News, Entertainment, Enlightenment
Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi will face a Tea Party challenger for his 9th District seat this April 24 in the Republican Primary.
The challenger, Rogers Howard, is a Unionville resident with a PhD. in Chemistry.
“I met Rogers Howard yesterday for two hours,” said Tea Party activist Bob Guzzardi. “He may the smartest candidate I have met – so smart that he can admit he doesn’t know something.”
Howard served in the 82d Airborne Division.
With Pen In Hand Starts Winter Session — The With Pen in Hand Family Writing Program winter session starts Jan. 7 and ends June 2. This non-profit program, sponsored by Media Fellowship House meets 10 a.m. to noon Saturdays at the Fellowship House 302 S. Jackson St. Media, Pa. 19063.
It is designed for families with children from ages 5 to 18. Parents and/or mentors are encouraged to come and participate in activities that help to improve skills and allow one to enjoy writing. Help for the SAT and PSSEA tests is offered. Attendance is not compulsory. Late registrations are accepted.
And the program is free although donations are happily accepted.
This inter-generational, multi-racial program began 11 years ago and has served over 400 families. Participants are encouraged to publish their writings in the anthology which is distributed at the end of each year. Several have published books of their work and many have gone on to further study in writing.
Program sponsors have included the Rose Tree Media and Wallingford-Swarthmore school districts, the Delaware County Chamber of Commerce and West Chester University. Funding came from The Ethel Sergeant Clark-Smith Foundation, PECO, The Connelly Foundation, the Douty Foundation and individuals.
This program is directed by Cecelia Evans, a retired educator from the School District of Philadelphia and founder of With Pen in Hand. She is also a fellow of the Pennsylvania Writing and Literature Project West Chester University West Chester, PA. Instructors include Janice Ewing, Carolynne Glover, Jodine Mayberry, Darrell Blair and Joyce Ellis who also serves as computer specialist.
For information or to register call 484-483-7986 or 610-565-0434; or send an e-mail to cevans9118@comcast.net.
The electric trains with which John duPont played while a lonely boy in a large, fatherless home with a coddling mother are among the items from his estate which are being auctioned tomorrow, Nov. 26, in Ludwig’s Corner, Pa.
DuPont, the richest man to ever be convicted of murder for the 1996 killing of Olympic gold medal wrestler Dave Schultz, died Dec. 9 in minimum-security state prison in Mercer.
He had grown up and lived in Newtown Township, Delaware County.
In the 1980s, duPont was on the lists of the magazine rankings of the richest Americans, and presidents were hosted at his home.
The auction starts 9 a.m. at Griffith Hall, Ludwig’s Corner Fire Company 1325 Pottstown Pike (Route 100), Glenmoore, PA 19343
This portrait of duPont in garb of the Foxcatcher wrestling program which he ran at his Newtown estate and which led to his ultimate downfall is expected to bring between $500 and $700. Auctioneer Ted Wiedersiem says duPont paid artist Hubert Shuptrine $100,000 to have it done.
I was just informed that Dottie Reynolds has died.
Dottie was a wonderful writer who worked for the Delaware County Daily Times and the Press Newspapers of Delaware County.
She was one of the founders of the Delaware County Press Club.
She had been living in Florida.
R.I.P. Dottie.
Mountain Lions In The Northeast? — Two persons reported seeing a mountain lion the afternoon of Oct. 26 near the Drexelbrook Apartments near Darby Creek in the Drexel Hill section of Upper Darby, Pa.
Police investigated and declared the sightings unfounded.
Coincidentally, though NBC is reporting that a mountain lion has been seen in Washington D.C.
Interesting coincidences are worth a mention.
About 15 years ago, there was also a spate of mountain lion sightings in Delaware County, Pa..
In the early 1980s, a fisherman in Crum Creek in Newtown Township thought he saw a tiger. He threw down his rod and reel, a wade a mile through the creek to a road where he flagged down a car to take him to the police station where he reported it. Police investigated with shotguns at the ready. They found the “tiger” to be a striped great dane.
Pennsylvania Public Schools Doomed, Doomed, Doomed Say Dems — A sparse crowd of about 200 heard a panel of Democrat state legislators from Delaware County, Oct. 13, at the Upper Darby Center For Performing Arts describe how public schools in Pennsylvania are doomed unless they get back in charge.
The event was sponsored by PA PASS, a public education advocacy group.
The initials stand for Parent Advocates for Public Education To Achieve Student Success.
