Attending Tuesday’s Special Budget Workshop was a positive experience.

Financial Advisor Frank Catania has been doing a splendid job of organizing the budget, and making sense of so-called budgets from the recent past. The new council is making substantial progress in its work to stabilize the city’s finances and secure new sources of revenue. It’s still a little too early to announce particular achievements but they are right around the corner. I would urge residents to view the Channel 10 video of that meeting; it’s very informative. The General Fund items were discussed in detail.

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I recently challenged a friend to identify some major piece of state or national good news. I’m trying to counter my growing sense of massive pessimism. All I have to do to fan the flames of that personal pessimism is scan the latest DRUGE links. Clearly, the Western World (once recognized as the “free world”) is in a free-falling tailspin. It appears we have a cultural death wish. We have a fool for Commander in Chief. Not surprising since he has no military experience.

President Obama threatened to change America forever and I now believe he will accomplish that goal. With his ordering the recruitment of openly gay men and women into all military services he has defiled more than two centuries of American Judeo-Christian tradition. The reasonable “Don’t ask, don’t tell” rule (which was reluctantly approved by our Joint Chiefs of Staff) opened the path of enlistment to “openly” gay enlistment, bringing with it conduct intolerable to traditional Christians.

Obama crows about his lesbian General and her female “spouse”, herself a colonel. The military is particularly vulnerable to corruption because of its command structure. Orders come from the top on down. As they say, a fish rots from the head first. This facilitates the growth of “special” groups and affiliations within the command structure and in the ranks. This profound rejection of traditional Christian moral conduct happened suddenly (following 30 years of scheming by the radical Left) and was facilitated by people like Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta and Adm. Mike Mullen. This massive change was created just to placate 2 percent of the public.

I once stated, to the chagrin of a number of distinguished veterans, that I would refuse to serve in any openly gay military unit, and would discourage my children from joining as well. I would explain my stance by paraphrasing a great hero of mine, whose biography was filmed in “A Man For All Seasons” back in 1966. Sir Thomas More, in refusing to recognize the marriage of Henry VIII to Anne Boleyn, had his head chopped off. Before the axe came down he is quoted as saying (paraphrase) “I die my King’s true servant – but God’s First.” My convictions about our military are equally strong.