http://www.ereleases.com/pr/20080702008.html

(Or: of no news, entertaining consumer affairs help and silly vacation tips)

Vacations, no-school-whacky schedules, family commitments all make for a lazy summer.

You can tell things are bad when a story about a leaking water fountain in city hall almost makes the paper. The offending oasis soiled the carpet outside the office of public works director Charlotte Katzenmoyer, collapsed a ceiling tile in the basement and soaked a few file-laden boxes stored in the hallway. Not much else to report, including the fact that no computers were damaged by the incident.

Perhaps put off by the potential headline of “Nothing damaged in city hall leak” the short never saw the light of day.

Which is not to say “no news” is always quashed. I still remember a headline in one of the dailies many years ago that blared, “No one injured when school bus hits tree.” Aside from the seemingly “Dog Bites Man” aspect of the headline, things got even sillier when you read the story and realized no one but the driver was on the bus anyway. Which seems to minimize the possibility for injury. And also begs the question: “If a school bus hits a tree in the forest and no one’s on board…”

Sorry.

Now Comes the Summer of Consumer Discontent

A friend of mine (ok, so I don’t catch dirt, I’ll fess up: it was my wife) returned from a conference which featured a presentation by a guy named Bob Sullivan, who prepares “The Red Tape Chronicles” a blog for MSNBC.com which covers internet scams and computer fraud. His latest book is titled, “Gotcha Capitalism, How Hidden Fees Rip You Off Every Day and What You Can Do About It.”

Anyway, his presentation included a few sites and blogs he recommends people should check out regularly (his included, of course—he has a book to sell). I have poked around them, and while I’m not in the business of promoting the blogosphere, they are fairly enlightening/entertaining. In no prioritized order, here they are (complete wwith obligatory catchy phrase):

The Ripoff Report (“Don’t Let Them Get Away With It”)

The Consumerist (“Where consumers bite back”)

My 3 Cents (Billed as “The Consumer Revolution”)

Pissed Consumer (My personal favorite for obvious reasons)

Consumer Affairs (“Knowledge is Power” it says…)

Like you had nothing else to do.

Lazy, Hazy Crazy Days of Summer

We’re into the day trip thing. We used to spend an inordinate amount of time in Baltimore and D.C., but now that our oldest is in college in Philly (and working there this summer) we’ve started poking around there. Some things we recently found out:

The Adventure Aquarium and Battleship New Jersey on the Camden waterfront makes for an interesting time in an odd yin/yang kind of way. Here’s a key tip for the Aquarium: It’s open until 5 and later in the day is better. Up until about 2 or thereabouts the place is filled with scads of little kids from camps. Not that there’s anything wrong with loud high-pitched voices in rooms with low ceilings…

Also, you don’t have to drive across the Ben Franklin if you don’t want to. (A friend of mine once lived in Philly, worked in New Jersey, and had a funny line about what happened while he drove across the bridge every day. But I’ll keep it to myself in case one of the two people who read this is from Jersey.) You don’t even have to drive to Philly, either – depending on the number of people, Amtrak’s a financially viable alternative these days, with gas, parking, etc.

The PATCO high speed line takes you from center city and hooks up with the River Line, which plops you off right at the Aquarium.

Or the River Link ferry leaves from Penn’s Landing for a nice little trip across the Delaware.

Another interesting juxtaposition of sites involves the Eastern State Penitentiary, which is the proverbial stone’s throw away from the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

A quirky, little-known place is the Insectarium on Frankford Avenue in Philly’s “Great Northeast.” It opened in 1992 when Steve Kanya, who owned “Steve’s Bug-off” exterminating firm, decided to take the building next door and turn it into a museum dedicated to the things he was trying to eliminate. While some of the “interactive” parts of the museum are showing some wear and tear (a diplomatic way of saying they’re often broken) it’s definitely an interesting place if you like creepy crawly stuff. Of special interest in the educational department is a working beehive (the bees enter and exit through a tube in the wall) behind glass. Of special interest in the gross department is a display featuring real-live mockups of a kitchen and a bathroom infested with roaches.

