Views from Point Breeze

My elected city councilman, Kenyatta Johnson, has been going through some trying times over the issue of affordable housing in the Point Breeze neighborhood.  I hope that he will stand his ground on the issue of maintaining housing that any resident of Point Breeze can live in.  Demographically, the neighborhood is changing back to what it used to be.  In the late 1960's, thee were still Italian families living in the neighborhood.  I went to Saint Rita's with many of them.  As I graduated in the late 1970's, many of the families began to move of of the neighborhood.  The Montenegro's, DeColli's, Faragalli's and Conaways were families that I called friends. Recently, after some tremendous development led by Universal Homes, a reverse migration has begun.  Some of my peers were caught up in the criminal justice system as teenagers  We were somewhat limited in our social outlets and trouble lurked on most corners.  Those of us who were ...

I am a member of Enon Tabernacle Baptist Church.  I have been a unreliable member of the Usher Bard for the last couple of months.  I was attending service one Sunday and forgot it was Communion Sunday.  I had my black and white tie on when I should have worn my red tie.   The Usher in Charge wanted me to stand in the lobby as oppose to continuing to serve in my assigned station.  I haven't been back to Usher since then.  I did attend services recently but it was in the civilian capacity.  The service was awesome as usual. I received an awesome blessing on Thanksgiving.  My unemployment had been held up for almost three months.  I resigned from a trucking job with US Xpress in lieu of termination.  This process caused my unemployment request to be denied.  I had to appeal and this process dragged on for months.  I had to attend a session with a referee in which it was revealed that the company planned to ...

I can't imagine living in a situation where missiles are being fired in my direction on a regular basis.  This is how the people of Ashkelon, Israel feel as they are targeted continuously by missiles fired from Gaza City.  Israel has installed an Iron Dome system that can explode most of the missiles heading toward this city but the unease and tension felt by the residents is real.  People are poised to evacuate to bomb shelters and underground areas.  I do not think it is a safe situation in which to raise a family or try to make long term plans. The people that live in Gaza are being subjected to a return of fire from Israel as I write.  Gaza City has a population of 1.5 million people in an area about the size of Detroit.  In 2010 it had an unemployment rate of approximately 40%.  The city is 99% Muslim and the Hamas Party is taking the revolutions initiated during the Arab Spring to new heights.  The casualties suffered by innocent civilian...

I have been a little impatient with my Sunday night show this year.   The secnd season of Boardwalk Empire has sleep walked at times this season.  After last season with the intrigue of Nucky being turned on by his own brother and surrogate son, the pursuit by FBI agenst, the federal government and the involvement of Chalky White this season has been somewhat boring.  All of that changed for me and other viewers last night. The villain this year has been Gyp Rosetti.  He is a very evil Italian gangster.  I thought Nucky would have had him dealt with by now.  He blew away Jimmy last year for crossing him.He shot a teenager in the head for pilfering liquor from one of his routes.  He was flaunting his woman on the side on a regular basis.  His wife was so into the revenge aspect for this that she began an affair with the bodyguard.  This didn't end up well. The one positive for me is that Eli and Nucky began to repair their relat...

I have not had the occasion to become a NASCAR fan.  The whole concept of sitting down and watching cars go around a track for 250 or 500 miles never seemed to hold my attention  I would rather have been out playing basketball, baseball or football.  I had occasion to drive past Dover Downs and I realized that the race car circuit has a huge following.  I have heard of the Daytona 500 and the Indianapolis 500 but it is all just something I heard about.  A recent incident in a major race caused me to ook into this sport a litte more inently.  Some facts about NASCAR: NASCAR is second only to the National Football League amongst professional sports franchises in terms of television ratings in the United States. [ 5 ] Internationally, NASCAR races are broadcast in over 150 countries. [ 6 ] In 2004 NASCAR's Director of Security stated that NASCAR holds 17 of the top 20 regularly attended single-day sporting events in the world. [ 7 ] NASCAR has 75 millio...

It is amazing what some people will say these days to get attention.  He was not feeling in a celebratory mood after it was declared that Barak Obama was re-elected as the President of the United States.  In fact, he was so pissed that he called for a revolution: “He lost the popular vote by a lot and won the election. We should have a revolution in this country!,” the reality TV star tweeted. ”The phoney electoral college made a laughing stock out of our nation. The loser one!” Mr. Trump also tweeted. It's a couple of interesting points in his statement.  The first falsehood is that the President lost the popular vote.  Even though it was a close race, Barak Obama won the popular vote.  With Florida declaring almost a week late, this fact still holds.  The second part of the statement I have a question with is the 'we' in the statement.  Who is he referring to? We know there is a serious disparity of wealth in this country.  C...

In 1986, the Sixers were coming off of a 54 - 28 season.  We had Dr. J. Moses Malone and Charles Barkley.  We were poised to make a run at the championship.  For whatever reason, with the #1 pick in the draft, we decided to roll the dice instead of drafting talented North Carolina center Brad Daugherty.  We traded the pick for Roy Hinson and then traded Moses Malone for Jeff Ruland.  Jeff Ruland played about five games for the Sixers before leaving the game with serious knee injuries.  Roy Hinson was released or traded after about a season and a half.  Brad Daugherty had a very respectable career but was cursed to be playing in the same era as Michael Jordan.  Many other stars, including Patrick Ewing and Mark Price, shared the same fate. The recent acquisition of Andrew Bynum makes me have the feeling of deja vu.  We gave up Andre Iguadala and Lou Williams from a team that went to the Eastern Conference semifinals last year.  Our fir...

The Election for President of the United States, Senators, State Representatives, Auditor Generals and other positions is tomorrow.  Many elected officials of the Democratic persuasion are preaching gloom and doom if Mitt Romney were to win tomorrow.  Living in Pennsylvania, we already know that a Republican government will preach self-help with a decreasing emphasis on government assistance.  Adult basic, a health insurance program for low-income Pennsylvanians, was cut as soon as Governor Corbett was sworn into office.  People have had disability payments reduced.  Funding to institutions of higher learning have been reduced also.  The major inner under the Corbett administration has been the Marcellus Shale industry. We are facing an onslaught of commercials and robo-calls right now.  I am perplexed by the Republicans desire to cut the number of people who rely on food stamps to help feed their family.  Governor Romney is now promising to cr...

The Meteorologists got it right this time.  Before Hurricane Sandy touched the shore, it was predicted that this storm had the potential to do major damage to the East Coast.  By the time it hit and rampaged up the country, we were left to ponder just what the heck had happened.  It is estimated that this storm will cost upwards of $50 billion in damages and lost business.  We did something to our environment or else we underestimate our ability to control the forces of nature.  All the beach reclamation projects in New Jersey have just been thrown to the wind.  People will never look at trrees next to their houses in the same way.  Falling trees killed people up and down the coast. It is amazing that Hurricane Irene, the fifth largest storm on record, occurred just last year: Hurricane Irene was a large and very destructive tropical cyclone , which affected much of the Caribbean and East Coast of the United States during the 2011 Atl...