That moment when you post something that is a sad truism today (screenshot to follow this paragraph) and you get a comment that makes you laugh out loud (bottom of post screenshot.)
So it is “rich” that this guy thinks being an asshat with his comment makes him think that he appears smart.
He don’t even know what he’s talking about.
This mansplaining man child is actually BLAMING people who stand up to development or complain about development for housing prices. He actually thinks smaller lot development + lots more infill development = affordable housing. Actually all THAT is = to is a developer’s wet wanky dream because to them it = more development. They don’t care about affordability, only the money that they can make off of a development before they move onto the next community crushing development.
I guess that’s what is called pretzel logic economics.
I mean I guess it would be convenient and totally trendy beige man to blame the evil blogher for real estate prices but it’s just not realistic, is it? I mean gosh that would make me the oracle and wow I almost spit out my coffee when I read the comment.
Communities would welcome houses that were actually affordable, and we’re not even talking Section 8 subsidized housing, we’re talking about starter homes for young couples that moved back to an area where they were raised, or change of life housing for those who are older, who want to stay in the communities where they raised their families but wish to downsize.
But all we get in our communities is the BS the developers want shoved down our throats. Apartment buildings, condos, townhouses what I have called cram plans for over 20 years.
I actually had a realtor say in response to that guy’s comment that new construction is not the answer, that they are not sure what the answer is at this point.
Then you had the realtor who was taking an online marketing course recently probably because he had to say prices only go up in areas that are desirable. Has he looked at real estate everywhere? It doesn’t matter where it’s located. The prices are utterly ridiculous.
If you want to know partially why this is happening, check out this video before Mr. Mansplain’s screenshot:
I don’t pretend to have all the answers. I don’t pretend to necessarily have any of the answers except in Pennsylvania. I will honestly say, if state legislators got off their asses and updated the Municipalities Planning Code it would probably help.
Our communities are under siege. It’s either development or speculative and predatory real estate investors and it’s driving the people that used to make up the place we call home further and further out of the area. And this is happening everywhere. It’s even happening on the Main Line.
One of the things I first noticed when I moved to Chester County was a lot of the people I knew growing up on the Main Line, who I thought were super nice were living out here. They had moved to escape the infill development on the Main Line and what it brought with it.
But this march, this assault on our communities, no matter where we live, is not abating. It’s also not sustainable, so then what?
But please don’t present me with pretzel logic economics while I’m drinking my coffee. It’s really not fair and it ruins a perfectly good espresso.
Ciao for now. I hope you have enjoyed this episode of pretzel logic economics meets mansplaning Friday. 
That screenshot was sent to me by a friend of mine with a barf emoji. I think a barf emoji was being kind.
And I’m laughing because they listed as Church Road but it’s not actually Church Road. It’s Church Street because it’s a loop around back around off of Highland Avenue in Wayne/Radnor Township. Near Odorisio Park.
So the irony here is this is $1 million skinny box that is around the corner from the affordable housing on Highland Avenue known as Highland Homes. The house looks like a box I would get 6 foot garden stakes in. 
Of course, when I was researching Highland Homes, I came up with an article from 2001. And why that interested me was the mention of a company called Pennrose Partners which over the last couple of weeks I think it was was told no by West Chester Borough Council on the Church Street lot in West Chester :
So I went digging and I found an old listing for a lot for sale on Church Street in Radnor Township. And I’m thinking this is the same land and the same location only they say Church Road because Church Road is a lot nicer than Church Street in the category of snob appeal because oh my gosh, they can’t market it as being $1 million plus property around the corner from affordable housing can they?
Here are screenshots real estate listings from Church Road in Radnor Township and a video, so you can see it’s not even the same neighborhood:
How ugly is this million dollar design blight on Radnor Township? It is definitely Church Street not Church Road. My guess it’s a Main Line version of like calling a town a Main Line town when it’s not, or calling a house in Downingtown Chester Springs. Marketing with a side of egg on Realtor face, right?
