Rumble At Fairview Cemetery

Wednesday morning as Tyler Fatzinger and I met WFMZ deep inside Fairview Cemetery, the cemetery operator came racing up to inform us that we were all trespassing and needed to leave. I credit the reporter, Kalista Mitrisin, with persuading the operator, David Boyko, with allowing the WFMZ segment to be filmed. 

While Tyler may have been influenced by early posts on this blog about Fairview, his Facebook group, Revive Fairview Cemetery Allentown, attracted the reporter and current interest.

Boyko describes himself as a savior of the cemetery, battling distractors like Fatzinger. In reality, without the early efforts of myself and the current attention by Fatzinger, the cemetery would be much more neglected. While Boyko claims that he welcomes volunteers, in reality he has been an obstacle to such efforts. The location of current burials is an issue beyond my pay grade, but warrants scrutiny by appropriate officials. Questions and comments can also be placed at the Revive Fairview page.

Trump Buys CNN

Now that the Paramount/Warner deal has gone through, expect CNN to start being Trump friendlier. The CEO of the combined company, David Ellison, supposedly has an understanding with Trump that if the feds didn't oppose the merger, CNN & CBS would become nicer to the administration.

I suspect that CNN's recent ouster from the White House was actually more theater, and a distraction from Trump's successful taming of the media.

With such dominant information channels as CNN and CBS successfully being potty trained by Trump, speaking out will be left to the smaller fries. Complete freedom of expression might only be practiced by us smallest fries.

ADDENDUM: Trump continued to block CNN and others on Thursday, despite a judge ruling that the ban was unconstitutional.

ADDENDUM: The White House relented at 12:07PM following a renewed reprimand by the judge, and allowed the banned press access.

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The Annihilator

I'm sure Trump's threat to annihilate Iran impressed the world with his diplomacy. Certainly his proclamation about Venezuela that to the victor belongs the spoils was another keeper.

American voters were assured that the problems with Iran and its consequences on our economy will end after the midterms.😁

On tomorrow's post, I plan on explaining why Trump started walking back his ban on CNN, and how they in turn will treat our 8th grade bully better. However, in our Trump world, my posting schedule is always subject to some outrageous outburst or tweet from The Annihilator.

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Lehigh Valley Water Pimping

When Don Cunningham as county executive many moons ago brought Nestle to the Lehigh Valley, I realized that it wasn't really the prize plum he was bolstering his career with. We have been fortunate not to have been victim of a drought, because they suck a lot of water out of our aquifer.

He rode that deal to head the county development agency, where he then brought us the cranberry juice company from New Jersey. Turns out that New Jersey had become fed up with their polluting, and New Jersey isn't known to be fussy about such things.

Donny is now bragging about bringing us a yogurt company, which was shopping for somewhere to tolerate their wastewater requirements. All these companies always promise to invest and hire big, and Lehigh Valley gobbles up the bait. Now that we have a regional water authority operating both the supply and waste, the taxpayers will be unknowingly subsidizing these new industries, who found a waiting patsy. Fortunately for Donnie and these companies, pushback over the years has been limited to this blog.

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Banned At Allentown City Hall

Trump banning CNN and Politico from the White House is just another example of his low comprehension of how our government is supposed to work. Reportedly, some Republicans on the midterm ballot are starting to put some distance between themselves and him, although so far Mackenzie hasn't been among them.

What brings me to this topic is that reportedly Molovinsky On Allentown was blocked on city hall computers during Mayor Ed's later terms. I will attempt to confirm that old rumor and report back on my findings in an addendum.

On that note, I have bumped into Pawlowski a couple times since his partial halfway house release, and we had amiable, if short conversations. I wish him well with his pending full release and future endeavors. As for Trump and his fake news babble, those excuses will now be put to the legal test.

shown above blogger spotted in Rose Garden pond

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The Morning Call Celebrates Its Demise

The Morning Call has been promoting J.B. Reilly since he started his NIZ enterprise in 2011. In today's promotion, they describe his 15th apartment building as on their former offices. This latest plywood plaza is actually on the distribution end of the former newspaper building, while the offices were on the Linden Street side.

While the other apartment buildings will fall short on their yuppie target for tenants, this latest one aims low, they describe it as affordable housing. I hope it's designed like the old Timex watch, to take a beating and keep on ticking.

On the topic of beatings, this week I visted a couple stores on the south side of Hamilton Street in the 700 block. Between the new center square construction, and the former bank to med school conversion, it takes a lot of will power to patronize those stores. Hope the patients survive the improvements.

shown above Eleanor Roosevelt visiting the former Hanover Acres when it was new

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Hardscrabble In Allentown

We know from Matt that he is Allentown's first Latino mayor. We know from Victor Martinez that Allentown is now majority Latino, and should have more Latino elected representatives. But who is speaking up for the other 49%, especially the elderly poor.

Allentown's elderly poor, many descended from a previous dominant demographic called Pennsylvania Dutch, by culture never availed themselves to whatever subsidies were available. Their family motto was Make It Do, Wear It Out, Use It Up, Do Without.

While the squeaky wheel gets the oil, they never said a peep. You can still catch a glimpse of this yesteryear at a farmers market, or a Lanta bus stop. I'm not even sure that you'll see their names in the paper's obituary column, the paper charges for that now.

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