Stop The Clapping – The Hometown View

After watching the highlights of President Obama’s State of the Union speech this morning I now know why I didn’t watch it live last night. It’s the standing ovations which interrupt the annual address which make the speech take longer than it should. Was it really necessary for Democrats to get up and clap 37 different times during the speech? Of course Republicans did not bother to stand…not because they were lazy but because of partisan politics. By the way the same thing occurred during George Bush’s tenure as President…then it was the Republicans who stood and the Demos who sat. One day a President will begin his State of the Union with what you hear during a lot of events….”please hold your applause to the end.”

Generally speaking I am in favor of districts moving their annual School Elections from April to November for two main reasons….improved voter turnout and the money that will be saved. However you would be naïve if you don’t think the elections will have even more of a political influence than they already do in some cases.

There will always be those who feel Joe Paterno’s failure to act more decisively in what’s become a child sex-abuse scandal wipes out all the good he did in more than 60 years at Penn State University but don’t tell that to the thousands who paid their final respects to the legendary football coach Tuesday.

Mourners waited in lines a quarter-mile long to view the closed casket in the school’s spiritual center, a building that Paterno and his wife Sue donated money too. Estimates are that some 800 former players were among those on hand, going back to Paterno’s early teams in the 60’s to the current squad. There will be a private funeral today and tomorrow a public memorial will be held at the basketball arena…..tickets for that free event were all gone in less than 7 minutes.

Judy Geiger is clearly the matriarch of the Beachwood Soccer Club, having served for well over 20 years as a coach, board member and advisor. Her holiday season was spent in the hospital but I am happy to report that the borough’s unofficial “soccer mom” is now home and recovering. Judy is not only matriarch to the soccer club but a soccer family as well. Her daughter Karen was a very successful head coach at Ocean County College and son Mark was recently honored as Major League Soccer’s referee of the year.