I just can’t with this listing. I mean I knew listings were crazy in Radnor Township when I found these:
Willow Avenue was the street below Poplar Ave on the other side of the Gulph Creek from North Aberdeen where Radnor Township barely blinked when they tore down the Jonathan Lengel house recently. And speaking of Lengel, read this about the family from the 1958 Radnor Historical Society Bulletin:
Now I’m off on a tangent a little bit, but I will circle back to the ugly house on Church Street shortly. But again here is the post I wrote recently about the Jonathan Lengel house:
So people not familiar with Radnor Township wouldn’t know that Willow Avenue is not a fancy street. It’s a nice street but it started out as a place for the working man to buy a twin home after they filled in what was the Wayne Natatorium pool in the early 20th century. I go by the corner of the street on Radnor Street Road once in a while coming back from Penn Medicine in Radnor to make sure that the historical marker I got for them is still standing. And yes, I worked to get that marker approved and erected.
I don’t trust the Radnor Township of today. They value nothing. And they certainly don’t value design standards in new construction if they’re approving Lego houses to go with Lego institutional feeling apartments, townhouses, and condos with all the personality and charm of a prison meets a mental ward.
And the fact that the weenie little former meteorologist, John Bolaris, who’s like the walking talking Philadelphia joke for decades is the realtor on this is icing on the cake.
Here is the recent write up of him from Philadelphia Magazine:
This is a town where local TV news personalities are very much Philly celebrities. John Bolaris was the talk of the town in the ’90s, when he was meteorologist for Channel 10. He became a regular fixture of gossip-column fodder. And he seemed to lead a charmed life — that is, until winter 2001. That’s when Bolaris blew his biggest forecast — or perhaps I should call it a fearcast. He predicted a “Storm of the Century” that amounted to less than an inch of snow. Folks laughed Bolaris out of town. He went to work in New York.
Bolaris turned up here again in 2009, this time at Fox 29. But things didn’t go so well. And Fox 29 soon parted ways with him. There was also the time when Bolaris claimed that $43,000 in charges on his American Express card were the result of two Latvian models drugging him. Oh, and there was that stun-gun attack in the Hamptons. I could go on!
Yeah there I left you a excerpt. You can click on it and read the rest of the article. The thing I remember most about this guy, other than how incredibly short he is is when we were all much younger and out on the town in the Main Line we would see him out. Of course we also used to see NBC10 Steve Levy and his zip up cowboy booties. And Sir Charles as in Barkley. Charles Barkley incidentally was always very nice. Bolaris and Levy? LOL 😂
But I digress.
This is pretty much hands-down, the ugliest new construction house I’ve seen in quite a while. And how does it fit into its surroundings and why do they say it’s on Church Road when it’s on Church Street which is off of Highland Avenue ? (Weird listing HERE.) this ugly house would look great next to those butt ugly townhouse things that the Ship Road couplet was built for in West Whiteland.
Anyway, that’s all I’ve got other than the Philadelphia Business Journal is listing a property that was once part of Ardrossan is for sale and the property the Ardrossan farmer rents is apparently also for sale.
A friend of mine reached out to me today to tell me a funny story. It’s the story of a very odd woman, whom I do not know, who was all concerned about how a 12-year-old no-name-know-nothing-practically invisible 6th district congressional candidate did in the primary.
First of all, no one knew his name before Election Day (and I forgot it again already), and second of all no one else is running. This was the only warm body that the Chesco GOP could dig up.
Sadly, it really is a day for the stupidity of politics.
So this silly woman was all concerned that I was “against” this candidate and someone she knew was campaigning for this candidate. So this woman said she had to check to see the election results and does no one understand how a primary works?
Even more to the point, I wouldn’t get too lathered about Pennsylvania’s lackluster primary because I think around here the voter turnout was some thing in the pathetic area of like an average of 29% statewide regardless of party. In Philadelphia, turn out was about 18%.
Back to a primary day election and what happens.
