Local Stories Abound

And I've been lax on covering them. First, on a "what's eventually gonna chase rox_publius out of the city" note, there's this lovely story concerning Roxborough High School at the end of the block. A brawl involving 12 "girls". One aparently snuck a boxcutter in through a side door, bypassing the metal detectors students have to pass through on their way in. It sure didn't get passed to her through a window - as they are covered with metal grating, for that wholesome, caged animal effect. There are no kids at the rox_castle, and I'll probably stay in the city until there are, but unless I'm rich enough to fork over private school tuition without blinking, I'll be fleeing for the suburbs like so many before me. It's a damn shame, and it's killing our cities, but you just can't send children you love to Philadelphia City Schools. You just can't.

Speaking of high schools, I didn't realize the national story of Terri Schiavo had a local angle. Turns out me and Terri have something in common. We attended the same high school. Given this new info, I feel the need to comment in an ensuing post on this story I'd tend to let slide by in other circumstances.

Then there's the ongoing city corruption trials, where we have yet to see the kind of bulletproof evidence that we would hope for, and many in our corrupt and irrational political circles take this as justification for their belief that this is all an unreasonable witchhunt by the evil Bush justice department to take down a black minority mayor. Tom Ferrick Jr. in today's Inquirer, puts that theory to rest.

While we are enjoying our favorite pasttime of taking potshots at the Mayor, let's give him props for somehow being "unavailable" to meet with IRA terrorist supporter Gerry Adams. Perhaps the furor over his office bestowing gifts on other folks who support murder has taught him a thing or two.

But, lest we give him too much credit Mayor Street proves he is, as Maia eloquently puts it, still a moron. In response to a rash of murders in the city over the past couple of weeks, Street has composed a letter to our illustrious governor, Ed Rendell, asking for a moratorium on gun permits, and other limitations on legally held guns.

His reasons?

The human cost of gun violence is devastating to the soul of the city and weakens the fabric of our region. Consider:

* Almost 80 percent of our 348 homicides in 2003 were committed with a gun;
* In a three-year period from January 2001 to February 2004, there were 4859 gunshot victims killed or injured by gun violence, nearly ten percent involved juveniles;
* Almost a year ago we had the tragic murder of Faheem Thomas-Childs outside his school. Unfortunately there have been more juvenile murders since, sometimes youth shooting youth.

Of course, nowhere in this letter does Mayor Street address how new regulations would prevent gun violence, or how many of the murders were comitted with legally held and properly registered guns. But such a correlation matters little to the statists who run our city. The appearance of "doing something" is much more important than small matters of results. And they will gladly run roughshod over our freedoms and rights in order to keep up appearances.

And last, but certainly not least, the nearby suburb of Coatesville has a particularly egregious attempt at an eminent domain land grab underway. It seems the city wants some residents' farm for a municipal golf course, and isn't too concerned with how they feel about it. Thankfully for the family, the court battle doesn't seem to be going well for the power hungry city officials. Unfortunately for local taxpayers, those legal fees have topped over $1 million. Once again, Maia has the scoop. (Two unrelated links, one post - I'm impressed)