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Thank you for helping
the Cassidy family
I want to thank everyone who had a hand in making the benefit for Officer Chuck Cassidy’s family a huge success.
It started as a small idea, and with your generous contributions of time, door prizes, food, sweat and prayers, it grew monstrous in size and we were able to raise nearly $10,000 for this family.
I cannot begin to put to words what this outpouring of love and compassion means to me as well as for Judy Cassidy and her family. Your hard work and selflessness made the event what it was, and I am proud to have been able to orchestrate it and do the right thing for this family.
It is my sincere hope that we were able to honor Chuck’s service to our community and remember his supreme sacrifice that he made for us, the citizens of this city. He will always be remembered by us.
Here’s wishing everyone a Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah, and God bless each and every one of you and your families.
Steven B. Faunce
General manager,
Thunderbird Lanes
Memorial upgrades
are appreciated
I would like to thank whoever was responsible for the new landscaping and beautifying of the "pocket park" on Frankford Avenue near Wellington Street, where there is a memorial for my son, Robert S. Barnett Esq.
This park has been a lovely addition to our community.
Betty Barnett
Mayfair
Remembering Christmas
on Jackson Street
I’ll be the first to admit that at the age of 24 I still am a huge kid when it comes to Christmas, and I am one of those people who begins playing Christmas music usually the day after Halloween.
I love looking at old pictures of my siblings and me on Santa’s lap, the endless playing of traditional Christmas movies on TV, and decorating our family Christmas tree on Christmas Eve morning. I love going to Christmas Eve Mass with my family and remember listening to radio station B-101 in the car ride when I was little to hear where Santa was at that exact moment.
There are many traditions that still run in my family and always will, but every year I can’t help but remember the street a few blocks away that turned into the North Pole, and every year I drive down hoping that maybe Jackson Street will start back up again.
It is hard to explain Jackson Street to an outsider if they have never experienced it themselves. The lights, the music, the decorations, and of course the endless amounts of traffic. It was an endless row of Christmas heaven that I never wanted to leave and never got tired of seeing.
I remember the Santa that went up and down on the roof of one house and the display boxes that lined the sidewalk. I even remember one year seeing my name on the "naughty" list. Of course, it must have been another little girl with the same name. It couldn’t have possibly been me.
No matter where we were coming from I always begged my dad to please drive down the block. I never minded the cold or how late it was. It was my little glimpse into what I pictured as Santa’s workshop.
Just the other night we drove down the street explaining to my 10-year-old niece just how awesome it was and something she would never understand if she never got to witness it. The only insight she had was the house in the middle of the block with the Santa still perched on the roof. He is there year round. She asked why they didn’t do it anymore and we explained we always heard it was because of the traffic and neighbors complained. Of course, in these days would Jackson Street even be able to survive?
I wonder how many original neighbors are still on the tiny street and if they were still lighting up the neighborhood would people vandalize and ruin such a memorable Christmas show for kids? It is a different neighborhood these days, and I would hope that people new to the area would have as much respect for those neighbors as I did then and now. I hate to imagine someone would want to destroy someone’s hard work for hundreds to see.
I still see the light show my dad took us to every year, I still ask for a dog at the top of my list, and I still wake up every Christmas morning before my parents and brother and wake them all up.
And no matter how old I am or wherever I may live years from now, I will still think about Jackson Street and remember just how special it made my Christmas when I was a little girl.
Kristen Gibson
Tacony
Grandma’s credit cards
stolen at the movie theater
Monday, Dec. 3 seemed like a perfect day to take the grandkids to the Grant Plaza movies to see Enchanted.
The movie theater was near empty, but suddenly I spotted a young man, about 20 years old, two seats up at the end of the row.
Shortly after, I heard a click and I picked up my pocketbook and put it over the back of the seat. Stopping at the store on the way home, I realized my two credit cards were gone. I found out that $2,000 in charges were racked up on my credit cards. Now I know that people crawl in the movies!
Disappointing, also, was the local police district. They wrote this incident up as "lost credit cards." No mention of the guy or the movie.
Kathy Wszolek
Winchester Park
The war continues
to get folks fired up:
Stop voting for
funding . . . or else
As the war in Iraq drags on and on, with a climbing death toll, a rising and crushing cost, and the inevitable feel of occupation and empire, citizens here in Northeast Philadelphia question why U.S. Rep. Allyson Schwartz continues to vote for war funding.
The Democratic majority in the U.S. House of Representatives could easily block future war funding; however, they continue to give President Bush the money he requests for U.S. imperial occupation in Iraq.
Recently the Northeast Philadelphia for Peace and Justice group, working with anti-occupation activists in Montgomery County, submitted thousands of signatures on a petition to Rep. Schwartz urging her to vote against funding for the war and the occupation.
So far she has refused to do so. The majority of the people in Northeast Philadelphia oppose the war and the occupation. If Rep. Schwartz will not represent our interests, then we must find a candidate who will.
Tim Kearney
Mayfair
• • •
As the daily cost of the Iraq war approaches $1 billion, it is enlightening to consider the effect on American society. Just a few examples: One day of the war in Iraq could provide salaries for 12,478 elementary school teachers or provide places in Head Start for 95,364 children or cover four-year scholarships for 34,904 college students.