If you were a Democrat, you chose your Democrats, if you bothered to vote at all. The exact same scenario was wash, rinse, and repeat on the other side for the Republicans. Not particularly exciting although I fear that we will all be tortured straight through to November with the ridiculous MAGA ads like the one currently running seemingly every five minutes and wow can you imagine the good they could do with that money instead of wasting it on propping up Donnie?
And I seriously think that someday HBO will do a series on this some day like they have twice on Robert Durst. Sociopaths, psychopaths, politicians and narcissists make great TV.
Now do I feel that the Republican Committee of Chester County is once more fielding a bunch of sub par candidates? Yes I do. Especially “PA Women in Red” which sounds like an ad for Tampons and/or a supplement with a free T-shirt for menopausal women. ( Hmmm maybe it’s appropriate after all? )
But guess what? What I thought personally was utterly immaterial with the primary this week. The only thing you can do in the primary is vote for people within your own political persuasion.
Now a sad truth is in Pennsylvania , the majority of people of both political persuasions once again didn’t even bother to get off their lazy asses and go vote so I don’t even know why we’re having this conversation, except we need to have this conversation because apathy and misinformation seem to make the world go round in politics.
This fall, unless if for some strange reason, one of these trials against him, has any real effect on the political process, we are looking at the second coming of Humpty Dumpty Trumpty. He’s been all over the news recently for his various court appearances, and I think also for his really bad spray tans lately.
But it doesn’t matter what anyone espouses about the upcoming general election/presidential election in November if you don’t actually vote.
This coming November is very important if you like your rights as an American citizen. And the reason that is important is because if you vote for Trump, he’s someone who doesn’t care about the United States Constitution. He only cares about his crazy dictatorship dreams. As far as he’s concerned, rules are for other people. And he doesn’t actually do anything for anyone other than himself and never has and that is the thing that is the most fascinating about the Cult of Trump.
And Trump is like a cult leader. All these people worship at the altar of a man who’s never actually done anything for them, and probably never will. The common woman and man who worship Trump need a civics class and a refresher course on the history of how and WHY our nation was founded, and an actual copy of the US Constitution.
Now I know by now, all these people are ballyhooing moi, because I have dared talk about their Comb Over Messiah. Tough noogies. He is a charlatan and always has been. He treated this country like a personal piggy bank, and did a lot more damage than good, much like he has treated his own businesses.
By CHAUNCEY DEVEGA Senior Writer PUBLISHED MARCH 2, 2024 6:00AM (EST)
Trump is and always will be a malignant narcissist and charlatan. He has single-handedly destroyed, the Republican Party, the party of Abraham Lincoln.
If people vote for him again, and if he gets reelected, we are getting the government we deserve. And it is that simple.
Women in his world are not supposed to have rights, and basically anyone who disagrees with him is also not supposed to have rights. So if that’s the world you want to live in, by all means vote for Donnie Douche again.
Politics is a giant shell game of BS when it comes down to it. I am thoroughly disgusted, yet fascinated by all of it. And I will vote for a better America, not the Stepford kingdom that lives in Donald Trump’s twisted mind.
You don’t have to like me, love me, or anything as a blogger. But you will not tell me how to think as a woman.
At the end of the day, it’s pretty damn simple: our forefathers fought and bled and died for our rights. Voting for anyone in the party of Trump runs counter to that and those are not the people who want to respect the rights of Americans, regardless of race, creed, color, sexual identification, etc.
And again, one of the biggest issues facing this election, will be a woman’s right to choose. And that also is simple. What it comes down to is it doesn’t matter what each of us feel as individuals, what matters is, what any woman chooses to do with her own body is her business. None of us have a right to dictate what to do. This election we need to take this off the table once and for all. Men in judicial robes, clerical robes, and political snakeskins should not have the right to tell any woman what to do with her body. And other women should also not be telling other women what to do with their bodies.
As Americans, we should want peace back in our country. And peace means getting rid of the Cult of Donald, straight down to state and local races.
As Americans we should also simply want better candidates and political representation regardless of political persuasion. I would truthfully welcome some actual real Republicans because our country was designed on a two party system for balance, and we have no true balance.
