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On Thanksgiving, I came to Scranton to stay with a 65-year-old friend who’s going through a cage fight kind of divorce, though only one side is dishing out the sharp elbows and knees. Just hearing Christmas music at the Dollar Store was driving him mad, Chuck confessed. The four-hour bus ride from Philly stopped in Doylestown, Easton, Stroudsburg and Mount Pocono.
Just outside Easton, a black man had just shot two white cops after he was pulled over for speeding, and even as I dozed on the bus, another black man murdered a white state trooper in faraway Texas. Both incidents would be downplayed by our media, then forgotten almost immediately.
Getting off the bus, I thanked the friendly bus driver, a middle-aged black man. He, too, would have a late Thanksgiving dinner. From the terminal, Chuck came into the cold to meet me, and together, we walked half a mile to The Lighthouse, his group home. Paying $400 a month, Chuck gets a 10X10, plus use of the communal kitchen and dining room. Paying $100, I got five nights.
Sister Lindy Morelli, the blind Carmelite nun who runs Lighthouse, was supposed to have dinner with me, but since she suddenly had a migraine headache, I ended up eating solo. Though a vegetarian, Lindy had made a traditional Thanksgiving dinner for the entire house. My heart-warming plate had turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, mash with gravy, string beans, cauliflower and carrot. For Lindy, I brought a bottle of Chianti Classico, complete with the black rooster seal, but she drinks no alcohol, I found out.
“Can I cook with this?” Lindy asked me the next morning.
“No, no, it’s too good for that!”
“Oh yeah?!” She laughed. “I’ll give it to my sister then.”
Founded in 1994, The Lighthouse has hosted nearly a hundred people. As could be expected among the destitute, there have been criminals, freaks and life-long bunglers, but the vast majority were just ordinary folks, down on their luck. One morning, I chatted with 55-ish Lee Ann, who had been at The Lighthouse for over a year.
“When you told Chuck you had to go to work at 8, he said, ‘I’m sorry to hear that.’ That’s pretty funny. Why sorry?”
“Ah, you don’t know! The dayshift people don’t do nothing, so when I come in, I’ll have to clean up after them. They don’t count the leftover newspapers, or put them away. It’s not my job to train them. I don’t get paid enough!” We laughed.
Price Chopper is a supermarket chain. This week, you can get 10 cans of Chef Boyardee for just 10 bucks. Lee Ann has worked there for six years.
The short, slightly overweight lady was on the couch, while my rotund self was beached at the dining room table. On the walls were crosses, Jesuses and uplifting messages. Over the stairs was a watercolor of a kneeling woman with her hands together, “Prayer is the key to the morning and the lock of the evening.” The Lighthouse doesn’t proselytize, however.
Lee Ann sighed, “This week, I’ll have three funerals to go to go. Three!”
“Wow.”
“One is for a co-coworker. She’s in the bakery. We just took up a collection for her.”
“She has no family?”
“She lived with the mom. She had kids, I think, but no husband.”
“How old was she?”
“Around 35. She died of a blood clot.”
“Dying of a blood clot at 35!”
“She was a big girl.”
Lee Ann has had her own health issues. She had a brain tumor removed at age five, and was operated on for kidney cancer recently. Her recovery, she attributes to a miraculous icon at St. George, a Greek Orthodox church she attends every Monday and Wednesday, “I was waiting outside in my car by 4:30. The door opens at 5, and service begins at 6. It’s always packed.”
Online, there are several testimonies about the healing power of the myrrh exuding icon of Taylor, PA. One example:
A man had a massive heart attack while in the church. Two nurses who were present rushed over to him and began to do CPR, while others called 911. As the nurses tried to revive him, he showed no pulse, stopped breathing and actually died. While waiting the few minutes for the ambulance to arrive, Fr. Mark Leisure, the priest of St. George Orthodox Church in Taylor, PA took the Kardiotisa, “The Tender Heart” myrrh-flowing, miraculous icon of the Virgin Mary and held it over the man so that the fragrant myrrh would drip from the icon onto the chest of the man. Immediately, the dead man took a deep breath, opened his eyes, and began singing “Mary, Mother of God Save Me.” By the time the paramedics arrived, he was sitting up and didn’t think he needed to go to the hospital, even though they insisted that he get checked.
Another:
One stranger began to attend on Mondays, and at one point stood up and said, “These icons in the Church are against Allah. They are idolatry.” He argued that Allah was not pleased with these icons. After attending for a few weeks, this man from Iran finally approached the icon. Fr. Mark admitted that everyone was tense because he wasn’t sure what the man was going to do. Over the past three years, Fr. Mark has seen someone pull out a knife and try to stab the icon; others have tried to smash it; some have spit on it; and one person even vomited over the protective case. The man from Iran approached and stood motionless in front of the icon covered with fragrant myrrh. Fr. Mark said the man was like in a trance, and it seemed like a battle was going on in his mind. Slowly a tear formed in his eyes, and he began to cry. He kissed the icon. As he walked out of the church, he stopped by the candle stand and wrote something in the sand in Arabic. Since no one could read Arabic, the priest took a picture of what he wrote and got someone to translate it. The man wrote, “Jesus Christ is Lord.” Several months later this man was baptized and is now a pious Orthodox Christian.
“I’m a walking miracle,” Lee Ann declared. The icon gives her energy and hope.