On the panel were Sen. Daylin Leach (D-17), Rep. Greg Vitali (D-166), Rep. Margo L. Davidson (D-164), Rep. Maria P. Donatucci (D-185), and Rep. Ronald G. Waters (D-191) along with Michael Stoll, who is communications coordinator for State Rep. Bill Adolph (R-165) and Jeffrey S. Miller who is the Republican budget analyst for the Appropriations Committee for the State House, which Adolph chairs.
Leach started things off by saying that there was a “severe and existential threat to public education”.
He cited state budget cuts, proposed voucher and charter school bills, and Act 25‘s removal of exemptions in which school boards can hike budgets without a referendum.
He said the referendums always lose since only 10 or 15 percent of voters have children in public schools.
Ms. Davidson, who had to leave early, said she agreed with Leach’s points.
“Ed Rendell would never have proposed such a thing,” she said.
Vitali echoed the despair.
“I truly believe it is a dire situation,” he said. He said the budget cuts were driven by “ideology not necessity.
“(Gov. Tom) Corbett put the interest of oil drillers over children,” he said referring to the reluctance of the governor to levy additional taxes on drilling in Marcellus Shale.
He also pined for the days of Gov. Rendell.
“Rendell was an aggressive fighter for public education,” he said.
He compared public schools to public libraries and said the 9.1 unemployment rate comes from layoffs in the public sector. Whatever it was he was smoking it would probably have been polite if he offered to share it.
Ms. Donatucci clearly feared for the children.
“It’s raining on our school children,” she said. “. . .Our children aren’t going to get any money and they need to. . . An educational train wreck is going to happen and our children our tied to the tracks.”
Besides blaming Republicans she also blamed newspaper editors.
Waters was more philosophical.
“Elections have consequences,” he said. He noted Corbett said he was going to do the things he’s doing.
He claimed the state had a budget surplus and that money could have been used to keep education spending at the rates it had been the previous year.
Stoll pointed out, however, that there is no surplus and what Waters thought was a surplus is actually budgeted. He noted that 40 percent of state spending is for education. He explained that the reasons for the budget cuts were because federal stimulus money ran out.
After the comments by the panelists, parent representatives for the Radnor, Wallingford-Swarthmore, Interboro, Ridley, Southeast Delco, Haverford, Chichester, Springfield, Penn Delco, William Penn and Upper Darby school districts made presentations describing how excellent their districts were and how much harm the new changes in state policy are causing them.
A PA PASS moderator said that 173 teaching professionals, 148 para professionals, 11 security guards, 11 office support workers, nine maintenance workers, eight administrators and five social workers lost jobs in school districts in Delaware County due to budget cuts.
After parent presentations, PA PASS read to the panel questions submitted by the audience. The questions chosen by the moderator were generally along the lines of how can the vile Republicans be stopped.
The unseen presence of the Tea Party was felt in the room most strongly it seems by Leach who made a Freudian slip of referring to legislative behavior as not being a “tea party” instead of a “garden party”.
He corrected himself.
Haverford School Director Larry Feinberg, who was one of the event’s organizers, ended things with some strange comments about the proposals for charter schools and vouchers being part of some conspiracy by “Main Line” millionaires looking to make money at the expense of innocent children.
Stoll several times during the night had to emphasize that 40 percent of the state money goes to public education and that there are no plans to end public schools.
The organizers of the event, the parents, and even the legislators all struck one as being sincere and even caring.
Leach and Ms. Donatucci both spoke out passionately against using the cruel residential property tax to fund schools as we now do.
The problem, however, was none of the Democrats or their supporters were able to face the big, fat grinning gorilla in the room, namely the 3 and 4 percent annual raises — which remember are on top of automatic step raises — that the teachers always seem to get during contract negotiations because they have the right to strike and/or perform unsatisfactory work during their “work to rule” job actions.
The always growing salaries, of course, get the icing of very sweet pension and health plans.
And this is the reason why services are being cut, not because some greedy Republican hates children, as some implied.
Milk does not flow forever.
Reader Cathy C submitted an email she received from Mark Mix of of National Right To Work Committee.
While Mix’s group is pushing for national reform, Pennsylvania becoming a “right to work” state would likely do as much if not more to save the Delaware River refineries than relief from thoughtless environmental regulation.
BTW, Delaware County Daily Times columnist Gil Spencer, with this column and one written Friday, is joining the crusade to highlight the havoc stupid, quasi-religious regulations are creating with the lives of Delaware Countians.
Welcome Gil and thank you, Cathy.
Here is Mix’s letter.
