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No easy way in
for handicapped
Isn’t it hard enough for the handicapped to get one of the six reserved parking spots at the Shop Rite of Knorr Street when people who are not handicapped simply hang a tag on the inside rear-view mirror and run into the store?
When you finally get to the store, the entrance is blocked by a parked car loading groceries, or just sitting there. You cannot get into the store with a wheelchair when the entrance is blocked. I asked the store manager to paint blue lines at the entrance or put a sign up, but he seemed very disinterested. By the way, the guy that was blocking the entrance was rude and a dope. He knows who he is. I wish I was a few years younger and I would have moved him.
George Morris
Mayfair
Nice job,
Jeanes Hospital staff
Recently, I had an emergency visit to Jeanes Hospital for my son. From the moment we entered, the staff was so caring and concerned. They all handled themselves with extreme professionalism.
I feel very proud to have such a well-run hospital in my neighborhood.
My fears were calmed when our nurse and Dr. Albert told us my son had no broken bones, just a sprain.
Thanks so much for all your fine treatment.
Patti Wirsz
Burholme
Make Earth Day a habit
with the ‘one pound rule’
This year, on April 22, we recognized Earth Day, a global holiday set aside to acknowledge and appreciate our environment and to inspire action to conserve our natural resources.
In recognition of this significant day, the Philadelphia Streets Department has an easy way for all Philadelphians to continue to participate with tremendous impact. We challenge each and every Philadelphia household — all 530,000 — to add at least one more pound of recyclable material to your collection containers for curbside pickup. Recycling one more pound is as easy as:
o Adding a single Sunday newspaper into your collection container.
o Collecting just two more empty 12-ounce glass containers such as a pickle, mayonnaise or spaghetti sauce jar after preparing dinner.
o Tossing one outdated telephone book into your recycling container.
o Including 32 more empty aluminum cans in with your recyclables following a family get-together or block party.
Just think, if every Philadelphia residence recycled an additional pound of glass, aluminum or paper from now on, each week Philadelphia would divert an additional 530,000 pounds of valuable and recyclable material from our waste stream!
Recycling helps fund an array of Philadelphia programs and services, including our police and fire departments, along with our parks and recreation centers. Recycling also creates jobs for Philadelphia’s hard-working citizens. And, recycling in Philadelphia certainly helps save precious landfill space.
See how easy it is to add at least one more pound of recyclables into your collection container for curbside pickup. Keep it up, and continue to recycle at least one more pound of material every week.
Clarena I.W. Tolson
Commissioner, Philadelphia Department of Streets
Taking a walk?
Take a sign, too
In response to Ed O’Neill’s letter last week, Clean up your act, Bob, about signs that litter our streets and highways:
Yes, Mr. O’Neill, I too am disgusted with all the illegal signs that are posted in the grass mediums all throughout the Northeast. The problem is, we don’t have enough people in our communities who really care. If we did, the signs would be removed and disposed of immediately.
It’s not just the political signs that are polluting our landscape. What about those annoying yellow signs that advertise a furniture store going out of business. Those signs should be removed and the owner of the business that is advertised fined for littering.
Keep up the good work, Mr. O’Neill, in keeping your neighborhood clean. To all those other people out there who care about your community, take a walk, get some fresh air, and take down those illegal signs! I will be doing my part.
P.S. The person who puts up the big wood signs saying, "I’ll get rid of anything" can start by getting rid of all those wood signs.
Steve Brennan
Bell’s Corner
The CLIP/MARC
of excellence
I attended the lecture and make-and-take workshop on Saturday, April 14, sponsored by CLIP/MARC. I must say it was an all-around wonderful day. Mike, the horticulturalist with CLIP, was so articulate and informative in his lectures. I cannot believe how much I learned about lawns and gardens. The hanging baskets and flower urn we made were beautiful.
The choice of flowers and greens to use was vast. We were served a delicious lunch and had wonderful conversations. We are so fortunate to have the opportunity to attend seminars like this. I encourage everyone to come out and enjoy the next one.