Going back upstairs, she said, “I don’t know about this Meghan with Prince Harry. Everybody’s talking about it! Ellen was discussing it, and that’s what they’re going to talk about, too, on The Talk. The Queen is not too happy about Meghan being divorced, you know, but I say, ‘Look at your own son, Charles! Just shut up already!’”
Their coal seams exhausted, their factories gone, Scrantonians get by on dead-end jobs, cheap alcohol, pills and unaffordable heroin. In September of 2017, Lackawanna County sued pharmaceutical companies over the ever-deepening opioid crisis. “The line has been drawn,” the county commissioner declared.
Scrantonians down opioids at nearly twice the national rate. Last year, an overdosing 21-year-old was strangled to death with jumper cables by three of his close friends, including his girlfriend. The police, “Bottom line, they drove right past a hospital and continued north on I-81. At this time, we are not sure why they did that.” Stopping for gas, they put sunglasses and hat on the corpse.
As the CIA and big pharma get away with pushing drugs, it’s the minnows that get busted. For transporting marijuana, Jack Reese got locked up for 20 years. OK, so it was a ton, enough to fill a U-Haul, but weed has never hurt the least of God’s creatures. Jack now works for the St. Francis soup kitchen in downtown Scranton.
Barrel-chested, nail-tough yet mellow, Jack is a guy you’d want on your side in any fist or firefight. Before he was snagged, Jack spent two years in Kensington, Philly’s heroin bazaar, “I wasn’t dealing drugs then. I painted churches.”
“Really?!”
“Yeah, but I wasn’t, like, Michelangelo or nothing. I painted the outside.”
Many early mornings, Jack would give shelter to a freezing whore, “By 3 or 4, their prices would go down.”
“Were they good looking?”
“The tops of their heads looked fine to me!”
This time, Jack ducked into Waldo’s Tavern just to say a quick hello to me. In this old man bar with a shuffleboard, I was surrounded by near fossils who reminisced about incidents from half a century ago. A tallish fellow, Herb, recounted, “I could outrun even the black guys, so the coach had me returning kicks and punts. The one time I scored a touchdown, however, one of our guys pushed one of theirs in the back, so the touchdown didn’t fuckin’ count.” Herb shook his head. Commiserating, I did the same.
Several of the old heads had worked for Roadway, the trucking company, and so I heard tales from the endless war between workers and management. A black worker pulled out his schlong in front of a new manager, as the man was talking on the phone. A manager’s car was slammed in the parking lot. Grease was smeared onto office phones.
“They were all cocksuckers, I tell you. They got kicked out of every bar in Scranton. One manager took a dump on a pool table, can you believe it? They went to a Red Barons game and punched the fuckin’ mascot. It turned out she was an 18-year-old girl! A manager’s wife had just delivered a baby, so on the way from the hospital, he picked up a prostitute. He thought it was hilarious!”
The man on the next stool, Earl, survived Roadway for 38 years. Retired, he can devote more time to his passion for antique bottles. He showed me one, on his phone, that’s shaped like the head of George Washington, “I bought it for $25. It’s worth several hundred.” Earl’s five kids are all productive, drug-free citizens. I met one who’s a manager at Dunkin Donuts. The cheerful young lady is getting married this Saturday. Earl and his late wife also raised his two nieces, after their dad had died.
During my four hours in Waldo’s, the three televisions showed ESPN nonstop, and on the wall, there was a Pittsburgh Steelers’ Terrible Towel. Though a Steelers fan, Earl hadn’t watched an NFL game all year, he said, in protest against black players kneeling during the national anthem.
Like any other blue-collar town or neighborhood, Scranton is aflutter with the Star--Spangled Banner. There’s a guy who drives around in a white pickup truck, with two large flags in the back, plus two small ones up front. On many city buses, there is an add for the Pennsylvania National Guard, “SECURE YOUR FUTURE / DEFEND YOUR COUNTRY.” Among the perks is “Low-Cost Health Insurance.”
Without it, you may end up like a middle-aged man whose smiling face is on posters around town, “BENEFIT FOR PAUL ‘OLLIE’ MORGAN, TO HELP DEFRAY MEDICAL EXPENSES RELATED TO HIS ON GOING BATTLE WITH CANCER.” A Ticket costs $20. Food and refreshment will be served.
One afternoon, Earl took me to meet Thinh, a Vietnamese-American garage owner, “I’ve known this guy for over 20 years. He’s a great guy. Oh, you’ll love him!”
“Should I speak Vietnamese to him?”
“Yeah, that would be great!”
We entered the man’s office to find him on the phone. One of his employees, a white guy, was also there. In his mid-60’s, Thinh spoke English fluently, but with a heavy accent, “Oh, I’m old! I don’t want to work no more. Some morning, I just want to stay home and relac!”
Then, “My daughter, she always give me a shit, but I can’t sell my businet yet.”
Phone conversation done, he turned to me, so I smiled and extended my hand, “Chào anh, tôi là người Việt Nam. Tôi là bạn của thằng này.”
Face blank, Thinh said nothing, so I continued, “Anh nói tiếng Việt được chứ?” Still nothing.
Laughing, I turned to Earl, “Yo man, this guy can’t speak Vietnamese. He’s probably not even Vietnamese!”
“Yeah, he’s probably Chinese or something!”
