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I have a question I’m hoping one of the folks who read this column can answer for me. When did we become a nation so entitled that we believe that we not only can, but should, expect to get something for nothing? When did we get to the point that we want the best schools, the best roads, the best of everything, but have no desire to contribute to it either monetarily or in any other way? I started thinking about this issue as I was listening to the Big Story on Action News: the mess on Wall Street. Lehman Brothers is gone. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are only standing because the government is giving them money. Merrill Lynch is now owned by Bank of America. I was talking with a friend of mine about the failures in the financial sector, the fact people are losing their homes to foreclosure, the price of chicken wings (yes, I’m still stuck on that) and the price of the wars America is currently engaged in. But I also kept it local. The City of Brotherly Love is going to take in $450 million less than it expected this year in revenues. Because of this, City departments are being told to break out the machetes. In fact, the Managing Director’s new press secretary was just told her services were no longer required, and she hadn’t even shown up for work yet. Let’s face it. Our public and private sectors are poorer than Tom’s housecat. (Cont. Page 19)
Snooper Scooper: I must tell COLLEEN McGRATH, MC Court, her husband, STEVE McGRATH was on WIP RADIO with Howard Eskin. He was talking to him about his FANTASY FOOTBALL PICKS, in which, I have been told, he is a ‘wizard’ at picking the right teams. Colleen, Eskin doesn’t agree with his picks, but then, Eskin knows nothing. Steve is a big C.E.O. at MORTON’S STEAKHOUSE, and I want him to know I agreed with him! Snooper’s “Political News”: In case you haven’t heard, or been keeping up with what is going on between OBAMA/BIDEN and McCAIN/PALIN, you had better pay attention. Today, the McCAIN/PALIN ticket has pulled ahead of OBAMA/BIDEN, and this has the interest of the National Media. I told you all earlier, there are going to be quite a few surprises in this one before it’s all over. Yes, Sarah Palin is really making a huge difference and all her “SOCCER MOMS” have a lot to say about this election. They’re going to learn a ‘McCainful’ lesson before this one is over. WATCH! Snooper’s Mailbag: Here’s a poem I received from Betty Fuller of the 35th Ward. “TEARS OF PHILLY”… Tears of Philly falling down on me/ our City is not safe, as it used to be./ It doesn’t matter who you are, or where you go/ it could happen to a stranger, or someone you know./ There’s always someone out there somewhere,/ with a GUN IN HAND, who doesn’t care/ whether a woman or man. Yes, he doesn’t care/ (Cont. Page 21)
The Public Record • September 18, 2008
The ebbs and flows of the Presidential sweepstakes are many. First you get the OBAMA pick of SEN. JOE BIDEN and they have their big party in the open-air stadium, where it looks like everyone in the USA is there ready to vote for them. Then you get the head-scratching pick of McCAIN in GOV. SARAH PALIN, and that turns out to look like a genius move after she delivers big time in Minneapolis. Now the worst-case scenario comes full circle for the McCain-Palin team: the virtual collapse of Wall Street, where some of the biggest financial institutions in the US are on the ropes or actually on the canvas. This makes the economy the big issue once again, and that’s not exactly what the Republican team wants right now. Stay tuned; something could change in this roller-coaster race. In earlier columns I had mentioned Biden’s selection by Obama had a few risks to it. Biden can be a little aggressive at times and he also is known to commit the occasional gaffe here and there. Well, last week he uncorked a doozy on the campaign trail. In front of a huge crowd, he recognized a popular local State Senator in the crowd, continuously shouting the Senator’s name and screaming, “Stand up! Stand up!” Biden then realized the Senator was in a wheelchair and said, “Oh, in the name of God.” He told the crowd to all stand up for the Senator. I’m sure with all the speeches to come, all four of the contenders will make their gaffes; it’s part of the (Cont. Page 19)
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The turnout for the funeral service for GENE TARTAGLIONE, the husband of the Chairman of the City Commissioners MARGE TARTAGLIONE and the father of STATE SEN. TINA TARTAGLIONE, was overwhelming. It seemed every politician in Philadelphia went to the wake or to the church. The chairman of the Democratic Party CONGRESSMAN BOB BRADY was there, as was former Jury COMMISSIONER MIKE McALLISTER. The President of City Council ANNA VERNA was in attendance and, in fact, most ward leaders and elected officials paid their respects. Many of them went directly to the house and extended their condolences to the family before the service began. MAYOR MIKE NUTTER was one of those in attendance. JUDGE HARRY BRADLEY, former president judge of the Delaware Co. Common Pleas Court, departed this life after a long illness. He was also a former president of the Brehon Law Society, which is comprised of lawyers in the Delaware Valley with antecedents that are Irish, at least in part. Judge Bradley will be remembered more for his compassion in dealing with the problems of the people before him then for his legal scholarship, although that was considerable. He was first in his class at Temple Law School. But his ability in dealing with problems on a “common-sense” basis was legendary. He always treated litigants and lawyers before him with the utmost courtesy. Undoubtedly due to his Irish background, he had a keen sense of humor which he used when the litigants before him let their anger run away with their good judgment. The 58th Ward held its first meeting following the summer vacation at the Philadelphia Quartette Club and the meeting was well attended. TOM NARDI from the CONGRESSMAN PATRICK MURPHY campaign staff spoke to the ward and updated them on Pat Murphy’s campaign for re-election. Also in attendance was the Democratic candidate for State Repre(Cont. Page 19)
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Yo! Here we go again. This is the story of some of our grandmothers and great-grandmothers who lived only 91 years ago. It was forwarded to me by a friend, Norm F., but was originally written by a woman. It was not until 1920 that women were granted the right to go to the polls and vote. The women asking for the right to vote – ‘suffragists’ – were innocent and defenseless, but they were jailed nonetheless for picketing the White House, carrying signs asking for the vote. And by the end of the night, they were barely alive. Forty prison guards wielding clubs and their warden’s blessing went on a rampage against the 33 women wrongly convicted of ‘obstructing sidewalk traffic.’ They beat Lucy Burns, chained her hands to the cell bars above her head and left her hanging for the night, bleeding and gasping for air. They hurled Dora Lewis into a dark cell, smashed her head against an iron bed and knocked her out cold. Her cellmate Alice Cosu thought Lewis was dead and suffered a heart attack. Additional affidavits describe the guards grabbing, dragging, beating, choking, slamming, pinching, twisting and kicking the women. Thus unfolded the ‘Night of Terror’ on Nov. 15, 1917, when the warden at the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia ordered his guards to teach a lesson to the suffragists imprisoned there because they dared to picket Woodrow Wilson’s White House for the right to vote. For weeks, the women’s only water came from an open pail. Their food – all of it colorless slop – was infested with worms. When one of the leaders, Alice Paul, embarked on a hunger strike, they tied her to a chair, forced a tube down her throat and poured liquid into her until she vomited. She was tortured like this for weeks until word was smuggled out to the press. So, refresh my memory. Some women won’t vote this year because – why, exactly? We (Cont. Page 21)
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