Morning Call Editorials

In his column yesterday, Lehigh Valley congressional candidate Marty Nothstein owes League of Women Voters an apology, Bill White took Marty Nothstein to task for dodging the League Of Women Voters debate. This is the League's debate focused on the new 7th Congressional District primary, which invited all the candidates. White's complaint against Nothstein's decision is fair in its own right. However, Bill White's column is now the de facto political editorials for the paper, and the paper's record is questionable, at best.

For example, in 2005, although I was the first independent to run for mayor in two decades at the time, the Morning Call excluded me from their sponsored debate with Muhlenberg College, televised by Channel 39. Every day for two weeks they promoted the debate, running a quarter page photograph of both Pawlowski and Heydt in the paper. The paper's circulation was considerably larger back then, and those debate advertisements essentially told the public that there were only two candidates running for office, not three. They justified that action by claiming a poll by Mulhenberg showed my support below their threshold for inclusion. At the time the paper's other columnist, Paul Carpenter, ran a column about the inequality of that decision.  I can appreciate that my complaint sounds egocentric, but I assure you that over the years the paper has marginalized many other  candidates as well.

I can accept that Bill White now writes the editorials for the paper, but he should know that at least one local blogger will scrutinize them.

Spongebaths For The Homeless At Starbucks

Starbucks, in their yearning to be politically correct,  has probably irrevocably degraded their brand, at least in the urban markets.   The policy of restricting restroom use to paying customers is standard procedure in large urban areas.  A white middle class woman told me that she was denied use of the restroom for not being a paying patron at the same Philadelphia Starbucks at the center of the controversy.

Apparently, it is a Starbucks CEO tradition to let PC race ahead of common sense.  Last year they promised to hire 8,000 immigrants.  While nobody is waiting for the immigrants before they buy their latte,  the homeless will start availing themselves of the restrooms.  While my liberal readers, all six of them, will welcome the better restroom facilities for the homeless,  their tune may change next time they use the bathroom in a Philadelphia Starbucks.

If Starbucks' corporate reaction to the incident wasn't enough,  now the Philadelphia Police Commissioner is walking back his previous support of the arresting officers.  He has apologized to the two men arrested, who refused to leave as instructed by the responding officers.  While only reinforcing victim mentality,  I don't see anything productive in these reactions.

photocredit: Bryant/Philadelphia Inquirer

Dent Turbocharges Congressional Election

With Charlie Dent announcing that he is resigning within weeks,  chances are that a short term incumbent will be running in the November election for the new 7th Congressional District.  With the primary elections coming up in about a month,  the winners will most likely be chosen to compete in  the special election which Governor Wolf will call for after Dent's formal resignation.  The winner of the special election will complete Dent's current term in the 15th District.

Pundits of the cynical nature will assume that Dent is resigning to enhance the chances of his chosen successor to win the November general election.  As it stands right now, I believe that Nothstein and Morganelli are their respective party favorites.

Dent's resignation, for whatever reason,  will not be popular locally in the short term.  However,  he has served his constituents on both the state and federal level for many years,  and he will be appreciated for that long service.

Bill White's Artificial World

I hate it when Bill White compels me to review him,  as he did yesterday while writing.... since the only people who buy into his propaganda(Hannity) at this point are Trump true believers who are beyond caring about the actual truth of what’s happening.  White was criticizing Sean Hannity at White's Morning Call blog about not disclosing that he (Hannity) had received legal real estate advice from Michael Cohen.  White went on to question both the journalistic integrity of Hannity and Fox News.

Therefore, according to Bill White, a lot of Morning Call readers don't care about the actual truth.  Perhaps Bill should concern himself more with actual truth in the Morning Call's little world.  His paper might be more forthcoming about Allentown's NIZ, and its(The Morning Call) landlord, J.B Reilly.  While the FBI investigation and indictment of Ed Pawlowski finally brought an end to the paper's bromance with city hall,  it continues to praise the NIZ, as if Allentown's revitalization is real, as opposed to a richly subsided staged production at taxpayer expense.

