On the Friday before the following Tuesday primary election, I called Democratic state Rep. Kevin Murphy about a problem. The Scranton lawmaker from the 113th Legislative District said he'd check out the matter immediately. Murphy reassured me that the issue must be a simple misunderstanding.
Murphy's political career then began its immediate slide into oblivion.
The cocky incumbent lost his bid for re-election to a former professional boxer and mixed martial arts cage fighter with no political experience other than a choke-hold.
Murphy didn't tap out, he blacked out.
With no Republican opponent and without a write-in miracle, Murphy will not return to Harrisburg.
And Murphy has nobody to blame but himself.
The Bachelor of Science degree in criminal justice from the University of Scranton that Murphy claimed to possess for decades does not exist.
The desperate spinning he tried during those long few days leading up to his loss failed to convince countless voters that he is anything other than another dishonest politician.
Even in defeat, almost a month after the election, paid public servant Murphy remains dishonest.
As of this morning, Murphy still lists his degree from the University of Scranton on his official Commonwealth House of Representatives biography. Under a color photo of a smiling Murphy posing beside the stars and stripes of the American flag, the lie continues.
"University of Scranton, B.S., Criminal Justice, 1989," is, indeed, BS, but not the kind that signals the accomplishment and discipline required to graduate with a four-year college degree.
Even dummies who graduate can wave their diplomas above their heads and then go back to drinking beer, passing a beach ball or fellow student above the crowd and move back home before the horrible reality of life hits them right between their blurred eyes.
But Murphy's horrible reality has festered for decades.
The difference is that he lived the lie. Now it's time to face the facts. And the facts remain delusional in Murphy's mind. Murphy is not a college graduate. Never was and might never be. That is up to him and university officials.
But he just can't seem to bring himself to simply tell the truth.
Before the April 24 election, Murphy told several conflicting stories about why he did not possess the degree he claimed, even going so far as to argue that he always believed he had the degree until I told him he didn't.
Murphy said he owed money, paid money, never asked for the degree and never accepted the degree. Murphy said he needed to complete a requirement, completed the requirement and even had the audacity to invite taxpayers to his office to see the sacred diploma hanging on the wall once he got his mitts on it. Murphy boldly promised to walk across the stage with the other graduates.
But, the last time I checked with university officials before going on vacation last week, Murphy had not yet received the diploma.
Unless compassionate Jesuits held a private ceremony for Murphy and humility prevented him from issuing a press release about his grand success, Murphy has still not graduated. If he has, I'll be pleased to announce the feat on the air. I'll even invite the Jesuits.
But until and unless that happens, Murphy needs to remove his big lie from the official government website paid for by taxpayers.
God knows that state lawmakers have enough trouble with former office-holders either in prison or heading to prison. A little honesty goes a long way on the dirty road to the hopeful restoration of the public trust.
So if Murphy refuses to publicly tell the truth and remove the lie from the website, I'll tell the truth for him every chance I get. I'll also ask for help from state Democratic leaders because, if Murphy refuses to truthfully update his biography, party leaders must update it for him.
While we're at it, what about the official state job application Murphy filled out before getting elected, back when he worked as an auditor for the Commonwealth? Does the application include the lie about his degree? Did Murphy pass himself off as a college graduate to obtain a job that required a degree? Are criminal charges an option? How about an ethics complaint?
Murphy's official biography includes the fact that he was "raised with Irish Catholic ideals."
Sure and begorrah, if that's true, it's long overdue for Murphy to make a full confession and a mighty good Act of Contrition.
No better meal exists for me than a couple of thick slices of homegrown tomato on a couple of thick slices of freshly baked Italian bread. Add an ice cold bottle of Yuengling laager and I've got sacred last meal material.
When I was a child, I'd sometimes stand among my grandfather's tomato plants in his Minooka garden, close my eyes and inhale the rich, pungent aroma of fresh life on a thick green vine. To this day, if I pick a fat tomato, close my eyes and hold the fruit to my nose, I drift back to a time when cultivating tomatoes meant cultivating the future, when the simplicity of life meant nourishment and tradition.
Such satisfaction has not changed.
We reap what we sow.
And there's still nothing better than a fat tomato sandwich – maybe with mayo, salt and pepper. But a plain and pure tomato sandwich will always be best.
Purity also remains part of the American Dream – the search for good old ways amid traditional goodness. Tradition allows innocence to thrive and grow rather than succumb to strangulation by poisonous weeds of deceit in our culture that grow and kill before anybody notices or does something about it.
