Moshe Dayan

Moshe Dayan on born on a kibbutz near the Sea of Galilee in 1915. When he was 14, he joined the outlawed Haganah, an underground defense force to protect Jewish settlements from Arab attacks. Although caught and imprisoned by the British for two years, he would fight for them in Lebanon during WWII, losing his eye. In the 1948 War of Independence, he fought on all the fronts, defending Israel; by 1953 he was Chief of Staff of the Israeli Armed Forces. In 1956 he led the Suez Campaign.

In 1967 he was Defense Minister for the Six Day War. He remained in that position through the War of 1973. Although a genuine hero in every sense of the word, he was held responsible for the initial success of Egyptian forces in the surprise attack on Yom Kippur (1973), and would resign from his position.

Israel is too small of a country, and it's enemies too numerous, for any miscalculations regarding it's security.

reprinted from April 2010

A Sore Winner

Back in early March, I employed Wimpy to help me pander for votes in The Morning Call blog contest. I asked you to go everyday to the paper's website, and vote for me in the Opinion classification; You did, thank you. I will now bite the hand that gave me the prize. Out of 18 winners, the paper printed the name of 10 highest vote getters on Friday. At my complaint, they reprinted the list on Saturday, to include the entire 18 winners. Neither list on their website linked to the actual blogs. There were 90 contestants in the contest, sending hundreds of readers to the paper's website for two weeks, but they couldn't provide a simple link to the winners? The paper uses the contest to promote the paper, not the bloggers.

Señor No Credit

Many years ago, when I was a young man, I went on a trip to Mexico. At that time, in the mid 1970's, I had no credit card to give the hotel upon check-in. I joined a group of new acquaintances, sitting around the pool, taking turns buying a round of drinks. When my turn came, the waiter came running back, shouting, Señor no credit! Señor no credit! Last evening I won The Morning Call blog contest in the Opinion classification. My name does not appear on the winner's chart published in today's paper. Señor no credit!

UPDATE: A revised, expanded chart was included in Saturday's paper, which lists all the winners, including myself.

The Last Fight

When Abe Simon stepped into the ring at Madison Square Garden on March 27, 1942, it would be his last fight. He had been recently married, and promised his wife that he would stop fighting. One year earlier he had fought Joe Louis the first time, and endured a tremendous beating for thirteen rounds. Fighting since 1935, ranked 6th by Ring Magazine, a shot at the title was something a fighter cannot pass up. Many fight historians consider Louis the hardest hitting heavyweight of all time. Because of the publicity Simon gained from these Louis fights, he was offered a lucrative cross country boxing tour, which he declined. It was also Louis's last title defense for four years, until fighting Billy Conn in June of 1946. After the Simon fight he joined the U.S. Army, where he would fight 96 exhibition bouts at bases throughout the country. Shown above, Simon got knocked out in the sixth round.

reprinted from February 2010

Speculating on the Public's Dime

The approval of ACIDA to hand over $135 million more to J.B. Reilly, in addition to the previous $20 million pocket money provided, demonstrates a complete lack of over-site and public accountability. Although this sort of looseness is common on the state and federal level, it's unprecedented on the local level; Welcome to the new Allentown.
"I applaud J.B. Reilly for taking the lead and taking the risk," Mayor Pawlowski deadpanned.
Just last year we thought the police and fire pensions were the yoke around taxpayer necks; They are nothing compared to this Transformation. In decades past, it was felt that too much money was directed toward Hamilton Street, at the expense of other sections of Allentown. This project insures that we will be able to afford nothing else but Hamilton Street, for the next fifty years.

Blogging and The Arena

Over the years, or more accurately, over the controversies, I had developed a unique relationship with the merchants of Hamilton Street. Last spring, I was honored to join them at their meeting with City officials, concerning the abrupt demands to sell their property. Despite their decades of keeping the lights on for Hamilton Street, their departure was swift and without mercy. They were literally evicted just prior to the Christmas shopping season. As the buildings and history was leveled to the ground, my interest in the controversy has waned. Last week, I speculated about the current state of the project; I believe that the Allentown Arena and office buildings will have some success with foot traffic. The actual cost to bring those people here, will never be known. The Lehigh Valley Hospital sports medical facility will guarantee some traffic flow. Fellow blogger Jon Geetings noted my concession with this reply: What I wonder about is why anyone should care how much it costs to create a larger production cluster in Allentown. We’re talking about PA’s third largest city. If all this ends up costing $2-3 billion in taxpayer subsidies, but it works, is anyone actually going to be arguing that this wasn’t worth doing 50 years from now? Although the former stores of Hamilton Street stood for 150 years, I seriously doubt if the new arena will be here in fifty years. I think that the taxpayer cost does matter, especially since they had no say in the matter. Last, but not least, an anonymous comment: Another I hate Allentown blog post by South Whitehall resident Molovinsky. He fails to mention all the new development as usual. For Molovinsky it is 1950/60's or bust. It is unfortunate that you live so far in the past. Yes, I came from a era when if the public was not given a vote on such a large project, they would have at least been afforded input. Our politicians were arrogant enough to put the cost of this Transformation not only on the local residents, but the surrounding municipalities as well.