Category: Bob Small

Talking ’bout a Revolution

By Bob Small

We’ve known John B since I arrived in Swarthmore as a legal immigrant from Philadelphia in 1988.

Recently, John B sent me an email asking my opinion on the recent election in his homeland of Brooklyn.

We should mention John is a fellow Lansman approaching his ninth decade. He is an artist, poet, and builds harpsichords in his spare time, which he has precious little of. He lives with his musician wife. This is an edited text of the email sent to him.

John, you should probably watch Watch the Final Mayoral Debate Live – New York City News Service It’s an hour long but we found it entertaining, We both thought Andrew Cuomo should never be given the levers of power until he’s finally incarcerated, in which case he could be felon-in-charge. If we lived in New York City, we would have worked for Curtis Silwa’s campaign as my wife’s daughter did. He’s the only candidate who works for animal welfare.

As for Zohran Mandami, many of his plans sound good, such as free bus fares, free universal child care and rent freezes but these may not be practical, unless he has the magic money tree in his backyard For such changes, he will need a natural support system on both a city and state level, and I don’t know where that comes from. We can’t hold his youth against him after castigating Joe Biden for his lack of same, but he’s only had four years in government. That, too, may be an advantage rather than a detriment.

As far as his being anti-semitic, read What NYC Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani has actually said about ..

Being Pro-Palestinian does not automatically make one an antisemite any more than being against pedophile priests equate to anti-Catholic. My position has always been that both sides, as is usual in most wars “have blood on their hands”.

The group I follow is Jewish Voice For Peace, though like most groups I follow, I disagree with some of their actions. If I wanted a group I always supported, I’d have to create it.

I’ve written many poems on this, all of which Benyamin Nethanyahu and Hamas will choose to ignore if I actually sent them to them. Why interrupt a good war for the sake of peace, anyhow.

As far as Mandani, we await the verdict of my wife’s daughter, currently ensconced in Brooklyn.

Where are all the curious?

By Bob Small

In the world of ideas and art, there’s a fear of the new, whether it be new ideas, new methods ,any new way of doing things. From Beethoven to Elvis, from Mozart to The Rolling Stones to Nirvana to Katzeye to Twenty One Pilots new ideas are not always welcome.

A new violin concerto by composer Clara Iannotta was cancelled in Germany last October without telling the composer, conductor, or violin soloist.

Titled “sand like gold-leaf in smithereens” required non-musical instruments that were “additional sounding objects” .and it was reported that, due to this, “30 percent of the musicians refused to play the piece.

“What concerns me most is a profound lack of curiosity,” said the composer.

This lack of curiosity is not restricted to the arts world.

To quote the movie Cool Hand Luke: What we have here is a failure to communicate.

Too many people assume there is only one side and they know it!

The Essener Philharmoniker raised concerns but said discussions between players and management to find a solution were “initiated too late or not conducted with sufficiently empowered personnel. As a result, a genuine dialogue or joint decision was hardly possible”.

Translation, management wanted not to do this piece.

Clara herself said

“If situations like this are not addressed, they risk creating a climate where composer — especially younger ones — begin to anticipate refusal and adapt their language in advance,” Ms. Iannotta said.

In other words, self-censorship.

She noted the decision to cancel the performance was ultimately made by the management.

Let’s discuss the recent election in hometown Swarthmore.

Even though many of the problems of Swarthmore Borough such as high taxes, over-regulation, and the threatened changes to Cunningham Field, arise from the all Democratic Swarthmore Borough Council, many of the voters were not curious enough to give the Republicans a chance.

We now live in the “Delco Hospital Desert” and the all Democratic Delaware County Council has to do with that.

How bad does it have to get for people to consider a change?

Why did Nov 4 happen?

By Bob Small

Why did Nov 4 happen?

There may not be one singular reason why the Democratic landslide of November 4^th happened, but there’s a thicket of theories. Starting with the legacy media.

Donald Trump attributed Republicans losses in part to his absence from the ballot. Others blamed the cndidates along with the economy. Then there was the shutdown. One anonymous source said “People aren’t feeling the promises kept.”

Another left-leaning Source, the Daily Beast opined that “MAGA has descended into a blamefest”, even including the opinion that Trump had “prioritized foreign affairs over problems at home”.

Podcaster Jack Posobiec said “the GOP had failed to get out the vote while bogged down by internal feuds amid a string of texting scandals.” He felt that they had failed in basic GOTV steps.

Candidate Vivek Ramaswamy concurred, saying that “that the party’s takeaway should be to prioritize “affordability” over “identity politics.”