The politics of extremism are ruining this country.
I also feel that the Chester County Republican Committee with all of their frivolous “Trumped up” litigation about absentee ballots and whatever else they dream up in a fugue state, should be paying court and whatever other costs the citizens of Chester County incur because the county has to defend it all.
And finally I still think the Chester County Democratic Committee needs better, more effective leadership.
So I hope that clears it up for the misinformed. And this post is not the Beatles White Album and there are no secret messages if you read it backwards standing on one foot or something.
Billboards are not dead in Bryn Mawr. This affects Lower Merion and Haverford Townships.
This has been going on since 2009.
15 damn years.
I doubt very much the Billboard Baron would want billboards on the lawn of his Gladwyne McMansion, but maybe that’s the place where they ought to go, huh?
So I received an email from the current 5th ward commissioner in Haverford Township Laura Cavendish. Her predecessors, the late Andy Lewis and Jeff Heilmann also both fought billboards alongside their residents and constituents.
From Commissioner Laura Cavendish we have sadly learned that the billboard issue is active again, and it has never actually died as an issue in Haverford and Lower Merion Townships . I’m really glad that she sent the update, because her Lower Merion counterpart has been seemingly silent on the issue, hasn’t he? But hey if there are babies to be kissed or photo ops cutting ribbons to be had, he’s your guy.
Here is what the email I received said:
April 24, 2024
Dear Ward 5 Residents,
It was great to see so many of you at the polls yesterday. I shared with some of you a letter which I am now sharing here.
I wanted to provide an update on the Township’s active litigation against four proposed billboards in Haverford, two of which would be located on Lancaster Avenue in Ward 5. For about 20 years, Haverford and Lower Merion have been fighting Catalyst, a company which has proposed four large billboards in Haverford Township. Two of these sites are located on Lancaster Avenue in Bryn Mawr, across from the Acme and near Our Mother of Good Counsel church in Haverford Township; two others are located on West Chester Pike.
In 2020, the Court of Common Pleas directed the two townships and Catalyst to come to a settlement. Since that time, Haverford has been working with Catalyst to identify a settlement that would reduce the number of billboard sites proposed by Catalyst and prevent future billboards anywhere in the Township.
As background, the township is legally required to zone an area that permits a billboard. A settlement would mean creating zoning for one, smaller digital billboard, most likely located near the entrance to I-476 on West Chester Pike. Additionally, Lower Merion would likely place a billboard along I-76 as part of the settlement, expressly for the purpose of taking the Lancaster Avenue sites off the table. If no settlement is reached, and the case goes back before the Court of Common Pleas, the judge would likely allow billboards on all four (or more) sites in Haverford, including the two sites on Lancaster.
Large billboards along Lancaster in Bryn Mawr would be viewed by drivers, pedestrians, shoppers, church goers, and so many others in our community. The right settlement would permanently prevent future billboards in the Township, rather than leaving the decision to a judge. Declining to settle would require spending more taxpayer dollars to appeal this case and the township would likely lose. The outcome could be multiple billboards throughout Haverford Township.
While I am strongly opposed to billboards in Haverford Township, given the history of this case and the potential for reducing damaging billboard blight, I will support the right settlement with Catalyst. I believe a settlement will protect Lancaster Avenue and Haverford Township permanently, as well as prevent billboards along our narrow residential thoroughfare in the heart of Bryn Mawr.
Please reach out if you would like to talk or learn more about this important issue.
This billboard company dude is the same one who has been littering our Chester County communities with these billboards as well.
It really is a crappy thing that our communities get saddled with these signs so he can make a profit. Because that’s all that this is about is money and when you meet people like this or you run into people like this, you have to ask once in a while when is there enough money? When do you perhaps need to think about what the right thing to do is?
First billboard hearing 2009
It’s time for the Billboard Baron to leave Bryn Mawr and all of these other communities alone. I hope these communities, and there respective municipalities still have some fight left in them. After all, there are a lot of us, myself included, who first stood up in 2009 when this all started. A lot of us have given up years to fight these blights on our communities.
