Category: Bob Small

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,

The Murder of Arthur Folasa Ah Loo

By Bob Small

For some unknown reason, the murder of Arthur Folasa Ah Loo at the Salt Lake City segment of the “No Kings” rally has been “media silent”.

Mr Loo was a well-known fashion designer, was on “Project Runway” and co-founder of Creative Pacific Foundation. He leaves behind a wife, Laura, and two children.

My knowledge of this came from “an interested observer of political events” in the The Utah Vanguard The gist of this article is that the 50501 organizers, who parachuted into Salt Lake City, refused the input of the experienced organizers “on the ground”. It did not work out well.

The 50501 Organizers were warned ahead of time that “ it was a bad idea to have these ‘peacekeepers’ to be a part of what they were … attempting to do, and that it could lead to something tragic like this — and sadly it did.”

They were using ex-military, most of whom have vast weaponry experience rather than, say, Earth Quaker Action Team (EQAT)

My years as a Quaker meeting attendee and member gave me great respect for their capabilities.

Utah Governor Spencer Cox said the group  “were warned months and months and months ago that it was a bad idea to have these ‘peacekeepers’ to be a part of what they were … attempting to do, and that it could lead to something tragic like this — and sadly it did.”

According to this article, one of the event’s security team fired three shots from a handgun, one of which killed Mr. Loo.

Originally, according to the Salt Lake City Police an Arthur Gamboa was arrested but, since he never fired his gun, he was released. Since then, nothing much has happened that is web listed.

The national group has done everything possible to disassociate themselves from this violence. They’ve been aided by

the minimal coverage the murder of Mr. Loo has received.

Now just imagine if this had happened at a MAGA rally!

Did Swarthmore College betray a student ?​

By Bob Small

Once Swarthmore College Transgender Student Evelyn “Evie” Parts was accepted as a member in the Swarthmore College Track team, and subsequently elected captain, she assumed she would be running right up until this year’s graduation.

However, she was removed on Feb.6 , which was the day the NCAA issued a new “Transgender” policy. She, however, was “fully reinstated” as of April 11.

Parts’ lawyer, Susie Cirilli, argues “the NCAA is a private organization that issued a bigoted policy and that “Swarthmore College chose to follow that policy and disregard federal and state law.”

Parts is a 2025 graduate with a degree in Biology and Environmental Studies. The suit was filed Aug. 14 in Eastern District Court. Parts joined the track team, returning in 2023 after gender-affirming surgery.

She was named track captain for the 2024-25 season.

In response to the suit, Swarthmore College issued a statement that begins “We deeply value our transgender community members “

This was even reported by the British Newspaper, The Sun choose to focus on Parts” depression and suicidal thoughts after being removed. They quoted Cirilli as saying  “the NCAA is a private organization that issued a bigoted policy.”

Pink News chimed in to say that the PA Senate had passed a law banning transgender athletes but Senate Bill 9 remains stuck in the State House House. More than likely, it would not be signed by current Gov. Josh Shapiro

It should also be mentioned that “The board of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) reportedly didn’t consult with its own medical consultants before voting to ban all transgender women from women’s sports earlier this year.”

The alternative she was given when she was removed from the women’s team, according to the lawsuit , was that “that she could only compete with the men’s team or as an unattached athlete, and would only receive medical treatment if she competed on the men’s team. ““”

Swarthmore College, and other institutions, seem to regulate based on who’s in office and which way the wind is blowing.

From the principality of Swarthmore

By Bob Small

India is one of the countries we follow (Bollywood movies, Indian cooking and restaurants, Shah Rukh Khan and) India has a corruption level equal to the old Cook County, Ill. or, more recently, the Philly Dem machine. Something to think about as you read this

One Harshvardahn Jain aka Baron H V Jain decided to create fake embassies in Ghaziabad, a suburb of New Delhi. Among the “countries” he “represented” were Westarctica aka West Arctica. (See end of article for other “micro-nations”). He reportedly has an MBA from the London College of Applied Science among other degrees.

When the police raided his “embassies”they  recovered $53,500 in cash in addition to doctored passports and forged documents bearing stamps of India’s foreign ministry.

That is what they found, who knows what else might be hidden.

Among his scams were promising people jobs in these “micro-nations” and laundering money through the Hawala system. A small golden nameplate at his door read “His Excellency Harsh Vardham Jain, Royal Consigliere, Principata de Seborga (Royal Advisor to Seborga)”

Jain follows in a long list of dreamers and/or scammers including Leicester Hemingway, who had a more famous brother named Ernest.

Swarthmore’s namesake Swarthmoor Hall, is in Lancashire England and there’s also Swarthmore, which is an “education center” in Leeds, also England. There is a Strathmore in Scotland but sadly, no principality. Another opportunity missed.

See also Indian police arrest man accused of running fake embassy

Among other “micro-nations” are;

New Atlantis

Grand Duchy of Flandrensia

Hutt River

Ladonia

Lieberland

United States of Kailasa

Sealand

Principality of Seborga