Sandy Coleman
Rhawnhurst
Abortion ruling puts
pregnant women at risk
On April 18, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the first-ever federal law banning abortion. The implications of the court’s ruling will be far-reaching.
Members of Congress who support the ban have made a patently false claim: that the ban only applies to a specific procedure used late in pregnancy. In fact, the ban is so vaguely worded that it will discourage doctors from methods used in most second-trimester abortions. Doctors say that these abortion methods are the safest to protect women’s health, but politicians — and now five Supreme Court justices — have second-guessed doctors, endangering the health of pregnant women.
Last November, voters sent the message to politicians to stop interfering in private family health care decisions. It’s time for Congress to stop playing politics and start focusing on real solutions for women and families.
Planned Parenthood’s top priorities are the health and safety of our patients. We will work to ensure women are provided with the best and safest care under this dangerous law.
Lauren Lambrugo
Vice president of public affairs, Planned Parenthood Southeastern Pennsylvania
What’s up with
the silence, doc?
Candidates proposing universal health care are inspiring. However, we need to fix the health care system as well.
As a patient and a former employee (I used to work at a famous hospital on Long Island) of the health care system, I have firsthand knowledge on how the care system works in America.
Close to 100,000 people die each year in hospitals due to medical error.
The hospital I worked at had too much administrative waste. There was endless paperwork in processing patient information.
Many of the positions, especially in the non-medical areas, were filled through nepotism. Many of the supervisors and mid-level managers at this hospital were concerned about how they looked to top administrators, rather than perform their jobs effectively.
A question I would like to ask the general public, particularly doctors: How come doctors never challenge other doctors?
Larry Nelson
Somerton
PGW earns
more ire
Did anyone else notice that exactly one week after the Northeast Times’ April 5 cover story headlined They’re steamed, a detailed description of the PGW hearings that were held at George Washington High School, there was a small item in the paper announcing the Philadelphia Gas Works was accepting applications and resumes for actual job openings? How absurd is that?
Imagine the company you work for having to deal with a $107 million deficit, and they have job openings! How about the complete opposite?
How about the company you or your family works for has any type of deficit at all and they have what apparently is completely foreign to PGW …. it’s called layoffs, it’s called a job freeze, it’s called givebacks!
People lose their jobs when the company they work for has those kind of budget woes. And PGW is hiring??!! I can’t decide which is worse — the gall of this ridiculously run organization or the PUC and city politicians who proceed to let it continue.
Diane Curry
Somerton
• • •
In response to Rus Slawter’s letter last week (Seniors really need help), I have a family of four and my heat is set on 67, and I cook every day. My gas bill was $300, also. I thought that was high for us, and if mine was $300, yours definitely shouldn’t have been. I think that is crazy. I think the gas company just chooses whom they wanted to pay the higher amount.
Sandra Miller
Bustleton
He’s just wild
about Seamus
Dear fellow Northeast Philly neighbors,
Seamus McCaffery. As soon as we read his name most of us have our own image. He is not a stranger to us, for sure. He’s our neighbor.
Seamus McCaffery. He became a Philly judge almost 15 years ago, after serving as a police officer and detective for 20 years, but he didn’t run away and hide after winning election. He’s our neighbor. Military service, sure, first the Marines, then U.S. Air Force. Now a colonel in the Reserves.
Seamus McCaffery. He’s our neighbor. Eagles Court at Veterans Stadium? Sure, that’s Seamus. He’s our neighbor and he is running on the Democrat ballot for Pennsylvania Supreme Court in the May 15 Democratic primary election.
With all the money and TV time devoted to the mayor’s race, please don’t forget Seamus McCaffery when you vote. His name will be right at the top, No. 2 on your machine.
Please make sure to push that button, No. 2, as soon as you go in to vote.
He’s MY neighbor and he’s earned our vote!
Terry Devlin
Fox Chase
School massacre leaves emotional scars
Let us have our
tools of defense
On April 16, another lone gunman once again took dozens of beautiful lives, on the unarmed Virginia Tech campus.