I said to Thinh, “Wow, man, you really can’t speak Vietnamese. Don’t you speak Vietnamese at home?”
“No, my wife is American.”
Though we exchanged pleasantries, I could tell Thinh wasn’t all that comfortable with me around. It’s as if I was threatening to expose a hidden side of him. He couldn’t afford to become another dude in front of his Scranton buddies. Leaving, I said to Earl in his car, “Man, that was weird. He’s older than me. He should know Vietnamese.”
“Yeah, he was in the war. He’s shown me his bullet wounds. He also goes back to see him mom every two years. I don’t know. He’s a great guy, though. You want to hear something funny? One time, an insurance agent called to sell coverage for his workers, so he was polite and listened to her, but she went on and on. Finally, he said, ‘Listen, lady, I only hire Mexicans, and they’re all poor and on welfare, so they can’t afford your insurance,’ then he hung up!”
“That’s pretty funny!”
“And Thinh doesn’t even hire any Mexicans. Here’s another one. He went back to Vietnam and bought his mom a propane tank, so she wouldn’t have to burn wood for fuel. Two weeks later, he found out his mom wasn’t using it, so he called her and said, ‘Ma, I saw dad last night in a dream, and he was crying and crying. It’s all that smoke from the wood you’re burning!’ So he got the old lady to use the propane tank at last. Isn’t that clever?!”
With so many Poles, Irish, Italians, Ukrainians and, now, Mexicans, Scranton is filled with active churches. Across the street from the Lighthouse is St. Joseph Melkite Greek Catholic Church. Founded by Lebanese immigrants in the late 1890’s, it still features Arabic hymns in its service. Last Sunday, I went to mass there with Chuck, and it was wonderful to see the joyful congregation, especially the well-dressed and angelic children.
The priest read a letter from the bishop. One sobering passage stood out, “Only six out of twelve Melkite churches in Aleppo, Syria are even open. Our Melkite bishops must provide food, rent, medicine, and even home rebuilding for these poor people. Because of your generous response to last year’s Bishops Appeal, I was able to send $60,000 to five Melkite bishops in Syria to assist families devastated by the on-going conflict.”
Later, the priest appealed to God to guide our president, senators and congressmen, that entire cabal of genocidal Satanists. Good Lord, I thought. As long as Americans, church-going or otherwise, keep voting for mass murderers, nothing will change.
That night, Sister Lindy Morelli made stuffed peppers for dinner, and of the five at the table, only I had a spouse. Middle-aged Lou and Scott had never married. Done with eating, Lindy sang “Ave Maria,” “You’ll Never Walk Alone” and, her favorite, Carole King’s “You’ve Got a Friend.”
“Ain’t it good to know that you’ve got a friend / When people can be so cold / They’ll hurt you, desert you / And take your soul if you let them, don’t you let them.”
Amen.
Linh Dinh’s latest books are Postcards from the End of America (non-fiction) and A Mere Rica (poetry). He maintains a regularly updated photo blog.
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Hi Linh,
Even more moving than usual. Thanks for your usual sympathetic portrayal of the downtrodden (of which I am one).
BTW, I take it that Sister Lindy must have help or otherwise how could she manage to run the operation (cooking, etc)?
Hi all,
If you want to send a check to The Lighthouse, here’s the address:
Lighthouse in Scranton Inc.
P. O. Box 199
Scranton, PA 18504
I can’t think of a better Christmas gesture. It is a non-profit and incorporated under IRS Section #501 (C.) (3). The Lighthouse gets no money from any government agency. Everyone associated with it, including its board of directors, is a volunteer and receives no salary.
Linh
Hi Dan,
Sister Lindy Morelli is fine inside the house, and can cook entire meals by herself, but whoever are around do try to help her.
The Lighthouse website is not very well designed, so I’ve made several suggestions to Lindy to improve it. We’re working on it.
Lindy is very resourceful and independent. She has two college degrees, has traveled many times to Europe, learned yoga and is a certified counselor. My interview with Lindy will be up at Unz soon.
Linh
Linh Dinh:
God bless you, sir; merry Christmas.
Good writing, and a great story of appealing to The Father to use the propane tank! 🙂
The Führer Is In All Our Hearts.
Hi Linh,
Thanks.
Amazing that Sister Lindy while being blind can still cook entire meals by herself!
Looking forward to your forthcoming interview with her.
Well why wouldn’t they be, there, Ol’ Linhster?
I don’t remember them breaking into the Superbowl the last time Jim-Bob-Cooter shot a flatfoot…
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/king-cops-killed-white-men-conservatives-silent-article-1.2632965
The big picture:
There is more than one way to look at this.
Are blacks killing police at a higher rate than they “should be” based on their percentage of the total population or are they killing police at a rate commensurate with their higher rate of interactions with police?
Glad to hear that miracles still happen in USA!
Again, Linh, math was not my greatest subject but %52 is still considerably higher than %43 isn’t it?
Yes i know, “per capita…blah blah blah.” But the bottom line is, if you are a policeman, your chances of getting killed by a white man are much higher than being killed by a black man, so why would the news be overly concerned about what color a cop killer was?
Hello Lindh
I live in this neck of the woods. Your photo blog is pretty cool.
Don’t bother arguing with “Truth”
Listen to him, he’s a brilliant man, “Lindh.”
Great article Linh.
“Dying of a blood clot at 35!”
