I deleted everything except for this part, because it was kind of funny:

So, if I get another message from you that I’m not happy with, you better be ready to send me a letter to Van Stone P.O. Box 395 E. Lansdowne, PA 19050. Or you can contact me at (610) 931-8810. Don’t forget to stop being a coward that you are -using the fictitious name Dan- because just like I’m also a honored Investigative Reporter in the eyes of many folks who live in both Media and Philly, it won’t be hard for me to figure out who you really are. I’m guessing you are someone connect to Media and the known alleged corruption there.

I love having a blog.

Phone banking 10 to 8 today and 10 until the vote tomorrow at the offices of the Philadelphia Unemployment Project. 112 Broad Street 11th floor

or from your home: for instructions email or call Athena Ford at aford@philaup.org or 267-257-6968.

1) As it says in bold before you post, you may not post full articles.

2) This site has had enough Media courthouse stories, without any real ability to know if they are true. I don't know what is going on in Media, but I am uncomfortable with all this. Please start a Media Courthouse blog.

Dan

Know one really cares if you have had enough Media courthouse stories. You must be connected somehow to the Media courts and are trying to protect them. Who in their right mind would have a free blog and then turn around and send them this stupid, stupid message about what you have had enough of. If you are for free speech then, be for real about it. Don't try to delete articles that are true. If you don' know if the articles written from the blog Van Stone then why not, you bone head, do some research and be a real blog.

It’s hard to imagine that a story that first comes to public light exposing a day-long series of attacks against dozens of Asian immigrant kids can get any worse with time. But indeed, somehow the story about anti-Asian violence at South Philadelphia High School keeps getting more and more outrageous as a relentless pattern of school and District misrepresentation becomes more apparent.

In riveting testimony earlier this week at the School Reform Commission, the grandmother of one of the Asian student victims wept as she described the calculated efforts of school personnel who had scapegoated and unjustly forced out her grandson following a brutal assault upon him December 2.

Her grandson was harassed in school then severely beaten outside of school the day before the December 3 attacks at South Philadelphia High School. The school never investigated the incident yet somehow punished the student, arguing first that the student had attacked a “disabled” African American student thereby triggering the December 3 violence. When that story unraveled he was then cast as a gang member by school officials as part of their new narrative that December 3 was located in gang violence and a broader pandemic of violence throughout the city.

He was one of the students suspended then transferred out of South Philly High as part of the story that December 3 was a “multiracial assault” “reminiscent of street gang conflict.” It was a story that made it to highest levels of the School District and referenced by Superintendent Arlene Ackerman and an official District investigation.

Who therefore evades scrutiny? Anyone at the school or District despite the fact that community advocates had documented for more than a year a dozen meetings about on-going anti-Asian violence at Southern and pleas that went unheeded by school and District officials.

As Isaiah Thompson points out here in this week’s cover story at the City Paper:

Though never mentioned by name, this student, who speaks little English, became part of a convenient narrative for a District that wanted to paint these events as being less about the long-standing victimization of a targeted ethnic minority than the result of a feud gone haywire. After all, with the latter explanation, school officials couldn't be blamed for ignoring the powder keg that was about to blow.

In the process, a young boy became the central focus of a relentless campaign by the District who first painted him as a troublemaker then a gang member in order to fit their narrative. Not only did the District fail in its due process (failures in communication, lack of translation) they also accused him of participating in an attack the previous year – even though he was living in another state.

It’s belated gratification to note that District officials are today announcing steps to clear the boy's name. It took a family that wouldn’t accept the abuse, a hard hitting cover in the City Paper, weeks of front page stories at the Inquirer and other media coverage to make happen what three months of meetings could not.

But it’s an indication to what lengths the school and District have gone in order to avoid assumption of responsibility for the violence at South Philadelphia High. Since Dec. 3, the District and school have engaged in a deliberate pattern of behavior to misrepresent what's been happening at South Philadelphia High School and who's been responsible. It’s why Asian community advocates have not been able to “move forward” as Superintendent Arlene Ackerman has declared we ought to.

Consider the testimony of the numerous youth and advocates who testified yesterday about why the District’s actions post-December 3 have been as just as shocking and shameful as what happened on that day.

• Failing to acknowledge that the attacks reflected anti-Asian, anti-immigrant violence: "The students who were attacked on December 3 were targeted because of the color of their skin, the shape of their eyes, and the accents in their voices. Period. . . Rather than rush to the scene and decry racial violence, express concern for the victims, and commit to combatting bias, the District response has been to distort and minimize - dismiss, deny, and obscure the scale and nature of these attacks." - Ellen Somekawa, Asian Americans United

• Not listening to students: Tram Nguyen of Victim Witness Services of South Philadelphia said one of the key elements to crisis response is to provide "ventilation and validation" to victims, but testified that there were "repeated obstacles put in place to make it almost impossible for the students to share their stories. When they were allowed to talk they were also told how much their story was hurting other students at the school."

