Views from Point Breeze

It has been an eventful week for many of us on the East Coast.  On Tuesday, August 23rd, our region was hit with an earquake that registered 5.8 on the Richter scale.  I was in a training session when it felt like a subway was running under the building.  We were at Front & Hunting Park at the Alternative Education headquarters so the subway or the El was not a possibility.  It lasted about 30 seconds to me.  I was ready to exit the building but the speaker, Ben Wright, just kept on talking.  They were some heavy words :-)  We were lucky that no one died and that there was no serious damage.  The earthquake was centered in Virginia and felt as far away as Canada. This weekend we were hit by Hurricane Irene.  It started out as a Category 3 storm when it was in the Atlantic Ocean.  By the time it hit land in North Carolina, it was downgraded to a Category 1.  There is flooding in Darby and in Manayunk.  Thank goodness we were spared the brunt of the storm.  It is now a tropical dep

I am a professional with degrees and a stable work history.  Why is it so hard to find a stable job with benefits.  I know that I am not the only individual that feels this way.  There was and will continue to be an uproar over President Obama taking a needed vacation with his Family.  He is never really on vacation with the press and aides everywhere.  The urgency of the situation with jobs and the volatility of the stock market has many people up in arms.  The President is putting designs on a jobs policy.  In Philadelphia, the Commerce Department was supposed to come up with a jobs policy.  The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act was supposed to spur the economy and encourage job growth.  The question remains: Where are the jobs?

I was fortunate enough to attend Penn State's 400th victory under Joe Paterno over Northwestern in Happy Valley.  I had never been to a football stadium which seated over 100,000 people.  The atmosphere was electrifying.  We tailgated and also had a chance to visit the athletes quarters after the game.  The drive in an out of town was slow but I enjoyed the day immensely.  Charlie Mook, Eddie Hamilton, Tony Darden and Charlie's son had a ball.  Joe Pa recently was hospitalized becasue he was inadvertantly run into by a wide receiver.  In his younger days, he would have brushed this collision off and stayed on the field.  He broke is leg a couple of years ago in a collision on the field.  Joe Pa is 84 years old.  He just had a momentous occasion with his 400th victory.  Take a breath, smell the roses and retire Joe.  You have plenty of seasoned assistants who can run the program and possible recruit more effectively.  Who knows how long you will be around.  I cringed when

I have been following the news of the riots in London with some interest.  They were apparently sparked when a 29 year old person of color was killed by police officers.  The person apparently had some gang ties and was far from an exemplary citizen.  But it seemed to be an assassination by the police and that was enough to create major damage and destruction that is still going on.  There are numberous hot spots and the police seemed to be overwhelmed.  I have viewed pictures on the Washington Post website and I notice the racial diversity in London.  Why is it that the people of African/Carribean descent still feel that they are not truly part of society?  When these riots end, what will be the course that London travels?  Will there be more people locked up?  Will the austerity measures that have been imposed to plug budget gaps be eased?  There seems to be class issues at work here also as alll of the looters were not persons of color.  Good Luck rebuilding and Godspeed to pers