Posted: Friday, 09 October 2009 11:22AM
Hiding In Plain Sight
Steve Corbett Reporting
Friday, October 09, 2009
From where I sat on a wooden rocking chair on my front porch last Saturday afternoon, I surveyed the whole corner of my neighborhood in the Hill Section of Scranton.
I liked what I saw.
The intersection seemed so very wide beneath the canopy of thick tree branches with their full foliage accented by the changing leaves of autumn. The neat houses that lined the street teemed with activity. Children squealed, young parents performed yard chores, and old-timers who know the secrets of their city joined me in a collective respite from the chaos that often rules our lives.
I hoisted a green glass bottle of Yuengling lager and silently toasted my good fortune.
If I was hiding, I was hiding in plain sight – just the way I like it.
Last night on WVIA, local public television boss Bill Kelly accused me and my WILK News Radio talk show host colleagues of hiding behind the microphone. Despite the sometimes serious differences my colleagues and I share, Kelly’s baseless insinuation rankled each one of us to the very core of our identities.
Kelly likely meant no harm, but he clearly had a bug up his microphone. He later accused us of negativity in continuing to highlight the ongoing federal public corruption probe in and around Luzerne County that has already resulted in 15 arrests of public servants and other high-profile community leaders.
Someone in the audience later told me that I sat glaring at Kelly after his insult.
My face is easy to read.
So is my take on the public service we do at WILK to raise the awareness of listeners who need all the encouragement they can get to rise up against public corruption and the political criminals who control people’s lives.
For generations these criminals and their ilk have helped themselves instead of helping others.
If Kelly wants “positive” news, he can rest assured that I am absolutely positive that empowering people against elected and appointed officials and their shady business connections brings as much optimism to this region as I have seen in the decades I’ve written about the lives of family, friends and neighbors who proudly call Northeastern Pennsylvania home.
You don’t do such work and hide, by the way.
Kelly should walk with me on a Saturday as it takes hours for me to work my way through the supermarket. One after another, good people who care deeply about cleansing their communities of the fixers and political manipulators who take more than they give approach me to talk.
More than anything, what do they want to talk about?
They want to talk about working together to fight corruption and the political stranglehold that the powerbrokers hold over law-abiding citizens who mostly lack power. They tell me that the culture of corruption has oppressed them and their children.
They are not complaining. They are finally confident enough to do something about it. And the public platform we provide on WILK has helped them develop that confidence.
My colleague Sue Henry told Kelly last night that she fights for that next generation and the generation after that, young people who want desperately to stay ay home and succeed and raise their own families but have been cast adrift because they lack the power and political connections to get work.
My colleague Nancy Kman has often said that she is maddened not saddened by the explosive corruption scandal. She has consistently vowed to continue to guide the discussion we provide daily on the air to inform listeners about serious issues about which they need as much information as they can get to make informed decisions at the polls.
Colleague Kevin Lynn also is as public as a person can be – taking heat for his unrepentant friendship with gangster judge Mark Ciavarella who faces a life sentence for his role in the kids for cash scandal.
And I, maybe more than the rest, am criticized regularly because I relentlessly take sides against those powerful private and political interests in our region that hurt people more than help people.
Overwhelming, though, the people with whom I speak on the air, on the street and throughout Northeastern Pennsylvania, seem heartened by the passion and commitment of an honest community conversation. More than ever, people in our region seem liberated after years of silence because of fear of retribution.
We all need allies in the fight against corruption. And I’ve signed on for the duration.
While I sat on the porch last weekend, a man stopped his car in front of my house. We shook hands as he came up the steps. A listener, he wanted to talk about his life and the impact politics and crime have taken on this region. For 38 years he’s operated a business repairing used washers and dryers. He said he works hard and deserves good government. He said he had enough of the cronyism, nepotism, patronage and crime that turned the region into a private kingdom.
No microphone was in sight as we spoke.
Kelly might want to stop by some day, stop by for a beer.
I’m easy to find.
Like always, I’m in the phone book.
|
Corbett
E-Mail
Print
