Planet Allentown and that Debate the Other Night

/ Rich Wilkins / Leave a comment

I don’t know Ana Tiburcio, but I feel bad for her. Getting up and debating in a televised setting for any office takes a level of confidence that like 99% of people don’t have. Then you add on that a lot of the people criticizing her now were going to say she sounded out of her depth no matter what, and it’s kind of a no win situation. She was debating a perennial candidate in Bob Smith, so he’s comfortable being lost up there, and she’s supposed to win, and nothing she did was going to be good enough, and yeah- it’s hard as hell. I want to give her some grace for that debate performance because I know it isn’t easy.

With that said, we are talking about an election that decides who controls a 102-101 election, and by extension, the well being of millions of Pennsylvanians. Tiburcio is supposed to win, and should, but it’s fair to expect her to do some real basic things in a debate. She had a job to introduce herself and her work to the public in the debate. When your leading achievement that *you* cite on the school board is community engagement, you need to go into some depth for us about that engagement- what you’ve learned, some precise stories you’ve heard, some details. I wasn’t sure from that debate if she had mastered her current job, let alone shown us she’s ready for this one. She also had a job to introduce us to her opponent. When she had a chance to ask him three questions, she decided on the second one to say, “I think I know enough about him already.” That’s wonderful. You as the candidate aren’t the audience. The voters are. They need to know more about him, and you have to assume they don’t know yet. When you combine these problems with the consistent answer of “I’ll ask the legislators,” a reasonable person could be left standing there asking, is the Democratic candidate as prepared to actually do the job as the Republican? Or is she literally being put forward as literally a proxy vote in that district for the other two state reps in Allentown? I’ll leave out the criticisms of the bizarre things (calling Josh Siegel a “five… out of ten” in the seat before her because she couldn’t find his office was weird shit), but I think it would be fair to ask if this is going to be an independent person and legislator in Harrisburg or if everything down to district office staff will be picked in the other two offices.

Which leads us to the subject of Ce-Ce Gerlach in this race. Ce-Ce is a bit to my left, as I think you could guess from the blog. With that said, no competent adult watched that debate and can honestly say Ce-Ce wouldn’t have been a more prepared candidate to do this job in March when the winner is seated. She was passed over because the folks pulling the strings here, the other major electeds in Allentown, don’t want her. I’m not sure why one blessed voter in Allentown should care what they want? When the other option was someone who was working on state issues as an aide to the State Senator, I think that was easy to excuse. He was ready to do the job. That does not seem to be the case now. If this races doesn’t change (i.e.- add candidates) between now and May, I have literally no argument for why a person should not vote for Ce-Ce Gerlach. In fact, I’ll be honest, they should. If that upsets some of the folks who are “leaders” in Allentown, so be it.

Allentown has weird politics. In the past year the Mayor beat a “Make Allentown Great Again” style candidate 80-20%, a noose was planted in City Hall, allegedly by the person who claimed it was put on their desk, and the “conservative” wing of City Council went away for the first time in forever. Don’t get this twisted, Easton and Bethlehem have their quirks too, but Allentown can be on it’s own planet sometimes. While the utter disgusting corruption of the Pawlowski era is gone now, the old idea of a couple of leaders sitting around and dividing out the spoils among the peasants that are loyal to them is still there. We’re seeing the ugly side effects of that manifest themselves in this race now. It isn’t a pretty sight to watch.

Why Pinsley Should Stay in PA-7 Instead of Running for PA State Senate 16

/ Rich Wilkins / Leave a comment

Mark Pinsley is running for Congress right now in PA-7, and at least according to Facebook, still has an even scheduled for this weekend. He should keep it up. Of course, the street rumors are churning that Pinsley will soon drop out of the race to run for the 16th District in the PA Senate. The preferred story out there is pretty predictable- that seat is winnable, the writing is on the wall, and he lacks money. Those are all pretty good reasons to make the move, if we’re being honest. The problem is, these stories are like a night club, you can get in, or if you know someone who owns the place, you can really get in. You see, Mark Pinsley is a serious problem for Bob “Crooksy” Brooks, the preferred candidate of the Harrisburg Good Ole’ Boys. They want to make Crooksy the “working class hero” of the left in this race, hence his endorsement from Bernie Sanders, but it’s all fraudulent. A lot of people are realizing that Mark has actually been honestly talking like a leftist populist for a long time. They are going to have to astroturf that kind of movement for Crooksy. So the more juicy version of this story that people who know, but don’t like it, are trying to get out there is this- the 16th State Senate District nomination to take on Jarrett Coleman can be had, if he just moves over to that race, from this one. They may insinuate support or money for that, I’m not privy to that, so it’s not clear.