• Failing to act against staff who behaved inappropriately: Student after student detailed failures of school staff from security personnel who ordered students out of the building, to a principal who escorted students into a dangerous situation to a school nurse who didn't want to call an ambulance. Student Dong Chen said: "We can identify those who ordered us to leave" but students weren't asked about the failures of adults.

You can read more student perspectives here.

While the violence at South Philly made the headlines on Dec. 3, the real story has been in the appalling way the District has handled the situation since. Unfolding before us is how localized violence becomes institutionalized: the silence of the District around racial and ethnic hate, the retaliation against specific students, and the denial of student voices.

When the District remains silent about racism and racially motivated violence, then it is telling us to do the same by default. To move on. To bury the voices of the hurt, the fearful, the silenced, the victimized. The line between the message of “move on” and “get over it” to “get used to it” has become indiscernible.

Whatever you think of Pat Meehan, you have to admire his talent for creative problem solving. A former U.S. Attorney and Delaware County DA, Meehan presumably knows a thing or two about election law. That didn't, however, stop him from filing nomination petitions so rife with errors that a fifth grader with so so vision might have questioned their adequacy. Was this stupid beyond belief? Well, sure. But give creddit where it's due: since the problems came to light, Meehan's handling of the situation has been nothing short of masterful. Future candidates caught up in petition scandals would do well to take notes on the problems he's faced and how he's responded.

Re-published: Special Investigator Probes Possible MEDIA COURTHOUSE- Jehovah's Witnesses, Abuse Scandal

Re-published: Special Investigator Probes Possible
MEDIA COURTHOUSE-
Jehovah‘s Witnesses, Abuse Scandal
by J. Walker, and Gerald McNeil
vspfoundation@yahoo.com

Philadelphia, PA, and MEDIA COURTHOUSE-He lost 4 family members, survived two wrongful imprisonment, survived several violations of his Constitutional Rights, and weighed barely 190 pounds when his mother tried to bail him out of George Hill Correctional Facility, formerly known as the Delaware County Prison, in 2004. Officer Coleman, a Special Investigator, involved within petitions and complaints of Community Family Issues, - a Public Watchdog group, is drawing on most recently reports of corruption within the intertwined Media Court House District Court Officials Bench and the West Philadelphia Jehovah‘s Witnesses Leaders Bench conducting abusiveness to its’ members.

Real solutions do exist to improve schools, but apparently not in Philadelphia. A student seeks to do the right thing and they are force transferred to another school. The district has been doing the same thing to teachers for years. They even tried to suppress the report by Judge Green which was critical of the school districts lack of discipline. The model the school district follows is that if you speak up, you receive the discipline, not the offender. As the article "An Asian's Anguish at S. Phila" demonstrates it’s true for South Philly High, it also is true at Roxborough where a young man I know was beaten three times, once requiring hospitalization. He was force transferred to Germantown High.

Friday March 19th is a big day across the City with a bunch of important events focused on the state of Philadelphia's employed and unemployed.

First, tomorrow at 10AM in room 400 of City Hall, the PA House Urban Affairs Committee along with the Unified Taxi Workers Alliance and Liberty Resources will hold a public meeting on House Bill 1914. This bill would grant Taxi Drivers the right to workers compensation coverage and create wheelchair accessible taxis. Workers compensation coverage is particularly important for cab drivers as they are 60 percent more likely to be killed on the job and 80 percent more likely to be assaulted on the job according to recent statistics from the U.S. Department of Labor. Moreover, according to the Philadelphia Parking Authority, taxi drives make an average of $29.50 plus tips per 12 hour shift or $4.17 an hour, and it has been reported by taxi drivers that wages are declining even further due to the recession.

HB1914 would compel medallion owners (who have seen the value of medallions go up 400 percent in the last four years) to pay around $1.50 a day for workers compensation coverage. The bill would also necessitate some wheelchair accessible cabs, which most major cities already have. Check out the video Driving the America Dream a joint production of UTWA and Media Mobilizing Project focused on the working conditions and need for workers compensation for cab drivers.