As usual, the political left, which claims the moniker "liberal," meaning generally, broad freedom, is blaming the American gun culture, the very underpinning that secured and conserves our culture of freedom, for this American tragedy. These leftists, in unison with foreign interests, are now clamoring for a lockdown on the inalienable firearm right of Americans, the right that protects all rights, in response.
What stake do these foreigners, virtually all being socialistic, have in this discussion anyway? But that’s another topic.
So begins in the media now, the fearmongering. Not the healthy fear of the loss of our personal means of defense, or of evildoers we might defend ourselves against, or of the loss of liberty herself. Rather, they seek to instill a collective societal fear of the object misused by those who would use it for evil. They vilify a tool, a mere implement: the gun, by conferring and transferring upon it the evil of the evildoer.
This tactic of transference of subconscious feelings, designed to redirect and misplace them upon an inanimate object, is commonly known as brainwashing.
On April 16, we witnessed great human evil. The "learned," the "experts," government and the police were impotent, absent and helpless to provide the victims of that evil with any defense whatsoever. The bad guys will always ignore law and policy, and capitalize on that which leaves the individual or the citizenry defenseless.
We, the people, are our own last line of defense. At a time when we should be teaching our children to think, act and defend, our schools, media and politicians are systematically "babifying" and "sissifying" a once rugged and determined U.S. society. On average, 19 Americans each day are killed by illegal aliens. There are some 20 million people inside our borders whom we have no idea of who they are, or what their motives.
In the face of a global terrorist threat, hell-bent on the collapse of the United States, it is naive to think that we shall not see attacks like Virginia Tech, or the D.C. snipers (which alone tied up several police departments for weeks), or far worse, on a broad scale on American soil.
In the face of evil, oppression, or threat, Americans have historically, as a free people and self-governed, called themselves to arms.
When that gun is pointed in your direction, your life belongs to you and your God, not the police, not the military, nor the government. At that moment, for a government, or even a well-meaning voting majority to deny you the portable tool of defense, and the inalienable right to use it freely at will if you so choose, is more profane and egregious than even the crimes and deaths that a criminal with a gun might perpetrate, or that one good citizen with a gun might prevent.
All that is necessary for evil to triumph is that good men do nothing — Edmund Burke
William Kitsch
Fox Chase
Gun control
caused the massacre
To all the NRA bashers, congratulations! Gun control worked! There’s 33 dead bodies laying on the floor at Virginia Tech, snuffed out because they were "not allowed" to responsibly carry defensive weapons.
In the future, only the drug dealers, women abusers and bank robbers will acquire weapons on the open black market. Thanks again to all the politically correct.
Kevin P. Kenna
Holmesburg
There’s no place
like home for changes
The tragic Virginia Tech slayings of 32, the worst ever, even worse than the Columbine tragedy of eight years ago, highlights the age of violence we are all living in today.
Everything starts and ends in the home. If there is no home guidance, no assigned chores within the house, etc., children live fancy free and do as they please. There should be updates to all laws on the books, including:
1. Stricter truancy laws, including a 9 p.m. curfew, no exceptions.
2. Repeal or modify the existing Brady Law — a longer, extended background coverage to weed out straw buyers!
3. Eliminate and destroy all video games that glorify violence, kill the police and project profanity!
4. Stop coddling prisoners who have color TVs in their cells, complete gyms to work out, radios, etc. Put them to work outdoors, cleaning streets and trash-filled lots and parks, etc. — a sort of chain gang of the ’20s.
As children, we were taught that the policeman and the fireman represented the father of the home. Also, the schoolteacher represented the mother in the home. Are these solid comparisons too hard to stomach nowadays?
The word respect carries, in truth and reality, a slight "tinge" of fear — fear of the obvious result if one is caught doing wrong!
Are these thoughts too naïve to be taken seriously? Review them!
