Tag: South Philadelphia

Federal prosecutors in Philadelphia are expected on Wednesday to announce criminal charges against Local 98 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers and the labor union’s leader, John Dougherty, closing a years-long corruption investigation into his business and personal dealings, according to federal law enforcement officials close to the probe. Dougherty has been under investigation for more than two years by federal authorities. In 2016, the FBI raided his home, the union’s headquarters, the South Philly bar he owns, and a number of other locations, including the office of City Councilman Bobby Henon, the union’s former political director. Dougherty’s brother, Kevin, is a Pennsylvania Supreme Court justice elected in 2015 with major support from Local 98. When reached by phone, Dougherty, widely known as “Johnny Doc,” said if he is charged on Wednesday, it would be news to him. “I haven’t heard anything,” he said, mentioning that he was watching television with his wife. “Listen, nobody has told any of us as of date. The government’s court documents never mentioned Dougherty, instead referring to Local 98 “Official 1.” It marked the first charges brought by federal prosecutors in its investigation into Dougherty and Local 98, but the court documents suggested Peltz did not provide information to authorities that would have assisted their wider examination of Dougherty and Peltz has not agreed to be used as a government witness in the case against the politically powerful labor union. Prosecutors say Local 98 donated the money to a nonprofit Moylan controlled, but instead of devoting it to charity, Moylan allegedly spent the money on his mortgage and “meals, travel and golf,” authorities say. The paper reported that the payment, discovered in a late-filed statement to the U.S. Department of Labor, occurred just as federal investigators began closing in on questions over whether Dougherty and Local 98 have been improperly using union money.

J. Alfred Prufrock, the title character in T.S. Eliot’s poem about the existential doldrums of a life lived under crushing routine, moans that he has “known the evenings, mornings, afternoons / I have measured out my life with coffee spoons.” Consider, perhaps, the possibility of revolution contained in that coffee spoon. The multi-tier ceramic tower had small platforms, usually in the shape of seashells. In the 18th century, porcelain was still largely an exotic, Asian material relatively new to the Western world. Difficult to manufacture on a large scale, colonists who wanted it in their homes had to have it imported. “It’s a mark of independence,” said Erickson. “To own it was showing your empathy for independence and for American being its own free state.” An original Bonnin and Morris pickle stand is in the collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Around the turn of the 19th century, there was a lively social campaign, begun in England, to urge Abolitionists to match their money with their ideals. Similar to modern campaigns to buy free trade coffee, the sugar bowl urged the woman of the house to spend more money on sugar produced in a more humane way. “These things were communicated on the objects,” said Erickson.