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In unity there is strength
to get the troops home
On Saturday, Jan. 27, leaving the Red Lion Acme, I noticed a woman with a clipboard standing near its entrance. After walking a fair distance away, I heard her call out, "Sign the petition to bring our troops home from Iraq!"
I remembered that was the day a large, anti-war demonstration was scheduled for Washington, D.C. I watched the news to see what I was sure would be prominent coverage of what horrible things the United States is doing in Iraq. I was struck by the fact that many of her comrades-in-protest had signs that read War is not the answer. Any thinking person knows war is an aberration to the human condition. But I wondered from whom the demonstrators expected "the answer." Osama bin Laden? The late Saddam Hussein? Iran? Syria?
You cannot get "the answer" from madmen who believe they have the right to kill you because you are an "infidel." And what wonders did the woman think would occur if we summarily pulled our troops out of Iraq?
I believe that since 9/11, we are in a total war with Islamic fundamentalists and Muslim terrorists. And I do not believe we can win that war by political correctness or semantics. Whether the Iraqis were involved with 9/11, had weapons of mass destruction or not, were or were not allies of al-Qaeda, I believe we would have had to confront them sooner or later. That goes for Iran and Syria, too. I can’t help but remember the Arabic adage, "the enemy of my enemy is my friend."
To that woman at the Acme and her fellow Washington demonstrators, I say when boots are on the ground and bullets begin to fly, dissent must end and unity must prevail. That is the surest way to defeat our enemies and help our troops come home.
John Primerano
Bustleton
Save the cats in
Rush State Park
Cruelty in Benjamin Rush State Park. Long before anyone decided to call that plot of land up in the Far Northeast a state park, there have been cats living in the woods and fields in that area, beautiful animals who are there through no fault of their own. A few people spend the money and take the time to make their lives a little easier by providing food and fresh water for them.
I have done this for years, and another person that I know has fed them for many years before me, and still does. On Feb. 2, I was informed by a park ranger that I should not feed the cats and that they are getting help from the city to get rid of them. (The +%&#@ are catching and killing these beautiful animals.)
This park is riddled with trash. People dump everything, from building and roofing materials to washers and dryers. People steal cars and drive them in there and burn them. People hunt illegally in this park, they destroy property in the park and steal from the gardens located there. They walk through and turn on every water faucet letting the water run all over the road (I have turned them all off many times, while I was there to feed the cats.)
Nitwits decorate the trees and shrubs with cans and bottles and ride illegal vehicles through there. Even the Pennsylvania Game Commission dumps dead deer in the park.
So what do the park authorities decide is a critical issue? Eliminating a beautiful and beneficial animal from the park. The state park authorities should be ashamed of the cruelty that they are inflicting and stop it immediately. They could get plenty of overtime correcting the real problems in Benjamin Rush State Park, and the cats could continue to do their work of keeping the rodent population in the area regulated.
These are shy animals that bother no one. Please contact every possible source of help that you may know on behalf of these cats.
John J. Furlong
Trevose
Dude, do your duty
as a dog owner
This is to the young man that walks his dog (part bulldog, with a dark body white face, you know who you are) down Hellerman Street every day, sometimes in the morning, sometimes in the evening. You allow your dog to defecate on our lawn and our neighbor’s lawns and then walk away without cleaning it up.
Young man, it is the LAW in this city that you must clean up after your dog. You have to pick up, take it with you and put it in a trash can. I am tired of cleaning up after YOUR dog, my sister is tired of cleaning up after YOUR dog, and my mother is tired of cleaning up after YOUR dog. We own a dog and we NEVER go out for a walk without bags in hand. We always clean up after our dog, and I expect you to do the same. So I am asking you politely, please, be a responsible dog owner and clean up after your dog.
Diane M. Benner
Lawndale
Leave those
coyotes alone!
I found this out and I am outraged that this will take place in our state. Coyotes are beautiful wild animals and need a little more respect from people: February and March will be especially cold to Pennsylvania’s coyotes. Cruel people pay to actually participate in a killing contest: to see who will kill the most animals! No animal is safe. They have "Calling Contests" where someone imitates an injured coyote in distress so when a coyote rushes over to help, that poor coyote gets shot for his or her compassion!
Haven’t humans done enough to animals already? Please contact these clubs and tell them to please leave the coyotes alone! Mosquito Creek Sportsmen’s Club Coyote Hunt Frenchville on Feb. 16-18; St Mary’s Sportsmen Club Coyote Hunt, on Feb. 16-18; Sigel Sportsmen’s Club Wylie Coyote Hunt Sigel on Feb. 16-18; Sinnemahoning Sportsmen’s Association Sinnemahoning, on Feb 16-18; and Tubmill Trout Club Coyote Hunt New Florence March 2-4. Better yet, if everyone banned this so-called sport, no lives would be lost!
Gina DeNofa
Normandy
Speak out on Tacony
waste-disposal plan
We submit this letter with an urgent plea to the communities of the lower Northeast to help stop the expansion of a municipal trash processing facility at 6101 Tacony St.
