Criminals declare moratorium on crime in Reading while awaiting the report of a blue-ribbon panel that will seal their demise

Unless you were occupied watching the solar eclipse on Sunday, you could not miss the biggest story to shoot down to Pottsville Pike since a lady fell in the fountain at the Berkshire Mall when sending a text message.

The Reading Eagle, once again leading the way as a community innovator, unveiled a bullet-proof plan to eliminate the crime wave that has been rotting at the heart of our city for years upon years.

This plan, simple on the surface, involves nothing more than a panel of community leaders sitting around in a big room discussing the crime problem and what needs to be done. Once they have finished chewing this over in their considerable cuds, with everyone in agreement 100% on a course of action, the meeting will adjourn, the plan put into action, and crime will go away, forever, poof.

It is remarkable that no one had thought of this strategy before. You can just imagine please Chief Bill Heim slapping his forehead and going "Damn!"

Even today, the Reading Eagle editorial board, consisting of middle-aged white boys who don't live in Reading, is rounding up the usual suspects to serve as conscripts on the committee: the mayor and his top cop; a union rep counterbalanced by someone from the Chamber of Commerce; a couple of ministers, Protestant; Albert Boscov, because he always has a seat on these things; Jynx Pagerly; the ghost of Mike O'Pake, who will leave after the obligatory photo-op; commissioners Christian Leinbach and Mark Scott, looking all glum and sour while admitting that this problem extends beyond the city borders; "educators" from the Reading school district; one or two Hispanic leaders, wearing hip boots; Kate Gosselin, because she has eight kids, but they won't allow her in; and Judy Schwank, Tom Caltagirone and what ever other state officials are in full politicking mode. Having the whole shebang televised live on BCTV will be the cherry atop the sundae.

The meeting will commence with testimony from Cotton Street individuals, who will kvetch about Mexicans and Dominicans tossing their Colt .45 empties on porch stoops before stabbing one another. After nodding up and down like bobbleheads and ignoring everything the residents have to say, the blue-ribbon pros will begin stoking their own great ideas.

Chief Heim will say he needs more cops on the streets. Once the laughter subsides, Judy Schwank will say she'll talk to the governor, but that he hates her.  (Collective 'Ahhhhh!") The "educators" will say they need better teachers, and Tom Caltagirone will empty his pockets and shrug, to show that nothing is there. ("No more taxes!" someone will shout.)

Some fellow packing heat will suggest that community crime watches get set up pronto and citizens arm themselves to the teeth and stalk anyone who looks suspicious wandering around their neighborhoods.

The audience will shimmer with glee.

But who am I to judge what will work and what will not? That is why we have this committee of experts. Once they make up their minds on what to do, it will happen, and crime will dry up, and the Pagoda will smile down on all of us.

The morning newspaper solves the crime problem in Reading, in a front-page editorial, lickety-split

Enough!

If things are going to improve in Reading, greater Reading and Berks County, the violence must stop now. One more murder, one more gunfight on the streets of our city is one too many.

That is how the Reading Eagle began its editorial this morning, ominously, with tremendous build-up, and you know it will surely be a tipping point in the history of Reading Eagle editorials because it is running on Page One.

The headline reads: "Mr. Mayor, community leaders: TAKE CHARGE!" The editorial board has brainstormed and come up with a solution for a problem that has plagued our city for decades upon decades.

Can you guess the results of their strategery?

1. Lobby the state legislature to legalize drugs, because drug trafficking and the resulting gang warfare are the leading cause of the crime epidemic.
2. Double the number of cops on the street, even if it means doubling city taxes, because taxes be damned when it comes to the citizens' safety.
3. Sprinkle pixie dust across our fair city, from the banks of the Schuylkill to Hampton Heights, from Fritz's Island to the Phillies ballpark.
4. Hold a public meeting and talk about the problem.
   

There was heavy support for option three. Dave Mowery endorsed the pixie dust, with Harry Deitz and Mark Nemerow dissenting. (They were not sure enough pixie dust could be imported from China in time.) Jim Homan was absent because he was at the Marvel Ranch ordering the grease burger with cholesterol sauce and thus could not gasbag in the discussion.

Here is our the editorial board's blueprint for making our city safe: 

We are calling on Mayor Vaughn Spencer to make this the priority of his administration. We are asking him to schedule a meeting of the key leaders of our community - not just the city - and not leave that room until there is a clear and supported plan to address the violence.

No long speeches, no pointing fingers, no assigning someone else to do it. Develop that plan and agree to leave that room committed - 100 percent - to fix this problem.

Anything less is unacceptable.