The New York Post, in shock from the New York City mayoral results said “Priority No. 1: Stop letting Dems be the loudest voices on affordability. “

They also mentioned Trump had presented himself as an “everyman” but “now, he’s building a $300 million ballroom onto the East Wing, bragging about his marble-and-gold-drenched Lincoln bathroom renovation “

The Washington Examiner is much mellower, saying “Off-year election results are never a cause for panic, but they are a relevant data point” Further on in this article, the point is made that the incumbent party is usually the one punished for bad economic results. Their advice is that Trump should go away from the “Tariff Regime” and “ pivot to an all-out affordability agenda. “

Matt Schlapp of the “Conservative Political Action Conference says “Chill” His opinion is “they will not derail the party’s prospects for 2026 or slow President Donald Trump’s momentum in the White House. “ and that the results were “countercyclical” and adds that “It’s very hard when Donald Trump is the president taking on the swamp, which needs to be taken on and drained  “

There’s a lot of lessons from this election and, hopefully, we learn them

Shootings at the Edges

By Bob Small

Recently, an “interested observer of political developments”, as she likes to be called, mentioned the murders of Aaron Danielson and Michael Reinoehl and the group “Patriot Prayer”. Let’s start with some definitions. Many persons affiliated with various groups do not define themselves as “extreme” only those on the other side. For context, would we consider the perpetrators of The Boston Tea Party, of Harpers Ferry, of January 6^th, etc. as “extremists” ?

Do we fail to listen to anyone on what we consider the “opposite side”.

Consider this from the article On the Booing of La Sonnambula: There is a phenomenon known as “epistemological panic,” in which people who are faced with something they don’t understand react not with curiosity and a desire to learn more but rather with fear and defensiveness.

This brings us to two violent responses by men representing competing ideologies who, unlike the late Charlie Kirk, needed to use swords rather than words.

“On Aug. 29, 2020, Aaron Danielson, an American supporter of the far-right group Patriot Prayer,] was shot and killed,” allegedly by Michael Reinoehl, who was subsequently killed by a federally led fugitive task force”. Reinoehl was a self-identified anti-fascist.

“At a memorial held in a park in Vancouver, Washington, Patriot Prayer founder Joey Gibson urged mourners not to seek vengeance, saying: “I know that Jay would not want that. Jay wants us to stand up for what we believe in, and he does not want any more violence, guys.”

There are 10 pages to this article and it makes fascinating reading.

Joey Gibson founded Patriot Prayer. He has a degree in psychology from Central Washington University.

We couldn’t find a current electronic home for Patriot Prayer.

One reason might be Facebook’s removal of it’s pages.

What does this have to do with our upcoming election? If you’re a Democrat or Republican and unsatisfied with your party’s selections, you might just consider researching who their opposition is and whether they’re a better choice. If you’re a Republican and you’re unsatisfied with your Party’s selections, you might just consider an earlier involvement, like pre-primary, in the selection process. Either way, casting your vote due to “epistemological panic” will not lead to a better choice. Full Disclosure; The only current Democrat I would vote for now is named John K Fetterman.

See also: What Patriot Prayer and Antifa stand for.

Did Swarthmore Try and Hide Controversial Vote?

By Bob Small

On the Friday before the Oct. 6 meeting of Swarthmore Borough Council, I checked the agenda on the borough’s website.

It wasn’t in the usual place so I dropped an email to one of the Borough Council members who is usually very helpful.

Swarthmore Borough is closed on Fridays,having attained the four-day work week.

Most of the rest of this narrative is based on various emails that flew back and forth from Friday on.

David Boonin, who is always on his post, forwarded his response. The Borough Manager, Sean Halbom, stated he “couldn’t make it work” after an hour. Then again, he was reported to be in Spain at the time.

The practical effect was that, until Administrative Assistant Elise O’Rourke arrived on Monday, the agenda was not in a place where the average person would know to look for it.

According to New Public Meeting Requirements Under the Sunshine Act,

“Effective August 29, 2021, government agencies covered under the Pennsylvania Sunshine Act, must make meeting agendas available to the public 24 hours in advance of public meetings.”

Neil Young, a GOP Candidate for Swarthmore Borough Council discovered the following from records obtained from Pennsylvania’s Right-to-know act

Council conducted an executive session to discuss intervening in the private real estate market by raising nearly $1M in debt to purchase 630 Yale.  

• An April 2025 email between Jill Gaeski, Jana Garland and Kristen Seymore in which Gaeski wrote: “I am helping Bill Cumby figure out how to introduce this (630 Yale Plan) to the community. The zoning relief needed is minimal”.

