Having "accidentally" crashed her minivan through the bedroom wall of her husband's girlfriend's doublewide, Gaynelle is one frazzled nerve away from a spectacular meltdown. Their outrageous antics have set tongues wagging in the small town of Sweetgum (just down the road from Fayro) and the eyes of Texas are upon them, as their self-righteous Aunt LaMerle is quick to point out. In this riotously funny Southern-fried comedy, the three Verdeen cousins - Gaynelle, Peaches, and Jimmie Wyvette - could not have picked a worse time to throw their family reunion. Sadly, we can’t be surprised if it happens again.The Red Velvet Cake War by Jones Hope Wooten After all, this is your newspaper, and we’re now on incident number four. So I’m asking you to write and tell me what you think. But I also have people who sit very close to my heart whose family histories give them good reason to fear the worst. Personally, I prefer to think it’s just two idiots in a basement – and would love to ignore them. So as I sit in this chair, and feel the weight of responsibility for content that appears in this newspaper, I wonder: What is the best way for a community newspaper to respond to events like this? Since 2021, the Delaware Valley has been the site of a 25% increase in this type of antisemitic incident, according to the Anti-Defamation League. And we do know that materials like these stickers are showing up more often. I obviously have no way of knowing if his claims are true.īut someone sent him the article that appeared in our little local newspaper. His September missive, in fact, outlined plans to target schools as a way of marking the start of the public school year. Personally, I’ve recently been treated to regular communication from one such vile person halfway across the country, who describes himself as a “church leader.” After the Local reported the June incident in Chestnut Hill, he called and wrote to thank us for our reporting and to brag about "affiliate members" who live nearby. They appreciate what they see as our help in amplifying their impact. There’s no doubt these people read coverage of their cowardly acts and are gladdened by it.
If true, that would be information we certainly need.
It’s also possible that these ideas are taking hold here in our relatively liberal enclave in a very liberal city in a whole new way. Would we really want to give them that kind of power? And for all we know, it could have been a pair of lonely idiots who don’t usually summon the courage to leave their basement. These are acts of intimidation, pure and simple, designed to make us look differently at our neighbors and wonder who did it. There’s also our collective trust in one another to consider. Avoid it and you’re not giving readers the facts they need. Cover it and you give bad actors the attention they crave. “I won’t have to give these vile people any extra oxygen.”įor those of us whose job it is to report such things, news like this presents a terrible conundrum. “Now that can be the lead of the story,” I thought to myself. And news editors all over the country – and indeed the world – will know exactly what I’m talking about. It made me proud to call Jenks our neighborhood school. The students’ plan to insert their own loving words into the tarnished public space was not only strong and powerful, it was inspiring.
Then, later that same day, when Jenks principal Corinne Scioli wrote to tell me what her school community was planning to do in response, I felt a profound wave of grateful admiration. The fourth, actually, if we’re counting the hateful propaganda that showed up on some front lawns in Springfield Township earlier this year. This was the third time in recent months. My heart sank when I got the text about yet another incident of neo-Nazi stickers being plastered on streetlight posts last week along Germantown Avenue in Chestnut Hill.
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