News, Entertainment, Enlightenment
The stream of police cars screaming east on Springfield Road 10 minutes ago (4:40 p.m., Aug. 10) were responding to a Delaware County-wide request for assistance to chase down a silver Ford Focus.
Units seen passing Brookside Road in Springfield included three State Police vehicles, two Springfield Police vehicles, a county sheriff vehicle, an Upper Providence Police vehicle and a Marple Police vehicle.
After decades of trying to figure out what to do with the building, Delaware County, Pa. is almost ready to move its tourist department into the 18th Century Rose Tree Tavern in the county-owned Rose Tree Park in Upper Providence Township.
The county, in a typical display of its insecurity, calls the department the Brandywine Conference and Visitors Bureau. It should be noted that the Brandywine River will now be 12 miles away from the new HQ and the Brandywine Valley is an exceedingly small portion of the historically influential county.
Regardless, the historic building is now about to be put into use and we can now address the real issue. For 200-plus years, the building had stood about 200 feet to the southwest which meant it was almost directly at the corner of Rose Tree and Providence roads, the latter of which would become at that particular stretch the heavily traveled State Route 252.
Plans to install desperately needed turn lanes were always squashed due to the complexities relating to the historic structure. This meant long exhaust-emitting, gasoline-wasting traffic jams.
So it was moved back on Aug. 10, 2004 with PennDOT bearing the entire $1.25 million bill and fixing the jams became a simple thing.
So where are the turn lanes?
We have solar panels on the Springfield Library, we have brand new rails for the Route 101 trolley but we don’t have turn lanes at a infamous problem intersection the placement of which would have done far more to alleviate pollution — and achieve energy independence — than a hundred feel-good projects.
The refusal of “man-made global warming” activists to get involved in the mundane and practical solutions — like unsnarling traffic — to their various complaints is just one more reason to doubt their sincerity.
When they get around to demanding the end of toll roads and bridges is when you can get around to considering buying a Chevy Volt.
Cecelia Evens Shout Out For With Pen In Hand — Big shout-out to Dr. Cecelia Evans who has been running With Pen In Hand for 11 years.
This wonderful writing workshop at the Media Fellowship House, 302 S. Jackson St., Media, Pa. 19063, gets a varied crowd of those interested word-craft with ages ranging from elementary school to senior citizens.
It meets 10 -noon Saturday mornings and 5-6:30 Wednesday evenings.
For information check out this, unfortunately, dated site.
And congratulations to Jaimson who, during the July 9 session, managed to make 42 three-letter or better words out of the letters found in the word “information.’
Curt Weldon Resurfaces In Libya — Former Congressman Curt Weldon, the Republican who represented Pennsylvania’s 7th District from 1987 to 2007, is leading a small, private delegation to meet with the Libyan leader Co. Muammar el-Qaddafi and attempt to get him to surrender power.
Weldon, in an op-ed article in today’s (April 6) New York Times, says the meeting is at the invitation of Qaddafi and is being done with the full-knowledge of the Obama administration.
Weldon was part of a Congressional delegation that meet with Qaddafi in 2004 to show support for Qaddafi’s abandonment of a nuclear weapons program.
Weldon says in the article headlined “Time’s Up Qaddafi” that the Bush and Obama administrations “squandered many opportunities” to build a new Libyan government without bloodshed.
Weldon notes that he visited Libya last summer and met with an engineer named Ahmed Gadi who told him that the money from recent $500 million contract awarded by the Libyan government to an American engineering company was kept between the government and the company. Weldon did not name the company.
Weldon recommended that the United States identify and engage with leaders of Libya “who if not perfect are pragmatic and reform-minded”. He cited Qaddafi’s son, Saif, as a possibility noting that Saif had pushed his government to accept responsibility for the bombings, which killed Americans, of a Pan Am flight over Scotland and a disco in Germany and to provide compensation of the families of victims. Weldon also said that Saif led the effort to free a group of Bulgarian nurses from Libya who had twice been sentenced to death by his father’s government.
Weldon also suggested that Libyan Prime Minister Baghdadi Mahmudi and rebel leader Mustapha Abdul Jalil meet with United Nations envoy Abdel Ilah al-Khatib to work out a schedule for fair elections.
Weldon’s congressional career ended following his defeat to Joe Sestak in November 2006, a race which involved one of the dirtiest tricks every played in an election to national office by federal law enforcement agencies.
Bedbug Assault Looms, Do We DIY DDT? — Experts are predicting an bedbug explosion this summer so is it time to sneer in the face of the enviro-Nazis; invoke the spirt of Walter Steuber and follow the Delaware County tradition of homebrewing our own dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane?
Steuber was a chemist who in the final days of World War II made DDT in the basement of his Swarthmore home. The desirable insecticide had been exclusively for military use and when it popped up for sale at two hardware stores in Media and Swarthmore the authorities investigated. When it was found that Steuber was not using priority chemicals, the government allowed civilians access to the near-miracle stuff.
And this led to the almost complete eradication of bedbugs in the USA.
Which have now made a comeback.
So do we start moonshining the stuff while petitioning our elected officials to rescind the 1972 DDT ban?
Probably best not.
While the near-absolute ban on the chemical strikes many as being irrational, emotion-driven and quasi-religious — especially given as to how DDT was indiscriminately misused and highly abused during its heyday — bedbugs seem to have maintained the resistance they have developed to it.
So using it wouldn’t do much good.
There is, however, an effective anti-bedbug insecticide, propoxur, that was pulled from the market after its manufacturer declined to spend several millions of dollars on testing the EPA was demanding .
Apparently, the EPA is concerned about toxicity to children after chronic exposure. One wonders exactly how much “chronic exposure” children would receive if it were restricted to hotels and such which are a major source of the spreading of the infestation.