NBA player Chris Bosh has had recurring lung and leg blood clots since he was 30 and the condition has effectively ended his career.
Last year, an overdosing 21-year-old was strangled to death with jumper cables by three of his close friends, including his girlfriend.
Regarding the Texas Weiner photo: “Weiner” is a common misspelling for “wiener”. I assume 5/11 means open 5am to 11pm. Not sure about 10/20, although 10-20 is cb radio code for location.
New Jersey is also birthplace of the pork roll. A Philadelphia hot dog vendor is credited with creating the Philly cheesesteak.
Linh, thanks for this latest postcard.
Blindness-I know a blind guy who manages the local radio reading service for the blind. I’ve done a little volunteer reading, and I’m unable to tell he has any disability at all. It’s astounding.
“As could be expected among the destitute, there have been criminals, freaks and life-long bunglers, but the vast majority were just ordinary folks, down on their luck.” Add the deinstitutionalized mentally ill, too. I donate occasionally to the local city mission, powdered beverages and canned meats. My impression is much like yours. Maybe, half the people are just down on their luck, including those employed at shit jobs where the thought of actually making a living from toil is a dream too far.
FWIW-if I had to donate $10,ooo cash immediately to a charitable cause, I’d split the amount equally between my local city mission and the Salvation Army.
5 wieners for $11, 10 for $20!
Thanks!
Interracial ol sport. Same as blacks only get stirred up and rioting when a black is killed by a white policeman. Justifiable or not they could give a crap. Black on black killings, Baltimore, Chicongo etc are much more common and are a snooze fest for blacks.
How about interracial rapes ol sport? You know these are far far more common with a black man raping a white woman. Not the other way around.
“I’m glad granddaddy got on that boat” — Muhammad Ali after spending time in Africa.
IOW, very nearly the same “disproportion” as in black vs. white people killed by cops.
Here’s an interesting stat. Black people are killed by cops at a rate 2.5x their population. Rioting and hysteria ensues.
Males are killed by cops at a rate 22x greater than females. Nobody cares.
Why the difference in reaction?
I suspect the number of cops killed by males rather than females is even more disproportionate.
Love the turtleneck look, Woodchuck!
Thanks Linh. A good idea to donate.
A 501 c3 is recognized by the Government and is allowed basically a tax exempt status. We wouldn’t generally refer to this as a handout or entitement. Give Americans a chance though and they’ll call things as they see fit or are told to.
Moreover, it’s important to realize that our wealthiest neighbors are so because of the Government not despite the Government. These aren’t called handouts at all.
Donate if you can, assuming you aren’t going to come up short on other bills. The next time you’re offered a free bathroom or a lucrative award to supply the Nat’l Guard – don’t pass it up because it came from the “Government”.
Exactly. People should not be praying for guidance for them, but for deliverance from them. They have no interest in being guided by God.
This is an amazing piece. I found this picture of Sister Lindy Morelli, the blind Carmelite nun (she even wears the habit!):
http://wilkesbarrescrantonig.com/2013/10/06/lindy-morelli-lighthouse-outreach-center/
No actually white men rape far more white women than black men do. According to statistics anyway.
If thinking about numbers is not your forte, try living in a black neighborhood for a year, Sometimes, first-hand, in-your face-experience is a better teacher than numbers. The risk is you may not live through this educational process, but then you are so convinced that no such risk exists, so give it a try.
If you’re here at unz, presumably you know the black % of America by heart.
Yeah, I too. The SA made me a believer in their mission after a tornado a few years back wiped out a nearby town. The SA rolled into town in a flash, long before anyone else, with various forms of relief and aid. They even handed out vouchers for appliances to people who lost them.
You should have seen the piles (virtual mountains) of things they brought in and kept replenishing. Everything from soap to tools to building materials.
Whereas before, I considered them a bit corny (Please forgive me)I’ve strongly advised supporting them ever since.
Yeah, those blind folks can be amazing. I know one who volunteers to sort small parts for a charitable organization and she can do it faster than I ever could. She is astounding, and I woulda never believed it til I saw it.
In our neck of the woods they’re called “Coneys” presumably named for Coney Island where Greeks sold ’em on carts. Your link is correct, too, in that although the sauce is red, there are no tomatoes in it.
52% + 43% = 95%. So…Hispanics, Asians and “others” are responsible for only 5% of police officer deaths? Non-Hispanic whites are roughly 62% of the population. Blacks are roughly 14%. I suspect those percentages are counting Hispanics as whites. In other words, the white numbers are inflated.
But, hey, on the upside the Texas Dept of Public Safety has now modified its description of mestizo murderers to: White (Hispanic) Male.
https://www.dps.texas.gov/texas10mostwanted/MostWanted/Fugitives
If you spent more time away from Unz you would know that it depends upon the city, county, or state. But of course that doesn’t have a bearing upon my point.
By whom, exactly, were you trodden down? And what, exactly, have you done to ameliorate your condition after the alleged treading?
Thanks for getting that off your chest. Do you feel better now?
Really enjoy your work, Linh.
In San Diego County California the waiting list for a Section-8 affordable housing voucher is ten-years! To add salt to this already festering wound, it is against the law for a destitute person to even think about sleeping in a car, let alone trying to live out of one.
Muslim Woman Confronted on Welfare Fraud
Video Link
Illegal Immigration and Welfare in California
Video Link
Welfare Fraud in America
Video Link
…..
