruders and scary lawyers. But out here, it’s calm and peaceful. It’s Christmas.
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It’s Gingrich-Huntsman
Repent, suburbanites, for the end is near! That’s the gist of a new piece in The Atlantic titled ” The Beginning of the End for Suburban America .” And this time, say the doomsayers, it’s not just wishful thinking. Many signs and wonders portend suburbia’s last days. First, the number of miles Americans drove fell in 2008 and 2009. True, this could be the result of a number of things. More carpooling, for one. The corporate exodus. More telecommuting. Even — though unlikely — more use of public transportation. There’s just one small problem. Turns out Americans aren’t driving fewer miles . In the next paragraph, the author tries to slip this in on the sly: “In 2010, Americans drove a little more [than in 2009].” Okay, but what about this: Houses are getting smaller and using less energy. “The average size of a new home in 2010 is nearly 130 square feet smaller than in 2007.” That could just as easily be a sign that suburbanites plan on having fewer children. Or that the popularity of the gaudy McMansion has run its course. Or that suburban homeowners simply want homes that are more fuel efficient. Some suburban folks, believe it or not, are actually concerned with energy efficiency. They just don’t harp on it continuously. They have more important things to do. Like commute three hours to work. Ever since modern suburbia sprung from the loins of the post-World War II economic boom it has been criticized by right-thinkers as homogenous, conformist, dull, and populated entirely with lawn-obsessed, wife-swapping alcoholics. More recently, the burbs have been attacked for the clown-like size of their carbon footprint. “[The suburbs] are the greatest misallocation of resources in the history of the world,” says professional scold James Howard Kunstler. “America has squandered its wealth in a living arrangement that has no future.”
Actions, as they say, speak louder than words. And whatever the fear-mongering from the American Left about Texas Governor Rick Perry’s belief that America should be based on “Christian Values” (Perry believes in a Theocracy! Perry believes in a Christian Dominion! Oh My God Perry really believes in God!) — when push comes to shove, like iron filings to a magnet, there are no more fervent Perryites in the land responding to Christian values than some celebrated members of the American Left. Including — particularly including — that notorious Christian Values group known as the American Civil Liberties Union. Say what? That’s right. From one end of America to the other, the bluest of the blue turn positively crimson when the question is to live as Governor Perry suggests — or not. Without fail the choices they make in both their personal and public lives have them choosing Perry’s Christian Values over any other alternative. Names? There are names aplenty. They will be named here. And their actions are, thanks to their celebrity or political influence, well out there for all to see. No scurrilous, gossipy tidbits here. Just the facts ma’am. Just the facts. So. Let’s take a walk through this interesting list of liberals who exemplify Rick Perry’s call for living life according to “Christian Values.” First, the Christian Values themselves. Christian Values, or perhaps more accurately Judeo-Christian Values, are, to a considerable degree, based on a series of rules straight from the Bible. Rules that are considered such an outrageous violation of “separation of church and state” according to liberal talking points, that only last week the American Civil Liberties Union filed another of those famous liberal complaints regarding the posting of these unspeakable rules in a Virginia school district. This one was filed against the Giles County School Board for allowing the rules to surface in the Narrows High School, where a lone student and parent protested. Says the Associated Press: “The lawsuit says the display unconstitutionally promotes a specific religious faith and serves no secular purpose.” Catch that line? A “specific religious faith”? The display “serves no secular purpose.” Really? Really?