As an educator, I am appalled at this maiming of America’s future. As a state senator, Allyson Schwartz was renowned as a fervent supporter of children’s well-being and their education. However as a congresswoman, she continues to vote for supporting the war with massive funding that should be used for building our children’s future instead of destroying it.
Voters in the 2006 congressional midterm elections voted overwhelmingly for the Democrats because of their promise to stop this tragedy of our time. Therefore, we must urge Congresswoman Schwartz and her fellow Democrats to live up to their pledge to cease war funding. Also, to work for an orderly withdrawal that would allow Iraqis to determine their future. Their children should be able to be educated:
All youth has the right to flourish and reach their potential in a world that direly needs the constructive efforts of us all.
Libby Schwartz
Retired Northeast High School teacher
End the war!
Impeach our leaders!
Iraq was invaded, not for the exposed lies, for domination in the Middle East and for profits from their oil. We helped them get democracy — democracy that would privatize their oil!
We know about their government trying to pass an oil sharing law, hardly any news about privatizing their oil. Our U.S. government, with the input of our oil company executives, crafted an oil privatization law to have the Iraqi government accept and pass or lose rebuilding funds. Our oil conglomerates get control of about 3/4 of their oil fields for many years!
The extraction and sale of their oil resource are for our companies’ super profits, insured by our permanent military bases and an embassy for thousands!
We don’t hear of Iraqi trade unions, a secular population and other peoples’ organizations. They are vehemently opposed to privatization and want our troops out!
War for profits! Terrorists are despicable, created by our actions. Throughout the world, our industrialists, with the support of our government leaders, go for a country’s resources and to get their labor for very low wages! This stirs the people’s wrath that makes and fuels the terrorists!
Our leaders are responsible for the tremendous debt, loss of lives, the wounded and destruction! Impeach them!
End the war! Get our troops home safely! Fund the rebuilding of Iraq. Fund the safe return of our troops, their health and all their needs!
Lawrence Horwitz
Pennypack
The real agenda
is control of oilfields
Joshua Holland and Raed Jarrar write in their article, Iraqi Government to UN: Don’t Extend Mandate for Bush’s Occupation (Alternet, Nov. 9, 2007) that on June 5, 2007, the duly elected parliament of Iraq passed a law that would attach some conditions to the renewal of the expiring U.N. mandate including a timetable for withdrawal of coalition forces and an end to privatizing Iraq’s natural resources.
This letter, signed by more than half of Iraq’s legislature, was never distributed to the Security Council members as is required under the U.N. resolution that governs the mandate, and unfortunately became nothing more than a non-binding resolution.
The Bush administration has again cut Iraq’s frail democracy out of the process for peace and justice in the Middle East. A majority of Americans and the international community also demand an end to the occupation.
All this talk about democracy and freedom is just vile propaganda that masks the real agenda in Iraq — seizing control of their massive oilfields as well as establishing a permanent military presence in the Middle East.
Tell your local elected representatives that it’s time to force the issue and cut all funds for our continued presence in Iraq.
Harvey Chanin
Somerton
Money talks, so the
war will continue
The question is still asked regularly: "The Democratic-majority can stop the war in Iraq at any time by cutting off funding, so why hasn’t it happened?"
A fair, albeit naive question, why indeed does the war go on? The answer is to be found in a "ploy," one that is neither new, nor unprecedented. Whether it’s implemented as "The New World Order," advanced by the "Tri-Lateral Commission," "World Trade Organization," or as an alleged part of "The War on Terror," here’s the deal:
Wars, pre-emptive or otherwise, natural disasters like tsunamis or Hurricane Katrinas, spontaneous or planned economic chaos and disruption like bad loans, the manipulation of oil prices, claims that Social Security is in trouble — each is an opportunity for big business in collusion with government, to seize property and wealth in victimized/traumatized areas. A propped-up dictator like a Pinochet in Chile, an incompetent like al-Maliki in Iraq or, someone closer to home, acts as the apparent, legitimate spearhead for these insidious operations.
Be it 180,000 "contractors" (mercenaries/war profiteers) in Iraq, or the diversion to wealthy developers, 90 percent of the money earmarked to help Katrina victims, Iraq, et al, are examples of what President Eisenhower warned the Congress against years ago: "Beware the military-industrial complex!"
As long as American tax dollars can be funneled to "business interests" in Iraq, the war there will continue.
Arthur Gurmankin
Bustleton
Price gouging has
her all fired up
I just heard that heating oil and gas prices will be rising by an average of 28 percent or more this winter. Is there anyone that the public can write to or phone about this outrageous increase, which we put up with every year?
Is our government tied into the oil and gas companies so much that they cannot step in and limit the increases every year? It happens every year — first in the summer when people are taking vacations and use more gas in the cars — then in the fall because winter is coming and they can gouge us to heat our homes.
Is there not an agency in our government that controls these thieves? The average increase in our salary is less than 5 percent. Does anyone have an answer what can be done, outside of spending $20,000 to solar heat our homes?
Maybe the government should look into stopping spending all our money overseas and invest in putting solar heat in the homes of the citizens that support the budgets of this country. There are many elderly people on fixed incomes that cannot afford to heat their homes.
That is a sad state when you see this happening in the USA.
Rita Wenderwicz
Torresdale
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