Rosemary & Walter Brasch
Posts by Rosemary & Walter Brasch
Stories We Will Still Have to Write in 2012
In January 2009, with a new president about to be inaugurated, we wrote a column about the stories we preferred not having to write, but knew we would. Three years…
Read More...
The Politicians’ Bible: Bringing in the Receipts
There isn’t a household in Pennsylvania that has active voters that hasn’t been subjected to at least two dozen TV political ads each day, several robo-calls a week, and a dozen or more direct mail full-color 8-1/2-by-11 inch postcard campaign ads. Many households have already received three or four dozen such ads in the past month.
Read More...
Arizona and the Alien-Nation of America
Legislators from several states, including Pennsylvania, have followed Arizona’s lead. Pennsylvania State Sen. Daryl Metcalf (R-Butler) filed HB2479, which almost duplicates Arizona’s law. With inflammatory rhetoric at the bill’s introduction, Metcalf told about rapes and murders, about the “financial drain” upon the state’s economy. The bill will probably die in committee. Even if it should get majority votes in both houses, Gov. Ed Rendell says he will veto it.
7 CommentsRead More...
Hammering Out a Contract:
Mary Avery, who has worked in the cafeteria for 28 years, earns $9 an hour; some years, she only received a nickel an hour increase.
Read More...
The Courage of Michael Vick
Each of the 32 NFL teams annually honors one of its own with an Ed Block award, named for the Baltimore Colts head trainer who was an advocate for improving the lives of neglected and abused children; the Foundation says it celebrates “players of inspiration in the NFL.” Unfortunately, there is no stipulation that football players who abuse animals are ineligible receivers.
Read More...
Scary Isn’t a Kid in a Halloween Costume
The ogres of health reform, also known as Republicans and the insurance industry, have already frightened Americans by spewing lies and hatreds no costumed kid could ever top.
Read More...
A Lot of Sorry But(t)s
Apologies won’t erase incivility. Those who use the invective of hate and don’t apologize can easily be dismissed as unworthy of much consideration in the public arena for rational discussion.
Read More...
Late Breaking—Sometimes Broken—News
Unless you’re a TV network desperate to score points by being the first to broadcast what it thought was news, you’re as likely to think there was actual gunfire as you are likely to hear someone say “arf, arf, arf” and think a real dog was barking.
Read More...
The Great Government Swine Flu Conspiracy
But if you listen to the multi-millionaire conservative bloviators of talk radio and Fox News, or the shrill screeching of a minority of tea-baggers and conservatives at dozens of town hall meetings, you hear one theme.
1 CommentRead More...
Pennsylvania’s Signs of Spring
While we support President Obama’s stimulus program, and we hope every American who wants a job gets one, there’s one phrase being used which causes us to shudder-”shovel ready.” This, of course, lends itself to highway, bridge, and overpass work and, with that, more of those blooming pylons.
Read More...