Avi Cohen

Israel's legendary soccer player, Avi Cohen, has passed away from injuries sustained in a traffic accident. I refer you to Rolf Oeler's great soccer site, Between the Sticks, for five tribute posts.

The Tracks of Allentown

Up to the early 1950's, you pretty much drove over tracks wherever you went in Allentown. While the trolleys moved the people, the Lehigh Valley Railroad freight cars moved the materials in and out of our factories. Shown above, the Lehigh Valley Transit trolley moves across the former steel Hamilton Street Bridge. The huge UGI gas tank can be seen on Union Street. While the trolleys gave way to buses by 1953, the freight rail spurs would tarry on for two more decades.

BlogoMania

Yesterday in BlogoMania 1, we lost a blogger. LVCI was tossed out of the ring by Bernie O'Hare, and vows not to return. LVCI explains his reason to stop blogging on a post called Fi-ni-to. The match started with Jon Geetings labeling both LVCI and myself as old nay-sayers, with no positive suggestions for the valley. This is when O'Hare jumped in the ring and helped Geetings throw LVCI over the ropes. Geetings later justified his ageism by claiming that back in October, on a third blog, I called him a young Democrat, dismissing his opinion. I have requested assistance in this dispute from the AARP. The third blogger was presenting an article that Geetings found about real estate. I thought perhaps after 35 years in the business locally, I might know more than Geetings found on the internet. In the past I have praised a local landlord who is younger than Geetings. My use of "young" and "democrat" were adjectives. What I dismiss is the importation of all these "solutions" to Allentown. Geetings and associates think that if they find and present some ordinance passed by another city, that they are doing something positive. They refer to this process as harvesting idea's. LVCI and myself, over the years, have seen dozens of idea's harvested and enacted, to no improvement. A good idea in Charleston, may not be so good here. There never was a shortage of idea's, there has been a deficiency in the implementation of existing policy. Anyway, time for my prunes.

Christmas in Crank-osphere

While normal people were roasting chestnuts and reveling in the warmth of their family, the bloggers were having a cage match. Seems as if LVCI was miffed for thirty seconds, at some girl who lived here for thirty minutes, and thought she knew more about the valley than he does. Being a Christian at Christmas, he deleted his harsh words almost immediately. In conversation we say that we're sorry, and apologize for what we said. In the blogosphere, the equivalent may well be the delete key. Anyway, quick deletion aside, never the less his words were captured, reprinted, and taken to task by Jon Geetings, on the Lehigh Valley Independent. Please go there now, read the post and comments, then return. If you took that little trip, you saw that Jon decided to drag me into the ring also.

Allentown sure has prospered under the wise stewardship of the old timers. What exactly is the LVCI game plan for Allentown anyway? What's the Mike Molovinsky plan? Protect the WPA heritage, but oh wait, can't raise any of the revenue you need to pay for it! Y'all can't even manage to come up with coherent complaints, let alone any ideas for how to move the region forward....I realize it would be asking too much of the crank-osphere...  

Now, considering that LVCI, Chris Casey and Bernie O'Hare all came to my defense, a wiser man would leave it alone, but what kind of third rate crank would that make me? I'm a first rate crank. I don't disagree with LVCI's frustration about the LV Renew type agenda. Gettings himself brags that they harvest outside idea's from the internet to move the valley forward. He forgets to mention that the studies and hired staff all cost the taxpayer money, even if it's from outside grants. I believe the goal of the train to NYC would cost about a million dollars a mile to build. Gettings also forget to mention that although he lives in NYC, he likes to dine here on weekends, and the train would be convenient. Anyway, back in the ring, O'Hare criticizes LVCI for anonymous slams. First of all, although LVCI does wear a mask, it's always the same man behind the mask; his name is unknown, but he has an identity. Now the question is, what would four old fat men look like in the ring, and what kind of costumes would we wear?

Christmas City

In 1937, Bethlehem was still struggling from the Great Depression. In December of that year, the Star was built on top of the mountain, elaborate street decorations were installed, and the city began calling itself                                                Christmas City.

Christmas Lights

Best Wishes For The Holiday Season

Photocredit: molovinsky
reprinted from December 25, 2009