Problem solved. How can it fail? I mean, when The New York Times broke the story about Reading being the poorest city in the nation the Eagle proposed, and hosted, a public forum to discuss poverty. Now today, barely a few months later, poverty has been eradicated in Reading and all of the bodegas down on Chestnut Street have been converted into caviar shops and all of the single moms in the city are through with welfare and living the life of Reilly.

Once before, the morning paper ran a front-page opinion piece on crime in Reading, during the era of Mayor Joe Eppihimer's leadership, and I can still remember editor Chuck Gallagher harrumphng, both at the daily planning meeting and in print: "Do something! FER GAWD'S SAKE DO SOMETHING!!! I dunno what you're gonna do or what you can do, but do SOMETHING!!!

Harry Deitz and his team have mentored under this master. Soon, crime in Reading will be but a fleeting memory, all thanks to this editorial that framed the problem in a reasonable perspective.

The only thing that could throw a monkey wrench into this fit of genius is if Doonesbury lampooned it in a comic panel.

Brave newspaper editorial says it's all right for Obama to state his position on same-sex marriage

The morning newspaper published another editorial today that demonstrates why it is a laughingstock among morning newspapers. The topic was Obama coming clean that he supports same-sex marriage, and here is how the newspaper framed the issue:

[W]e applaud Obama for finally lending forceful clarity to his position. Now those relatively few voters for whom gay marriage is a make-or-break issue have two well-defined, dramatically divergent choices: Obama, who now openly supports it, or presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney, who is against it....

We credit the president for finally stating his views clearly despite the political danger.

Somehow, the irony appears lost on the clueless editorial board. While they salute the president for taking a firm position "despite the political danger," the newspaper itself will take no stand on this hot-button topic for fear of offending any remaining readers.

Backward thinking has Reading Eagle deep in red ink

The headline reads: Backward thinking has mail officials deep in red ink. It is an editorial about how newspapers the U.S. Postal Service can't keep up with modern life.

One passage reads:

In March hospital officials received a donation in memory of a physician who recently had died. The donation was made by a company in San Mateo, Calif. As is hospital policy, the person in charge of the development office sent by first-class mail a receipt for the donation to the address that was written on the check.

Two weeks later the envelope containing the receipt was returned to the development office at the hospital with a yellow sticker on it that indicated the addressee had moved, and the time allotted to forward mail to the new address had expired.

But the sticker also included the name and the new address of the company to which the receipt was being sent. The new address also was in San Mateo, Calif., just a few blocks away from the old one. But rather than taking the envelope the few extra blocks, someone at the Postal Service thought it was more cost-effective to ship it more than 2,800 miles back to the hospital.

Perhaps someone thought the additional 44 cents the hospital would pay for a new first-class stamp to send the receipt to the new address would make this whole process cost-effective.

(rimshot)

Do you think this illustrates the ineptitude or the venality of the Postal Service? Or is there a method to this supposed madness?

Think about it...

Let's suppose you mail a greeting card to a faraway friend. And that friend has moved and his mail forwarding has expired? Would it not be helpful to have the card returned with your buddy's new address so you can update your records? Is not keeping in touch with a faraway friend worth 44 cents?

(rimshot...to opinion page editor Jim Homan's weenie peabrain)

UPDATE: Link added.

Newspaper purchases would be taxed if the property tax were replaced, so Reading Eagle does not want to replace the property tax

Philly.com ran an analytical piece today on the move to abolish Pennsylvania's property tax and the lead read thus:

When it comes to the real estate tax, opinion is deeply divided: Half of property owners hate it, and the other half really, really hate it.

They forgot to add one voice to the yeasayers: The Reading Eagle editorial board. The newspaper published a delightful editorial Sunday that sailed mightily against the wind. The boys on the third floor jiggled some numbers and came up with this:

According to figures from Berks-web.com, the average price of a detached house in Berks County in 2009, the latest year for which figures were available, was about $223,000, while the average price of a row home or a twin is $152,000. But according to the Berks County Assessment office, about two-thirds of the properties in Berks County have an assessed value based on the last countywide reassessment, which went into effect in 1994. That means the average assessment for a detached house in roughly $148,000, while the average for row homes and twins is about $101,000.

As a result, real estate taxes run about $4,200 for the detached house and about $2,000 for the row or twin, give or take a few dollars depending on the school district.

In 2009, the average household income in Berks County was $53,485. Which means the family would see its income tax increase $533. Add to that the extra money the average family would pay through an increased and expanded sales tax:

A 7 percent tax on a $100-a-week food bill: $364.

A 7 percent tax on $10-a-week entertainment budget: $74.

A 7 percent tax on a routine yearly visit to the veterinarian: $14 per pet.

