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Proud to be
a Philadelphian
In response to Dino Parlapiano’s letter about moving to New Jersey (Peace of mind in New Jersey, Aug. 12 edition):
Why move to New Jersey? Why not stay in Philadelphia and help change it for the better? You say, "I don’t have to spend lots of money on a Catholic education (in New Jersey.)"
The amount that you spend on Catholic schools in Philly will be less in the long run than the expenses of living the rest of your life in New Jersey with high auto insurance rates, higher property taxes, and using your car to make the 15-minute trip just to the "corner" store.
Philly has culture, nightlife and a sense of being, good and bad. That’s what makes it unique. What, besides the shore, does Jersey have going for it? You say, "Peace of mind is worth every penny." Well, I hope you have lots of pennies saved up — you’re surely going to need them!
Jamie F. Gaughan
Fishtown, formerly of Holmesburg
You can’t close
Robbins Ave.
An article in last week’s Northeast Times states that the Naval center will be closing down the 700 block of Robbins Ave.
Guess what? No can do!
The 700 block of Robbins must be open to fire trucks, ambulances and police.
Workers enter the parking lot from Tabor Road and Oxford Avenue. If my memory serves me right, the Naval Supply Depot’s security force consists of many older men, who cannot hold back gangs of kids with knives and guns. The Navy should put up a second barbed-wire fence along Tabor Road to protect the Navy-Army computers.
The plan to shut the 700 block of Robbins was attempted before without success.
John M. Horner
Oxford Circle
Where, oh where,
is our dog?
For the person who took our family’s dog on Aug. 13 from out back of our house on the 2100 block of Friendship St., please, please, return her. Our family is truly grieving.
There are four kids who cannot sleep because she is their very best friend and she is not here with them. She is a shepherd, husky mix, tan in color with white on her paws and chest. She is wearing a pink collar with white paw prints on it. She answers to "Comet." She suffers from separation anxiety and we are very worried about her.
On Friday we moved out of the house, at 2162 Friendship St., but the new owners said you can just put her in the yard if you do not want to be known. There will be no questions asked, just return her.
If any neighbor sees a family with a new dog that meets this description, please call us and we will come and get her. If you see her wandering the streets, take her home and call us. We will come get her. Our phone number is 215-953-1015.
We need everyone’s help in getting her back, especially for her health.
Debbie Eckhardt
Talkin’ about the animals
How does letter writer Betsy Kirkwood know how much manure 24 chickens produce in a year? Does she have a collection?
It’s amazing that people don’t like farm animals around them unless they are in the oven or frying pan. I really don’t see chickens as "pets." They don’t care who you are as long as the food is coming steady. However, if anyone wants these "pets," move to the country.
Now my gripe is barking dogs. People let them out in the yard, then ignore their constant barking to get back in. It doesn’t seem to bother them, only the neighbors.
Shirley Stahl
Lawndale
Take a ride on
a reality tour
Regarding the editorial in the Aug. 12 edition (Pal WOW), let me assure you that as a retired bus driver, I had worked the Route 14, 20 and 70, and it was no walk in the park. And as far as people getting off their behinds and trying to stop all the horrors that go on out there, myself along with many others did try.
So I personally would like to invite you to the next meeting with the Mayfair Civic Association, and if all is so wonderful as you seem to think it is, then I would like you to accompany me on a ride on a SEPTA bus on a Saturday night, or to take a walk on Roosevelt Boulevard or Brous Avenue, and then let’s see what you think.
Kathleen Boyle
Port Richmond
It’s not a
pretty picture
Cameras at high-accident intersections should have a positive impact as long as they’re operating fairly, i.e., without a shortened amber light that would pose a "trap" for motorists.
What about the thousands of license plates that are covered with "smoked" plastic and can’t be read unless one is as close as 5 feet? (Some are a little better, some are worse.)
However, they must be legal in Philadelphia; police certainly don’t do anything about it. Will the traffic cameras effectively photograph them? I doubt it very much.
Bill Kranz
Crescentville
Good job on
the Avenue
I want to send my sincere thanks to the work crews that paved Torresdale Avenue. There were some minor hassles, but for the most part, the crews worked very efficiently. One night, I went to bed with a partially paved road in front of my house, and when I woke up, the street was completely paved, with traffic lines painted as well.
My neighbor made the observation that since the trolley tracks were paved over, the traffic noise has been cut in half! And it also seems, with the new traffic lines (left-hand turning lanes, etc.) that traffic is flowing much better, too.
A couple of times I spoke with the crew members, and they were courteous and professional. Thanks again for a job well done!
Jim MacElroy
Tacony
It’s your party line
and I’ll cry if I want to
I don’t know exactly when the Northeast Times opinion pages came to resemble Ann Coulter’s personal Internet blog, but it sorely needs more voices from the left.
