The arrest of a 49-year-old retired Ocean City police officer for alleged unlawful contact with a 16- or 17-year-old female Ocean City beach badge inspector he supervised got lots of public attention last week. But published details about his pay and early retirement pension are also very disturbing.

It’s been more than three months since April Kauffman was brutally murdered and still only silence emanates from the Atlantic County Prosecutors Office. As reported by the Press, requests for hand gun permits in Linwood have soared, driven by the inability of law enforcement to arrest anyone in connection with this murder, as well as a reaction to the killings in Colorado and Wisconsin.

It's back, like déjà vu all over again. Ocean City merchants and business people want to replace the Ocean City Boardwalk's “made in America” yellow pine with longer-lasting rainforest wood.

Boardwalk merchants have restarted what seems like an annual campaign. Not satisfied with helping to destroy the Brazilian Amazon rainforest, their suggested wood would come from an equally fragile and unsustainable rainforest in Guyana.

It is imperative that we have an intellectually honest conversation regarding the Atlantic City Rescue Mission and the simple fact that it cannot remain in Atlantic City any longer. You simply cannot have the Rescue Mission located directly behind the Atlantic City Convention Center, or anywhere else in Atlantic City.

On April 12, 2007, a little more than five years ago, then Gov. Jon Corzine was nearly killed when the big SUV he was riding in clipped the back of a white pick-up truck it was trying to pass, ran off the Garden State Parkway and slammed into a guardrail by mile marker 44 in Galloway Township.

“I am a sick man. I am a spiteful man. I believe my liver is diseased. However, I don’t consult a doctor for it, though I respect medicine and doctors. No, I refuse to consult a doctor from spite. I am well aware that I cannot ‘pay back’ the doctors by not consulting them, and that I am only injuring myself. But still, if I don’t consult a doctor, it is from spite. My liver is bad. Well let it get worse!”

–  Fyodor Dostoevsky, “Notes from the Underground,” 1864

There is mounting evidence that Barack Obama has had a second "Jump the Shark" moment.

Several weeks ago we wrote in detail about the meaning of "Jump the Shark." It's a reference to the popular television program “Happy Days” from the ’70s and ’80s. When the character Fonzie "jumped the shark," it was the beginning of the end for the iconic program.

I have to agree with the headline over Seth's column last week; that we need to do more than just vote if we are going to have any influence on the direction this country is going.

Actually, we have found that even 100 letters to an elected representative can be sufficient to change the representative's mind. That is why being active in local grassroots groups like the Coalition for Peace and Justice or Seth's Liberty and Prosperity, can make a difference. Writing letters to the editor, attending town meetings, being active, all are as important as voting.