Look, if in fact Mark can actually go to that race and cleanly clear the field and flip it, then he should do that. That’s not clear though. First, he did lose by nearly 10% last time. Second, this race is going to be anything but clean and clear. The Bucks County Democrats chose to endorse Pennridge School Board Member Bradley Merkl-Gump, who defeated the “Moms for Liberty” slate on that school board in 2023. That endorsement has come under fire by activists and other candidates alike. Lehigh County resident Juan Vargas decided he’s just going to run anyway. Ruby-red Richlandtown Mayor Wayne Codner, a Black veteran winning in deep red territory, is likely to run. And well, the commentary on the endorsement was basically awful in the article. The Red, Wine, and Blue organizer said no one likes it, a Democratic consultant said the party has no idea what they’re doing. This primary is going to be ugly and brutal.

There’s a fairly decent chance that Pinsley can win this primary. He has been the nominee before, he’s an elected official in the county with more voters, and he’s run before. That’s far from a sure thing though. And then there’s the question of whether he should want that. Does he want to run as an anti-establishment candidate against candidates who are literally living the anti-establishment mantra right now? Does he want to win an ugly primary and spend any money he has trying to claw through it? Does he really believe all the state leaders and labor unions saying the seat is open right now are going to fund him at the level he needs to beat a Yass-funded candidate? Yeah, there’s lots of maybes there. Maybes don’t often become yes’s, and they never do when you need a bunch of them in a row.

Yeah, I’m sure everyone is telling him he has no shot to win the Congressional race. I don’t think he’s a favorite or anything. But if he’s going to roll the dice on coming up with a flush here, why not go for more consequential victory?

Hell.

/ Rich Wilkins / Leave a comment

When I was a little kid, I went to Sunday school. One of the things they taught us about there was hell. Simply put, be afraid of hell. You don’t want to go there. It’s the worst place imaginable. As you get older, the debate over Hell gets more sophisticated. Is it real? Who goes there? What’s the criteria? Is there anything in between Hell and Heaven? These questions have driven some of the great divides in the history of humanity.

You don’t come here to read my theological beliefs, and with good reason. Like most people with their strongest opinions, mine are ignorant. There are Pastors, Priests, Rabbis, and Imams who have studied the ancient Western scriptures from end to end, both to speak in the pulpit and in rigorous academic settings, to whom someone who wants intelligent thoughts about Hell, should go. They can teach you deep theological thinking, and can give religious teachings on the matter that hopefully can satisfy your curiosity. Of course, there is a problem with this subject- you have no way to truly know. Until you actually confront the question of the afterlife directly yourself, you simply don’t know. I don’t mean fear for your life. I mean literally die.

Tonight as I sit here typing this, at 9:19pm, it feels as though the Lord I have always sworn I believe in is showing me what hell is. I’m sitting in a room at St. Luke’s Anderson Campus in Bethlehem Township, a beautiful, wonderful, incredible facility. Not 18 months ago, the people here literally saved my life. It was different then, though. I came here leaving consciousness, probably hours from exiting this world had I not been brought for care. The people of Suburban Ambulance and this facility did amazing things. I can’t find 95% of them now. If I did, I wouldn’t even know where to begin. But we’re not there anymore. Hell, the person who survived it is gone.

Things were very different 18 months ago and I was very different too. I spent the first three days here barely conscious if at all, in the ICU, thankfully less aware than everyone around me at the situation I was in. When I awakened, I was alive- and that was how I saw the entire situation. I had survived near death, and hell, if I hadn’t, I would have never spent a single conscious moment knowing. But I did survive. I ended up losing a leg and going through a literal living hell, but I reminded myself that I had done that. Being an optimist is fairly easy when you tell yourself you just did the literally hardest thing in life, you beat death. Past success isn’t assurance of future success, but it’s nice to know you have it in you.

The problem after you beat death is that you have to keep living. It’s not like a sports season where that’s the championship and then you have a parade, or the end of “The Return of the Jedi” where you’ve defeated the emperor and have a big space fireworks show, or really anything we do in life with an end point. You move on, and all of life’s challenges are still there for you. You beat death? Great, now learn to live on one leg. You learned how to walk with your prosthetic? Great, now avoid major injuries and problems. You survive and move on to new things that frankly, are hard. It’s really hard. And well, eventually life finds the things you aren’t able to defeat.

So this my second trip back here since that original, or my third trip here in 18 months. The reality is that the law of averages is beating me. This is my second infection since the amputation. Both came after about 6 months on my new legs. There are differences and they are not the same case, but there is something about me that is prone to this, beyond the obvious (you’re diabetic). Right when I start to get some momentum going, things crash. You’ve survived, cool, but now you’re going to deal with frustration, disappointment, and struggle. This won’t be once. It is sadly, the new norm. And if it is not figured out, it will only get worse. Either it has to be right, or eventually the outcome will be catastrophically bad.

So anyway, back to hell. My belief at this point is hell is simply being forced through a repetitive process and continuing to fail. It’s not much different than politics, so maybe I do know a bit about it. If I ever prove it, I probably won’t be here to tell you it. Besides, you’ll have more educated opinions to hear.