The LuLac Edition #1173, May 6th, 2010

PHOTO INDEX: THE NUMBER 4 INDICATING OUR FOUR YEAR ANNIVERSARY TODAY, ME AND SUE HENRY RECAPPING ELECTION RESULTS ON WILK RADIO, A PHOTO TAKEN AT ONE OF THE LULAC COMMUNITY FORUMS WE HELD FOR JUDICIAL CANDIDATES (I THINK GORT 42 TOOK THIS PHOTO) MY GOOD FRIENDS AT WYLN TV 35 AFTER LAST YEAR'S GENERAL ELECTION BROADCAST AND A LULAC ANNIVERSARY TRADITION, JOHN WEBSTER WHO IS FEATURED EVERY YEAR SINCE HE WAS THE GUY WHO WALKED ME THROUGH PUTTING PHOTOS ON THE SITE.

LULAC AT 4

Today we celebrate our fourth anniversary. It was four years ago today that we began this adventure. We are closing in on 1200 editions and have written hundreds of thousands of words and displayed a good amount of photos. (Once more our thanks goes out to John Webster who actually took the time and patience to instruct us in the intricate art of posting photos. I fondly recall him saying, "Any idiot can do this Dave!" ) LuLac has put on community based forums that have informed the people about politics in the region. We have taken our message to TV, Radio and other forms of the net. The production of our own videos has been a major source of accomplishment for us. As I review our earlier work, I am struck by the amount of filler I put in earlier editions. But my thought process was to build a reference file so that if you needed a quote from the Declaration of Independence or any other major address, you could reference it on LuLac. In our early posts in 2006 we talked a lot about immigration, complimented the Luzerne County Commissioners on the flood control efforts, wrote about the Governor’s race and the prospects of young Mr. Casey vs. Mr. Santorum for the U.S. Senate and did a fair amount of commentary on the media and pop culture. I shared a fair amount of personal news which I hope was not too boring. But remembering a father, mourning a mother, remembering a school or classmate and sharing my travails as a cancer survivor and Blue Cross of Northeastern Pennsylvania expendable all I think gave my writing a reference point. I have also changed politically going from a centrist Democrat who would gladly pull the lever for a moderate Republican to a die hard liberal. The right wing party of “no” and its obnoxious attacks on the middle class we can all thank for that transformation. When we started out there were more than 80 blogs locally posting. There are now less than 8 that post every day. We are happy and grateful to be one of them. As we head into year 5 we thank all of the readers and posters who visit us every day. I particularly thank the newspaper trades and broadcast entities for digging up the stories we comment on. Plus the public officials who unwittingly or not, make our lives interesting. I was asked one time how can I keep on cranking out editions every single day without getting “writer’s block.” Anytime that happens and I don’t know what I’m going to write, like manna from heaven someone in politics does or says something spectacular in its stupidity. And then I write. I also have to credit Mrs. LuLac for her insights, her I.T. abilities as well as her patience in this quasi-occupation. When I worked in a State Senatorial campaign in 1978 for Tom Lehman, his primary opponent in that race, John Pitcavage came into our office on Pierce Street and schooled me on politics and life. He said the “biggest enemy any politician has during a campaign is not the opposition, not the money but time”. Political campaigns run out of “time” as do we in our daily lives. There is much more I’d like to accomplish with LuLac and I intend to fight that enemy “time” in order to do it. But in politics as in life, sometimes you win, more often than not “time” wins. We’ll try to bat .500 regarding the time issue. All that said, on to year 5.