Walking trails, bike paths, doggie parks...

By: Ruben Justiniano

Hola Amigos:

Que excitante es poder haber leido los articulos del Morning Call y del Express Times. How exciting was to read the articles from the Morning Call and Express Times about making the trails along the Bushkill creek more walkable and friendly.

It is one more example of the potential we have in the West Ward and how much we can do with our very own resources.

As a father am always worried about what can I get my son involved with so the negativity and the bad influences stay away from my him. Believe me there is many options which are positive for a teenager to be involve, right here in our neighborhood and surrounding areas. Many of you might be asking yourselves, from what you can observe and read, this question; What can possibly be so good about living in the West Ward, if all I observe and read is negative? Well I think I can answer that from my experience as a father who is raising a son in the West Ward of Easton. First let me mention a few options I have taken advantage of for my son: Family YMCA (summer camps, after school programs, family camps etc.), Third Street Alliance (swimming lessons, Family night movies), West Ward Neighborhood Partnership (Good influence to be involved in the community such as: neighborhood canton programs, pocket parks rehab, community gardening, ecology, etc.), Genesis Bicycle (Opportunity to get involved with biking, family groups that go out together and at the end go to "Purple Cow" for ice cream, sponsored by Genesis, Other bike ride options for adults and totally free, CAT program which teaches you how to fix and build your own bike "if you are willing to travel to Bethlehem" ). Boys and Girls Club of Easton (Cyber cafe, sports, etc.) Easton School of Rock (Private guitar or drum lessons "if they are into rock and roll"). These are just some options I have seen for the well being and healthy growth of my son, right here in Easton.

When I think about the neighborhood kids as any parent I fear that he may encounter and let himself go with bad influence. To my own surprise I've seen how he's been able to cope with the pressure out there and learn the to deal with it in a positive way. My biggest satisfaction is to see how he could be a good influence and bring those kids to participate with things such as: community gardening, farmers market, volunteer to work with disabled kids at my job, etc.

By reading this "Blog" almost on a daily basis I see the "passion" and the "willingness" of a large group of people, like myself, want to see this neighborhood working to its fullest potential and we will. We have so many options, resources, and are finally looking to move forward into the future with it. Recuerden que juntos venceremos!!!

http://www.mcall.com/news/easton/all-a11_3trail.7077326nov06,0,6967510.story


By Ruben Justiniano

When Is Poverty Poverty?

Posted by: Noel Jones


This post started out as a comment in response to Tim Pickel's post from Haiti below, and went over the word limit, so I decided it might be better as a post of it's own.

While living in Salvador, Bahia in Brazil, I witnessed poverty on a scale that I had never encountered before in person. People lived in handmade one or two-room shacks with dirt floors on the sides of hills in neighborhoods called refavelas, where middle-class homes lined the tops of each hill, and each major hill was a different neighborhood in the city of Salvador.

One thing that struck me was how many amputees there were among the poor--primarily because of untreated or poorly maintained diabetes. I saw hospitals and orphanages that made me want to cry. The sheer scope of the poverty there was overwhelming, and yet Brazil is not among the most poverty-stricken countries by far--on the contrary, they have a small but thriving middle class there, and although it has a reputation for being a dangerous country, it is not nearly as dangerous as many African countries. While I was there I translated for a delegation of Indian professionals from the Rotary Club, who had come to meet with professionals in Brazil about the common effects of poverty in their two countries, especially where health was concerned, since their climates have similarities. It was a real eye-opener.  

That said, I get annoyed when people talk about poverty in America as if it's really not that bad, compared to these other countries, as if we shouldn't worry about it unless it gets that bad. As if 1 in 5 Americans below the poverty line is acceptable.

Declaring War on Positivity (and Spin--loosely inspired by Mike Fleck Labeling Dennis Lieb "Bitter")

Posted by: Noel Jones


I would like to address something that has been on my mind for a while now, and this seems an appropriate time to do it. It has to do with what seems to me to be a rather modern-day interpretation of "positivity." I blame the "New Agers" and various new-agey pseudo-religions and self-help books for starting this trend in the early 80s, this assertion that "staying focused on the positive" means somehow ignoring negative aspects that need to change in our community, and choosing to only notice or dwell on things that are already beautiful and happy.  