Second, tomorrow at 10:15 outside the main entrance of Temple University Hospital (Broad and Ontario) National AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka will join rank-and-file union leaders to pledge all-out support from organized labor for an impending strike by Temple University Hospital’s 1,500 nurses and professional and technical employees. Shortly before the press event, the Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals (PASNAP) will deliver a 10-day strike notice to the hospital, setting a walkout deadline of 7:00 A.M. Wednesday, March 31. Check out recent reporting on the nurses campaign at Temple University on MMP's labor blog: PASNAP wins tuition reimbursement battle | Temple students meet with PASNAP | Temple found guilty of bad-faith bargaining with PASNAP | Temple Doesn't want us to Speak for our Patients

Finally at 11:45 National AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka and Philadelphia AFL-CIO President Pat Eiding will lead hundreds of union activists in a massive rally at Paine Plaza -- across from City Hall at 15th and JFK -- to tell Bank of America that it's time to pay up to restore the jobs Wall Street destroyed in the worst financial collapse since the great depression. This event is one of 200 actions happening across the country at the Big 6 Wall Street Banks now through March 26 demanding "Good Jobs Now: Make Wall Street Pay."

Philadelphians should definitely come out and support these events

This is going to be an action packed weekend in DC and around the nation. On Friday, there will be protests of Yoo. On Saturday, there will be a massive antiwar demonstration (there will also be demonstrations in Philly, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, and South Dakota, among other places). On Sunday, there will be a large march for immigration reform. And there will be other related events around the country, along with the small protests and events that happen all the time.

(Let me know if I miss anything)

Friday

The health reform vote is coming in the House. Representative Chris Carney (PA-10) needs to keep listening to us, not the insurance companies.

In Carney's district, the House's improvements to the Senate health reform bill will [pdf]:

• Improve coverage for 406,000 residents with health insurance.

The health reform vote is coming in the House. Representative Jason Altmire (PA-04) needs to listen to us, not the insurance companies.

In Altmire's district, the House's improvements to the Senate health reform bill will [pdf]:

• Improve coverage for 437,000 residents with health insurance.

9th Ward WEAR’N OF THE GREEN
St. Patrick’s Party Fundraiser

Friday March 19th
8-11 PM

Drinks Dinner Live Music

Special Guest PA Treasurer Rob McCord

The Venetian Club
8030 Germantown Avenue
Philadelphia

$40.00

RSVP John O’Connell 267-312-1925
Or email john@elfantwisasahickon.com

Checks payable to 9th Ward Democratic Committee

Thank You,
John O

Disclosure: Hannah is working/volunteering/something for the Hoeffel campaign

Intro: A little while ago I reached out to some bloggers in Pittsburgh to get perspectives on the Westerners running for governor, since they are so unknown here. Sue Kerr of Pittsburgh Lesbian Correspondents wrote this inspiring and very well reported piece cross posted from PAProgressive.com below.

It is certainly timely. This morning, the Pennsylvania State Senate will be voting on whether to write discrimination against love into our state constitution, and so I think today provides an excellent opportunity to think about how we, living in a world which still denies the basic humanity, dignity, and beauty of millions of our friends and neighbors, can pursue justice in all our political decisions - especially, as Sue notes, in choosing those individuals to whom we, the people, lend power.

http://www.thepennsylvaniaprogressive.com/diary/2310/the-pittsburgh-quee...

The Pittsburgh Queer Perspective on Dan Onorato

This is a guest article by Sue Kerr of Pittsburgh Lesbian Correspondents.

I've been asked by progressives in Eastern PA to contribute a guest blog post. So I'm going to share the queer perspective on Dan Onorato you might not hear from the gay Onorato supporters who have the resources to travel across the state to attend house parties.

For the past four years I've been blogging about Pittsburgh's LGBTQ community at Pittsburgh Lesbian Correspondents. I cover political, cultural, and a wide range of general interest topics. I've contributed to Pam's House Blend and Lez Get Real. I recently spearheaded the second "Blog for Equality" around yet another attempt to amend Pennsylvania's constitution to protect marriage for the LGBTQ community (as I write this, the outcome of the Judiciary Committee vote is yet unknown). Over 20 bloggers, gay and straight alike, contributed thoughts both political and personal on an issue that resonates across the Commonwealth.

After 20 months, this part of our campaign for quality, affordable health care for all is coming to an end. We are fairly sure the critical vote in the House of Representatives will take place by Saturday.

The vote will be very close, and health care reform won't be enacted without an outpouring of grassroots energy that can overcome the powerful insurance company interests that are trying to block it.

So many of you in Pennsylvania have been doing so much for so long. Over the last three weeks, Pennsylvanians have led the way at two events in Washington. Hundreds of you joined us for the end of Melanie's March and for the exciting anti- health insurance company rally last week.

But whether you have been an active participant in the campaign or not, I must ask you to do everything you can in this crucial last week to make our dream a reality. Most importantly, I need you to do some

Phone banking