• An April 30, 2025 email between Gaeski and Bill Cumby Jr,. in which Gaeski stated “I shared the (630 Yale) drawings with Bill Webb, Bob Scott, and a few council members. The reactions were all positive.” 
• A further May 1, 2025 email between Cumby Jr.  and Gaeski stating  “The  (630 Yale) plan is right in line with the zoning changes we are trying to make… Time is key as we will soon decide what to add to the new non-conforming use ordinance for this zone.”
• Further text messages between a council member and Jill Gaeski reveal Cumby visiting her home to share plans and his excitement. The council members then agreed they should “get this through before 2025” and the plan “only needed setback allowances. “

In the end, the vote is postponed until Tuesday, Oct 13.

Boos for Yahoo

By Bob Small

Somewhere about the turn of the century, remember the Year 2000 problem ? we expected.

Once the year 2000 happened and the universe yawned, my thoughts turned to getting a home email. Yahoo had two great selling points; it was free, free, free and had unlimited capacity! Full disclosure; I’m not exactly a hoarder but I’m still trying to unload around 500 of my 45 rpm records from the days.

Anyway, around a while ago, I received the same fatal notice, as millions of others, that I had until Aug. 27 to get back to 20 GB. Though this was changed three different times in September, the ax finally fell a month later. One could have chosen to pay but, like many single men (and women) think “why pay for something I’ve been getting for free?”

While I frantically forwarded photos and other weighty attachments to my other emails, the search began for other options. Well, if the former me was around, the Yukon Jack would of come out. Instead, this me choose a few new free emails.

Which Spock used to say “does not compute?” I think it was Mister.

Here’s another source I found in my research: Free email accounts with large or unlimited storage capacity.

By the way, it’s a good idea to keep a list of emails and passwords someplace other than in your head, especially if, like most of us, you have more than one e-mail.

Next we come to “byte size”.

Understanding file sizes | Bytes, KB, MB, GB, TB, PB, EB … breaks this down in understandable terms.

What this reduction exercise clarified for me is that there were email senders that are no longer important to me and those that still are. The important ones now go to my AOL email and the formerly important are in Yahoo, which may never return to below capacity (though there are 10 minutes a day devoted to deletions, , from my 10,000 email inbox.+

There’s also an option with Thunderbird which I’m slowly learning how to use.

See also Yahoo Mail Storage Shrinks from 1 TB to 20 GB

Curt Weldon Speaks In Swarthmore

By Bob Small

Former Congressman Curt Weldon spoke to a rapt standing-room-only crowd, Sept. 25, in an event sponsored by the newly emergent SRC Swarthmore Republican Committee.

The SRC was created to provide an alternative voice in Swarthmore, where only Democrats have been in elective office for two decades.

Though there was rain mixed in with the humidity, over 40 people crowded the Sycamore room of the Inn at Swarthmore to hear the truth from someone who challenged the deep state and survived. He spoke about his visits to Libya and North Korea and his bi-partisan efforts to broker cooperation with Russia.

Curt Weldon is the author of two books; Countdown to Terror and Awakening The Sleeping Giant – Curt Weldon. He is the subject of the 2021 Documentary Firefight – Documentary Film – Curt Weldon.

Luigi Mangione And His Musical

By Bob Small

From Assassins to Chicago to Sweeney Todd, there is a history of “bloody” musicals. Previously, many of the world’s best-known operas focused on murderers. Bluebeard’s Castle, Lucretia Borgia, Lulu, Macbeth, and Othello are just a few of the better-known names. Somehow, adding music to the tale gives it another dimension, if not making it more palatable.

“Luigi” which features Luigi Mangione and includes the characters of non-murderers Sam Bankman-Fried and Sean “Diddy” Combs, is set in Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Center, where all three were housed. This musical premiered on June 13^t

Let me share a rather noble sentiment from the final song, “every single human being’s life has worth / so I’ll shoot everybody until there’s peace on Earth.”

The last sentence of the article is worded perfectly  “To see the system at work means becoming a witness, and becoming a witness means being, on some level, implicated in the system, for good or for ill. “

This musical that Luigi has become an unwitting “star” of Yep, the Luigi Mangione musical is here , comes with more immediacy than most other works. Should this be out before the trial begins. Just saying.

This work was created by four stand-up comedians. Whether we can expect it on the East Coast is yet to be determined though we think that’s a safe bet.

Nova Bradford, one of the creators of this musical says “We’re not valorizng any of these characters and we’re not trivializing any of their actions or alleged actions.

Lily Janiak, Theater Critic, for the San Francisco Chronicle, has a “killer” review.

Towards the end of the review , though, she quotes a very effective line “I wanted them to understand what it feels like when someone else gets to decide if you live or die.” This brings us back to why an alleged murderer has such a wide swath of public sympathy.

See also; The Battle to Define Luigi Mangione Takes Center Stage

Maybe one of our Delco Theaters that regularly runs musicals, The Media Theatre or Swarthmore Players Club can run it this Fall, so we can judge for ourselves,