Finally, if you want to turn the day trip into an affordable overnight, here’s a Priceline tip (yes, we’re cheap and big fans of the priceline bidding thing). Go to the Philadelphia Convention Center website (oh, excuse me, the official name is the Pennsylvania Convention Center) and find the dates when there are no conventions scheduled there. Then enter a low bid on priceline for a center city hotel. With no conventioneers around, the hotels are looking for business and will take reasonable – and sometimes ridiculously low – bids.

And please, save any comments about convention centers for somewhere else.

Local trip notes

Took the 10-year-old son to the Ephrata Cloister. Was the first time I’d been there since, oh, 1998, when our daughter hit the magic age of 10, which, in our family, translates to “The Summer of One-Day-A-Week Knowledge Infliction Excursions.”

New (or so it was to me, advancing age being what it is) was a film at the beginning of the tour where characters explained, in first-person, the history/concept of the Cloister. It’s an interesting film that places things in great context (though a warning – apparently the film’s makeup artist was absent from school on the days they covered: “Beards – how to make them look real.”)

That was followed by a 45-minute or so tour given by a guide who was both knowledgeable and enthusiastic about the topic. Even more impressive was the fact that it was on one of those hot-as-you-know-where days a few weeks ago and while our guide was dressed in an ankle-length robe he didn’t break a sweat.

I thought that would pretty much do it for our son, but to his credit after the tour he wanted to stick around and poke into every nook and cranny. As we were leaving, I asked him what he thought, and he said, “Well, I didn’t understand much of it, but looking at all of the old stuff was pretty cool.”

Fair enough.

Turns out what he didn’t understand was the whole celibacy aspect (or, as he called it, “that celi-whatever thingy”). I was in no mood to delve into the birds and bees discussion, which turned out to be the right call. That wasn’t the point he got out of it at all. Turns out that at the age of 10, evidently most girls suffer from severe cootie infestations (not his words – just putting my childhood nomenclature in his mind). Consequently, the idea of creating a society where males and females work and live separately is not so much an oddity as it is, in the mind of a 10-year-old boy, a work of sheer genius.

And at that point I’ll leave well enough alone.

I live in the city. I walk and drive all over the place and never really thought much about trash. I’d see things, come up with an absent-minded “Gee, look at that – what a shame” and move on.

Until Wednesday.

I spent the morning walking around with John Cotton and Linda Duschl, the city’s two new SWEEP – Solid Waste Education and Enforcement Program – officers. After that, I’ll never look at trash and weeds the same way again.

First, a note about John and Linda: The city couldn’t have picked two better people.

John’s a former housing inspector I first met while working on a story about landlord-tenant issues in the city. He’s diligent, he’s concerned, and he’s passionate about doing what’s right for city residents. He’s also a better psychologist than some people who practice professionally.

He’s one of those people who can read others instantly. He knows when to laugh; he knows when to be tough. He can be humble and disarming and authoritative and commanding within a matter of minutes.

He’s also a student of human nature. At one point, while Linda was talking to a resident, he watched and told me quietly, “We read body language. We can tell if it’s going to be a good interaction or a bad one within seconds.”

Linda was in parking enforcement for over 18 years. She volunteered for SWEEP duty because, “I wanted to do something different and I wanted to make a difference.” She also said her switch “gave some of the younger girls a chance to move up.”

Linda’s got a way with people, too, some of which I’m sure was perfected while dealing with people complaining about parking tickets. She’s straightforward without being brutally blunt and wears her compassion for the city on her sleeve.

They both possess a healthy mixture of optimism, idealism and realism. Which is good, because their task is a daunting one.

They spend all week walking the 13 city zones that have been defined by the police bureau. They took videographer Paul Franz and me to four different locations Wednesday.

John’s point? “It doesn’t matter what neighborhood you’re in, it’s the same problem everywhere.”

And what a problem it is.

I’m not going to go into any kind of long-winded attempt to analyze this from some sort of socio-economic, psychological, human-behaviorist kind of view. As I am wont to do I’ll just jump to my own conclusion (based on no scientific data other than years of observation): People are lazy. Too many people don’t care. Or both.