Another bottom line is that if you were a Vietnamese in the ’60s, your chance of getting killed or maimed by a white uniformed SoB on orders from another white SoB in suit and tie, who couldn’t mind his own business, was much higher than being killed by a black as well.
And the black (!) guys, McNamara and LBJ lived on, while Kissinger (yeah, another black!) still stinks up the world with his fetid, corpulent, utterly disgusting arse.
Yeah, them black dudes are a huge threat to the world! 😉
The Salvation Army has a managment structure modeled after the military. The doctrine is typical of evangelical protestants. Compare this to the actual military where evangelicals deliver massive firepower. So the same faith applies even though you could quickly claim such a comparison is more a matter of apples and oranges.
An alleged symptom of so-called schizophrenia is an inability to distinguish right from wrong. An accusation or diagnosis that can bring immense harm. Perhaps the more pressing problem might be that some of us claim that they can distinguish right from wrong. Occassionally we see victims who are provided with food and shelter – all without a test, merit or qualifications – and this might be a spark for hope.
We do want to stop the mass murderers don’t we? Maybe we’re going to need to be faithless and reject some of the belief in belief.
edit (previous post):
… it is against the law for a destitute person to try and live out of a car, let alone even sleep in one.
$500 “camping” ticket if you’re found sleeping in a public park, while using your backpack for a pillow.
I’m sure that Dan can handle my questions on his own and without further assistance from you. Now get back to work at your weekend job of reading his e-mail and writing pithy responses for each and every message.
Check back here, however, from time to time for his reply. Maybe he has a legitimate grievance. In that case you could open a Patreon account on his behalf and, after taking a fee for yourself, use the proceeds to defray the costs of payback.
Thanks Linh for a perspective on the US.
Forgive me for loving my own socialist paradise. Yes where where I live the majority are socialists. We have high taxes, free healthcare, free education a generous social wellfare, free elderly care, no opioid crisis , very little gun violence, first class infrastructure, libraries, arenas, social events are a part of a pan European network. And I drive a Mercedes Benz and live in a 750 000 $ dollar home, single, with a 5000 $ month pension waiting when I am 65. And I am a nobody, a certified marine engineer.
In short a socialist experiment gone wrong, on inhuman conditions, no 1 st amendments, not to speak of 2 nd.
Will someone sponsor me so I can go to the Land of Milk and Honey.
(I live in Sweden, yes look it up , how we are enslaved)
I’m black. I lived in black neighborhoods for 16 years. Amazingly I’m still here to tell the tale.
Yes Jacques. It really seems simple in some ways doesn’t it?
I guess for the 150IQers who make up this board’s readership it is complicated for some reason.
Jacques Sheete: “…. the SA made me a believer in their mission after a tornado a few years back wiped out a nearby town. The SA rolled into town in a flash, long before anyone else, with various forms of relief and aid. They even handed out vouchers for appliances to people who lost them.”
Jacques,
Summer 1972, aftermath of the great Hurricane Agnes flood, Wilkes-Barre, Pa, I was activated for emergency National Guard duty. I drove an Army “deuce & a half” truck and was assigned to deliver block ice from a Moosic-based business to a Red Cross relief station in Pringle, Pa. Like you say above, the noble Salvation Army also were present there simultaneously with the Red Cross contingent.
At night, fellow soldiers sat around, ate S.A.-provided sandwiches, drank beer, listened to a live acoustic guitar singer do Cat’s “It’s a Wild World,” and took “comfort” in temporarily Wilkes-Barre girls (dressed in Summer clothes) and in need of a place to stay…, uh nowadays it’s “hang out.” Needles to say, no troops got either chilly or lonely during evening to early morning hours!
Lastly, on “those (astounding) blind.”
Since 1991, I am Lindy Morelli’s friend. When we first met, she lived alone in a Taylor, Pa project housing apartment. Jacque, her way of life continues to impress to this day, and it always struck me as something extraordinarily & humanly special.
Only human and not being much of a “Bible Thumper” unless need arrives, I will share the John, 9.1-3 passage (below) which delves into a mystically mature meaning of the blind.
“And as Jesus passed by, he saw a man blind from his birth.
And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?
Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned nor his parents; but that the works of God be manifest in him.”
Thanks Jacques, and all other thoughtful commenters.
Why should he answer a troll post? Feeding trolls is my hobby; it’s a thankless task.
Since you’re the one so concerned about him why don’t you open the account yourself and take the fee you are so generously ready to assign me?
Thanks for the information. Felicitations to the excellent Sister.
I was going to say more but comment 22 and the others here about cover it for me!
I’ve been waiting for the Scranton kid to show up. I was beginning to worry.
Interesting how you know this lady in the article, Lindy Morelli. It can be a small galaxy, at times.
Spent eight months in Allentown PA, this year. Stayed with an older brother who works and lives there. Was hoping to find a life beyond the high rents and rich-class / poor-class of Southern California.
A “warm” winter that bottomed out at zero-degrees Fahrenheit, kicked my candyass back west. Landed in a used $500 fifth-wheel with a busted air-conditioner, in Yuma Arizona on June of 2017. Then got my ass kicked a second time in a year, by a searing summer with temperatures maxing out between 110 to 120 degrees Fahrenheit.
