Allentown's New Park

Pawlowski has been praising Allentown's plan for a new park off of Basin Street by the old incinerator parcel.  As a student and advocate of the park system,  I can tell you that the existing park system has never been in worse shape.  As a student of local government, I can tell you that this plan shows how misguided priorities can be in this city.

Allentown's Park Director, Lindsay Taylor, is also elated. “I am very excited at the prospect of the city’s creating a plan for Allentown’s own “Central Park,” a park and trail hub that will link to downtown and provide the type of recreational facilities that will encourage people choosing to move to the downtown.” Lindsay, it would be a pretty gritty ride from the new Strata Lofts to Basin Street. Quite a tour past the prison, down to Union Street.  You know where to find me in the parks everyday. I'll be glad to take you around, and show you 100 things that should be maintained before you even think about adding a new park to the neglected existing system.

Minority New Head Of Allentown School District

The other day I received the following comment on an older post. So where is your story on the first black superintendent of the Allentown School District??? I noticed you and Bernie conveniently neglected to bring that up??? Well, first off, Bernie and I write two blogs completely independent of each other. When we cover the same story it is only by coincidence. I tend to publish only one post per day, putting me behind the news cycle. However, this topic wss indeed on my short list. The Allentown School Board members were very pleased with themselves about the three finalists being minorities. Articles mentioning Mr. Parker's selection, featured the fact he was the first minority superintendent in a system where minorities are now the majority.

I don't know what is involved in improving the district, but I'm fairly certain it is not the color of the superintendent's skin.  I do not believe that the role model concept applies here.  I do not believe that students at Raub Middle School either know or care that their superintendent is African-American.  One need only look at the large urban school districts to know that having minority school administrations isn't enough to make a difference.

Role models must be much closer to home, if not in the home itself. I wish Mr. Parker and the district well.  If there are improvements it will result from his insights,  not his complexion.

Jessica Lenard, Life Is A Rollercoaster

Jessica Lenard(1950-2016),  Outsider Artist 

Open Space Dreamers In Lehigh Valley

Despite Pennsylvania being one of the thirteen colonies,  there exists a vast wilderness in the northern central portion of the state.  Open space exists everywhere in the world, except our densest cities.  Despite this reality, the concept of open space and farm land have become mantras of the left.  Here in the Lehigh Valley, we have many more acres of farmland than farmers,  yet the conservative Lehigh County Commissioners keep adding more tax dollars to farm preservation.  I recently suggested that they should care more about our historical structures,  rather than bowing to political correctness.  But all this background is leading me up to today's topic,  Lower Macungie Commissioner Ron Beitler.  Although we never met,  Ron and I are often on the same page.  However,  Ron is an open space advocate, who I believe may now be crossing a line.

Ron would like to see his township zoners more sympathetic to open space.  I think that he is clearly confusing zoning and planning.  The township comprehensive plan dictates what uses are allowed, and where they are allowed.  It is zoning responsibility to implement that plan.  It is the zoning board responsibility to fairly allow justified  exemptions to that plan.  The zoners should not be swayed by a predetermined philosophy of land use.  Although the township is rolling out a new comprehensive plan later in the year,  Beitler just engineered the replacement of a zoner that he felt wasn't in sync with his philosophy of open space.  Although he acted within the guidelines of appointments and approvals,  it was deck stacking,  which I find objectionable.

ADDENDUM: Deck stacking can have major consequences, one need look no farther than Allentown.  Mayor for Life Ed Pawlowski in eleven years stacked city council and all the Authorities.  Before Candida Affa became his yes lady on council,  she was his yes lady on the Parking Authority.  Try going downtown to Hamilton Street, and putting in eight quarters for a cup of coffee.  Destination cities do not even charge $2 an hour to park.  What kind of destination does Allentown think it is?  Mayor for Life is supposedly soliciting contributions for his 4th term.  He has yet to call me.

photo credit: The Morning Call

A Farewell To Hope With No Change

In my lifetime I listened to a lot of presidents speak.  The first one I remember is Dwight Eisenhower.  Although he wasn't much of a speaker,  certainly John Kennedy could turn a word. However,  I have never heard anyone better than Barack Obama.  Obama is so eloquent he need not restrain himself with the truth or facts.