John and Linda, along with their boss, the city’s solid waste recycling manager Mike Devaney, believe education is the key.

OK, I’ll give them that. Some people may not know the ins and outs of the city’s recycling program. I’ll put some of their educational information at the end of this piece for people to check out.

Mike told me an anecdote where he talked to a guy who had piles of trash bags in his backyard because he didn’t know the city provided trash pick up.

When Mike told him it did, the guy said, “Oh, so that’s why I’ve been getting those bills from the city. I didn’t know what they were for.”

But that doesn’t account for the person walking along the street and tossing the soda cup into the gutter – or into the front yard – for no reason.

Mike, who is probably one of the most passionate people when it comes to trash that you’ll ever meet, says if he’s in his car, or walking along, and sees someone toss litter onto the ground, he’ll confront them.

“I’ll say, ‘I wouldn’t come into your neighborhood and throw litter onto your sidewalk. Why would you come here and do the same thing in mine?’ ”

That scenario is one of the reasons more trash cans are appearing in the city: to try and deter the thoughtless dropper.

In a talk I had with Mike earlier this year, he told me about a study done at Disney World. They gave out free, wrapped candy to park visitors, and then watched them to determine how long it would take for them to pitch the wrapper on the ground. It turned out to be something like 20 steps.

That’s why, Mike said, when you go to Disney World you see trash cans every 40 feet or so. And the place is clean.

But trash cans aren’t the answer to some of the things I saw Wednesday.

Bags of trash piled in backyards. We’re not talking two or three, either.

It turns out that trash breeds. Sort of like the “broken windows” theory that says if a building has a couple of broken windows that aren’t fixed, more will appear because it sends a message that no one cares.

So if a bag of trash isn’t removed, it quickly turns into two. Or four. Or 10.

A plastic bag of junk is tossed onto the street. Someone kicks it, spreads its contents around and you now have trash in the street and on the sidewalk. People walk by, think, “hey, no one cares,” and the soda cup hits the dirt.

Then, there are things people throw out. And when I say “throw out,” I mean “toss in the backyard.”

You could stock a bedding store with the number of mattresses and box springs I saw lying around in just two hours of walking.

One place had a pair of toilets leaning against a fence. They looked relatively new (or at least completely intact and fairly clean) and Linda observed, “The sad part of this is that these could be given to the Habitat for Humanity store and someone could re-use them.”

Mattresses, by the way, (along with flammable furniture on porches or propped against a house) drive John and Linda nuts. They’re easy homes for bugs and rodents. But they’re also fire hazards. Toss a cigarette onto a sofa on the wood porch and in a city of row homes you have a serious problem.

Linda carries with her pictures taken of city homes gutted by fires started when a mattress or piece of furniture ignited.

Some situations they encounter defy comprehension.

We walked into a dead-end alley and immediately it became clear we were in a makeshift shooting gallery. The needles, empty bags and tourniquet bands were one thing.

But under the eaves of a garage lay a mattress, complete with blanket and pillow. And nearby were soiled diapers.

“Look at those pampers,” John said dejectedly. “Somebody’s back here doing this and changing diapers, too.”

John has a special place in his heart for kids. He told me he’s willing to work with people, “but if I see kids around the situation, I turn up the heat.”

At one location we walked down a back alley as a baby strapped into a chair on a back porch started crying, which turned to out-and-out screaming when no one attended it. Eventually the mother appeared and said, “I’m coming to take care of you.”

John’s eyes narrowed as he said under his breath, “You better get over there. That baby’s trying to tell you something’s wrong.”

In July, the city will stop handing out “friendly reminders” and start issuing $25 tickets for uncorrected violations. There has been concern that the officers will be heavy-handed, unfeeling bureaucrats in their approach and ticket everything that comes down the pike.

After spending the morning with John and Linda I think those concerns are a bit unfounded. Or at least they deserve a chance to prove the skeptics wrong.

They have been given a great deal of leeway to use their own judgment and it appears to be a good decision on Mike Devaney’s part.

For one thing, there’s so much going on out there that they won’t have time to nitpick every little thing. They understand livability issues. They know what poses the greatest threats to the health and safety of city residents.