A 7 percent tax on a flight to Orlando for a family vacation: $15 per person.

A 7 percent tax on airport parking, based on a fee of $6.25 a day for eight days: $3.50.

A 7 percent tax on vending machine sales, based on $3 spent per week: $11 per person.

A 7 percent tax on clothing and shoe purchases of $50 or more, based on $500 in purchases: $35.

And school districts still would be able to impose 10 percent of their property tax to eliminate debt.

And let's not forget the federal income tax deduction for payment of real estate taxes that is not available for payment of sale tax.

Based just on those items, a family of four with one pet would be taxed nearly $2,300 as a result of the expanded sales and income taxes. And we haven't touched on the 7 percent tax on any number of other products that are not subject to the sales tax at this time.

OK, so where do we start?

Well, axing the property tax for a combo sales/income tax hike is meant to be a zero-sum game for the entire commonwealth. Thus, some will pay more and some will pay less. Certainly, renters are going to be hit the hardest, since they pay no property taxes (yes, yes, taxes are factored into the price of rent, but in the long run a tax swap should enable landlords to hold the line on rent). But even then the Eagle's numbers don't add up to a net loss except for those homeowners at the low end.

Commentors point out various other discrepancies and oddball arithmetic here, so I won't bother to repeat them all. But even then, if you use this handy, nifty tax calculator, you can check out how the legislation will affect your own bottom line. And when you plug in the newspaper's figures for an imaginary family with annual income of $53,485 and current property taxes of $2,000, the super, dandy calculator shows savings of $1,333.24.

So why is the newspaper dead-set against reform that is so popular that even a legislature that moves at a glacial pace may finally pass it? Could it mean that swapping out the property tax could make a dent in the company's profits when the sales tax is added to such big-ticket items as newsprint -- not to mention the purchase of newspapers themselves?

In case you didn't know it -- and the newspaper's editorial board was too dishonest to mention it -- the purchase of newspapers is currently not taxed at all.

Would that extra 7% tax lead to a 7% (or more) dip in newsstand sales?

One can only figure.

Reading Eagle's sad April Fool's gag fails to make list of best or worst newspaper April Fool's gags

The Poynter Institute, which keeps an eye out for journalistic mischief, took a look at how newspapers treated April Fool's Day, which is like Christmas day for newspaper editors who have nothing better to do than dream up stupid "gotchas!" that even cretins with an IQ lower than William S. Flippin's would not fall for.

Sadly, despite the best efforts of the editorial staff at the Reading Eagle, the hilarious prank involving South American birds migrating to Berks to not make even a ripple on Poynter's radar.

The Poynter rundown:

[W]ay too often, April Fools’ jokes take the form of announcements. Has social media taught us nothing about using the Internet as a megaphone? So, you had NPR’s headline about Twitter shrinking tweets by seven characters (meh), Austin Chronicle’s story that Texas was going to an at-large system and primaries were to be held yesterday (pretty good), Technically Philly’s announcement of a union for Philadelphia tech writers (not bad), and The Next Web’s paywall announcement (meh).

Far more interesting are the bad jokes, all of which have to work pretty hard to beat Onward State’s announcement that its managing editor had died. Hasn’t really been a great 2012 for Onward State.

Some other just-not-funny ones: A story about Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa refusing to leave the White House. A Forbes blog announcement that Romney was dropping out of the presidential race and endorsing Rick Santorum (though unintenionally funny because it made Google News and now seems to have been deleted by Forbes). Criterion announcing it was re-releasing “Kindergarten Cop,” which would have been funnier had it chosen “Kindergarten Ninja.”

Better luck next year, birdbrains.

Morning newspaper attempts lamest April Fool's gag, ever

Clifford Yeich must be somersaulting in his grave, to borrow a cliche.

The genius behind some of the pre-Photoshop 4/1 pranks could only shake his head at this bird-brained idiocracy, mastermnded by the people in charge of the editorial room at the morning newspaper.

And speaking of clichés, the Reading Eagle, which once had a Concord landing at Reading Regional Airport, Mike Schmidt player-managing the Phillies, and O.J. relocating to Berks for the golfing (no, they didn't use that one, my idea in the mid-'90s), has tried to pull the pink wool over reader's eyes (singular "reader" correct) with a bogus yarn about Chilean flamingos landing in Berks in time for spring.

(Sound of pages turning.)

The hoax is forewarned with such clever turns of the phrase as a quote from "Hope Wegotcha."

(Sound of guffaws in the newsroom.)

A better prank might have been a Harry Deitz column announcing he is resigning for the good of the state of journalism.

But when that turned out not to be true, it would have been so cruel, so cruel.