School District on Front Burner

Although six days have passed, comments are still being sent to Zimmerman Speaks Out. I have decided to put our troubled school system back on the front burner. Today Steve Esack, at The Morning Call, reported on the bloated district administration. This past Wednesday, I received some comments doubting whether newspaper reporters harvest idea's from blogs and the value of board members speaking out here. Actually, a comment placed previously on this blog revealed that administrative titles were being changed to affect funding. Both the reporter and editor confirmed that this blog was the genesis for their earlier Joyce Marin article. The school administration has warned teachers about publicly criticizing the district; This blog provides an opportunity to speak out.

As a teacher at WAHS, I welcome Mr Zimmerman's attempt to understand the safety issues at the high school.There are many assaults on teachers which bring about minimum consequences to students. Very few suspensions, needed approval by the district office, and failure to follow most points of the code of conduct have led to chaos in the high school.Until there is discipline and control in the high school, test scores will not go up. (comment on Zimmerman Speaks Out, received April 30.)

Along with looming teacher layoffs, we have an administration which seems to cater to administrators. We have an attempt to suppress the right of teachers to speak out, and we have discipline issues being swept under the rug.
UPDATE: Click on letter to enlarge

You have selected a very important profession at a time when great teachers in America are needed now more than ever. In the Allentown School District, opportunities continue for all who are reaching higher to improve our system and who share with us the practices, values and beliefs that make a real difference........Gerald Zahorchak

Dr. Zahorchak, If I was a teacher facing layoff, I would find this letter very ironic. I see a pattern of disconnect between your constant stream of Z Letters and the realities facing teachers, students and parents.

Prince William's Great Grandmother

Long before Prince William walked down the aisle yesterday in Westminister Abbey, his great grandmother, Princess Alice (Princess Andrew of Greece), walked there during the wedding of her son Phillip, to Princess Elizabeth. Princess(Alice) Andrew, later at the Coronation of Elizabeth, wore the habit of a nun. An extraordinary woman, she had founded a nurses order composed of nuns in Greece. She modeled the order after one started by her aunt and mentor in Russia, whom she had visited many years earlier. Born Princess Alice of Battenberg, she married Prince Andrew of Greece in 1903, assuming her new title.
During the Second World War, she hid a Jewish widow and her children in Athens, saving their lives. In accordance to her wish, she is buried in Jerusalem, next to her cherished aunt Duchess Fyodorovna, in the Russian Orthodox Church of Maria Magdalene.

The $25,000 House

A local blogger recently did a series of posts on the improving rental market in the Valley, and what the cities should do to prosper most from the trend. He combined a number of utopian concepts, which seem somewhat incompatible in the real world of eastern Pennsylvania. He wants affordable housing and upperly mobile housing, if not side by side, close by. The starry eyed call this mixed income neighborhoods. I think what they fail to understand is that this is Allentown, not Manhattan. We are a horizontal community, not constricted in area. Although he cites rising rents, he doesn't understand the specifics. Rents are rising in the suburbs, away from the mixed income neighborhood. Higher rents in center city are only the formula for higher vacancy and turnover rates, part of the learning curve for newer landlords. The tale of the tape is the real estate listings, and more indicative, the deed transfers. In Allentown there are currently 62 houses for sale under $50,000. This past fall and winter, the deed transfers have been dominated by dozens of homes, purchased for rental, by investors for $25,000. This low cost of entry has saturated the rental market with $700 a month homes. The house pictured above is near 12th and Linden Streets, and can be purchased for $16,000.

UPDATE: There has been a juxtaposition of failed real estate strategies which created our current situation. The city orange tagged many apartment buildings in the last couple of years. Government policy wanted to make everyone and their pet a homeowner, putting hundreds of marginally financed people in houses. The crash has now reverted them back to tenants, but angry, resentful tenants. Overall, as William Bendex would say at the end of the Life of Riley, "What a revolting development this turned out to be." A fellow blogger cut and pasted several articles on our wonderful new rental environment. I thought I'd give an actual report from the front lines. If you want optimism or false solutions, go to his blog or City Hall.