I guess it’s fair to expect such attitudes from the typically right-wing, white-bread Northeast. But Ray Dolan’s Aug. 12 letter on the U.S. Senate race was so hypocritically partisan and devoid of simple reason that it stands out like a sore thumb even amongst the other conservative rants.
Dolan portrays Joe Hoeffel as a candidate who "will carry the (Democratic) party line . . . as if it were other people’s Bible or Torah or Koran." He accuses Hoeffel of merely being a team player for the Democrats and "a man without an original thought."
Dolan then ironically (and mind-bogglingly) proceeds to chastise our incumbent, Arlen Specter, for deviating from the Republicans’ party line. He refers to Specter as a "liberal masquerading as a member of the Republican Party." And why is that? Because Specter is pro-choice? Because he opposes prayer in public schools?
I suppose Mr. Dolan believes that the only true Republicans are those who want to turn our democracy into a Chinese-American Taliban.
While our president and junior senator may represent such interests, there was indeed a Republican Party before the neo-cons and religious zealots wrested control of it from fiscally responsible conservatives.
Specter may sometimes vote according to his own beliefs rather than conforming to a party that demands near-fascist homogeny; but that does not make him a "liberal."
How many liberals would vote for the Bush tax cuts and against the Brady Bill? Mr. Dolan should realize that not all Americans fall into his ridiculous categories of "true Republicans" and "liberals."
Not all Americans simply follow a party line, as he accuses Rep. Hoeffel of doing — while he throws stones from his own glass house.
Daniel Smith
Somerton
A litmus test for the
Bush/Specter crowd
Things you have to believe if you are going to vote for George Bush and Arlen Specter:
1- Saddam was a good guy when Reagan armed him, a bad guy when Bush’s daddy made war on him, a good guy when Cheney did business with him and a bad guy when Bush needed a "we can’t find bin Laden" diversion. Trade with Cuba is wrong because the country is communist, but trade with China and Vietnam is vital to a spirit of international harmony.
2- A woman can’t be trusted with decisions about her own body, but multinational corporations can make decisions affecting all mankind without regulation.
3- The best way to improve military morale is to praise the troops in speeches while slashing veterans’ benefits and combat pay.
4- If condoms are kept out of schools, adolescents won’t have sex.
5- Providing health care to all Iraqis is sound policy. Providing health care to all Americans is socialism.
6- HMOs and insurance companies have the best interests of the public at heart.
7- Global warming and tobacco’s link to cancer are junk science, but creationism should be taught in all schools.
8- A president lying about an extramarital affair is an impeachable offense. A president lying to enlist support for a war in which thousands die is solid defense policy.
9- Government should limit itself to the powers named in the Constitution, which include banning gay marriages and censoring the Internet.
10- The public has a right to know about Hillary’s cattle trades, but George Bush’s possible cocaine use and arrest for drunken driving is none of our business.
11- Being a drug addict is a moral failing and a crime, unless you’re a conservative radio host (Rush Limbaugh). Then it’s an illness, and you need our prayers for your recovery.
12- You support states’ rights, which means Attorney General John Ashcroft can tell states what local voter initiatives they have the right to adopt.
13- What Bill Clinton did in the 1960s is of vital national interest, but what Bush did in the ’80s is irrelevant.
14- Last, but certainly not least, hard-working men and women should have to have their jobs sent overseas so that big industry fat-cat friends of the Bush administration can be rewarded for outsourcing jobs with huge tax cuts at the expense of the average, hard-working Americans who are just trying to make a living, send their children to college, have access to affordable health care, and have a proper Social Security system that will give them what they deserve for all the hard-working years and money they put into it.
If you truly believe in those ideals, then I urge you to vote for George Bush and Arlen Specter.
If you believe those are absolutely ridiculous and harmful policies then I urge you to not only vote, but tell your friends, family, and neighbors to actively support the Kerry/Edwards ticket for president/vice president and Joe Hoeffel for U.S. Senate.
David J. Kushner
Somerton
Praise for
the senator
I must respond to Carol O’Brien’s letter in the Aug. 12 edition of the Northeast Times.
Ms. O’Brien appears to believe only what she reads in the Northeast Times. As a reader, I have fundamental questions about who the Northeast Times is trying to serve by going out of its way every week to personally attack state Sen. Mike Stack.
Sen. Stack’s achievements (while not necessarily reported in this newspaper) benefit everyone who lives, works or visits Northeast Philadelphia. Yes, Ms. O’Brien, I did pass Firefighting 101, and as president of Local 22, I remain grateful for Sen. Stack’s leadership on behalf of firefighters and public safety.
Thomas P. O’Drain
Local 22, Philadelphia Fire Fighters Union
They’re out
of service
Vice President Cheney curses at a U.S. senator and does not deny it. He admits it and he is vilified.
