Whose Quality of Life?

According to news reports, last night when the County Commissioners postponed distributing funds for Trail Network Plan, Allentown mayor Pawlowski said "Quality of life issues cannot be classified as unnecessary or frivolous." But whose quality of life was he really referring to? The MLK Pathway represents the very worst of plans for the Allentown park system. The former park director, Greg Weitzel, deferred essential maintenance and put his emphasis on new projects, to enhance his personal resume. The strategy worked for him, but not Allentown; This past summer he left for a new position. The new pathway would pass the Fountain Park Pool, closed now for three years, because the filter pump was never repaired. That pump replacement was estimated to cost $170,000, while phrase 1 of the Trail Network Plan will cost $674,700.00. While Weitzel spend untold $thousands of $dollars planning a destination water park at Cedar Park, the pool at Fountain Park stood empty of water. If Pawlowski and Weitzel had any institutional knowledge of this town, they would know that thousands of kids over the generations cooled off in that pool, after a game on a hot day. That's why the pool was next to the extended athletic fields. Whose quality of life was Pawlowski referring to? The intercity kids without a pool, or the suburban spandex cyclists?  Allentown parks are indeed in need of help, especially after Hurricane Sandy, but not a paved pathway, connecting  one broken and damaged park with another.

Postcard shows Fountain Park Pool, when it had water and kids, before the Pawlowski/Weitzel era.

Heavyweight Championship Of The World

On March 21, 1941, my mother's cousin Abe Simon, son a of Jewish egg and butter salesman, fought Joe Louis for the title in Detroit. Lasting 13 rounds, he earned another title shot against the Brown Bomber a year later in Madison Square Garden. After retiring he acted in several movies, including On The Waterfront and Requiem For A Heavyweight.


Administrator's note: I'm reprinting these photo's and captions in a much tighter time frame then originally posted, to give the viewers more of a feel of the Louis era.

reprinted from October 2009

Pre-Fight Hype

In the early 40's, during the War, boxing was a big sport. Pre-Television, fans would rather around the radio, and hear blow by blow commentary. Visuals were mostly restricted to newspaper photographs the following day. Not unlike the hype for the SuperBowl, the papers would also run photos prior to a big fight. Shown here are photos of contender Abe Simon, who was challenging Joe Louis for the Heavyweight Championship on March 27, 1942, at Madison Square Garden. These AP syndicated photos appeared in newspapers across the country on March 6th. Above, shows Abe and his wife in their kitchen. Below, he squares off with a neighborhood boy.

Simon's Record

reprinted from February 2010

Defend Your Rights, Protect Your Water

Turnout is Critical - New Legislation Being Introduced

Water Privatization. Tell Council You Want the Voters to Decide.   

Please come to City Council this Wednesday, 12/19, 7 PM.  It's important. 

We will be asking Council to quickly pass legislation requiring any water and sewer lease to go to the voters for approval. 

We want this legislation in effect soon, before the mayor presents Council with a lease agreement for Council's approval. 

Without this new legislation, the decision to lease the water and sewer operations will be for Council, alone, to make.  

Turnout is critical. Council has to see and hear that the voters don't want Council approving a lease contract. 

Over 4,500 Allentown voters (one-fifth of the total number of people who voted in the 2010 elections) signed petitions for a charter amendment requiring the city to get voter approval before it can sell or lease a city asset worth over $10 million. But the charter amendment requested won't be voted on until May 2013.  The mayor will likely be presenting a contract to Council well before then. 

Come out and tell Council you want them to pass legislation now that mirrors the proposed charter amendment-- legislation that says any lease agreement has to come to the voters. 

Thank you, 

Citizens for Allentown Water

Don Ringer, Glenn L. Hunsicker, Glenn S. Hunsicker, William Hoffman, Rich Fegley, Dan Poresky

Contact: Bill Hoffman wjhoffman10@gmail.com

School Administrators Are Slow Learners

As reported in Friday's Easton Express by reporter Colin McEvoy, the principal of Luis Ramos Elementary School has submitted a revised Improvement Plan, which recommended special cultural training for the teachers. Her premise is that the majority of the students are minorities, and the teachers are white, so such cultural insight might help the teachers succeed in improving the students standardized test scores. School Board member Scott Armstrong took exception to this concept: This training philosophy wrongly suggests teachers should view students not as equals, but instead use their skin color and ethnicity as the determining factor to an individualized approach. Armstrong, on the comment section of the Express story and for this post,  expanded on his objection to the principal's plan.
  It is an unfortunate reality that our intellectual betters tend to over analyze problems so thoroughly that they fail to see the obvious. Such is the case with the politically progressive theory that instilling cultural sensitivity in teachers is an imperative if we are to improve the scholastic performance of minority students. In other words teachers should not view students as equals but instead use skin color, ethnic, religious and/or linguistic backgrounds as the determining factor to an individualized pedagogical approach. Is it at all reasonable or appropriate to instruct our teachers to evaluate children from a baseline determined by cultural background? With this approach don’t we serve to re-enforce stereotypes, build in cultural separation, and re-segregate learning? Is this in the best long term interests of the students or society as a whole? I say no. What has become of the oft stated goal of a color blind society? Are we now being asked to put that aside and replace it with one based on color, creed and ethnicity? No one expressed more perfectly what we as Americans should be striving for than Dr. Martin Luther King: “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.” Let us simply focus on each child’s natural desire to learn and excel. We should not overlook the obvious problems, such as dysfunctional home life, potential abuse, neglect, language proficiency, and poverty. No one culture has a monopoly on these situations; they plague mankind. Let us instill in our students the American message of liberty, personal responsibility, and the endless opportunity that results from hard work, focus, and dedication. This message must be the credo that unites the ASD and the entire community on a common theme of success for our children.

Disappointingly, Russ Mayo, Superintendent, chimed in that such culture training, called Cultural Competence, is indeed becoming fashionable in urban education, and he believes that it would benefit our entire system. I'm not a fan of school administrators. Like mayors, they're always looking to buy new ideas. A group of city officials from New England just visited Allentown to learn about our revitalization success: To what on earth are they referring? First we made the mistake of teaching for the tests, now we may be teaching for the cultures. Here's hoping we don't rehire former superintendent Zahorchak as an consultant.

More on Cultural Assimilation by LVCI

Jersey Joe

It took five attempts and 20 years for Jersey Joe Walcott to finally win the Heavyweight Championship, at age 37. After only one title defense, the rematch against former champion Ezzard Charles, Jersey Joe stepped into the ring with the hard punching Rocky Marciano, who was ten years younger. Marciano was knocked down in round one, for the first time in his career. Although Walcott would gamely defend his hard won crown, the end came in 13th round, shown in the classic photo above. In the following rematch, Walcott's career would end, after being knocked out in the first round.
enlarge photo by clicking

reprinted from September 2011