Carl P. Fasciocco
Mayfair
Our Broken Earth
So many questions that will never be answered
So many breaths that won’t ever be taken
We’re living inside a world surrounded by hate
This perfect place called Earth is breaking
And the pieces they are falling from the skies
Like the tears that flow from a survivor’s eyes
The blood of the innocent ones covers our land
We’ve got to come together and make a stand
It doesn’t matter who we are or where we live
This imperfect world finds its way to your door
Then leaves you with endless pain and sorrow
Please God we can’t take this way of life anymore
As we search for the answers we know we’ll never find
We hear once again about another assault on mankind
Another story that will make our children cry at night
Another reason why this world’s in the dark not the light
You see only time will tell if we will survive as a race
Or just die by our own hands laying forever in disgrace
And only you and I can change the ending of this play
But we’ve got to come together and become one today!
— John J. Ruppert
Mayfair
A few last words
on Don Imus
Kudos to you and your April 12 editorial (Donald, duck!). Our entire family couldn’t agree with you more.
We would like more said about the innocent Duke University lacrosse players and what that woman put them through.
We are not going to hold our breath, though.
Mary Webb
Modena Park
• • •
I must take exception to your editorial view of the Imus flap. If this is much to do about nothing, why mention it in an editorial? While I agree that all those topics you mentioned are of concern, so are the antics of a popular radio talk show host who said terrible things about people he doesn’t know and who did not deserve his rant.
Mr. Imus is not just another radio shock jock looking to boost his ratings, as you suggest. The fact is, he’s a very successful radio personality and he’s an accomplished political commentator with a large listening audience.
While he is not a political figure, he is someone who hosts political figures, and that makes him different from commercial artists who sell their products in the market place and perform at night clubs. Those who use these lyrics need not be given a pass either, nor do I suggest tolerance of their ware. These people represent not only bad choices, but false choices, in my opinion; however, it remains a choice. Mr. Imus has enjoyed unfettered use of pubic airways to spew some of the most vile and repugnant conversation imaginable, and for that he must be held to account, not just about what he said or who he said it about, as he made his unflattering comments while at work.
Mr. Imus should not be treated any different than any other employee. If I or any of my colleagues had made the same or similar statements on the job, we would have been fired the same day. Therefore, the defense of Mr. Imus in this regard is indefensible and misplaced.
Let us not forget we’re talking about a man losing his job, not an arm or a limb. However, on the other hand the injury and hurt that have been inflicted on these young people must not be trivialized, nor should it be just swept aside as if nothing happened. After all, they’re the victims here, not Don Imus.
Moreover, business owners fire employees every day for far less reasons than the comments of Don Imus, and they have the right to do so. Mr. Imus has a right to appeal his termination in court, let a judge decide who’s right.
The use of pejorative terms to insult or assault anyone, no matter their race creed or color, is an affront to all right-thinking people. The Rutgers university basketball team did not invite his comments, nor did they encourage them. These young student athletes represent the best that America has to offer, and they are an excellent example of what this society can produce when the right opportunities are in place. Moreover, shame on us if we don’t stand up and support them in their pursuit of excellence whether in academics or sports.
What if someone of notoriety used those derogatory terms to describe your daughter? Would you support the perpetrator’s free speech right or would you stand up for your daughter’s right not to be slandered?
There’s a reason why we don’t allow people to yell fire in a crowded theater. Mr. Imus yelled fire in a crowded theater and he should be held accountable, not given a pass. If you’re defending Mr. Imus because he’s right, that’s one thing, but if you’re defending Mr. Imus because he’s white, that’s another consideration. I see this as a dispute between right and wrong, not black and white. Your cartoonist got it right. Your editorial missed the mark.
Ted Haskins
Modena Park
• • •
Now that the Don Imus saga is over, maybe Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson will try and clean up the offensive language that the black rappers use. I am sorry, but that language is not artistic expression.
Call it what it is — racist and demeaning to others in the African-American community. Let’s face it, it doesn’t happen in any other community, and it shouldn’t be happening in the African-American community, either.