My Gramma, rest her soul, used to belong to the Unity Church, which is really big on focusing on the positivity. When she tried to explain to me, that focusing on the positive would eventually send out enough positive energy to bring peace and prosperity to the whole world, I said, "But Gramma, how does focusing on gardening and not watching the news help reduce poverty and suffering around the globe? Are you saying that if people who don't have jobs, or homes, or safe environments to live in were to just focus on the positive, that would all change?" She shifted in her chair a little, and then she said, "Well, we just try not to think about that too much." 




While I know enough pop psychology to grasp the benefit of mottos like "stay away from toxic relationships" or "like attracts like" or "surround yourself with positive energy" or "focus on YOU" as antithetical to the damage one can do by surrounding oneself with a bunch of depressed and suicidal people and spending your energy and emotion trying to save them, I find it also symptomatic of the very self-absorbsion that has led our nation to a place where everyone's head is stuck in either their mirrors, or their TVs, or their favorite hobbies, or their careers, or their favorite mall, and not paying attention to, or participating in, their local process of government. 

Living In Haiti/Appreciating Home

One doesn't have to live in a third-world country for long before realizing how fortunate we are as Americans to live in the country we do. The stark difference in even the simplest of things grabs you right away and you realize quickly that you are far from the comforts of home.

Arriving in Haiti and the airport immediately attacks your senses.  The heat is the first thing to overwhelm you. There are no fancy gates at the Port au Prince Airport. You get off the plane onto the tarmac and you walk a fair distance to the terminal. The heat is stifling. Inside the terminal you stand in a long line going through customs as there is only one customs agent. It is hot, especially for a cold-weather fan such as I am.

The Day After (No...not a reference to the nuclear holocaust movie of the same name)

Posted by: Dennis Lieb

I'd like to thank every single person who gave up their time yesterday to stand out in the crisp November air and man the polls for me in my quest for city council. I'd also like to thank every voter who turned out to vote for their local representative.

You are members of an elite group: either a small majority or large minority (depending on the official count) of voters who took time to actually vote for the office that has the most direct effect on your local well being.

Some thoughts on the day and it's outcome...I got to the Temple Covenant of Peace at 15th and Northampton, where I vote, right at opening time and was the first person to register a vote...A first for me! I was both enthused and empowered yesterday morning when I was met coming out of the polls by a woman I had never met, who pulled my flyer out of her pocket on the way in and said she was voting for me. At that point I was leading in my ward 2-0. Yippee!

I was impressed all day with the willingness of voters to listen to my write-in spiel, to have no fear of the process and actually look forward to trying something new. Obviously, there were problems with execution in some cases. ( I was hoping for more than one lousy vote for Superior Court Judge but I guess you take what you can get right?)

I'm already emotionally beyond the election results. I'm glad I tried and would do the same thing again tomorrow. I am not disappointed because I followed my heart and followed through. Disappointment would have been not trying it. I'm now looking enthusiatically towards what other ways I can affect positive change in the neighborhood, outside of public office.

There was an obvious testy undertone all day from the Fleck camp that they were not at all happy to be forced back into Easton for the day to actually have to campaign for the vote. This was more than just my perception, as helpers at other voting sites observed the same thing. One polling official at St. Anthony's (a member of Easton's Democratic Committee) responded to a question from a poll watcher about the final count by saying that "Dennis had his chance in the primary and he lost." What does that have to do with questioning the results of this election? Is that an appropriate comment for a "neutral election official" to be making?

Maybe there are hard feelings and maybe not. I have none. I don't feel I have anything to be ashamed of either. I worked within the election rules of Pennsylvania. This wasn't about Mr. Fleck or me or whoever is in this particular seat at any particular point.

For me, this election was always about a process more than it was about an event.

The message sent by you 100 or so people that wrote my name in is crystal clear:

The West Ward will no longer be the pushover doormat neighborhood that politicians can disregard with impunity. Just as the recent urban ecology canton program has shown, there is a building momentum in this neighborhood - still in it's infancy but palpably present - that sends the following message to anyone holding office: If you want to represent this neighborhood you will have to earn it...the hard way.

There are probably better ways to spend the time, money and energy - my own or my volunteers - than to run a nearly impossible write-in campaign at the eleventh hour. It was necessary...Necessary to provide a choice that non-existent Republican, Libertarian, Green or Independent candidates could not provide. Necessary to set a tone...that no one walks in here unopposed and claims title.