But I’ll tell you one thing: John and Linda don’t like being ignored. They know which properties they’ve visited numerous times and have little patience for people who routinely ignore their warnings.

Linda was particularly irked at one location, where she found a reminder she had issued months ago thrown on the ground amid yard debris. They weren’t unhappy when I asked for the address of the property to include in the article.

She comes at it from an angle of having a husband who has always, routinely, cleaned up trash on their property. She knows it’s not easy, is willing to work with people, but understands, she says, “it’s a two-way street.”

As for John, how can you say a guy who is upset by a screaming, ignored baby is an unfeeling bureaucrat who doesn’t care about people?

Here’s some general informational notes from the City of Lancaster:

• Have graffiti on your property, a fence or garage door? Call the city and they’ll come and remove it or paint over it free of charge. All they’ll ask is that you sign a form releasing the city from any liability involved in the process.

• The city has a tire drive that allows you to drop off tires at its Engleside facility free of charge. Call 291-4744 for details.

• The city also will pick up “woody yard waste” for free twice a year. Details at the same number.

• Residents under contract with the city’s single-hauler program are allowed to put out four (30-gallon) trash bags and one bulk item a week. However, tags for additional bags can be purchased at the city treasurer’s office for $2 each.

• Information regarding the city’s curbside refuse and recycling program can be found at LancasterOnline.com, connected to the story that appeared Sunday about the Administrative Ticket program.

That 291-4744 is the magic number for all questions related to refuse and recycling. You can also email them at: swhotline@cityoflancasterpa.com

Michael Deibert is a former student who grew up in Lancaster County and is now a journalist/author living in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo. He has already written one critically-acclaimed book, “Notes From the Last Testament: The Struggle for Haiti,” chronicling the rise, fall and exile of Jean Bertrand Aristide during the years 2001-2003 while Michael was a correspondent for Reuters living in Port au Prince.

Thankfully, Michael has kept me in his writing loop and he recently sent me his most recent piece inspired by the flap over Barack Obama’s comments about Pennsylvania at a fundraising event in San Francisco. In it, Michael explores his own Lancaster County roots and explains how a close read of Obama’s comments, and perhaps to a greater degree, Hilary Clinton’s exploitation of them, has helped him decide whom he will support in the Pennsylvania primary.

This is not an endorsement of any sort (not that the nation is waiting with bated breath for mine anyway). It’s just an interesting read so I thought I’d pass it along.

I can hear them laughing.

At me.

For a number of years now, I have railed against internet blogs and chat rooms.

And for my sins I received a blog. Good thing I love life’s ironies.

My greatest question has always been who has time for this stuff?

I read three papers a day. I get e-mail feeds from other outlets, conventional and unconventional, from the left, right and in between. I subscribe to a few great magazines. I get three Sunday papers. I have a wife and kids whose company I enjoy (and, for some unknown reason, they appear to enjoy mine). There are great books to read, incredible music to hear, great places to go, community organizations that desperately need volunteers. There are even a few good shows on TV.

(For a glimpse into my shallow TV life, here are two of my favorites in the non-cartoon, sports or food-related category: 1. Project Runway – My daughter turned me on to this three years ago and I’m still hooked. The people are weirdly entertaining and, let’s face it, any show that can deposit Heidi Klum in my living room once a week can’t be all bad. 2. Deadliest Catch - Two years ago if someone would’ve told me I’d be mesmerized by guys freezing their butts off to dump crab pots onto a boat, I’d have said you were nuts. Now I long for the Sunday marathon.)

But I digress.

The bottom line is, with all of that to enjoy, I want to spend my spare time staring into a computer screen for a couple of hours - why, exactly?

I also have specific gripes with each.

Twenty years ago, the random lunatic had a typewriter, paper, envelopes and stamps. The audience was limited.

Now, for maybe 500 bucks that same random lunatic has a blog and an audience of millions.

This is not to imply that all bloggers are lunatics (present company excluded). There are, in fact, some good blogs out there. They offer insight, analysis and alternative news outlets. Good for them.

