Or so we assume. I can’t help but suspect other motives than the ones our City Council folk stated in their opposition to the most recent smoking-ban legislation.
Councilman Michael Nutter’s bill, though cosponsored by Council President Anna Verna, didn’t even get her support at the 11th hour. Councilmen Frank DiCicco and Jim Kenney had wavered on it from the start; that they offered no support for the bill came as no surprise.
Our local representatives (Kenney is at-large, but still very much a South Philly proponent when it comes to passing laws) suggested changes that would make the legislation more palatable to bar and restaurant owners- not to the rest of us who can no longer set foot in these places for fear of being smoked out. Only Verna mentioned the concern for these establishments’ employees, whose health was the focus of the bill in the first place.
I presume something else is at work here: pressure from the business owners who are moaning that they’re going to lose money- despite that other cities, states and even countries have reported no losses from enacting similar and even more sweeping bans. One local proprietor in particular testified before Council in a previous hearing and, considering the scope of his businesses in both South and Northeast Philadelphia, it’s easy to imagine his influence.
Kenney mentioned the potential loss of business to the small corner saloons- which is probably a more valid argument, though ironically these are the places where the health effects of smoking would be even more serious.
Meanwhile, Nutter was right to table the bill when it became apparent that it would bomb. And, as they head back to the drawing board, let’s hope our Council representatives cave more to the general welfare of their constituents than to financial concerns that likely wouldn’t come to fruition.
If the casino state of New Jersey successfully passes such a ban, maybe even Philadelphia’s motives can change and- dare I say it- Pennsylvania can follow suit.
IN THE CASE of poor Terri Schiavo, whose life hangs in the balance as I write this, it’s all about motive- or so the public thinks.
Her husband, he has at least a couple motives for having her put to rest. Her parents, they have an emotional, if not a financial, motive for keeping her alive. The bleeding-heart liberals and euthanasia enthusiasts, they want to kill her off to justify their own motives. The right-to-lifers and religious zealots, they’d prop her up and hold her eyes open with toothpicks for all eternity just to prove their point- yeah, they have motives.
The rest of us somewhere in the middle, quiet and unmeddling as we seem, also have motives when it comes to how we feel about this case. Those who have been in the most horrific circumstance of having to sign on the dotted line to allow the termination of a loved one’s life can empathize with Michael Schiavo and feel angry at the government for intervening in the most undignified of manners. Those who would do anything including even taxidermy to keep themselves and/or their loved ones physically present can sympathize with the Schindlers- Terri is their daughter, after all, and losing a child is among the most terrible of all terrors.
If you think I’m trying to be morose, well, I can better relate to the second motivation; I selfishly have informed my loved ones that I’d want to be plugged in and, worse, that I’d insist on keeping them plugged in (despite their looks of disgust when I make these statements) for as long as physically possible. I recognize the self-serving nature of these motivations and yet my gut always tells me that life needs to be prolonged under any circumstances.
And then I wake up and smell the incense burning in my head. What’s happening to Terri Schiavo and to everyone who loves her is nothing short of barbaric in all directions. It shouldn’t have come to a judiciary permission slip from the president and a third appeal to the Supreme Court, but it has and now we can’t avoid thinking about what we’d do in similar circumstances.
I know several people who already have been in this situation – governmental interference notwithstanding- and they are indeed not murderers just because they had to make tragic decisions. In fact, they deserve even more support and condolence, for they had the unfortunate duty of having to make such a choice.
Tom Cardella’s column of this week is the best of any analysis I’ve read on the morality surrounding the Schiavo case- and I’m not just saying this because he’s ours. I was dubious about tackling the issue here because of my own convictions (my hatred for the meddling Congress and protestors aside), but indeed Tom has said it all as far as I’m concerned.
The motives of Terri Schiavo’s husband and parents are not the ones to be questioned here.
A WORD ABOUT motive regarding our special Hallelujah! Issue of last week: the only one we had was to provide our readers and community with an informative and entertaining tool. But again I’ve learned, as I have with each extra effort, that we certainly can’t please all of the people all the time, or ever.
We received kudos and complaints, as per normal and as we expect, but at least a couple members of a local Christian church accused us of intentionally leaving out their venerable institution. We had no motive other than space in determining which random churches of our community’s many Christian denominations would be featured.
Then we got word from an employee that a certain Catholic church monsignor was using his homily at last weekend’s Mass to urge parishioners to complain that we gave their venerable institution bad press somehow. Despite that we included every one of South Philly’s Catholic churches in our coverage and that nothing suspect was written, our motives remain suspicious and we’re lumped in with the "liberal media" our churches so disdain.
If during Holy Week some of our local clergy wish to remain ruffled about our motives, perhaps they should focus on the real enemy here: close-mindedness.
Happy Easter.