From now on in the West Ward this is the credo:

Work for the right to represent us or go some place else.

DRL

Meet Your First Ever Neighborhood Rep on City Council

 Congratulations to Mike Fleck
 484 866 7437 (cell) or mpfleck1313@aol.com

Posted by: Noel Jones


Good morning, everyone--although the smoke has not cleared yet on the final vote count for our neighborhood City Council race, due to a malfunctioning machine at the St. Anthony's polling station, the counts at other polling stations show Mike Fleck to be the clear winner over write-in challenger, Dennis Lieb. There was also a terrifically high percentage of "undervotes" at each poll, which may or may not be because people tried to vote for Dennis but were confused about the process, hitting the "cast vote" button without hitting the "enter" button first, but there is no way of proving that, so it is what it is.


In other news, Sandra Vulcano and Roger Ruggles are still on City Council, and now Mike Fleck is back on Council, so it's all familiar faces. But not full of familiar faces is our new County Council, which was swept by all Republicans. I swear, Easton is the most politically imbalanced place I have ever lived in terms of Democrats and Republicans. In a healthy community, you have a balance of both, so that creative vision gets balanced with fiscal responsibility in open debate as each issue comes up for discussion. Here, we have

Shining the Light of Gratitude on the West Ward!

Christmas 1946 in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania

Me pre-natal, standing second from left, and pre-suburbia!

Timothy George Hare, R.A., M.A., Architect

The White-Haired Harbinger of Gratitude

“If I can’t have fun living, loving, and thriving
in the West Ward, I’m doing it wrong!”

"F" is for "Flashbacks!"

Living in the West Ward, I'm grateful I experience major flashbacks at every turn, regardless of the fact that I was in college in the 1960s! Hopefully I didn't unknowingly ingest any untoward substances, possibly through, what did they call it, a "contact-high"?

Here I am magically returned to 1952. I am transported back to the little village where I was an extremely happy (who knew?) small child just beginning my life in a similar place, but in a vastly different world. That lost world doesn't seem to exist in many places anymore. In 1953, without warning, I was sent packing to a car-dependent new suburb.

From our home, I walk to the Easton's Centre Square and along the beautiful rivers in the morning, listening to the roar of the dam wash yesterday away. I hurry to a big coach to Manhattan for daytrips. I watch Heritage Day fireworks from my balcony.

I amble to nearby homes of friends, corner stores, banks, dentists, restaurants, cafes, movies, car-inspection stations, the State Theatre, pubs, lawyers, parties, art openings, book launchings, Lafayette College, the public library, and museums. I even squirm to jury duty across the street!

As if in a flashback dream of my earliest childhood, I glide past barbers, five-and-dime-ish stores (OK, a dollar now), dance studios, art galleries, medical facilities, hotels, apartment buildings, homes, tourist attractions, fire stations, all bustling with vitality.

Some summer evenings, when the ice cream truck drives by our garden, playing it's endless loop of chimes (without a chorus, which annoys my husband Earl no end) I could swear it's 1952 - before the current age when sprawling suburban moonscapes have hijacked most of America's former meadows and farmlands.

When my older brother visited from Tennessee, he exclaimed, "Now I see why you like this place so much - it's exactly like where we were little before moving to the suburbs!" He was so right, like older brothers often are.

Copyright ©2009 Timothy George Hare, R.A., M.A., Architect, All Rights Reserved

My two cents to the blog from the latino point of view

Posted by Ruben Justiniano



Hola everyone... my name is Ruben Justiniano. As a Latino West Ward resident I feel privileged for the opportunity I have to contribute with my comments. I have been living in the West Ward for eleven years and I feel highly hopeful about this neighborhood. I have live in different parts of the United States throughout my naval career but I have to say this neighborhood is where I ever felt the most sense of belonging and where I am able to contribute the most.



I am originally from Puerto Rico and I have a 15 year old son who is growing in this neighborhood taking advantage of all the resources offered by this great city like the nice parks, natural trail, the creeks, river and the accessibility to anywhere in town by just walking distance, just to mention a few advantages that my son and I see that we can enjoy in this small neighborhood with a big heart.



I am looking forward to continue collaborating with my time and effort to do what I can to be part of the crowd who wants to see this place grow. The best is yet to come!



By Ruben Justiniano