Dear Cathy,
“You guys slash my tires, stab me in the neck, try to beat me up,” the construction company official explained to the union organizer.
Given all that, he asked, why should the company hire such aggressive union militants?
“The positives are that the negatives you are complaining about would go away,” the union operative reportedly replied.
According to the Buffalo News, the “negatives” include hot coffee thrown at independent-minded workers, sand dumped into the engines of company vehicles, and the wife of a company representative threatened with sexual assault.
And the union toughs just might get away with it.
You see, ever since the Supreme Court’s infamous 1973 Enmons decision, union bosses have been granted immunity from federal prosecution for acts of violence and vandalism they orchestrate in the so-called “pursuit of legitimate union objectives.”
AFL-CIO union lawyer Jonathan D. Newman told the Buffalo News that “we simply want to make sure that the [federal law] is not interpreted in a way that could have a chilling effect on legitimate union activity.”
The union violence in Buffalo is hardly an isolated incident.
As you may recall, the Associated Press reported that hundreds of Longshoreman union militants held security guards hostage for hours at the Port of Longview in Washington State on September 8.
Union thugs reportedly committed numerous acts of vandalism and violence including breaking windows, cutting brake lines on railroad cars, and threatening police officers with baseball bats.
Weeks later, local police have only made two arrests in connection with the September 8 raid.
And now Longshoremen union officials have launched a Wisconsin-style recall campaign against the county sheriff investigating the raid.
Union officials know that if they intimidate local authorities, they can get away with anything.
The loophole in federal law ensures that union officials who may have orchestrated and encouraged the union violence may never be brought to justice, especially where they can intimidate and use political connections to stop local or state prosecutions.
That’s why the Freedom from Union Violence Act (FUVA) is so vital. To learn more about FUVA and how you can help urge Congress to take action, please click here.
Your National Right to Work Committee has an aggressive plan of action to force the politicians in Washington, D.C. to stop turning a blind eye to union violence.
Thank you once again for helping us fight back.
Sincerely,
Mark Mix
With money getting ever tighter in these Obama years, wine lovers need not resort to suffering with Franzia to partake of the fruits of the vine.
They do, however, have to be unafraid of a little DIY.
Wine & Beer Emporium is a great little shop in the Old Ridge Village Shopping Center off Route 202 in Chadds Ford, Pa.
They sell everything you need to make your own personal vintage. The less expensive kits will come out to less than $3 per bottle the quality of which frankly exceeds the $20 bottles that you would get from one of Pennsylvania’s government-owned “Wine and Liquor Shoppes”.
Granted that doesn’t include supplies that will double the cost of a bottle for the first-go round. The supplies, however, are reusable except for the corks and cleaning powder.
If you go say hi to Joan or Paul.
With Pen In Hand, the program for writers of all ages run by Dr. Cecelia Evans has begun a new season.
It meets 10 a.m., Saturdays at the Media Fellowship House, 302 S. Jackson St. It’s a wonderful time with warm people.
Here is a rather old link with some information about the program.
Sunoco announced, Sept. 6, that it will be closing its refineries in Philadelphia and Marcus Hook next July if it can’t find a buyer for them. 
Sunoco CEO and Chairman Lynn Elsenhans said the refineries have lost $772 million since 2009, which not coincidentally is the first year of the Zerobama Administration.
It will be unfair to pin all the blame on President Zero, however. First year Congressman Pat Meehan, a Republican, has been practically screaming that this was going to happen since he took office, Jan. 3, while his Democrat predecessor Joe Sestak; and Democrat Chaka Fattah, whose 2nd District includes the Philadelphia plant; and Democrat Bob Brady, whose 1st District borders both facilities and includes many of the workers, have been silent partners in Obama’s plan to wreak economic ruin when they were not loudly marching in lockstep with it.
So blame the Democrats and remember to shake the hand of Meehan, who has still not surrendered on saving the plants.
By the way, the massive new unemployment that will result from the closings — the Marcus Hook plant has about 600 workers while the facility in southwest Philly has about 800 — may not even be biggest problem. What does one do with 2,200 idle acres of tanks, towers and hazardous waste?
The Philadelphia plant is 1,400 acres while the Delaware County facility weighs in at 788.
And let’s not forget how the loss of the property tax revenue is going to affect Marcus Hook Borough, the Chichester School District and the City of Philadelphia.
And for those of you who do claim to care about the environment, do you really think it better that our oil be refined in Nigeria and Venezuela rather than Pennsylvania?
The Marcus Hook plant is where NASCAR racing fuel is produced.