The Morning Call Editorial Stable

There is a stable of editorial writers at the Morning Call who head our local development agencies. What they seem to have in common is the ability to write decently, and no real business experience. Under that disguise of expertise, the real movers and shakers of the area find them useful tools...Don Cunningham is the prime example. 

Another bottling company is on its way to the giant aquifer west of Allentown. Don has been welcoming this type of industry for over twenty years.  While they suck our most precious commodity dry, they provide few jobs.  The Lehigh Valley has become mecca for both bottling and warehousing under Cunningham's tenure in various public positions. He is the king of congestion and low paying jobs. Along Don's climb up his career mountain, he was Secretary of General Services under Ed Rendell. During the recent controversy, when J.B.Reilly landed the large state hospital parcel in a non-competitive handoff, Donny, although a former insider to Harrisburg shenanigans, didn't have one word to say.

If he is the king, Becky Bradley is the queen. Like Donny, she rose up the through the non-profit business agency sector. Years ago, right of ways were acquired to widen the highly congested Rt. 22. While those funds were instead diverted  to create another exit for a warehouse baron, Becky recently suggested that grant money be used to plant pretty bushes and trees along the right-of-way.  This way drivers have better scenery while they sit in line during rush hours. Never mind that it will increase expense cutting the grass around these new plantings.

You can read about development in the valley, written by the king and queen, on a regular basis in the Morning Call. I was hoping that with some recent personnel changes at the Morning Call, their Opinion Page would be more open to less-establishment type submitters....That has not happened.

Boxing's Giant Era

In California these days, everybody walks around with a yoga mat strapped to their back. That certainly wasn't the case in the 1930's, when heavyweight contender Lou Nova studied yoga. Nova was the World Amateur Heavyweight Champion and a proponent of clean living. He won his first twenty two fights as a professional. His promoters said he perfected the Cosmic Punch. Only 6'2", he fought in the era of giants. He handed giant Abe Simon his first defeat after thirteen victories, eleven by knockout. Nova knocked out 6'4'' Max Baer twice. The 1939 knockout is one second away, in the above photograph. Baer himself had won the championship by knocking out Primo Carnera, the Italian giant who was 6'6" and weighed 284 lbs. Baer lost the championship to the Cinderella Man, Jim Braddock. Joe Louis took the belt from Braddock and held it for twelve years, being arguably the best fighter in history. Clean living didn't serve Lou Nova so well with the notorious dirty fighter Two Ton Tony Galento. Galento almost gouged his eye out, putting him in the hospital for weeks. Nova got his shot with Louis on September 29, 1941, but fell in six. Nova would go on to act in movies and even was a write-in candidate for President of the United States. He dropped out of the campaign because his mother was afraid he would catch a cold shaking so many hands. She wasn't afraid of him being in the ring with some of the toughest men in the world.

reprinted from December of 2012

Chuck Schumer Was Never On The Subway

Chuck Schumer, United States Senator forever, thinks that Bibi Netanyahu must go as Israeli Prime Minister.  If you were a recent crime victim in NYC, especially in the subway, you might think that it's time for Chuck to leave.

In a recent piece. I stated that you don't have to be anti-semitic to be an anti-zionist, but it helps. Schumer certainly isn't anti-semitic, but he is a liberal progressive from the heartland of that persuasion. There are those who would find the majority leader of the United States Senate saying that the democratically elected prime minister of an ally must go totally inappropriate. I'm sure he made his proclamation only after profound moral indignation over the Gaza conflict. He probably even thinks that his statement took courage on his part. 

I'm sure that Chuck was never on the subway in New York at 10:00 at night, hoping to get to his stop unaccosted. I'm sure Chuck never had to walk up the platform steps to the street hoping to get to his apartment unaccosted.

 I'm sure Chuck never had to fear being butchered while he slept near the border with New Jersey, or have his daughter kidnapped and dragged through the streets of Jersey City naked, before she was raped to death. 

The suffering in Gaza has been immense. There were no cameras or media as Hamas killed away in southern Israel on October 7. Israel and Netanyahu were forced into a war that they didn't start or want. Scrutiny of Israel's counter attack has been relentless. Only now are Israelis starting to return to those communities which were slaughtered by Hamas in October. When the truce comes, peace may be too ambitious of a word, Palestinians will reconsider Hamas, and Israel will reconsider Netanyahu. Those decisions will be made by the victims on both sides, not Chuck Schumer. 

photo of Gaza City before Jew killing rampage Oct. 7, 2023

Weekly Reader

When I was growing up my parents would receive both The Morning Call and The Evening Chronicle.* This was their main source of news. Television in the late 40's and early 50's had national and world news, but there was no local programing in Allentown. The antenna on our roof would receive the three network (ABC, NBC, and CBS) stations from Philadelphia, and that was it. The morning and evening papers provided the local news, in addition to national and world stories. Hess Brothers and Leh's would compete with multiple full page Ads. We children also had our own little paper, Weekly Reader, handed out in the classroom every Friday. I think of it when I get the thin Morning Call on Mondays.

* The Morning Call and Evening Chronicle were both published by same company, Call-Chronicle Newspapers.

reprinted from March, 2010

New Radio Molovinsky podcast, Snowbird In Paradise

The Radiation Mystery, Wetherhold & Metzger

The Shoe giant Wetherhold & Metzger started in 1908 on Hamilton street's south side. When business began to prosper, they moved across to the more prominent north side of Hamilton Street. Their store at 719 Hamilton was recently demolished, along with most of Allentown's mercantile history. It was a two story store, with the children's department on the lower level. This post originally was scheduled for sometime in the future, and was to include a Buster Brown poster. Today's Morning Call has a story on the mystery radium 226 found in the debris of the former buildings, and I thought perhaps the molovinsky on allentown historical division could help. Wetherhold & Metzer's downtown store was quite the adventure for a kid. In addition to your mother's money being transported away in a tube system like the bank drive-ups use today, you could look inside your shoes and see your feet.

Needless to say, eventually these shoe fluoroscopes were banned, but for many years one stood in the lower level of 719 Hamilton Street. Many a child, including myself, saw our foot bones in our new Buster Browns. Wetherhold & Metzger also had an uptown store in the 900 block of Hamilton Street.

reprinted from September of 2012

A Church Of Contention

Ripple Community Inc., a non-profit, wants to turn the church at 16th and Chew into very affordable apartments, and also have recovery rooms there, where essentially homeless people could recover from illness or injury.

While I'm not involved in the current zoning board dilemma concerning these proposals, I do have a lot of background in that neighborhood. I lived across the street from the church for many years.

Years ago, the then very strong West Park Civic Association would be out in force officially opposing this conversion. I remember when they even opposed another congregation selling the church at 15th and Turner to a less funded congregation.  They complained that the maintenance on the church might suffer.

I also remember many years ago when a wealthy member of the congregation at 16th & Chew left money in his will to have the church dressed out. Although the structure was in very good condition, they repointed all the stonework anyway, and remodeled the bell tower. In more recent times when the congregation felt financial strain and put the church up for sale, I thought that if only they hadn't done those superfluous upgrades, that money might have enabled them to keep the church going.

Even Alan Jennings, who drips liberalism, thinks that the 16th Street church is the wrong place for Ripple's new plans.

photocredit:Jason Addy/LehighValleyNews.com