Pam Varkony: She's Ba-a-a-a-ck!

Pam's back in action with a new and improved blog, Pam Varkony's Perspectives.

I never realized how much I missed her until I read her post about trying to buy a new car. The salesman who snubbed her "was wearing one of those hats like you see in the movies on the head of the crazy husband who murders his wife and puts her body through a chipper."

I'm pretty sure that's my brother. He just got out, Pam. Good behavior.

Pam Varkony Squares Off Against MSM Tonight

Pam Varkony, an Allentown writer and former member of Allentown city council, is one of my favorite people. Founder of Power of Women, her writing style makes me feel like I'm sitting in her living room, having a relaxed conversation with a friend. I was a loyal reader of her column and blog, Perspectives with Pamela Varkony. Tonight, she'll be one of the panelists on WFMZ's Business Matters at 7:30 PM, and it should be a pretty hot show.

Why? Because one of the other panelists is The Morning Call's managing editor, David Erdman. He's lucky I won't be asking the questions. I'd like to know why he dumped Varkony's blog. After that, I'd like to know how eliminating Pam's column and all those jobs improved the paper. Why do you lay people off when the paper is turning a profit? How gutless is it to lay people off by calling them at home on a Sunday? How can Erdman possibly justify the hate spewed on the reader forum?

Basically, why should readers pay more for a product that delivers less? The paper sent no one to cover the last two meetings of Nazareth borough council. According to Lynn Township supervisor David Najarian, it hasn't covered a meeting there in three years.

I doubt those hard questions will be asked, but I'm sure host Tony Iannelli will have a few of his own. Blogger Pam will be pitted against three MSM types.

They don't stand a chance.

Pam Varkony's Editorial Perspective Recognized by Media Group

Pamela Varkony, Allentown writer and former member of Allentown city council, is the founder of Power of Women. Although she no longer blogs at The Morning Call, he still is one of their regular op-ed columnists. As of today, she is also an award-winning columnist.

In the first year she ever submitted her work, she has won 2nd place in the Pennsylvania Women's Press Association statewide writing competition for Editorial Writers. She missed first place by only one point.

If I were her, I'd demand a recount.

Needless to say, Pam is ecstatic at this honor. "I try to write each column as if it will directly impact someone's life; being recognized for that effort is so rewarding. ... I am absolutely thrilled."

In addition to her op-ed column, Pam also maintains a popular independent poliblog, Pamela Varkony's Perspectives.

Bill White Notes Growing Influence of LV Blogosphere

Bill White's Tuesday's column focuses on a few of my minor criticisms about Allentown Mayor Ed Pawlowski and his bizarre leadership. But some of you may be unaware that Bill also published a blog that day about ... bloggers. A "liberal activist" was thoroughly disgusted that this media maven would sully the Morning Call with the mere mention of someone as reprehensible as me.

Bill quotes a few memorable lines complaining about me.

“He is a demagogue who uses his blog to shove politicians and the public alike to the right in the Lehigh Valley,” the reader wrote, repeatedly equating O’Hare with a Klansman. “Enjoying Bernie O'Hare's writing is enjoying smear and hate mongering. Demagoguery. Lying baseless demagoguery.”

As Bill patiently explained, my Klan membership expired two years ago. And I'm no demagogue. Lying? Yes. Baseless? Yes. Body odor? Occasionally. I should give that guy a few of my valium pills.

Actually, Bill was quite complimentary. I didn't even have to treat him at Johnny Mañana's (that's with a ñ, damn it!).

He later confessed he had me mixed up with Pam Varkony's Perspectives. Still, I'd be remiss if I failed to thank him for acknowledging my white supremacy.

Actually, the LV is home to some of the state's most influential political blogs, at least if Blognetnews is any indication. According to that supposedly neutral source - which is now shilling "conservative" books - four local blogs are considered among the state's most influential poliblogs, at least this week. These include Pennsylania Ave., Capitol Ideas, LV Poliblog and a strange dude who's moving from Nazareth to Allentown.

Sadly, the nonpolitical blogs are unrated. But I love The Junk Drawer (Kathy is hilarious), My Right Brain (Susan is giving us grammar lessons) and cutting edge Dragons of the Valley (she reads palms and is an encylopedioa of the local band scene).

White asks an interesting question - what the hell should pols and MSM do about us? Shoot us? Ignore us? Invite us to lunch?

These things present problems for politicians. Most of the politicos ordinarily will return calls from newspaper reporters — except me, in some cases — but should they also return calls from independent bloggers? Do they need to treat them like “real” reporters? Pawlowski chose not to call O’Hare back when he tried to ask him about non-tipping, and I thought it worked to the mayor’s disadvantage.

Bloggers present challenges for the mainstream press, too. Should reporters and columnists be mining them for story ideas? Does an allegation’s appearance in a blog — where, traditionally, daily readership probably is measured in the hundreds, even for the popular ones — make it news?

I do know this. We grow like dandelions and are just as hard to kill. And it's next to impossible to kill an Armagh O'Hare.

Pam Varkony, Class Act

After yesterday's post about the demise of Pam Varkony's Perspectives blog, and the many comments that followed, Pam asked to share a few of her own thoughts.