There are also some good local bloggers. I check the ones I like somewhat regularly just to see what’s up. Good for them, too.

But there are certainly lunatics. And here’s the problem: Some people can’t, or won’t, separate the electronic wheat from the chaff.

Here’s a scenario that has played out far too often in my classroom:

I offer a topic we’ll be discussing the next day and suggest they find some info on it.

Kids come to class clutching notes and printouts of Web sites.

I ask, “How did you find that Web site?”

They answer, “I Googled it.”

I ask, “Do you know anything about the Web site?”

“No.”

Assignment for tomorrow: Come in with a critique of the Web site, discover its mission, who supports it, its bias, where the money comes from.

Student comes in the next day: “Yikes, I had no idea …”

It’s all out there, the good the bad, the ugly. And in the egalitarian world of the internet, it’s all equal.

Yes, we can educate, and will continue to educate, but that doesn’t seem to guarantee success. Somehow, there are those who always gravitate to the lowest level. (It was H.L. Mencken who observed, by the way, “No one ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public.”)

And as far as chat rooms, in addition to the time element mentioned above, I am leery of places where people can hide behind fake names to second guess, criticize, malign, praise, comment or whatever.

In a society where reasoned discourse and the concept of taking responsibility are lying side by side in an alley with a knife in their backs, anonymity can be the key to Pandora’s box.

So here I am. Blogging.

How did this happen?

After one city council meeting I wrote a piece, my editor liked it, but said there was no room in the paper for it.

“What you need,” he said, “is a blog.”

Egads. To bend a phrase: Yesterday I couldn’t spell blogger; now I is one.

I could offer a feeble defense that at least this assignment is part of my job, but feel free to call me a hypocrite. You wouldn’t be the first or the last. And not without justification.

I prefer a comment a friend of mine made upon learning my voice would be joining the blogging wilderness.

“This is one small step for a man, another giant leap backward for mankind.”

Notes and observations following the April 6 gathering of City Council.

Business old and new

Council unanimously approved a bill authorizing the city to enter into an agreement with West Hempfield Township to register the city as a construction code official to administer the Uniform Construction Code in the township.

This was necessary because the city is installing new filtration systems in its two water plants, one of which lies in West Hempfield Township (and processes water from the Susquehanna River). This bill will enable city officials to oversee construction work on a city-owned facility in a neighboring municipality.

Council gave first reading to a bill that would amend and update the city’s Fire Prevention Code.

Rosie the Recycler

            Mayor Rick Gray recognized the three student winners in the Bureau of Solid Waste & Recycling’s contest to design its recycling mascot, “Rosie the Recycler.” The posters were on display in city hall, where people could vote on their favorite design. (Gray noted, “I’m proud to say I picked two of the three.”)

            The mascot is part of the city’s education program.

            At a recent speaking engagement before the Lancaster Ministerium, Gray said he was asked, “What are you going to do about litter in the city?

            “My response was, ‘What are you going to do about it?’ My point was that if we want to solve the litter problem it has to be taught in the homes, in churches and synagogues, and in schools.”

            The winners, all fifth graders at Elizabeth Martin, were Zoey Shenk (1^st) and runners-up Adaliz Maldinado and Max Chalfant. The winner received a $300 savings bond, the runners-up $100 each.

            The proud students displayed their posters and basked in the applause of family, friends, council and the audience.

Gray concluded, “The three of you have a future in art and/or advertising.”

 Take my wife, please….

You often get the feeling that if Mayor Rick Gray hadn’t gone into the law or politics he would’ve tried his hand at stand-up comedy.

At the end of his report to City Council this past Tuesday he offered one final tidbit of information that he prefaced by saying, “I’m being made to do this.”

Then he read, “I’m happy to report that one of the goats living at our Long’s Park petting zoo has delivered two baby goats. Ms. Katzenmoyer reports that ‘another is ready to pop.’”

Gray then departed from his report transcript and offered, “We’re kicking around possible names for them: ‘Barbie’ and ‘Q’ or ‘Shish’ and ‘kabob.’”