This weekend is, at long last, the spring barn sale at Life’s Patina in Malvern!
SPRING BARN SALE DATES: Friday, April 26th: 10am to 7pm Saturday, April 27th: 10am to 5pm Sunday, April 28th: 10am to 4pm
I previewed it yesterday, and it was amazing!
1750 N. Valley Road, Malvern, PA
Remember that this is literally a barn sale, so wear appropriate footwear because you will be crossing a field to get to the barn.
Part of the proceeds from this springs sale goes to one of my favorite local nonprofits Surrey Services.
Also, if you want to make a Chester county day of it, Life’s Patina has their Café and Mercantile in historic Yellow Springs Village. And starting Saturday, the Yellow Springs Art Show opens.
So what does that mean? It means you can start at Life’s Patina barn sale and then go to Yellow springs Village and taking the art show starting Saturday and have lunch in the café or coffee! The café, located in the historic Jenny Lind house is located at 1657 Art School Rd., Chester Springs PA. And the Mercantile is also full of amazing things for your home.
This was on North Valley Road I think it was in Tredyffrin. Instead of just flaggers mostly not paying attention to anything other than their phones, they had these machines with gate arms and flags and cameras etc. and the traffic flowed remarkably well.
I don’t know about you, but usually when you get stuck in one of these lines with flaggers, it’s not particularly relaxing. And I have to be honest for the first time it was like traffic slowed. It worked, and you didn’t feel like someone was going to come out you head on because they got tired of the flaggers.
When I initially posted this, I was told that they use this in Europe and Canada as a system. And the project we were driving through seems to be the installation of new utility poles and moving lines off of old poles onto the new polls.
I hate the phrase “hive mind”. It makes you want to look for virtual bug spray for social media. It’s also code for too lazy to do a little research so why not just say that?
I mean seriously every time I see the the hive mind schtick used on Facebook – and it’s usually Facebook – it’s such a totally visceral cringe reaction. It’s like they can’t say what they’re doing, which is crowd sourcing. And sometimes people crowd source because they really don’t know, but more times than not, it’s just because they want to pick everyone else’s brains.
It’s like with the advent of the social media age intellectual curiosity has gone right out of the window.
Now onto the next little life observation….
I also dislike people who ONLY communicate when you have a potential use. This is why newer people in my life often don’t become long term friends.
And why do I say that? Simple. When your use is over, or you disagree with them, they are completely done with you. I understand that human beings have egos, but when you keep letting your ego get in the way, you will end up being a very lonely person.
I also dislike people who end up being the types whom only have anyone as a friend as long as people agree with them 100% all of the time.
It’s funny not funny, but actually a little sad that when I agreed with I guess a now former friend on things, they were so tremendously OK being my friend. As soon as I didn’t agree with them, it seems they have no time for me. And the ultimate irony is that they sought me out for friendship in the first place.
I saw something yesterday that made me think of a now seemingly former friend, so I texted them. I heard nothing back at all which is odd because this is a rather chatty person.
Then I went to look to send them a message this morning on Facebook messenger and realized I couldn’t because they had unfriended and blocked me and their spouse had also unfriended me. But I guess people who are friendly just to actually use them are of more use? Seriously, it’s tremendously disappointing and a little hurtful.
My most recent conversation wasn’t even a month ago, and it was not a bad conversation. But I wasn’t agreeing with them on everything so I guess given their exhibited patterns of behavior with otherpeople I know I shouldn’t be surprised that this happened, yet I am. It was just a conversation, and I’m just not built to agree with everyone all of the time. I don’t think anyone is, realistically. Unless you are a Stepford Wife perhaps.
All these invitations for dinner and drinks with spouses that never materialized, which I never cared about. People’s lives are busy and I thought I had made or was making a new friend, and that was what was important.