If you want respect from others, you must respect yourself first.
Andrew J. Picarella
Parkwood
• • •
I thoroughly agree with your editorial regarding Don Imus. What he said about the Rutgers girls’ basketball team was nasty. He apologized, I believe sincerely. His superiors should have talked to him and given him a warning for the future.
I believe everyone deserves a second chance, and I think it was wrong to fire him.
Denise McClernand
Torresdale
• • •
I enjoyed reading the many letters on the Imus flap, but I think there is a bigger issue here. Why are so many young men (and not just black men) so angry, ill-behaved and insulting of women?
I think we cannot admit that we are a gender-confused society trying to make boys more feminine and girls masculine. It won’t work. Look at our media. The TV news is delivered by giggly gals and cutesy men. Stories feature "heroic" women breaking job barriers and having kids without a husband, always at war with men. (Hey, women broke the real job barriers in WWII, and still were the keepers of our manners and morals.)
As for men, when was the last time you saw a story on a heroic (manly) soldier in Iraq? Men are either serial killers or Mr. Rogers. No more images of Clark Gable — the manliest type we have today is Rosie O’Donnell.
It’s young men who face the career crisis as the blue-collar work many aspire to, gets shipped off to third world countries. No corporate angst about that.
Do we doubt there is a war against boys, and that they feel this attack daily? Look at the way the media railroaded the Duke lacrosse team as overprivileged males, but the Rutgers gals were of course, stoic victims.
One of the beautiful things in life is a modest, feminine lady. Today, schools would give her assertiveness training. Aggressive sports gals are the rage now (like we need more sports-mania) and a woman who aspires primarily to be a mom and raise good, moral children is seen as an underachiever.
Look, I don’t want boys to be bullies, nor girls to be wallflowers, but we’ve gone way too far in trying to engineer boys and girls into one gender. The boys are unsure, rebellious and angry. The girls, uncertain of their feminine side, often dress and act like, yes — little "ho’s."
Get rid of rap music and they’ll just find another way to rebel. We’ve had over 2,000 years of religion, song and literature extolling the virtues of males and females as enjoyably different and complementary. This must guide the way we raise children. We are foolish to think we can deny human nature.
Richard Iaconelli
Rhawnhurst
• • •
I used to listen to Don Imus. One minute, he’d be interviewing a well-known politician or journalist, the next minute he’d descend into stupid vulgarities. Eventually, I had enough of him and so I switched him off, never to return. Isn’t that what liberals always claim we should do whenever we encounter the incomparable filth that surrounds us? Just switch it off?
Our nation is a split personality. When it comes to the really bad stuff — a daily diet of horrific violence on our TV and in our movie houses, the swaggering hostility and grotesquely misogynistic images of women in our music videos, even Internet porn in public libraries — we reverently speak of their First Amendment rights. But let a white conservative whisper something politically incorrect, and we suddenly turn puritanical, self-righteous and intolerant.
Nothing illustrates this double standard better than the stunning hypocrisy of Al Sharpton leading the charge to remove Imus. Sharpton made his career by persecuting Jewish and Asian store owners, picketing them relentlessly in an attempt to drive them from black neighborhoods. His many anti-Semitic rants are legendary, and when a tragic auto accident in 1991 resulted in four days of anti-Jewish rioting in Crown Heights, N.Y., his incendiary rhetoric added to the violence. The riots culminated in the murder of a young Australian rabbinical student by black youths.
Despite these and many other outrages, Al Sharpton never felt the sharp rebuke that visited Don Imus or others that went before him, such as Jimmy the Greek and Los Angeles Dodgers executive Al Campanis. With each incident, he became more popular among his followers and gained clout and credibility throughout the country, even becoming a presidential candidate.
The fact is, today’s "civil rights" industry lives to be outraged. Instead of working to elevate the black community, it seems dedicated to collecting scalps from people who step out of line. This whole sorry story says far more about civil rights leaders such as the Rev. Al Sharpton than it does about Don Imus.
Jay Polis
Pennypack
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