Situated virtually in the center of an 11-mile stretch known as the North Delaware Riverfront, U.S. Recycling seeks to expand its existing operation five-fold, from 380 tons per day to 2,000 tons per day, as reported in the Jan. 18 edition of the Northeast Times (Residents cool to waste disposal plan).
The granting of this permit would be a bold departure from the direction our riverfront has taken over the past decade and a half. A more alarming revelation after the submission of our statement was the fact that the municipal trash to be processed after this proposed expansion will reportedly be from New York and New Jersey!
We seek letters from residents of Wissinoming, Frankford, Northwood, Tacony, Mayfair, Holmesburg, Upper Holmesburg and Torresdale to help stop this expansion as the Department of Environmental Protection considers the granting of this permit. Air quality is something we should all be concerned about, and a more local concern is the increase in traffic and congestion in the area around the Tacony-Palmyra Bridge.
Letters are being collected by the Tacony Civic Association for hand delivery to the DEP office in Norristown by the deadline of Monday, Feb. 12. Letters can be dropped off at the Tacony Civic Association office at the Tacony Music Hall, 4819 Longshore Ave., by using the side door off Edmund Street before noon on Monday. The appropriate addressee is Ronald C. Furlan, P.E., Waste Management Program, Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, 2 East Main Street, Norristown, PA 19401.
We would like to thank state Rep. Mike McGeehan, state Sen. Mike Stack, City Councilwoman Joan Krajewski and the community organizations in Mayfair, Holmesburg and Upper Holmesburg for already joining us in opposition to this potentially hazardous expansion.
With the redevelopment of the Delaware Riverfront becoming an increasingly talked-about platform in the upcoming mayoral race, we look to all our elected officials, appropriate city agencies, and especially the non-profits and environmental organizations that have supposedly taken the lead in overseeing an orderly redevelopment of the North Delaware Greenway, to join us in adamant opposition to the expansion of this facility.
Thank you for the opportunity to shed much-needed public light on this issue.
The Tacony Civic Association board of directors
Don’t try to deny it:
Race is on your minds . . .
This letter is in response to the one in last week’s edition by Karl Zenak of Rhawnhurst (Hey Colleen, beware of Al Sharpton).
In his response to Colleen Karasinski’s Guest Opinion (Thugs are looking for trouble in Mayfair, Jan. 25 edition), Zenak made a point of capitalizing on every negative African-American stereotype that he could think of, all in an attempt to show his agreement with her portrayal of the issue surrounding Lincoln students from across the city attacking Father Judge students who live in the surrounding neighborhood.
The problem is that Karasinski never actually mentions the race of the Lincoln students in question. For Zenak to see his letter as an appropriate response suggests that latent racist attitudes have become an acceptable part of this culture.
Zenak’s letter speaks to the racial tension that exists among residents of Northeast Philadelphia. As a lifelong resident of the Tacony and Castor Gardens areas, I have seen the way that many problems are portrayed in terms of race.
The issue that Karasinski speaks of originated out of a friendly school rivalry. Because many people in my family went to Lincoln High School in the 1950s and 1960s when both schools were relatively new, I have heard stories about the fights that took place between Lincoln and Father Judge students.
These battles were not based around race, for in those days most of the students at Lincoln were of Caucasian descent. Indeed, the percentage of minorities at Lincoln was negligible. Therefore, it is confusing to me why today the description of the problem would be portrayed in terms of race instead of school affiliation.
Zenak has shown that sometimes people with hidden racist attitudes will try to attach their own personal agendas onto issues that are only tangentially related. Race is only tangentially related to school affiliation based on factors like tuition, busing and ethnic makeup of the surrounding neighborhood. Due to the controversial nature of race, it is also the best subject to use in order to elicit reactions.
Calling out the race of the perceived aggressors does nothing but stir up old, negative feelings about the issues we face in navigating this ethnic plurality that we call home. America is always described as a "melting pot," but whenever something like this happens, it becomes clear that the different ingredients never quite came together and still remain distinct.
As an African-American, I am not denying that my race has some issues to deal with. I know that is true and I have dedicated my own life to resolving some of those issues by way of furthering my education and encouraging others to do the same.
I am also not saying that the fights taking place are still in the "friendly rivalry" state. Once blood is shed, the time for friendly rivalries is over. What I am suggesting is that race would not have come into this discussion if it were not already on the minds of Zenak and many of the people who read this paper every week.
Spencer Clayton
Castor Gardens
. . . But Colleen was merely
telling it like it is
I just wanted to thank Colleen Karasinski for telling the story that many of us wanted to tell for years. My son was one of the kids attacked and has also been approached several times to "GIVE UP HIS STUFF" while walking home from school. This story needed to be told! I am very thankful for her courageous words and hope that her letter can make a real difference.
In response to the letter from Karl Zenak in Rhawnhurst that while we know racism played a role in these attacks we shouldn’t make that our only focus, it could add fuel to a fire that obviously has an impact on our children’s safety. If we do the severity of these hate crimes and the importance of Colleen’s letter will be overlooked.
