Cheers for Voting Drive; Jeers to Philly Strikers

November 08, 2009  |  Courier Post  |  Link to article

CHEERS: To the 50 or so Camden teenagers too young to vote themselves who spent five days leading up to Election Day urging people in Camden to vote. The "Be My Vote" campaign was a great idea. Over 1,000 voters were contacted and encouraged to do their civic duty and get to the polls on Tuesday. Teens went around neighborhoods after school Monday and made adults promise to vote. Of course, there's no way to know if they actually followed through on that promise. Nonetheless, we applaud the teens and the Camden churches that were involved in this campaign. 

Voting is an important civic duty and vital to making our nation strong. When people are apathetic and don't vote, they get leaders who are apathetic to the needs of citizens.

JEERS: To the SEPTA strikers in Philadelphia, who Wednesday took their labor dispute way too far. With Philadelphia's subways and buses shut down, more commuters are taking alternative means of transportation, including the suburban-bound trains that go to and from Philadelphia. Wednesday morning, one of those trains caught fire, stranding nearly 700 passengers near the Overbrook station in Philadelphia. SEPTA tried to send "rescue" buses to the scene to pick up train passengers left to wander West Philadelphia, but striking Transport Workers Local 234 members blocked the buses from leaving the terminal. Eventually the city got school buses to pick up train passengers.

Blocking buses responding to an emergency situation was a shameful act of sabotage by union members who obviously don't care about anyone but themselves. Jeers to the strikers for that one.

CHEERS: To the humanitarian nonprofit World Vision, which will take the thousands of officially licensed "Philadelphia Phillies 2009 World Series Champions" hat, T-shirts and jerseys that were produced and put them in the hands of impoverished families in Third World countries. Up until a few years ago, all of these shirts and hats ended up being burned, thrown away or snuck onto black markets and sold. Then the NFL started turning its unusable Super Bowl merchandise over to Seattle-based World Vision. Now, Major League Baseball does the same. T-shirts, jerseys and other clothing have gone to needy people in Indonesia, Zambia, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Romania. For many of the recipients, it's the only brand new piece of clothing they've ever owned.

We applaud World Vision and its founder, Rick Stearns, for turning teams' losing into a winning situation for needy people around the world.

CHEERS: To the Phillies themselves. No, they didn't deliver another World Series title and parade, but they did have a great season and do something no team has done since, well, the Yankees a decade ago -- go to two World Series in a row. Let's hope they can make it three next year.