Will be heading back to San Diego in June of 2018. I’m done paying the greedy slumlords, though. It’s going to be life at the beach as a homeless outlaw, living out of a cargo panel van by the name of Hotel California.
Registered several dot-coms, and branded some small business models. I’ll immediately be working both a private security and a cargo hauling business out of Hotel California.
The van’s going to have colorful magnetic advertising signs on it. I’m feeling, it’s only a matter of time before that magic phone starts ringing.
FTW, but in particular F#CK California!
You’re a super racist jerk, wayfarer!
Forgot to mention, the people of PA are very real, in a good way.
Although I got some glimpses of a down-and-out hard drug culture, for the most part the experience was like going back in time, to an era when one could count on their neighbors, not matter what.
The rugged DNA of tough American pioneers, still exists in PA.
Iranians speak Farsi, not Arabic. Let’s hope the Chianti was the genuine article.
You know me?
You ain’t got the slightest clue, dude.
It’s true though, I am a racist, but an equal opportunity racist.
That’s because I hate just about the entire human race!
If it’s any consolation, I really love/respect stray dogs and feral cats.
Hi forgottenpseudonym,
I’m quoting verbatim from an online testimony, my man. Surely you understand the concept of quoting?
Linh
wayfarer,
I reside in Lindy Morelli’s Lighthouse and I am proud to be either a friend or an acquaintance of all the people who Linh Dinh focused upon in his “Postcard, West Scranton.”
In fact, in the Postcard’s corresponding picture at article top, I am the white-mopped guy to the right.
Overall, I am in complete agreement with the title of Linh Dinh’s latest book, “Postcards from the end of America. It is exactly that, wayfarer, but I do find a lot of goodwill in typically broken inhabitants within “low rent” areas where L.D. concentrates and finds such beautiful real life stories.
Linh has yet to walk uptown Brighton Beach neighborhoods, like a Greenridge-based friend so desires, but I know that he’d even find interesting California-veterans of the weird Spahn Ranch-era while enjoying beers at an old L.A. bar.
I admire your screen name and travel-lifestlye very much. Over time, vagabonds seem to observe much, learn, and some become wise. Uh… “Fuck California.” No, no, that’s our evil local, state & federal government’s job. Not mine.
Be well!
Kudos to you Linh Dinh on your excellent writing, and especially so for this heartwarming essay.
As for Sister Mindy: I am not a particularly religious man but stories like this make me wonder if there might truly be angels among us.
May God bless and keep you both.
we walked half a mile to The Lighthouse,
Dang! She got the burrow and the car. Wow!
Iranians do use Arabic script to write Persian. But the mistake, if it is one, throws some degree of doubt on the story which ought to be noted. But now it has anyway, so it’s all good.
I’ve been a huge fan of his but his consistent wanking over blacks is over the top and is getting tiresome.. I quit Freddy (the GEEENIUS’S) crap a while back for the same reason.
Gawd that stuff gets old!
Thanks for that. It’s stuff like that that makes reading comments worthwhile.
Bless you.
Brother Orloski,
I’ve got a confession to make.
To me it matters not whether an individual is black or white, rich or poor, brilliant or mediocre, funny or serious, Mexican or American.
I view humanity as composed of two races, the takers (service-to-self) and the givers (service-to-others).
A bank-robber would represent a taker. On the other hand a volunteer in a soup-kitchen would represent a giver. And then a bank-robber who volunteers in a soup-kitchen, well they’d fall somewhere in between.
Greatest lesson I took away from driving taxis was that most people tend to be givers.
But when it comes to the takers, I’ll admit feeling deep hatred, passing quick judgment, and really struggling to forgive.
You’ve found yourself a good home. Stay warm, and enjoy life’s simple pleasures.
Happy Holidays, brother!
First Linh Dinh piece I have read. Worthless tripe from start to finish. Ron Unz has some serious explaining to do.
P.S. I probably should’ve used a hard-drug dealer as the example of a taker, seeing that banks in many ways are robbers and therefore takers. This makes it possible that bank-robbers may actually even be givers. I need to think about this one.
BTW, the “Lighthouse” that’s a magic name. Hopefully the place is sparkling with bright colored lights this holiday season. I try to keep a small string of colored lights glowing all year round.
Those guys should be careful, they could be imprisoned in much of Europe for saluting ‘The Führer’.
Below is where free speech on the impossible ‘holocaust’ storyline is actually illegal, violators go to prison for Thought Crimes.
Such laws are an admission that it doesn’t stand up to scientific, logical, & rational scrutiny.
https://forum.codoh.com/download/file.php?id=1858
Indeed, there was ‘The Führer’ with the impossible ‘6M Jews, 5M others, & gas chambers’ and there was ‘The Führer’ without the impossible ’6M Jews, 5M others, & gas chambers’.
The ‘6M Jews, 5M others, & gas chambers’ are scientifically impossible frauds.
see the ‘holocaust’ scam debunked here:
http://codoh.com
No name calling, level playing field debate here:
http://forum.codoh.com
Police are more likely to shoot whites, not blacks
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/07/13/why-a-massive-new-study-on-police-shootings-of-whites-and-blacks-is-so-controversial/?utm_term=.1db63f3f7797
Black Officers More Likely than White Officers to Shoot Suspects
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/11/26/study-black-officers-more-likely-than-white-officers-to-shoot-suspects/
A police officer is 18.5 times more likely to be killed by a black male than an unarmed black male was to be killed by a police officer … That 18.5 ratio undoubtedly worsened in 2016, in light of the 53 percent increase in gun murders of officers—committed vastly and disproportionately by black males.