Councilman Jose Urdaneta asked, “Regarding the one that’s ready to pop, is Ms. Katzenmoyer going to help with the birthing of the baby/”

Katzenmoyer vigorously shook her head no, but Gray chimed in, “Frankly, I think after making me read that, it will become part of her job description by tomorrow morning.”

And last week, before the conference to announce the selection of Keith Sadler as the city’s new police chief convened, Gray stood at the podium before the assembled cameras and asked the crowd, “Is my bowtie straight? During the campaign my opponent purposely ran pictures of me with my bowtie crooked and I thought that was a dirty trick.”

Of course, the conference happened a few days after Barack Obama met his Waterloo in an Allentown bowling alley (a 37 in 7 frames) so Gray added, “Maybe after Senator Obama’s bowling adventure we’ll start to get away from gutter politics.”

Ba-da-boom.

Council approved Sadler’s hiring Tuesday, and the  new chief will be sworn in at its April 23 meeting. (Council’s meeting is on Wednesday the 23^rd because the Pa. Primary is Tuesday the 22^nd.)

Public meetings

Council reminded citizens about two upcoming public meetings:

A meeting tonight (Wednesday, April 9) at 7 p.m. in Southern market to discuss the proposed ordinance codifying new streetscape standards for the downtown. City officials will open the meeting with a brief presentation, then open the floor to questions.

Tomorrow (Thursday, April 10) the city will host a 7:30 p.m. meeting in  Ross Street United Methodist Church, 312 E. Ross St., to discuss proposed site improvements and pool renovations to the Sixth Ward Park.

Street closings

“These things always remind me of that sign, ‘Temporary inconvenience, permanent improvement,’” Gray said before reading upcoming street closings:

East King Street between Duke and Lime streets will be closed Monday, April 28 and Tuesday, April 29 to build a 330-ton crane that will be used to construct the new East King Street garage. This block of East King will be closed again in late June and early July before work is completed in early Fall.

The 500 block of North Duke Street (between Frederick and James streets) will be closed from May 2 through May 12 to construct the pedestrian bridge that will connect the Lancaster General Hospital’s parking garage and new medical office building to the main hospital. Gray said people should anticipate heavy delays on Prince Street and the city will mark alternate routes.

The 500 block of North Queen Street will be reduced to one lane (with periodic traffic interruptions) during the daytime between Monday April 14 and Friday, May 16 to complete work on the LGH parking garage. Both lanes will be open in the evening and on weekends.

Gray said the city will provide regular updates through media outlets when current information becomes available and encouraged people to consult the city’s website as well.

Recognition

Gray publicly thanked McCaskey High School seniors who have been doing volunteer work at parks throughout the city. The groups, Gray said, undertook Spring cleanups at the 6^th Ward Reservoir, Farnum, Northwest Corridor, and South End parks.

“Volunteer groups are an important part of maintaining our city parks,” Gray said. “We couldn’t do it without their assistance and their efforts are greatly appreciated.

Leftovers

Silent Majority

This came to mind during the March 25 council gathering.

If you’re of a certain age, you may remember the Silent Majority. It was the term coined by Richard Nixon in 1969 to identify what he believed to be the larger body of Americans who were not protesting the war, not attacking his administration and who were essentially OK with the way things were going. His argument was that the media focused its attention on the minority of vocal protestors, thereby overstating their numbers and impact.

The Silent Majority came to mind last Tuesday during debate over Mayor Rick Gray’s Administration proposal to issue $25 tickets to property owners for specified housing code violations. Four landlords and two individuals addressed council to raise issues about the ordinance. A few other landlords sat in the audience but did not speak.

            While defending the proposal, Gray’s Chief of Staff, Pat Brogan, said the city had received numerous phone calls and e-mails from city residents supporting the initiative. Based on that feedback, she urged council to pass the bill unanimously (which it did).

            With over 100 landlords owning rental properties in the city, a multiple-choice question comes to mind. Did they not show up because they:

            A.  Are OK with the proposal

B.     Don’t really care that much

C.     Figure it’s a done deal and didn’t want to waste their time

And where were all the residents who supported the ordinance? Does the city harbor its own “silent majority?”