This is a very serious issue in our neighborhood. We have to fight and demand that the leaders in our community protect our children from such crimes.
E. Masciocchi
Mayfair
• • •
People can’t lose sight of the problem. Everyone is saying something must be done before it gets worse and someone gets seriously hurt.
Well, here’s a little story for everyone to know. My sister works with a woman whose nephew was attacked walking home from Father Judge by a group of Lincoln kids, and the boy was stabbed, so yes, the worst has happened, he spent his Christmas in the hospital fighting. Don’t you think it’s time to stop the violence and do something?
It’s a shame that some people just don’t understand what the neighborhood has become that our children have to walk home in fear, fear that they may be attacked or killed on the way home from school.
I lived in Mayfair for 23 years, three blocks up from Lincoln on Shelmire Avenue. Never, and I mean never, was there fear in our kids walking home from school. Today, it’s a different world.
So yes, I agree with Colleen Karasinski, it needs to stop! It’s time for a community to stick together and get the job done.
Maria Teti
Abington
Hey, watch out for
that evil cartoon!
Commentary
By John Scanlon
I owe President Bush a very big apology. That dawned on me last Wednesday, the day when security officials in some of our nation’s biggest cities were in a frenzy, wondering whether bomb squads should be detonating some bizarre electronic devices rigged with flashlight batteries and the lighted outline of a robot giving the finger.
I must admit that Bush has been right all along. We are safer than we were, but we still are not safe — or whatever the heck he means whenever he tells us that at every news conference on terrorism. Anyhow, this disturbing assessment became quite clear to me on a day that could’ve made anybody jittery.
Across the ocean, grim-faced British agents were rounding up nine terror suspects who supposedly planned to kidnap a Muslim soldier in the English army and behead him on an Internet broadcast. Meanwhile, here at home on that very same day, grim-faced American authorities were demanding in no uncertain terms that the Cartoon Network damned well better reveal every bridge, subway station or building where they planted those electronic devices with the robot giving the finger.
Philly had one. Chilling stuff indeed. In fact, while watching the somber coverage of this Cartoon Network fiasco on CNN, I regretted that Tom Ridge wasn’t around anymore as homeland security chief with his color-coded chart on the terror threat level — a helpful guide that always told us how freaked we should be — because I have no doubt that he would have declared last Wednesday’s color threat level as the ever-dangerous SpongeBob Yellow.
Like most other folks, I don’t know what those morons at Cartoon Network were thinking. In this understandably hyper 9/11 era, you just don’t clandestinely plant a hundred or so of these small electronic light boards in 10 American cities as part of a marketing campaign for a cartoon show called Aqua Teen Hunger Force.
I’m not exactly sure how these things were even supposed to plug the show. The way it’s been explained to me, the cartoon features a foul-tempered milkshake that talks and a box of french fries with a goatee (I think he talks, too) and their life in New Jersey, so hey, I’m lost. I’m not even going to ask why it’s called Aqua Teen Hunger Force.
What is evident in this whole thing is that we’re dealing with a major case of stupidity. Stupidity on the part of Cartoon Network, stupidity on the part of Peter Berdovsky and Sean Stevens — two oddball marketing guys hired to plant these things — and stupidity on the part of overreactive Boston law-enforcement types sucked in by a flat panel with a couple batteries and a wire and the lighted outline of a robot giving the finger.
Now I’m not going to tell Cartoon Network how to do their marketing, but they wouldn’t be in this mess if they’d skipped the robot giving the finger and put, say, Daffy Duck on that LED panel. Daffy Duck is universally known. Who doesn’t love Daffy Duck? I’m not sure how that would tie in with Aqua Teen Hunger Force, but I do know that when a squeamish bomb-squad guy delicately picked up the electronic device, he’d yell out to his buddies, "Hey, this isn’t a bomb, it’s Daffy Duck! Cool!!!"
This whole episode does, however, highlight the need for even more education in the war on terror. When homeland security chief Michael Chertoff holds the next training session for state security directors and their response teams, it’d probably be wise of him to make Aqua Teen Hunger Force required viewing during the anti-terror class.
Either way, I’d imagine President Bush is watching these developments with deep concern. What we have here yet again is a major intelligence breakdown. If it’s true that these Aqua Teen things had been in place for three weeks or more, in cities from Boston to Austin and Chicago to L.A., heads should roll if we’ve been fighting al-Qaeda over there so we don’t have to fight them here, and yet all this time we’ve overlooked that sinister Cartoon Network and its capability to force the shutdown of Boston bridges, close part of the Charles River to shipping traffic, shut Boston University and bring out tons of cops and the bomb squad in those extraterrestrial outfits.
What insidious plot will they hatch next? Lighted display boards with the likeness of Cartoon Network’s Squirrel Boy, or maybe even Krypto the Super Dog? And if our terror agents have never seen those cartoons either, well, it raises just one very frightening question.
How safe are we? ••
John Scanlon is editor of the Northeast Times.
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