NEPA Blogs revisited

I just updated my links and the vehicle by which to deliver them so as to more accurately reflect what is going on in the Northeastern Pennsylvania blogging community.

We’re only a few weeks away from the official beginning of the 2010 midterm election season, and I think reading every link on this list as we march on towards the primaries would give an unfamiliar outsider a fairly good sampling of the many diverse and disparate opinions on the same candidates and races.

After a bit of introspection, I don’t think linking to a few sites that interest me on most days and then linking to all of the rest by way of NEPA Blogs really cuts it anymore. Good or bad, the local blogging community has changed, with many eager newcomers on board. And the NEPA Blogs link is more of a look back at what this local internet scrum used to be. I’m not being critical, just realistic. Getting with the times, I suppose.

I would like to apologize to a local blogger--one Stephen Albert--for publicly ripping into one of his most recent posts. I had no qualms with him, not really. And my intent was not to demean his body of work. My reaction to his comments was merely a gross overreaction to this oft-repeated claptrap that we, as the electorate, must be somehow less than up to snuff simply because our local elected and appointed officials are being led off to the hoosegow in record numbers.

No matter who suggests it, I wholeheartedly reject this faulty premise. No matter what influences one encounters, and no matter their environment, people choose to be scofflaws all on their own. I did not cause any of this rampant corruption, and neither did any of you.

There are literally tens of thousands of voting districts that are dominated by one party, but only one voting district, Luzerne County, is home to a veritable Who’s Who of inept political scumbags. One! This one.

Anyway, Steve...it wasn’t personal.

I’ve been following this textual fistfight on Gort’s site, the reader’s comments that have been going toe-to-toe on the subject of Lou Barletta’s candidacy and his acid-tongued primary challenger. And it occurred to me that the one undeniable thing Lou Barletta did for Hazleton was to put it on the map. And I’m not referring to Lou Dobbs or any of this illegal immigration back-and-forth.

What I mean is, when the subject of politics in Luzerne County came up in the past, the points of interest were always Wilkes-Barre, Pittston and occasionally Nanticoke only because it is home to a long-time congressman despite fast resembling a hell hole. Now, thanks to Lou Barletta’s very high profile, people are actually arguing about Hazleton politics and the issues that matter most to the Hazleton area. If nothing else, give him credit for that new push-pin on the local political map.

And I have to tell you, I spend two work days in the Hazleton area almost every week. And I’m here to tell you that Barletta’s stance on all things immigration has not cased an exodus out of Hazleton, nor has it caused any businesses to be boarded up.

The people repeating that nonsensical gibberish are obviously ill-informed, or simply repeating the latest well-worn talking points because it fits in with their destructive partisan agenda, or both.

Speaking of local blogs, boy, did this one make me want to lash out in anger, something Mike McNarney rightfully taught me never to do.

From Lu Lac:

Q: You sound mad at the Commissioners do you feel they are primarily at fault?

A: Hell no, not these people. They’re trying to fix what their predecessors screwed up.

Whoa! Whoa! Whoa there!!!

Um, with no due respect to our mystery guest, didn’t the Petrilla campaign spend, like, a quarter of a million dollars to unseat former controller Steve Flood, who, it turns out, was at one time hot on the heels of the easily corruptible jackasses under the rotunda dome?

Please, do not feed me too much hollow jive about Maryanne Petrilla being an incident bystander in all of this. Her mission was to unseat the watchdog, the then whistleblower. And after succeeding him, it’s obvious she played the “see no evil” game as embezzlement, theft of services, fraud and wrongful imprisonment went on right under her nose.

As for Steve Urban, I know he’s not exactly in the loop when the Sunshine Laws are being violated with willful intent and malice of forethought, but his usual act, professing to knowing absolutely nothing until the bad news breaks on Page 1 above the fold is really, really, really getting old.

Q: You sound mad at the Commissioners do you feel they are primarily at fault?

I’ll answer that question with a question of my own…

The buck stops where?

In the past week I’ve read that I’m somehow culpable, and now I’m reading a suggestion that the county commissioners were not culpable? Boy oh boy, that’s a record-setting stretch of the imagination.

Oh, and since we’re stuck on bloggers and their contributions, I was remiss the other day in not mentioning Another Monkey and Things at Kings, two local blogs that have been around for quite some time now.

And I do recall seeing a blog before I knew what blogging was even called…Watermelon Punch. For those of you that go back quite a ways, remember that one? The girl who had Wilkes-Barre Online deleted by the host company right after the tragic events of 9-11?

Right after 3,000 innocent people were slaughtered, I wrote that if they--the Muslims--hated us that much, well, okay, then let’s hate ‘em right back, a clear call for some military payback. And then while I was at work, the plug was pulled on my site. So much for freedom of speech. So much for being tolerant of dissenting opinions.

And if you remember correctly, Wilkes-Barre Online had a new Web address inside of 45 minutes. Up and running again despite the liberal penchant for removing from the dialogue what does not fit their narrowly-defined template.

Ah, enough of all of this. I’m done here.

Time for some NFL football, i.e., sticking that overdue fork in the New York Football Giants.

Argh!!!

Bye

PS--Here's a look backward at the local blogosphere as it was captured by your hated author on November 23, 2006.