All that kneeling ignores the real cause of soaring black homicides, New York Post, September 26, 2017
http://nypost.com/2017/09/26/all-that-kneeling-ignores-the-real-cause-of-soaring-black-homicides/
Stats show African-Americans more likely than whites to commit hate crimes
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2017/11/latest_hate_crime_stats_show_african_americans_more_likely_than_whites_to_commit_hate_crimes.html
Absurdly wrong. Willfully, I would suggest.
Police are more likely to shoot whites, not blacks
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/07/13/why-a-massive-new-study-on-police-shootings-of-whites-and-blacks-is-so-controversial/?utm_term=.1db63f3f7797
Black Officers More Likely than White Officers to Shoot Suspects
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/11/26/study-black-officers-more-likely-than-white-officers-to-shoot-suspects/
A police officer is 18.5 times more likely to be killed by a black male than an unarmed black male was to be killed by a police officer … That 18.5 ratio undoubtedly worsened in 2016, in light of the 53 percent increase in gun murders of officers—committed vastly and disproportionately by black males.
All that kneeling ignores the real cause of soaring black homicides, New York Post, September 26, 2017
http://nypost.com/2017/09/26/all-that-kneeling-ignores-the-real-cause-of-soaring-black-homicides/
I was intrigued by the Melkite inclusion as I was unfamiliar with this See of the Catholic Church. In following up on this, I found an intersting article – “6 Things You Should Know about the Melkite Catholic Church“. Scanning through the article, I was fascinateed that as with many religions, they become culturally transformed by the societies in which they found themselves. In the case of the Melkites, the Middle East and a liturgical merging with Islam and Arabic culture inclusions. This helped explain the attraction and struggle of the Muslim man who ultimately converted to the Greek Orthodox church.
The other fascinating piece of information was the collection of $60,000 for the Syrian Melkite churches from a Church and community that almost certainly has little in their pockets and not much in their pots. It proves out all the research that those with little are much more generous with their resources than the more wealthy among us.
Thanks for an honest look at the lives of everyday folk.
Brother Jacques,
A mutual respectful thanks and blessings right back at you!
Yeah, wonderful, scientific study you posted from Breitbart.com
For 67 percent of the cases (1,783) the race of the officer is unknown. Only two percent of the cases involve black officers (41). This could indicate that black officers rarely fire compared to white officers.
First of all Wallster, let me just hazard a guess that reading comprehension was not the strongest part of your SAT?
First of all, in my original point to Mr. Dinh I made NO mention of who the police were killing, the subject was, who was killing the police. Here’s my post:
This is seconded by your own link in the New York Post:
Now like you I had a weakness on the SAT, it was math, but from what I remember, 42% is still a minority, isn’t it?
Therefore, logic dictates that police have more to fear from white males than they do from black males, for the simple mathematical reason, that white males kill more of them.
So lets get back to Linh’s original point:
Now, a logical man would read this and decide that the integral information here is not that a two policemen are dead, with orphaned children and not returning to their families, no! The integral information here (as he wrote it twice) is that two policemen were killed by two black men and the media does not care. Why should they care that the killers were black? Once again, most policemen killed on the line of duty are killed by whites. This is agreed upon by
So again, what is the significance that two police are killed by black men? That is a statistical anomaly. Apparently Mr. Dinh does not care one whit about dead officers, he cares about black perps. And this is his personal decision.
Dow this gentleman killed a cop a year ago. I did not hear anything about it on the news, did you?
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ima-kill-them-all-accused-st-louis-cop-killers-twitter-full-of-despair-threats/
Here’s another one…
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/suspected-iowa-killer-scott-greene-beat-exploited-mother-article-1.2856737
And, well you get the point.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4560916/Cop-killer-violent-boyfriend-just-snap.html
Now as to your link involving whom the police were killing, lets go back to your original point which you lifted from the always reliable New York Post. Here it is:
Let me start by posting the first word that is at the top of the page:
That’s right, Old Sport. This is a Column, not a news story. That is why you find no attribution, for this chick’s supposed statistics.
And with that, I’m done.
Mother Agnes Mariam is Mother Superior at the Melkite Catholic Monastery and Convent of St. James the Mutilated in Qara, Syria. She is one of the main organizers of Mussalaha (“Reconciliation”), a popular movement in Syria that mediates disputes and organizes ceasefires between opposing forces.
Mother Agnes saw through the Syrian “revolution” from the beginning. http://www.catholicnews.com/services/englishnews/2012/nun-says-syrian-insurrection-results-are-worse-than-assad-s-regime.cfm
An email postcard from a reader:
To the writer of comment # 68 and posted by L.D.:
Given an opportuniy, I would (write-in) nominate you as Sports Illustrated Magazine’s down-to-earth “Sportsman of The Year.”
With honor & grace, you “rope-a-doped” a bad ref decision and returned to NYC as the real winner. This is “the good fight.”
Thanks from tne bottom of my collateral-damaged heart.
Chuck Orloski
West Scranton, Pa
Some of the best (and most unhealthy) deep-fried hot dogs, though not precisely Texas Wieners: JOLLY NICK’S in the town of Dumont, northern New Jersey.
