Mr. Yurasko,

As a self-appointed, pro forma, and de facto representative of the TriCount (Carbon, Monroe, Luzerne counties) area, I will take your respective questions on-air in this forum.

What do people at my favorite Hazleton diner, the Knotty Pine think about the situation?
Considering that the average age of the establishment must hover near 80 or so, I believe their reaction to most questions is to ask whether or not this will affect the quantity of complimentary rice pudding served
with each $4.99 dinner (beverage included).

What about the teenagers in The Lot? (For the uniniated, a Blockbuster parking lot where locals sat in their Camaros talking on CBs).
It would do well to remember that what your witnessing in the Lot are future city council meetings.
I am sure the current Administration's platform of economic throat-slitting by way of well-worn xenophobia was birthed in gatherings at similar enclaves.
In TriCount politics, the only thing that changes is where and how you drink your beers as you discuss and discern the matters of import.

Did 97.9 The Mountain/The Bear/98 Rock have to change to salsa music?
Thankfully not. If their format deviates an iota from the .38 Special / Styx / Rush / Get the Led Out broadcast programme, riots ensue. A month ago, they caused a general workers' strike all across the local industrial parks by an intern mistakenly playing a "Gallow's Pole" cover ironically enough recorded by the short-lived and wonderous Coverdale/Page collaboration from the early mid 90's instead of the original track.

What about Senapes, do immigrants like pitza?
To clarify, no one "likes" Senapes pitza. We consume it out of fear. Yes, fear. No one has ever seen a Senape's bakery delivery truck anywhere near their local market, and yet, there it is...every Saturday morning during grocery shopping...the ominous blue and white box (obviously the colors of the ever-mistrusted and thrice-cursed U.N.)...oils slowly oozing from the corners of its container...lying there...lying there in wait...slowly self-replicating via some bizarre Cronenberg-ian ovipository sequence relating to its bakery-string-like replication tendrils.
Shudder. It is not so much ingested as it is...destroyed.

Will the controversey [sic] be enough to make Grovich take "There's Something About Hazleton" out of mothballs?
Yes, but it will still retain its full, fresh from the MS FrontPage '95 template screen flavor. Only now, in due homage to the current, godforsaken Katamari Damarcy of the Internet, that standards-defying abomination known as MySpace.com, TSAH.com will feature glitter graphics.

Most importantly, what does the mafia think? That particular quasi-socio-political collective has made a fine living in exploiting newly-arrived immigrants' baser needs for nearly four generations now; I am sure they'll handle things nicely.

This press conference is over.
Thank you, and God bless the TriCount area.

# posted by  T William Harrison : Tuesday, November 21, 2006 8:44:00 AM