The Democratic choir in Chicago Tuesday night heard Obama concede that  although the factory jobs are gone, we still need more unionization.  In the same paragraph, he also advocated for a larger safety net.  Old mantras die hard.

One of the most glaring reality checks about the speech is that Chicago is the murder capital of the world, with over 750 fatal shootings in 2016.  Hope alone can't get you safely down the street.

As Obama's golden words soared away from practicality, he cited his effort to close Guantanamo Bay, and avail our terrorist enemies the benefit of our justice system in New York City.

The disconnect between empty words, no matter how well spoken, and current events, is why Trump is being sworn in next week.

The Jeff Sessions' Session

I have a confession, I don't watch much current television.  Most of my viewing is limited to retro shows, from the days of my youth.  The current agenda driven news,  both liberal and conservative,  I find annoying.  However, I did watch some of the Senate Committee grilling of Jeff Sessions on Tuesday morning.

Senator Sessions expectedly replied, over and over, that as Attorney General he would enforce the law,  regardless of how he may have voted on the matter, while serving in the Senate. What a surprise that a conservative senator has a conservative voting record.  Before being a senator,  he served as Attorney General in Alabama. The Senate hearings seem to be an opportunity for grandstanding, with little other purpose.

New Jersey's Cory Booker has publicized his upcoming crucifixion of Sessions.  Booker will make history today, and testify against a fellow senator in a confirmation hearing. While Cory concerns himself with smears against Sessions from thirty years ago,  he had no issue with Eric Holder wanting to transfer terrorists from Guantanamo to New York City, and afford them protection under US justice codes.  Sessions favors retaining the prison at the Naval base in Cuba.

photo of Senator Sessions in Iraq

The Daughters of Zion

On Monday morning, the entire media, including conservative outlets, were abuzz with Meryl Streep's speech bashing Trump.  Being a certified bastard,  I wasn't impressed that a top grade actress could deliver an emotional speech. However, what did amaze me was that although Streep's photo was everywhere,  the murdered Israeli cadets in Jerusalem had either moved to the bottom of the page, or even off of it.

Three of the four murdered soldiers were young women.  The Palestinian reaction was to hand out sweets, and take pride in the attack.  While Obama helped legitimize the attack through the UN vote and Kerry's speech,  Trump has declared that he will move the embassy to Jerusalem.   If he does that,  it would be a memorial to those murdered girls.

PPL's Rude Day

The letter from PPL stated that my service would be interrupted on January 5th for six hours, to make improvements or repairs to our lines.   I assumed that they had discovered damaged wires or equipment,  and that the repair was necessary, to avoid an impending outage.  After noticing a string of  contractor tree trimming trucks,  I made some inquires.   Although it only 25 degrees outside,  my electric was being turned off for routine tree maintenance, that wasn't done earlier in the season.  How inconsiderate is that?

Although, I live in a neighborhood with many trees,  in the all years that I've lived here, they have never before cut the power to trim the trees.  It is not a densely populated area,  so I suppose we didn't rate much consideration.  Save for this blog, perhaps there were no other complaints.  Most of the residents probably have no idea that the outage was for such an arbitrary reason.  They might even think that PPL had their back, with some pro-active repair. Their taped message after the power was restored at 3:15 pm, stated that the cause of the outage was equipment maintenance, and that 137 customers were affected.   In addition to being unnecessarily inconvenienced for almost a full day,  they will consume extra energy bringing their house back to temperature.  Those  residents with electric heat or heat pumps, will have to pay a premium for their discomfort. They will have to tip their abuser.