John Fischer's Philadelphia
Vol. 1 - Number 11 - 06/18/99
First off, in a followup to Wednesday's column in which I addressed the plight of the residents in the Wissinoming section of the city, I am pleased to see that $ 1.25 million in state aid has been found for the homeowners who are being displaced from their homes and presumably also for those who will be allowed to remain, but whose homes are in desperate need of repair. All involved continue to credit City Councilwoman Joan L Krajewski for keeping the pressure on all involved to find help.
I know that a lot of people are wondering why there is no mention of the insurance companies of these homeowners. As many of you know, I have a background in the insurance industry. The standard Homeowners policy does not provide coverage for this type of loss. The standard policy excludes coverage for losses caused by earth movement including not only earthquakes but also such things as mudflow, earth sinking, rising and shifting unless the loss is directly caused by fire, explosion or breakage of glass. Unfortunately an insurance policy is not intended to respond to losses which develop due to a prolonged exposure to conditions like we are seeing in Wissinoming.
I admit that I have a rather bizzare sleep pattern. I tend to fall into a very deep sleep at around 10:30 p.m., but then I find myself awake at around 2:00 a.m. for an hour or two. This has been the case since high school and may, in part, be due to the fact that I used to be an avid listener of shortwave radio. Back in high school and college I would actually set my alarm to get up and listen to some distant radio station from Asia or South America. In fact, my first writing job was a monthly column on Latin American radio for a national shortwave radio publication.
In recent years I have taken to listening to overnight talk radio, using a pillow speaker under my head. My wife long ago made it clear that a radio blaring in the middle of the night was something she definitely could not accept. In recent years I have been listening to the Art Bell radio show, which is broadcast on over 400 stations nationwide, and locally on WPHT 1210 AM, from 1:00 a.m. to 6:00 a.m.. I enjoy listening to the Art Bell show, I really do, and I have great sympathy for him and his family for all of what has happened to them in recent years. It amazes me that with such personal tragedy in his life, he has been able to go on with his show.
Art's show has always been, quite frankly, bizzare. His shows have for long been primarily devoted to ufo's, alien abduction, the occult, prophecy, mysticism and the like. You learn to take a lot of what you hear with a grain of salt, but you also realize that a lot of what you hear cannot be explained logically. Anyway, during the last year or so, Art's show has really begun to focus on some very depressing stuff.
When the show is not examining the Y2K problem and the potential that society as we know it could all fall apart next January, it focuses on prophecy and the fact that many of the famous prophecies of all time, including those of Nostradamus and those in Revelations, all seem to be focusing on the coming years as what Bell likes to call the Quickening. There are even those who say that the third message of Fatima, which has for so long only been known to the Pope and a few select others, may come to pass in the near future. In short, many of Art's guests strongly believe that the world as we know it will come to an end in our lifetime.
All of this is not easy stuff to hear in the quiet of the dark when things go bump in the night. Who knows how much of what you hear on Art Bell's show will actually occur?. If only 10% of it comes to pass, we have a rough ride ahead of us. Well, I have not yet taken Art's advice and stocked up on long term storable food or radios that work without any external power source or flashlights that last for years. (Yes, folks, those are all real products and those links do work). Maybe I figure that I live in one of those areas that will either be destroyed by a meteor or submerged under miles of water and there's probably not much I can do anyway. It's somewhat soothing to realize that Hawaii may survive in some of the future scenarios. Maybe I'll be there working on my About.com Hawaii for Visitors site when the world comes to an end.
or...maybe my wife Eileen and my friend Dave are right. I need to learn to sleep through the night.
Well, that's my spin on things. Let me hear from you.You can join me in our chat room almost every evening - Philly Chat - or drop me a note at philadelphia.guide@about.com. Also, be sure to check out our new Philadelphia Forum where you can share your comments and feelings, ask questions, post classifieds and much more.
If you missed any of our recent columns you can still catch them:
John Fischer's
Philadelphia 06/07/99
John Fischer's Philadelphia 06/09/99
John Fischer's Philadelphia 06/11/99
John Fischer's Philadelphia 06/14/99
John Fischer's Philadelphia 06/16/99