Sounds quite generous of the folks in the bottom 20 percent of income.
But let mean ol’ me point out that people in the bottom 20 percent of income:
(1) often do not work, being on legitimate disability, on questionable disability, or simply on welfare — and note the ever-present references to alcohol and drugs and cigarettes, all of which cost precious money, among Linh’s lionized down-and-outers;
(2) do not pay federal income tax, and if they are working, often “get back” money they never paid (through the “refundable Earned Income Tax Credit”);
(3) typically do not save for their own retirement;
(4) typically do not save for their children’s college education.
The response — besides “you’re heartless!” — will include a protestation that people in the bottom 20% of income cannot afford to save for retirement and college and the like, and surely that’s true for almost all of them. But that misses the point here.
It’s wonderful that someone has the heart to donate from his meager resources to help someone else. But that same generous donor is also living off the rest of us — most of whom are far from wealthy, and sacrificing to provide for the future, for people who are trying but down on their luck, and for many millions who aren’t trying or making remotely sensible decisions. The generous broke guy who donates takes from all of us when it comes time for his children to attend college, for him or his children to go to the doctor, for him to retire, and often even when he goes to the grocery store.
When that broke donor gives to someone even worse off, he simply causes the rest of us to give more to the broke donor. Linh’s glorification of this portion of society is at times touching, at times edifying, but overall getting tiresome. He seems to allow almost no role for personal responsibility and no call for decisionmaking above the level of mental retardation.
You’re quite right that the bottom 20 percent are generous with their income. The fact that their generosity is directed at those less fortunate than themselves rather than toward you bothers me not at all. Even supposing that your identification of the givers with the takers is correct, a supposition for which you have no evidence whatever, by your reasoning the cost to you is the same in either case.
@RadicalCenter
The reality is that many of the poor are working the same jobs as the working class, they are simply not able to get into steady employment for whatever reason. I speak as a sociologist with decades of research into labor dynamics and class differences in employment.
You lambaste the poor and bemoan “supporting” them, but it is the force of employers that have driven wages below a living wage while at the same time shrinking benefits; claiming that US workers are “too expensive.” Their savings on labor costs (supported by law changes in Washington) have shifted the costs that used to be part of doing business onto the tax payer. Therefore even full time workers are falling below the poverty line and eligible (though not necessarily receiving) some form of assistance – food stamps, Medicaid, CHIP. In other words, we are paying our taxes to subsidize BUSINESSES that are hoarding their profit while moving assembly and factory jobs to the cheapest, most exploitative places they can find.
Believe me. We pay FAR more in corporate welfare than we do for supporting our own people.
Further, this does NOT stop at the low wage (and low security) jobs, but is now characteristic up through the middle class where more and more of the burden of things that used to be benefits of employment are removed, or shifted onto the backs of workers.
Rowan, thanks, pretty much agree. I want to believe the lowest quintile is there through some deficiency in personal virtue, and the top quintile is there through some abundance of personal virtue. Unz Review, with its squads of very intelligent and alienated commenters, likely wouldn’t be the same publication if we could count on the right goodies going to the right people. (Linh Dinh, I, and I think a few other folks here pretty much allow that the homeless do include a disproportionate number of the feckless, career criminals, mentally ill, and what-not.)
Linh’s glorification of this portion of society is at times touching, at times edifying, but overall getting tiresome.
Somebody has to create a good reliable record of Aktion T4 candidates for the coming 4th Reich.
I think a real, true meritocracy would probably be (excuse-moi) crappy for other reasons, though it might be better than what we have. Let’s face it, we live in a fallen world.
But there are things we can do to make it better. The Sister in the article is doing lots.
I also pretty much agree with Rowan.
Anon,
Agreed, the Sister in the article does do “lots.”
For one example, upon return from work yesterday, Lindy gave me a bowl of her homemade vegetable soup. A second helping too.
Your voice is charactetistic of the type which can counsul individuals undone and who struggle to survive the globalist-engineered “fallen world.”
Unashamedly, I learn a lot from Linh Dinh’s on-the-road insights & his unbowed nation-specific vision, “the end of America.”
A popular Springsteen lyric from the song “No Surrender” goes something like this, “Ya learn more from a three minute record than you ever learned in school!”
(Sigh) I learned lots about real life while at Waldo’s bar, in the company of Linh Dinh and the non-Michelangelo “church painter,” Jack Reese.
Thank you, Anon. I am also on Rowan’s ark.
What does “virtue” have to do with it?
NOTHING, obviously. Smarts and goodness aren’t synonymous. You can lie, cheat, murder, blackmail, etc., your way to financial success. Your desires for this or that ‘quintile’ appear rudely misplaced.
My reply to Rowan was a little clumsy, but “virtue” works okay. We commonly speak of “good” workers, “better” workers, and, very rarely, “bad” workers. My thought, not well expressed, was that I, and probably many folks, would like a simple moral calculus to explain why some folks get more goodies and others fewer goodies. Most of us know how foolish that is. Rowan does a good job of explaining how international mega-corporations mash workers, no matter their talents.
Many in the bottom quintile of income aren’t there because of any serious character defect and/or lack of effort and/or a long string of willfully stupid decisions.
But many are.
I have no problem with State and local governments helping US citizens who are in the bottom quintile of income, no matter what the cause.