Freeing propoxur, which was sold as Baygon , would be something about which to petition our elected officials.
In the meantime, here is a link to the EPA search engine of pesticides that it claims are safe and might have an effect on bedbugs.
Had a great experience, yesterday, at DN Supply , 80 E. Baltimore Pike, Lansdowne.
The shop, which we use for plumbing materials, is not just for contractors. We had to replace a 50-year-old commode and amazingly enough they had one that was a remarkably close color to our 50-year-old sink that we did not have to replace.
Even more remarkably it was two-thirds the price of the one that we were considering at Home Depot that was not a good color match.
The staff is friendly, knowledgeable and patient with questions from novices.
I just recently returned from an auto inspection at Weathers Motors on Route 1 in Middletown, Delaware County, Pa., and wish to tell the world that the service was great and price the was pleasing.
Good luck and God speed to Weathers.
A 5-foot-tall bust or Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. has been finished by world-renowned sculptor Zenos Frudakis and is scheduled to be unveiled 2 p.m., Thursday, completing Chester, Pa.’s $500,000 Martin Luther King Jr. Park at Sixth and Engle streets.
Good for Chester to highlight its connections to one of the most influential and noble Americans of the 20th century. Rev. King lived in the city for three years serving Calvary Baptist Church , 1616 W. 2nd St., while studying at the Crozer Theological Seminary.
The park project came about as a result of a request in the late 1990s by members of the city’s clergy to honor Rev. King. Three decades after his death the city had not so much as named a street after him. Mayor Dominic Pileggi, now a state senator, suggested the park thinking that a street-naming might be a bit anticlimactic since at least 40 other cities had already done so.
And while the park was the right call there is nothing wrong with a street-naming as well. Changing 2nd Street where Rev. King’s old church lies, and which is State Route 291, into Martin Luther King Jr. Highway should be a no-brainer. Actually, it should be a no-brainer to do it for its entire length through Delaware County.
Always underestimated Delaware County for reasons unknown likes to keep quiet its connections to greatness.
Who, for instance, has heard of Philip Jaisohn ? Old-time county residents might remember him as their family doctor, but Jaisohn is the equivalent of Benjamin Franklin to the South Koreans. His home in Upper Providence was site of a pilgrimage by Korean President and Nobel peace laureate the late Kim Dae Jung.
While there is a memorial to Jaisohn in Rose Tree Park, one would think that there might be a street named for him somewhere as well.
One would think that the county’s tourist bureau would at least be trying to publicize these connections. Of course, when the county insists on calling itself Brandywine Country a serious problem of self-image is evident.
Delaware County chipped in $34 million to build a soccer-only stadium in Chester for a privately owned team that couldn’t even work in Chester or Delco into its name.
The Delco Union. Probably not appropriate especially for the point about to be made.
The Pennsylvania Convention Center in Center City is under fire by conventioneers for the union-inspired, loanshark price structure to set up exhibits, even for work that could reasonably be done by the exhibitor himself. To use a laptop for an audiovisual display requires the involvement of a stagehand at $37 per hour. To use it to register visitors to the booth requires an electrician at $46 per hour, To erect the booth requires a carpenter at $107 per hour.
So what if Delaware County were to build or help build a convention center on the Chester waterfront as close to the casino as possible, and let the exhibitor set up sans involvement from the locals? It would be close to I-95, the Blue Route, the airport and a lot of hotels. And, of course, hotels and restaurants would spring up next to it.
It would do a roaring business and be a greater boon to Chester than either a soccer stadium or casino could be.
Cultural Heart Of USA Is Delco — The cultural heart of America in the last century was not New York or LA but little old Delaware County, Pa. which is to Philadelphia almost as Staten Island is to the Bronx.
Feel free to laugh, who after all would call Staten Island a cultural center and the typical resident of Delco is more often perceived as what is described in this link rather than one wearing whatever it isthat happens to be in fashion on Rodeo Drive.
But the facts are what the facts are.
What brings this up is that Forbes Magazine just ranked Swarthmore and Haverford colleges as 7th and 14th best in the nation. U.S. News & World Report has ranked Villanova as the top school for its category. All are in Delaware County. Granted all of them are vastly overrated and if one should want an education that would be actually useful in the real world, Widener — also in Delaware County — would be a much better choice. Recognition is recognition, though, and for BSing and brown-nosing ones way to power, influence and an easy workload a degree from Swarthmore can’t be beat.
None of which, however, has anything to do with the overwhelming effect Delaware County has had on American society since the end of World War II.
Arguably, the most influential American book of the second half of the 20th century — not necessarily a good thing — is Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger. Where does it start? In Delaware County. A fictional location, yes, but a fictional location in Delaware County, nonetheless, since Pencey Prep is based on Valley Forge Military Academy in Radnor Township, the expulsion from which was the inspiration for Salinger.
Arguably, the most influential American artist of the second half of the 20th century was Andrew Wyeth. His home was Chadds Ford and much of his paintings were set in the area.
Indisputably, the most influential form of music on the entire world of the second half of the 20th century is rock and roll. Credit for starting it most often goes to Bill Haley & His Comets, who were from and worked from Chester.
The county has made a bit of a mark in music, actually. One of the two best female blues singers of the last century, Ethel Waters, was born in Chester. The other, Bessie Smith, is buried in Sharon Hill. Jim Croce and Todd Rundgren both come from Upper Darby, while Tom Keifer, leader of hair band Cinderella, and the late Robert Hazard came from Springfield.
So, Delaware Countians as you sip your Wawa frozen cappuccinos ponder the influence you’ve had on the world at large.