Author Archives: Dana Pico

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In defense of the single family home In the end, they're a lot better than rowhouses, apartments, and condos in large cities.

Our previous house in Pennsylvania, photo during winter of 2015-16.

Though I have published pictures of our previous home, of which I was very proud, I usually cropped them on the right, because it was a duplex. When we bought it, in 2002, it was pained entirely white, and the doors were a faded lemon yellow, with a single, brass doorknob on the right-hand door. I added the antique brass door set, deadbolt, and kickplates, and painted it red.

The stained glass in the transom was a Christmas present to my darling bride — of 45 years, 11 months, and 24 days — and the columns are now PVC, purchased from Home Despot Depot, because one of the old wooden ones was getting to be in poor shape. The three-color paint job I left to the professionals. I redecked the porch, but rather than painting it grey, as it had been before, I used Cabot’s Australian Oil in red mahogany on mahogany flooring, and had the porch deck looking like it could have been an interior floor!

Nevertheless, it was a duplex, and that meant a common wall, and a family on the other side of the building. It wasn’t bad, at first; they were decent neighbors. But, alas! they broke up, and the now single guy living on the other side couldn’t afford to keep up the mortgage, and moved out, just walking away, and leaving the other side empty. A young realtor bought it out, did a little bit of work on the inside, and then sold it for an inflated price. OK, fine, that could only increase the value of our side! Continue reading →

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Bureaucrats gotta bureaucrat It looks like the Philadelphia School District administration don't want to admit the basis of their problems

We noted, last Friday, the waste case that Martin Luther King High School in foul, fetid, fuming, foggy, filthy Philadelphia has become. MLKHS at least has the ‘excuse,’ if it can be called that, of being a school in the depressed East Germantown neighborhood, with 100% of students coming from ‘economically disadvantaged’ families.

But what about a case like this?

One of Philly’s premier high schools is in turmoil, staff, parents, and students say

Enrollment issues, staff divisions and other problems are troubling Philadelphia’s storied High School for Creative and Performing Arts, those inside say.

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As always, the credentialed media report on an individual point, and miss the real story

Every once in a while, I’ll come across a news story in the credentialed media that tells an entire story in just one sentence, but then moves on to a side issue.

This Philly 10th grader has had no English teacher all year. Now, the district wants her to take a high-stakes test.

Almost 300 teaching positions are vacant across the School District of Philadelphia. One student went to the school board to share how a vacancy is hurting her and her classmates.

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When Will Bunch refers to a prelate as Archbishop Rush Limbaugh, you know that prelate must be a good one!

The Most Reverend Charles Chaput, OFMCap, was appointed to become the Archbishop of Philadelphia on July 19, 2011, in part due to his aggressive and responsible handing of priestly sex abuse cases. The Archdiocese had serious problems in that regard, under former Archbishops Anthony Cardinal Bevilacqua and, to a lesser extent, Justin Cardinal Rigali. One would have thought that such would have made The Philadelphia Inquirer’s far-left columnist Will Bunch happy, but no, Mr Bunch preferred to refer to him as Archbishop Rush Limbaugh.

Actually, being Archbishop Rush Limbaugh, someone dedicated to the letter of the law, would be a good thing!

And today? The distinguished columnist decides to tout an OpEd by Alfred G. Mueller II, an assistant dean of the William T. Daly School of General Studies and Graduate Education at Stockton University, and it seems that Dr Mueller doesn’t like Archbishop Emeritus Chaput very much. Continue reading →

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Harvard admits to anti-Semitism on campus The real question: what will the University do about it?

When I don’t have a good photo for an article, perhaps just a picture of my morning coffee being made will suffice!

We noted, just three weeks ago, how Harvard University, the oldest and most prestigious institution of higher learning in our great nation, rather than at least negotiate with the Trump Administration over policies to end blatant anti-Semitism on campus, was choosing to double-down on discrimination instead.

Harvard is, of course, a private school, so the government cannot order it to comply, but as a private institution the government is not obligated to fund it, either. But that doesn’t mean that the university doesn’t have to address its problems. From The Atlantic:

Harvard Begins to Confront Its Anti-Semitism Problem

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You in a heap o’ trouble, girl! Nothing quite exposes some people's stupidity like social media!

Sometimes I’m just shaking my head in stunned amazement. How, I have to ask, could a public school teacher call for the assassination of President Trump, in public, on Facebook, and still have a job?

Well, maybe she doesn’t, as Superintendent Peter Hallen notified the public that he and “appropriate authorities” are actively investigating the “incident.”

Hat tip to Carol Marks of The Victory Girls! The copy of the post at the right is a screen capture, before Facebook takes it down or the lovely Miss St Germain takes it down.

At the moment, she’s doubling down. Continue reading →

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Leaping before they looked Bad causes attract bad people, and the Democrats certainly chose a bad cause!

It has to be asked: did President Trump and his staff just plain set up the Democrats for failure?

Following the arrest and deportation of the “Maryland man” Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the left waxed wroth and have trumped it up that his deportation was unjustified, that Mr Abrego Garcia was as pure as the wind driven snow. Several Democratic lawmakers even traveled to El Salvador, to try to rescue the poor, abused soul and return him to the United States.

Oops! Continue reading →

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To the surprise of no one, The Philadelphia Inquirer again endorses softer-than-Charmin-on-crime Larry Krasner Virtually nothing they wrote has to do with actual crime on the city's streets

Philadelphia Police Officers and FOP members block District Attorney Larry Krasner from entering the hospital to meet with slain Police Corporal James O’Connor’s family, because it was the District Attorney who had not kept Cpl. O’Connor’s killer in jail when he could have.

I wrote, on May Day, that I would be “completely unsurprised if The Philadelphia Inquirer in general, and far-left columnist Will Bunch individually endorse(d)” the city’s George Soros-sponsored, police-hating and criminal-loving District Attorney, Larry Krasner, for re-nomination. Well, I am completely unsurprised! Continue reading →

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Will Bunch says the quiet part out loud The left want to eliminate all immigration law enforcement

Some of our good friends on the left in foul, fetid, fuming, foggy, filthy Philadelphia simply want to eliminate law enforcement entirely. The city’s George Soros-sponsored, police-hating and criminal-loving District Attorney, Larry Krasner, has been twice elected, and I will be completely unsurprised if The Philadelphia Inquirer in general, and far-left columnist Will Bunch individually endorse Mr Krasner for re-nomination.

“Working Families Party” criminal justice organizer — whatever that title means! — Sergio Hyland, who had previously served 22 years for murder before being paroled in February of 2022, was just arrested for the early morning murder of Jasimane Ransom on July 11, 2024. When officers arrested Mr Hyland at his East Germantown home, they recovered three rifles, two handguns, and multiple rounds of ammunition inside. As a previously convicted felon, Mr Hyland was legally prohibited from possessing firearms. He was not a good guy.

Just eight days before his arrest, the Working Families Party issued a joint news release from Hyland and District Attorney Larry Krasner, announcing its endorsement of Krasner in his campaign for a third term as top prosecutor. Continue reading →