Allentown Moves Visitor Center

Allentown has moved it's Visitor Center from Hamilton Street to the America on Wheels Museum on Front Street; Hope that doesn't confuse too many visitors! According to The Morning Call, the center helped about twenty visitors a day at the old location. Assuming that Lee Butz will not be stopping in eighteen times a day anymore, they should now receive about two people a day, both asking for directions to Bethlehem.

The Consigliere

Blogger, and former attorney Bernie O'Hare has long had influence with Northampton political kingpins Ron Angle and John Stoffa. That influence, until recently, had been limited to a stream of good press on his blog and perhaps some ghost writing. The Gracedale episode seems to have elevated Bernie from press agent to legal advisor. His joint lawsuit with an elected official against the petition was quite unusual. Stoffa's comments that O'Hare saved the County money seem to compound the blurriness; The Morning Call has done a story on that topic. The second flank of the attack against Gracedale, centered on Stoffa's claim that a ballot question not only challenged the Home Rule Charter, but the actual Constitution of the United States. Once again we learned that O'Hare studied the Charter, and reprimanded The Morning Call for not accurately reporting Stoffa's somberness during the press conference. Could O'Hare now also be a stage director, in addition to writer and legal advisor? Could we have an Orson Welles in our midst? Citizen O'Hare.

Joseph's Tomb

Moses took the bones of Joseph with him because Joseph had made the sons of Israel swear an oath. He had said, "God will surely come to your aid, and then you must carry my bones up with you from this place." (Exo 13:19)

For a thousand years, Jews had prayed at and cared for the Tomb of the Patriarch Joseph. The Samaritans had worshipped at the Tomb for 1,700 years.

On October 7, 2000, Ehud Barak ordered Israeli Border Police to withdraw from guarding the Tomb in the West Bank city of Nablus (Shechem). Within hours it was destroyed. Since then there has been a pattern of the IDF escorting religious Jews to clean up the destruction, and then more desecration after they leave.

The bones of Joseph which the Children of Israel brought up from Egypt were buried in Shechem in the portion of the field that had been purchased by Jacob. (Joshua 24:32)

UPDATE: Early Sunday morning, as 15 ultra-orthodox Jews left the Tomb after Passover prayers, a Palestinian policeman opened fire on their 3 vehicles. Several men were wounded, and the 25 year old nephew of an Israeli Government Minister was killed.

UPDATE:In retaliation for the murder of a Jewish worshiper and the wounding of 5 others, last night at Joseph's Tomb, by official Palestinian Authority "policeman", dozens of Palestinians are rioting and burning down Joseph's Tomb in the middle of PA occupied Shechem/Nablus. (Israeli Radio, Channel B)
YNET interviewed one of the worshipers:
One of the Breslovers who was in the second car in the convoy and was lightly wounded told Ynet: "We arrived at the tomb like on many occasions in the past. Near the tomb we saw a spikes chain. One of the guys jumped out of the car and moved it aside.
"At this point a uniformed Palestinian police officer with a Kalashnikov in a jeep woke his colleagues up and they started firing into the air…I was in the front seat. We started driving fast in the direction of the tomb; we got out of the vehicles and kissed the tomb.
"When we got back to the vehicles the police shot at the vehicles, they were screaming 'Allahu Akbar'. ["Allah, The god of Islam, is great" -- the Islamic battle cry traditionally screamed before massacring infidels] It was crazy, they were shooting to kill. I screamed at the driver to drive out of there quickly. When we got to Har Bracha we attended to the wounded." (Ynet)
Haaretz was quick to write:
"The main problem is that they [the Israelis] entered the city without coordination," said Jibril al-Bakri, the Palestinian governor of Nablus.
I thought the main problem was the PA police yelling "Allahu Akbar" and then opening fire at unarmed Jewish worshipers.
Silly me. Jameel, Israeli Blogger,  The Big  Peace
Palestinians are once again burning Joseph's Tomb