Category: Bob Small

Defiance And Concern At Swarthmore Chanukah Celebration –On Sunday, Dec. 21, Swarthmore Chabad had its 2nd Annual Chanukah celebration.

Because of the mass killing in Australia, there was some nervousness but the event went off without any problems, except for the cold.

There may have been some people who did not attend because of the previous violence, though possibly just as many may have attended in defiance of the Australian violence.

See also 6pm – Swat Central – Swarthmore College Calendar

At the same time, we could also choose to be in defiance of the Gaza violence, especially as members of a persecuted religion. This is one place to go: Jewish Voices For Peace.

Rebellion in Swarthmore

By Bob Small

Upon arriving at the Dec. 8 Swarthmore Borough Council Meeting, the public was greeted with a notice from Bellwoar Kelly, LLP: West Chester Criminal Law & Personal entitled “Opposition Proposed Rezoning of Cunningham Field Property”.

Note: Though this was given out at the meeting, it is not on their blog.

Briefly, this eight page legal document listed the opposition of neighbors living on College Avenue, and adjacent, to the expansion of Cunningham Field and the rezoning required.

Traditionally, there’s been an “understood” quid pro quo between the Borough and the College. The Borough needs money and the College plucks money from their “magic money tree”. The College needs rezoning and it just naturally seems to happen.

Rarely has there been an instance where a neighborhood could afford the high-powered legal representation to oppose something.

This is that we have here.

Among the many sections of this six page document is the stipulation that “The Application should be withdrawn and a new application submitted that addresses the use of the fields from June through August”. The college is also requested to list days and times the fields will be used.

This is a far cry from the old “trust us, we’re your friends”.

Perhaps the example of Clothier Field, where the adjacent neighbors have heard and seen the ongoing activities for a while enters into this.

For a comparison of the original plan to the “updated plan”, see Proposed Changes to Cunningham Fields – Mem including “Additionally, we propose to eliminate the current condition of visiting buses queuing along College Ave. by using the South Cunningham Lot as the main entry point for the new park.”

It wouldn’t be uncharitable to read this as “you caught us, so we’ll change.”

Uncharitable but probably correct.

The Philadelphia Inquirer devoted a (printed) six page article Swarthmore College hopes to redevelop Cunningham … to the controversy but could only find room for one paragraph about the residents reaction!

It does list many of the changes.

Susan Cunningham was involved with Swarthmore’s founding in 1864, at a time when women were not welcomed in many colleges and universities Princeton didn’t become co-ed until 1969, after all.

She became Mathematics Chair and both a building and a field bear her name.

To follow the ongoing controversy, read The Swarthmorean which covers this controversy regularly.

Hey Verizon, What Is Going On With 888-234-6786?

By Bob Small

For the past few weeks we, and others in Delco, Pa., have been receiving spam phone calls from the Verizon number: 888-234-6786.

Some have said this number is for Verizon’s voice mail service.

Others note they get calls from it despite not being Verizon customers.

If it was Verizon’s voicemail connection, one would think Verizon could solve the spam problem.

One would think.

My battle started by spending a whole Wednesday on the phone and online before being assured the actions taken would stop these calls.

Thursday morning the calls began anew.

After contacting my local state rep by internet, the staff member I was connected to in the subsequent phone call said there was no hope.

“The criminals are smarter than us . . . we cannot stop them,” I was told.

Does that mean Verizon is the criminal?

Or is the state rep and her staff just a tad on the lazy side and doesn’t feel like writing an inquiry letter asking Verizon what is going on?

The 1-888-234-6786 / 18882346786 (2) issue appears to go back to at least 2011!

PhoneSpamExpo hosts a summary of FTC complaints for 888‑234‑6786, including details on robocalls, charities, according to co-pilot, but when it was searched for again, though the printout was in front of me, the website had, somehow vanished

I felt like Carl Kolchak, a Chicago reporter, who discovers zombies, vampires, werewolves can never develop any photos to prove his stories.

I found the website on my wife’s desktop 888-234-6786 (15) Complaints – PhoneSpamExpo but still invisible on on my laptop.

Is this number an example of Caller ID Spoofing? There’s been several theories, including the involvement of Communist Chinese call centers.

There seems an unwillingness to stop this by those in authority.

One would think our government would have the “tech savvy.” Maybe this is what part of what the Genesis Mission is meant to solve.

Right now, we never answer our phone until we recognize the number.

See also:

Stop The Calls From 888-234-6786 | America’s Consumer .

Stop Harassment from Verizon

888-234-6786 / 8882346786

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

The US Has Stopped Making Cents

By Bob Small

Yhe Philadelphia Mint, Nov. 12, said goodbye to the lowly penny, which had a 232 year run.

The reason for discontinuance is “Over the past decade, the cost of producing each penny has risen from 1.42 cents to 3.69 cents per penny”

As to the values, pennies made before 1982 have more value.

Those pennies were made from copper, while those after 1982 are zinc and copper. More modern pennies tend not to have the same worth as their earlier counterparts.

Charmy Harker, “the penny lady” recommended people interested in valuation buy A Guide Book of United States Coins 2026 .

The penny was “ first authorized by the Coinage Act of 1792/

There was a January DOGE recommendation to end penny production because  making 4.5 billion pennies in 2023 cost taxpayers more than $179 million.

Evidently, there is not a very vibrant “penny lobby”, if one exists at all. A previous effort was proposed by Sen. McCain and Mike Enzi in 2017 .

Businesses may choose to round up or down to the nearest nickel.

Rounding up to a nickel may raise costs for shoppers. One study by researchers at the Richmond Federal Reserve estimated that could cost consumers $6 million annually. For comparison, Canada stopped one cent coins in 2012, New Zealand in 1990, and the UK suspended production. In 2024.

Wake Forest Economics Professor Robert Whaples, makes the point that “the last time we got rid of a coin was the halfpenny, and that was all the way back in 1857. “

He wonders how long the nickel will survive.

The Pittsburgh-based grocery chain Giant Eagle was willing to give a gift card worth twice the value of the pennies. A similar deal was available in Syracuse, N.Y.

According to Copilot AI, they can’t locate any Delco Stores offering this service.

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.