CLOSE UP by Brian Rudnick

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)

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

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.

Why I vote (Obama)

Everett Staten sells Obama for President clothing and paraphernalia from a boutique storefront in Mount Airy, Philadelphia. By purchasing items, Staten says, people can both show their support for the President and help fund his re-election campaign. One T-shirt has the outlined letters of the phrase, “Why I Vote.” Each letter is a window on a photograph of some significant even in the civil rights movement – the freedom riders’ bus that was set on fire, a police dog attacking a college student at a rally in Greensboro, a malt being thrown on an African-American woman at a lunch counter, Rosa Parks who refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white person, fire hoses being directed at protesters in Birmingham, an imprisoned Dr. Martin Luther King from where he wrote the “Letters from a Birmingham Jail”, one of the Little Rock nine girls braving segregationists to enter high school and Congressman John Lewis who, as chair of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, got pummeled Everett says this t-shirt is especially needed to remind people why they need to vote – now to fight voter suppression in the form of the voter ID laws which a Pennsylvania Republican lawmaker boasted would guarantee Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney a win in Pennsylvania. Watch video here.

Gypsy jazz writer skirmishes

Sherry Canary, of the musical group “Hot Club Canaries” takes DJango Reinhardt songs and puts lyrics to them. And she writes her own songs in the gypsy jazz idiom. She does a lot of collaborating as a member of an Internet group FAWM February Album Writing month., http://fawm.org Members compose 14 songs in 28 days and listen and comment on each other’s work. Participants include all kinds of composers from housewives to professionals. Canary also participates in “skirmishes” - writers have only one hour to write the music, the lyrics, produce it and get it online. Watch video interview and singing here. In another video, Canary sings her composition satirizing the world's dictators, "Coffee with Gadaffi." The Hot Club Canaries perform at the Mermaid Inn on Thursday May 10, 2012

Flips parking authority the bird for boot

A carpenter from Media doing work in Philadelphia fumes when he encounters the parking authority immobilizing his parked car with a big yellow “boot” for unpaid parking tickets.

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[I’m] coming out from lunch and I see them right here putting it on and I run over as they’re putting it on and they’re, “Oh, we can’t do anything,” and I say “Are you serious?” They tell me they don’t have a key for it but there’s another guy with a van that has a key for it. I mean it’s just a moneymaking scheme. The PPA isn’t even owned- is not even a part of the police department. It’s its own entity. It just makes me so mad And then I had to be on the phone like forty minutes to get this thing taken care of and I still have to go to work.  I have six million things to do that don’t involve me waiting for someone to take a boot off. And then they say three hours. Then the other guy says they could be here within in an hour and a half to unboot it so it’s just ridiculous.  And now I have to call and see if someone will come and unboot my car. WHAT ABOUT THE TICKETS? My outstanding tickets. I didn’t even know. I knew I had two but I had more than $500 of outstanding tickets. And I can pay that because I work and I am able to pay that. But if you didn’t have a job or your unemployed or in between anything, you just can’t pay that. And then I have to call the homeowner that I’m working at and make sure that I can still come finish the job because she’s on a time schedule. I’m on a schedule.  Like Jesus Christ, it’s upsetting… A little known fact about the PPA is that it’s not even a part of Philadelphia. The money doesn’t go to Philadelphia at all, no aspect of it. It’s a company based out of Maryland-

I THINK IT MUST. SOMETHING MUST COME TO THE CITY. Well, they promised a percentage of it to go to the education system but instead of doing that they took that money and put it into research development, basically creating kiosks, all the stands where we put money in to get a little ticket for it to expire and press pay more tickets.  They developed those kiosks so they couldn’t employ somebody to do it, to go around and check. They could have less meter maids and have less jobs in the city of Philadelphia so that they can make more money. I mean it’s ridiculous. Carpenter James Jenkins of Media, PA by his booted car on Germantown Avenue, Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia.

How would pro-life student regulate abortion?

A student who attends a Christian high school describes himself as "pro-life" and ponders how he would regulate abortion.

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I had off because I didn’t have a midterm test at school. I came in to work, 10:30 and after I’ll go sit down somewhere and study for the exam. WHAT’S THE EXAM ON? History, U. S. History. AND THIS IS AT..? Philmont Christian. AND WHAT ERA OF U.S. HISTORY DO YOU HAVE TO KNOW TODAY? It actually goes from the creation of the Constitution to modern day so we learn about cases and amendments, that stuff. DO YOU TALK ABOUT ROE V. WADE IN AMERICAN HISTORY CLASS? Yeah that’s one of the cases. WHAT DO YOU UNDERSTAND ABOUT THAT DECISION? Which one is that, again? THE ROE V WADE RIGHT TO ABORTION DECISION? I’m definitely pro-life. I’m against abortion. A small percent of circumstances like rape and stuff like that obviously is really tough, a tough call but I think that even if someone isn’t born, the life is still important. HOW DO YOU BELIEVE THAT SHOULD BE REGULATED? It’s tough to say. I’m not sure, yeah, I’m not sure. Brett Steiger of Abington, Cedars Café, Forbidden Drive and Northwestern Avenue. Watch video here.

Olsens turn shells into homes

Learn how the Olsens find dilapidated homes, gut them and turn them into beautiful, rehabbed homes. Watch video here.

Israelis jail him for peaceful protest

Lucas Koerner from the Mount Airy section of Philadelphia talks about being seriously roughed up and arrested by Israeli police as seen in the video here during a trip with a peace group to Israel. He was subsequently jailed for two days for peacefully protesting the annual Jersulem Day parade which celebrates Israel's capture of East Jerusalem during the 1967 Mideast War.  Koerner reports that this was the first time that the parade was deliberately winding its way through an Arab neighborhood. Watch interview here.

Homeless homeless advocate from DC comes to Philly

Eric Jonathan Sheptock was placed in foster care until the age of 5 after being battered in the head by his natural parents as an infant. At five, he was adopted by a Polish father and Italian mother into a family that eventually grew to 38 children, some biological, some adopted.

He has been in and out of homelessness for the last 17 years, and based out of a Washington DC shelter advocates for the homeless full time.

Sheptock was staying with a family in Chestnut Hill this past weekend while working on the campaign for Sheriff of Philadelphia homeless advocate Cheri Honkala.

Honkala, whose campaign motto is "Keeping Families in their Homes" promises that, as sheriff, she will not evict anyone - at least not until the economy gets better.

In the video here, Sheptock talks about growing up in a family of 37 kids.

In the video to be seen by clicking here, Sheptock talks about why he would find it difficult as a homeless advocate who has an adversarial relationship with the government, to work for the government himself but how Honkala would manage to do it if elected Philadelphia Sherif.

In the video to be seen by clicking here, Sheptock talks about his life, his struggles and the struggles of the homeless.