Teresa Heinz Kerry tells a lie that she did not use the term "un-American," and the two Clintons, along with Ed Rendell and John Kerry, do all but canonize her.
John Kerry places a high priority on serving in the armed services, but take note of some of the speakers at the Democratic National Convention — Bill and Hill, Chuck Schumer, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Nancy Pelosi and of course, John Edwards.
They have as much service time as I have time in heaven. Kerry calls one group his Band of Brothers; what does he call this group? Yes, I have more G.I. time than this whole group, even if you add John Kerry.
Tom Finnegan
Somerton
No support
for Perzel?
Here is my response to two recent letters to the editor about my quite comical letter entitled Rendell and Perzel: Perfect together, published in the July 29 edition:
First, the Friends of John Perzel (Perzel’s campaign funds) should pay for those two political ads by Stan Cohen and Ervin Davis in this election year.
The board of directors of the Northeast Community Center (NCC) voted for the fitness center to be named for Perzel. Do your readers know that Sheryl Perzel (aka Mrs. John Perzel) is a board member? There are a few other Perzel-related people also on that board.
Stan Cohen (Aug. 12 edition) receives his paycheck from the NCC, and not all the members’ dues cover the operating expenses. NCC receives state funds. So what do you expect him to say?
Ervin Davis (Aug. 19 edition) seems to think that Perzel did wonders with the public schools. Perzel promised the public schools $45 million a year when he took over the Philadelphia Parking Authority (PPA).
That happened about four years ago and at $45 million annually, the school district should have received $180 million. Last school year was the first time monies were paid to the school district and that was a pittance of $4 million. Guess where the remaining money went? It went to political patronage jobs, and most of those people do not live in Mayfair.
If Perzel ever tried to reverse the legislation that he and his cronies previously passed on the "School Districts of the First Class" (Philadelphia is the only one) including the drastic cuts in state funding, he will go from speaker of the House to janitor of the house.
The Internet site www.followthemoney.org shows Perzel’s contributors by ZIP codes and types of businesses. Perzel receives a good proportion of his campaign contributions from lawyers, lobbyists, unions and general contractors. He received almost nothing with Mayfair ZIP codes. Why isn’t Mayfair supporting him financially?
He has added a building addition to NCC. He wants to double deck the Schuylkill Expressway. He wants to take over the Philadelphia International Airport and expand it into Delaware County. Who does Perzel really represent?
Mayer Krain
Modena Park
Lawmakers applaud Vallas-Rice
effort on school violence
In response to numerous calls for urgency in addressing the issue of violence in our schools, we would like to applaud the efforts of Philadelphia School District CEO Paul Vallas, along with recognizing the hard work and efforts of Safe Schools Advocate Harvey Rice.
Under the auspices of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives’ Urban Affairs Committee, we conducted a comprehensive three-year investigation into violence in Philadelphia public schools from 1999 to 2002.
Our bipartisan investigation uncovered a troubling level of unbridled violence and disruptive behavior, combined with a concerted attempt by the previous administration to underreport the number of violent incidents, hoping the problem would just go away.
The creation of the Office of the Safe Schools Advocate and the selection of Mr. Rice as the nation’s first safe-schools advocate, were a direct result of our investigation and a series of recommendations contained in our report.
Along with assisting victims of school violence, Mr. Rice and his staff are charged with independently monitoring the School District’s compliance with the Safe Schools Act.
To date, the Office of the Safe Schools Advocate has helped thousands of victims of school violence — while pressing for strict implementation of a "zero tolerance" policy toward violent and disruptive behavior in our schools.
The very existence of the Office of the Safe Schools Advocate with its authority to independently monitor and report on the school district’s handling of violent and disruptive students, ensures that the issue of school violence and the removal of violent and disruptive students from our schools gets the ongoing priority attention it so badly needs.
As we look to the future, we applaud Paul Vallas and Harvey Rice and urge all parents, teachers and students to join the effort to stop violence in our schools — and make our classrooms safe havens for learning. ••
John Taylor, a Republican, represents the 177th Legislative District in the Lower Northeast. William F. Keller, a Democrat, represents the 184th Legislative District in South Philadelphia.
Thanks for minding
your Manor Glen
In the Manor Glen building at 8403 Roosevelt Blvd., for five years the air conditioning system was absent in the hallways on all three floors, and the temperature was such that the residents, who are senior citizens, couldn’t stand it.
This year, there was a meeting at which the residents asked the staff to take measures. The installation of the air conditioning unit began in the middle of July and was finished near the beginning of August.
We are very thankful to all those who took part in the job. They are:
Pat Huff, manager at Manor Glen; board members CEO Jeff Petty, Donna Wood, John Beeker, Joy Sugden, Harry Symons, Sam Cook and Allen Forde; and the installers, Elvis and Al.
You did a good and useful job, dears. We wish you health and happiness in your life.
Moysey Barash
Pennypack Circle
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