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In conjunction with Juneteenth, I reprise a column that ran in the Philadelphia Daily News in May 2008. It was my privilege to interview two outstanding American heroes. FLYING TOO FAST and too low to avoid it, Capt. Luther Smith throttled his P-51 Mustang fighter with the red-painted tail right
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Are all these images racist? Which ones? Why? Let me say at the start that Quaker Oats, which owns Aunt Jemima — uh-oh, that sounds like slavery — is free to dno anything it wants with its marketing imagery. The model for the original Aunt Jemima, Nancy Green, was born into slavery,
Homelessness
Remember Rachel Canning? She was the New Jersey 18-year-old who moved out of her parents home in 2014, then sued them for $654 a week in expenses, and demanded they pay her private high school and college tuition. She did not win. Rachel came to mind as I read the
Christopher Columbus
Christopher Columbus says, “Don’ta trust you mayor.” He means Mayor Gutless, who has punted the issue of the statue of the Italian explorer/criminal (your choice) to Philadelphia’s Art Commission. “That’sa what he said about the statue of Francesco Rizzo, says Columbus, “but he move it in
Black Lives Matter
I don’t know if the spasm we are living through is more like the French Revolution, or Communist China’s Cultural Revolution, with our version being called (by the ever-edgy Christine Flowers), the Multi-Cultural Revolution. You can’t swing a cat without hitting a celebrity or corporation crawling into
Police
This will end my trilogy about police, with local reporting I have done on the Philadelphia Police Department, which has been investigated many times and been under different consent decrees. In 2015, after a Department of Justice study requested by Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey, we learned Philly cops may be
Police
Police are under scrutiny, which is nothing new for the Philadelphia Police Department, although the bug collection known as City Council has not jumped into the Defund Police crazy car. One reason is that Council members (except Allan Domb) accepted personal security from the PPD at a cost of $178,
Police
I admit it. That headline, which once would have tasted as bland as yogurt, has assumed the aura of racism, so I have to explain. I mean good cops. I also like good doctors, teachers, truck drivers, accountants, farmers, even journalists. I don’t like bad ones. But liking cops
Police
When I wrote about defunding police last week, I jumped on it fast because I thought an idea that insane would collapse under its own stupidity. I underestimated the Looney Left. I forgot they pitch their tents in Wonderland, and now the Minneapolis City Council has voted to dismantle the
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It’s not just the season of coronavirus, it’s also the season of apologies, which often are rejected. Starting at home, the high-end Di Bruno Bros. grocery outlets apologized for having made an offer to provide a free lunch for on-duty police officers. Most people thought it to be
Police
The entirely justified national — even international — protests against the death of George Floyd, and ongoing police brutality, has generated an idea as radical as Russian Roulette. And as deadly. The insanity can be found along the left edge of the progressive movement that now shouts three words: Defund the police.
Frank Rizzo
The statue of former Mayor Frank L. Rizzo joins former superstar Kate Smith in ignominy, disappeared by progressives who would whitewash history rather than learn from it. I wrote the following almost three years ago, and present it today, with minor edits to update it. Dispassionate conversation about Frank Rizzo