Bernie, thank you for sharing your blog with me; I knew all those mean things I’ve heard about you couldn’t be true. You’re not a miserly old curmudgeon after all.

As a huge fan of the television series, "24" I’m especially enjoying reading all the conspiracy theory comments. If the writers' strike is still on when Kiefer Sutherland gets done serving time for his DUI, I’m sure he’d love to have you folks on the team.

Now that I’ve been suitably clever and irreverent, which is required when appearing in this hallowed space, I want to get serious just long enough to put to rest the notion that I am going to run for mayor of Allentown, or for any political office for that matter. I can’t imagine where anyone would get that idea; I am not involved in politics in any way and have not been for years. I was even a registered Independent for a time and came back to a party affiliation only because I was unhappy being outside the primary process.

Since leaving public life in 2001, I have been able to rebuild my career as a writer, speaker, and commentator, which has allowed me to follow my real passion…empowering other women. Most of you who read this blog probably know I have traveled twice to Afghanistan in the past 18 months. No one who is serious about running for office in Allentown, Pennsylvania spends that amount of time and money half a world away helping people who can’t vote for you.

So, as ego-boosting as it is to read all the speculation about how I’m a candidate for "something", I think it’s time we all move on and focus our attention on things that really matter, like fighting hunger, poverty, and violence.

And as for the fact that "Perspectives" is no longer on the Call’s website, it will suffice to say that in today’s litigious environment, the risk of allowing an independent contractor who is not covered by a company’s liability insurance, to have unfettered access to its public outlet, is simply becoming too great.

I am very grateful for the two years that "Perspectives" inhabited mcall.com, and I assure you that "Perspectives" will reappear, at the earliest opportunity, as an independent blog for whose content no one will be held responsible except me.

Finally, my column which appears every other Sunday on The Morning Call opinion pages will continue as it has for the past five years. I love writing it and I appreciate knowing there are people out there who read it. How do I know that? I know because of the comments that get posted on the Morning Call’s forum. Oh oh, I’ve mentioned the dreaded forum, or as blogmeister Bernie would call it, "the end of civilization as we know it". I hope he doesn’t delete me.

Damn, she writes well. I'll miss her blog, and hope to see it in independent form very soon.

Morning Call Loses Its Perspectives

Pamela Varkony, Allentown writer and former member of Allentown city council, is the founder of Power of Women. Until today, she was also a Morning Call blogger.

I've always enjoyed her writing style. I feel like I'm sitting in her living room, having a nice conversation with a very interesting person who is talking to me, instead of at me. She even answers my emails. I've been a loyal reader of her column for years, and was delighted when The Morning Call gods gave Pam her very own blog, Perspectives with Pamela Varkony.

But as we all know, the gods are fickle. Yesterday morning, when I tried to access her blog from the Morning Call web page, the link was strangely missing. By the end of the day, I learned that the divine media powers had, indeed, lost their Perspectives. Varkony may still be an op-ed columnist, but her blog is dead.

Class act that she is, Varkony provides no details.

Classless bastard that I am, I have a few comments.

In the vile Morning Call online community, homophobic and other types of hate speech are standard fare. A story about Senator Craig's bathroom antics, for example, contains disparaging remarks that have lingered since December 3. "Anyone really care what eight queers claim? Anyone really care what eight poofers claim?"

Ask Frank. That was the name of his column. I think he really cared.

Remember him? He's the Morning Call features writer who was threatened with termination unless he bowed out of a local gay pride parade, where he and his 25-year partner were being honored. I don't know about you, but I haven't noticed Whelan's byline on any recent features. What I notice instead is hate speech directed right at the gay community. After allowing it to fester for a month, the paper has legitimized it.

Although the editorial board sanctimoniously proclaims it stands for "[t]olerance and respect for all persons, irrespective of differences of race, religion or culture," it fails to walk the walk. Rather than condemn these hateful remarks, it seems to have condoned them.

Why? Is it because hate sells?

I don't really know, but I find it very ironic that a respected paper like The Morning Call would cater to hatemongers while terminating its relationship with a balanced and fair-minded writer like Varkony. She was real. She even signed her name to what she wrote. She shunned puff pieces about Allentown like you'll find here and there. She'd rather tell the truth.

That can be risky.

Instead of being the third blog to cheer a new (and publicly subsidized) Allentown restaurant, Pam focused on actual news. One of her best blogs, "The Old Switcheroo," investigates a new Allentown housing development that crams people into sardine cans while publicly proclaiming the opposite.

Pam wrote a companion column to that blog. It was even published on November 25. Op-eds that she wrote both after and before that piece are still available online. In fact, her recent entries go all the way back to July. But guess what? Her piece on that Allentown housing development is gone. You've got to pay for it.

If I want to listen to hate speech, I can sit in a bar. If I want to be puffed, I can visit any used car salesman. But if I want the truth, I expect to be able to find a few kernels in the newspaper. Yet it appears that the local fourth estate has lost its perspective. Instead of encouraging people like Pam, who has an innate ability to frame political issues, The Morning Call is now encouraging anonymous anti-Catholic rants. I guess that's a step up from the usual racism.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot. My new blog, Perspectives with Bernie O'Hare, starts tomorrow. I think I'll start things off with a few pork chop recipes.