I’m quite sure they will share the email around I sent to them essentially saying what I am writing right now, and I really don’t care. There is another person tied up in this who is like a dog who always carries a bone and they’re always really dumb about it like a drooling golden retriever puppy
So I guess I should say have a nice life to this person, and try not to burn too many more bridges. If this has all been some giant mistake, I am of course open to a conversation. But I think this is just their pattern of behavior. And that’s on them not on me, or anyone else.
But right now? I feel offended, hurt, and a little bit used.
Stupid me, but I actually thought that they were different than my initial gut check said and I feel foolish that I defended them to people who had well kind of warned me off of this person.
I have a clear conscience that I was a decent friend to them in the short time we were actually friends, but I’m half Italian and we remember these things. And it’s not about chewing on things not being able to let go, because I will – that’s why I’m writing this out now – it’s a case of remembering to trust your gut.
It’s also all about respect and loyalty. And being straight forward. I don’t let a lot of people in. I’m friendly and caring towards people because that’s in my nature but since I moved to Chester County as a middle-aged woman, I have learned this lesson a few times now that making friends as we age is not as simplistic as one would hope from when we were younger.
You always hope that when you’re meeting someone and you connect as friends that it will last. But sometimes it just doesn’t. And when people make you feel used, it really kind of sucks in the short term initially.
So I am putting this out into the universe and letting it go.
Humans are disappointing. I am sure I have disappointed my fair share of people over the course of 60 years, but at least try to learn from my mistakes.
And I’m going to hope that people learn to use a different phrase, other than “hive mind.”
I opened with that snippet from the Lower Merion School District meeting.
Why?
Because it has sent off a tsunami of social media speculation. I can’t resist and I have to memorialize some of it. It’s fascinating.
When I started seeing things appear on social media yesterday, I actually reached out to Natural Lands. They told me what was appearing on Facebook wasn’t true. I have no reason to doubt them. Because if Lower Merion School District is in the middle of a delicate transaction, no one might know anything yet.
They actually responded on social media:
I’m going with nothing to see here with Oakwell until there is actually something to see. Large real estate transactions, especially when you’re talking about hopefully a preservationist can be quite delicate, so in my opinion it’s time to put the egos aside and sit on the gotcha moments for now.
Like I said, sometimes the side show is more interesting than the circus. What is gained out of this game of gotcha?
Soooo the most recent West Vincent Township Supervisors’ meeting was a study in old school West Vincent crazy.
You can pretty much always count on West Vincent Township to bring the absolute freaking #crazy.
A resident at end of meeting was making public comment, NOT making a threat. See 2:01:30 of recording below (unless of course it magically disappears) – the West Vincent solicitor accuses a resident of making THREATS. That’s crazy. He was expressing his opinion that perhaps made someone UNCOMFORTABLE but it was not a threat and yeah Colonel Sanders the Solicitor WAS out of order IMHO.
And Colonel Sanders the Solicitor might not like my opinion either but perhaps he needs to freshen up his knowledge of the United States Constitution, in particular the First Amendment.
Now maybe the resident could have chosen words differently but to me what he was saying is as he listens to the petty back and forth in West Vincent Township, that there are bigger problems in the world and people are dying overseas. To be honest, that has little to do with what is happening in West Vincent Township, but that was his public comment. It wasn’t a threat, it was a bit of a word salad, but it was opinion. And that gentleman lived that overseas in the Middle East and is owed an apology by the township.
You can’t just threaten residents. You can steer them to stay on track for what is going on in the municipality, but you don’t threaten them and then say he was threatening the township. He wasn’t.
Once again it’s obvious that West Vincent needs another solicitor, isn’t it?
Then there is the whole thing about stormwater management. So what’s the deal with 1352 Shady Lane and pardon the pun there is something shady going on there? And their neighbors are their stormwater management plan?
And then the plastics bans and paper vs. plastic and the harvesting of tuna which was off topic to an extent, yet that was also not a threat….it was opinion. And then the guy who brought Richard Nixon to the meeting.
Oy just oy. What’s next tractor tipping in a certain field? Oh wait….never mind that already happened didn’t it?
Sign this post everything old is suddenly very new again in West Vincent. Or the more things change the more things stay the same.
