P.S. Thanks to you and Al for putting 2+2 together for us.
Kimm
On 10/9/09 10:10 PM, "Kimm Tynan" <kimm.ty...@verizon.net> wrote:
> I had a feeling that wasn¹t really over.
> Kimm
>
>
> On 10/9/09 1:42 PM, "KAREN ALLEN" <kallena...@msn.com> wrote:
>
>> Well, Al, looks like they're "gettin' the band back together", and today's
>> Daily Pennsylvanian report about the Campus Inn puts yesterday's post into
>> context.
>>
>> It's the same old bullshit: West Philadelphia is a hellhole that we need
>> Penn/UCD/Tom Lussenhop to rescue us from; unannounced closed-door astroturf
>> presentations in front of a handful of handpicked so-called "community
>> leaders" ready to regurgitate Penn's lies and to rubberstamp whatever Penn
>> shoves in front of them. I guess next the propaganda machine will kick into
>> gear again to explain to us igoramuses why it's so important that Penn should
>> be able to do whatever they want.
>>
>> Regarding certain "panelists", this just proves that there are some people
>> who are incapable of embarassment or shame...Even Professor Marvel gave up
>> the smoke and mirrors once his "Wizard of Oz" persona ("Pay no attention to
>> the man behind the curtain!") was exposed as a sham.
>>
>> See ya at the Zoning Board hearings, folks... luckily I saved my "No Hotel In
>> the Hood" posters!
>>
>> From: krf...@aol.com
>> Date: Thu, 8 Oct 2009 08:55:59 -0400
>> Subject: [UC] Penn and the community -- take, er, I lost count when it hit
>> six digits
>> To: UnivCity@list.purple.com
>>
>> From today's DP. Emphasis (color) and snide remarks (parentheses) added
>>
>> You read it here, first, on the ever-popular Popu-List
>> Courtesy of Al Krigman
>>
>>
>> University seeks to build more bridges with community partnerships
>>
>> Maanvi Singh
>>
>> While Penn's relationship with the West Philadelphia community has been
>> tumultuous in the past, last night a group of community leaders and educators
>> discussed Penn's recent focus on interacting positively with its neighbor.
>> (Recent focus? Maybe they mean dumping Lewis Wendell.)
>>
>> The audience of community members, who filled a little over half the chairs
>> (nobody I know was aware of this... so -- little wonder that only half the
>> chairs were filled and I can only imagine who from "the community" was there)
>> set up in the Arthur Ross Gallery, listened as the panel recounted Penn's
>> historical interactions with West Philadelphia, as well as the University's
>> current programs for community involvement.
>>
>> Ira Harkavy, associate vice president of Penn's Netter Center for Community
>> Partnerships, moderated the discussion on what he said was "the single most
>> important issue that the University is focusing on" - helping to develop
>> neighboring West Philadelphia. (This is the "single most important issue that
>> the University is focusing on" ??? I would have thought that a world class
>> research university would be focusing on less important things like
>> education, research, bringing their endowment back up to the point where they
>> don't have to fire people or raise fees to give it's president a big raise
>> and otherwise stay afloat, etc.)
>>
>> West Philadelphia has come a long way since the 1990s, when crime was on a
>> major upspring, said panelist and member of the Spruce Hill Community Trust
>> Board of Directors Barry Grossbach. (See. Someone still thinks Barry is a
>> community "leader." Maybe they don't know about the sad fall from grace and
>> standing of the Spruce Hill Community Association.)
>>
>> Penn faculty and students, as well as West Philadelphia community members,
>> have many more opportunities today to help ameliorate their neighborhoods, he
>> added, citing the recent success of tutoring endeavors in the community and
>> the Penn Alexander Elementary School. (Well, we can give them that one,
>> anyway -- ignoring the real reason for Penn's involvement with the school.)
>>
>> According to Grossbach, these outreach programs have been so successful that
>> outside organizations have started to follow Penn's footsteps. For instance,
>> the Teacher's College of Columbia University wants to create a program
>> similar to that of Alexander Elementary School. (Do you think they hired Omar
>> Blaik as a consultant?)
>>
>> "I've seen the change," Leslie Rogers, a Penn doctoral candidate, said. As a
>> Penn undergraduate and graduate student, she said, she felt that West
>> Philadelphia community members were very skeptical of her intentions when she
>> went to volunteer and later teach there. Now, Penn faculty and students are
>> more warmly welcomed, she said.
>>
>> Rogers said Penn undergraduates getting involved in West Philadelphia is a
>> key to community-building.
>>
>> Thanks to an array of recently established programs, these students now "get
>> to actually problem-solve in the community," she said. (These students are
>> like the bright-eyed busy-tailed types that get hired at UCD. They are
>> enthusiastic and well meaning -- but naive as newborn lambs and haven't a
>> clue about the "problems" faced by people from a side of the tracks other
>> than where they, themselves, were born and raised.)
>>
>> Still, attendee Glenwood Charles, a Penn graduate who now oversees the Netter
>> Center's tutoring program and reading initiative, argued that there is still
>> more to be done. (Yes, but how can they raise the probability of doing more
>> good than harm? Is there anything in the Penn curriculum that teaches the
>> facts of life? ... no, not "those" facts; the other facts.)
>>
>> "Get more involved," he told students. "There are a lot of opportunities."
>> (As above... to do harm unless they somehow are brought to understand the
>> situations in which they are getting involved.)
>>
>> ------------
>>
>> plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose
>> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_French_phrases_used_by_English_speakers
>> #P>
>> ----- Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr
>>
>>