In our era of reduced newspaper circulation, the Morning Call survived because of corporate affiliation, not journalistic merit.  Although White, now after so many years is a senior tenured employee for the outside management,  he needs to realize that journalistic integrity should start with the home paper.

Allentown, Syria and Trump

Allentown has one of the largest Syrian Christian communities in the United States.  Most members of that community attend St. Georges Orthodox Church, and have been in Allentown for three or more  generations.  Like other ethnic groups they settled in the 6th Ward in the early 1900's.  Although a minority in Syria,  they are protected by Assad and his father before him.  The Morning Call has been featuring their defense of Assad and their objection to the recent missile attack by the United States.  It is their position that the gas attack was anti-Assad propaganda,  and not carried out by the Syrian Government.

The Syrian civil war continues to be a tragedy.  With over 400,000 deaths and 5 million refugees,  a missile attack on possible gas production facilities is the least of Syria's problems.  Putting aside the  Syrian Christian objections,  the attack has also become a political football with other factions.  The anti-Trumpers find fault with it, or anything he would do.  Because both Britain and France participated in the military action,  the opposition parties in those countries accuse both Theresa May and Emmanuel Macron of kowtowing to Trump.

United States and its allies cannot turn a blind eye to the use of gas and poison even in the most horrendous of wars.  Likewise, the coalition cannot be deterred by threats from Russia.  The response was both measured and appropriate.

photocredit:April Gamiz/The Morning Call

A Meat Market In Easton

When I was in high school my father owned a small meat market in Easton.  It was called Melbern, and was on South 4th Street. That small row of old buildings was replaced in the early 1980's by the current KWM Insurance Agency.  I spent my high school summers working in the meat market,  and exploring Northampton Street on my lunch breaks.

Recently, I returned to retrace my steps. Back then I would walk down to the circle for lunch,  usually stopping to visit a friend who worked at the lunchmeat counter in the five and dime.  The circle is still busy with a lunch crowd,  even without a NIZ subsidized by Pennsylvania taxpayers.

The buildings, for the most part, are original and charming.  Easton is up and coming,  because it wasn't lucky enough to become revitalized with sterile towers of architectural mediocrity.

I even stopped in to visit Sal Panto at the new city hall. I suspect he saw me coming through a surveillance system,  because his secretary assured me that he wasn't in.

photo of Easton Center Square, 1948

The Morning Call's Unbashful Cheerleading

The special section in this weekend's Morning Call is called Great Expectation,The Story of Allentown's Renaissance. In this 36-page special section, The Morning Call will take a closer look at the urban renaissance underway in Allentown, the projects that will bring thousands of workers and hundreds of new residents to the city's downtown... Less than 48 hours ago this blogger wrote that molovinsky on allentown was turning the corner on the arena, but I didn't mean that I would condone unfettered cheerleading by the press. In the first of four sections each Morning Call reporter writes an essay referencing Allentown's past, although none of them have any actual memory or experience of that era, beyond the paper's archives. The second section promotes the new businesses arriving and refers to center city as a boomtown. The article omits the reality that taxpayers across the state are subsidizing Allentown's transformation. Section C is about The People Behind the Transformation. Although the paper writes that they are the engine of change, it can also be said that they are the private beneficiaries of public money. The last section may be the worst. It is supposedly essays by civic leaders. Some of them are bystanders, and some of them had absolutely nothing to do with any of it. All four sections are packed with paid advertisements, with the biggest ads coming from those benefitting the most. Yesterday, I reached out to several current and former members of our political establishment, for their opinion of the paper's special edition. They all agreed that it ranged from unbalanced to outright promotion, dressed up as journalism.

 above reprinted from March of 2014

ADDENDUM April 13, 2018: Four years later and the paper is now Reilly's tenant, and pimping the NIZ and his buildings more than ever. Today's paper features that two more tenants are coming to Reilly's new Tower Of Taxpayer Subsidy. The last lines of the article explain that space is still available, and actually provides contact info for Reilly's rental office. Although, The Morning Call has often used Reilly's press releases as news articles, they usually remember to remove the rental contact info.