CLOSE UP by Brian Rudnick

IBEW pickets Cathedral Village/St Mary's flea market

Muriel Anderson, a very contented ten year resident at Cathedral Village in Roxborough, was helping raise money at the white elephant table at the St Mary's Church flea market. (St Mary's is located on Cathedral Grounds)  Meanwhile, Business agent Ray Della Vella ,  and members for  Local Union 98, I.B.E.W (International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers) handed out free canvas bags, literature and frisbees at a table next to their trademark "rat-mobile" protesting Cathedral's use of a non-union contractor, Haverstick-Borthwick. "DO NOT RENT HERE" signs lined all adjoining streets.

Watch video here.

Korean laundress wary yet hopeful about Koreas

Christina Lee of BonLynn Cleaners was listening to a Korean language radio station when I asked her about the current tense situation in the Koreas.  Lee came to the U.S. in 1986 from South Korea and does not know anyone living in North Korea nor of anyone who travels there. From what she has seen on Korean news, she believes the current North Korean leader, 29 year-old  Kim Jung-un, is too young, which she thinks could be very dangerous. But Lee’s friends and family in South Korea don’t take North Korea’s [militaristic] threats seriously. She thinks reunification is inevitable but that it will bring tension and be accompanied by economic hardship, similar to when East and West Germany were re-united.  To make the transition a lot smoother, she believes, the two Koreas must come up with a clear plan and follow it step by step.

Watch video interview here. (Sorry for shakiness of camera)

Inky photographer happy to have job

Ed Hille, a staff photographer for the Philadelphia Inquirer was at the Allens Lane Art Center on Wednesday April 3^rd taking photos for a future story about the “Vision through Art” program for the blind and visually impaired. 

WHAT’S GOING ON AT THE INKY THESE DAYS? “We can’t talk about that, sorry. Everything at the Inky is, we’re up and running and we’re still publishing and we’re all happy we have jobs.”

Watch video interview here.

 

Haitian laments Haiti

During a break substitute teaching at Parkway Northwest High School in Mount Airy, Renaud Dardignac speaks with your correspondent about current conditions in his homeland, Haiti.

He laments the poor road conditions and lack of electricity that persist in Haiti, where extreme poverty existed before recent natural disasters – the devastating 2010 earthquake and the battering in the fall of 2012 by Hurricane Sandy.

 

Making frequent return visits, Dardignac is witness to many people continuing to live in very unhealthy conditions and suffering from rampant unemployment. Like him, many of his country people live abroad, in the “Diaspora,” and send money back home to relatives who depend on this outside support.

Dardignac believes the Haitian government has been looted of $200 million in assistance by certain unethical parties who have taken the money abroad and that it is in these parties’ interest to keep Haiti poor so as to continue benefiting from the corruption.

In the past, Haiti has had an agricultural economy and Dardignac attributes people’s reluctance to return to farming both on lack of education and fear that their products would be stolen. He wishes that the international community, which had rallied to support Haiti in the aftermath of the 2010 earthquake, would invest in factories around Haiti. “[Haitians] are not lazy.  They like to work but they do not find work.”

Watch video interview here.

Sheet Metal Union pickets Chestnut Hill College

The Sheet Metal Workers Union has been protesting Chestnut Hill College’s use of non-union, Delaware-based contractor DJ Wagner. Eddie Guinan, a sheet metal worker who is manning the picket this day, says Chestnut Hill Hospital, down the street used union workers [for its recent renovations] and that Chestnut Hill College should do the same. The police were called one time and he thinks it was the college’s way of letting the union know that they don’t like the picket.

Guinan believes that a college that is charging students $41,000 a year naturally wants the best educated teachers and should also want the best educated- that is, union- workers. Union standards and wages, he says, protect his ability to pay his bills and take care of his family. He contrasts that with non-union workers who may only get only 32 hours, not 40 hours of work a week and without benefits. Guinan works in heating, ventilation and a variety of specialty projects but work has been difficult to find in recent years. He credits the Republicans with doing their best job in the last four years of crushing the unions.

Watch video interview here.

NOTE: A comment has been received that the non-union work is being done for the Sisters of Saint Joseph (who run Chestnut Hill College) at their convent.

T shirts mark gun deaths

When Joanne Thompson arrived at the Presbyterian Church of Chestnut Hill, she was taken by the display of hundreds of t-shirts mounted on wooden crosses, flapping in the wind. From someone coming out the church door she learned that each shirt bore the name and age of each of the 312 people killed by a gun in Philadelphia in 2012. She pointed out a sign at the sidewalk calling for Mayor Nutter to take action. Although Thompson, personally, has not been affected by gun violence, “it’s horrible”, she says and affects the whole community: everyone has to fear for his or her own safety or that of a child. The display is being mounted by an organization called, “Heeding God’s Call.” www.heedinggodscall.org/

Watch video here

Student studies roadkill

Desmond O’Donovan, a student at the Science Leadership Academy chose to study animal-car collisions for a school project on a local or global issue. Driving along Cresheim Drive earlier with his Dad, he saw a young deer felled on the sidewalk and came back later with his Mom to photograph and examine the mishap. He’s been doing research into the issue and sharing his information with classmates and on blogs. He believes collisions might be reduced by educating drivers to drive more slowly in the Wissahickon where, he says, deer are overabundant and possibly, also, by lowering the speed limit.  For the activity requirement of his project, O'Donovan may try to raise awareness about the problem.

Update from O'Donovan 4/2/13

You might be interested to know that i have decided what i am doing for the project. i'm going to try to get a deer crossing sign posted on Wissahickon Ave and Mount Pleasant.

Coop collects goods for Sandy victims

Through the initiative of one of its members, the Weavers Way Cooperative Association in Mount Airy, Philadelphia mounted a clothing and supplies drive for the victims of Hurricane Sandy which hit New York and the New Jersey coast hard. According to  membership coordinator Beau Bibeau, a Weavers Way truck would be packed with the donations that volunteers were just them busily sorting and boxing. Staff would drive the goods early the next morning to a distribution center up in Manahawkin, New Jersey. C.J. Reinhard, who grew up in a Jersey area where 50 homes were destroyed by the hurricane, was busily finishing up stitches on a colorful blanket she was specifically crocheting for some hurricane victim, she wouldn't know who, to keep warm and know people cared and were thinking of them. Watch video here.

Static electricity shuts down voting machine

At a polling place on election day in Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia, voting machine technician Tony Pirrone explains how static electricity can short the voting machine and shut it down when the machine inspector touches the officer control button on the back to enable the voter to vote. After seeing one machine shut down and have to be reset several times, voters at the poll waited in line for the one good machine, not trusting that the finicky one would register their votes. Pirrone assured all who would listen that even though the machine needed to be reset repeatedly, all votes had been accurately recorded and stored on the machine cartridge which would be transported by a police officer to a central location for the official tally. Watch video here.

Treephilly gives away 2000 trees

The Philadelphia Parks and Recreation Department is giving away two thousand trees this fall at 8 events across the city through its Treephilly organization to residents for planting in their own yards. All the ten different sapling varieties are native to the region and were chosen for their varying sizes and preferences for sun or  shade, wet or dry, according to Erica Smith Fichman, manager of the program. The goal, she says,is to increase the city's tree canopy for summer shadefor and for the known beneficial effects of trees on air and water quality. Joe Presley, a first time tree planter, was at the Hunting Park Avenue recreation center pick-up event and hoped he had understood a planting demonstration well to give the eastern redbud he had selected a good start in his mother-in-law's as yet, treeless yard. Watch video here.