We strangle our dreams in Northeastern Pennsylvania on a regular basis. We allow the weeds to rage out of control. We nourish their roots. The metaphor here goes straight to the heart of our political "culture of corruption" that strangles our hope for a better tomorrow.
I've concluded that we will not beat our culture of corruption in my lifetime. So we should not fight to win or lose but fight to fight.
Principle matters.
And principle nourishes hope for the better future based on fairness, equality and true growth. If we nourish a true path of awareness, we have a chance to create a culture of awakening – something definitely worth fighting for. Our culture of awakening will help create and nourish a healthy, thriving garden that will nourish those to come for countless decades.
Allow the poison to spread, however, and our dreams will continue to die.
Changing behavior takes precious time and effort.
In the past few years we've seen positive change occur as dozens of local and state elected officials and business executives have pleaded guilty to public corruption crimes and either pleaded guilty or been convicted.
They have gone to prison. More gangsters will follow in this ongoing federal public corruption investigation. But what about good people who live stable lives? What about law-abiding hard-working good citizens who know the difference between right and wrong? What do we do to increase the odds that the judicial weed whacking that's talking place will cleanse our path for good and allow healthy new fruit to blossom?
Sadly, we do far too little to change behavior. Too many otherwise good citizens stand idly by and allow nepotism, cronyism and political patronage to fester. They even teach their children that maybe a political job might one day be in the works for them – if only they play their political cards right and ingratiate themselves to the proper political people.
If not them, maybe their children will benefit. Survival of the fittest becomes the law of the jungle. And the garden is lost. By this longtime coal region tradition that many of our immigrant ancestors quickly learned how to play, we plant evil seeds that sprout and turn to killer weeds that smother the future of fairness.
To truly ripen, we must change the way we think. To thrive, we must stand against old habits that die hard. To mature we must be brave enough to rise up and stretch to our full height into the sun.
I know, I know, the garden analogy is getting old.
But the culture of awakening will only exist if you help it grow. So plant some seeds and know you did something brave to ensure that those who come after you have long gone have a better shot at making their dreams grow.
Smiling and huge and grossly immature, a teenage Greg Skrepenak sat in the bleachers at the Kings College gymnasium. The occasion, I believe, was a speech concerning one war or another by then Congressman Paul Kanjorski. The hulking GAR High School kid had assembled with other Wilkes-Barre city school students for the event.
Skrepenak sat with Raghib "The Rocket" Ismail from Meyers and Bobby Sura, his basketball teammate from GAR.
Reeking with potential and brimming with hope, blinding storylines brightened the lives of these three working class kids from Northeastern Pennsylvania hard coal country.
The Rocket went on to football acclaim with Notre Dame, a multi-million dollar contract in Canada and a finish with the Dallas Cowboys. Sura set college records in Florida and played with the Golden State Warriors and Cleveland Cavaliers in the National Basketball Association. Skrepenak starred as an All-American in Michigan and played for the Carolina Panthers as well as the storied Oakland Raiders.
But Skrep, as he was known around the Valley, ultimately distinguished himself above and beyond his superstar peers.
After retirement from the pros, the Rocket became an evangelist of sorts and a professional bull rider. Sura basically disappeared after a fight at the Woodlands in which he said he was not involved and police concurred. Skrep ran for and was elected to a responsible position of public trust as a Luzerne County commissioner.
Had Skrep played this game properly, abiding by the rules and upholding the public trust, he might have gone to the state house instead of to the big house.
But Skrep scored a federal prison sentence in West Virginia where strains of "take me home country road" echoed off the walls of his skull as he tossed and turned his 6-foot-8-inch frame in a hoosegow bunk and dreamed of the Heights where he lived and loved and learned nothing about integrity.
Now the big man has returned.
His mother picked him up from a recent day at work as a clerk at a buddy's law firm, according to a published report, and brought him back to the house where he is living under house arrest with mom and dad.
Skrep lost weight and is humbled by his experience, the lawyer told a reporter.
Skrep said he couldn't talk about his experience yet chastised the reporter, asking why the press couldn't just leave him alone.
Let me explain it to you, big man.
We can't leave you alone because you spent too many years expecting our attention.
You and you alone became a celebrity. You and you alone begged us to watch. You and you alone pledged that we could trust you. You and you alone then betrayed the public trust you swore to uphold. You and you alone willingly became a gangster. You and you alone used sacred public service to benefit yourself and your buddies who always thought they were better than anybody and everybody who depended on you to help their often pitiful struggle.
No, Skrep, we will not leave you alone. And you better understand that you will take hits all your life because you are now and always will be an ex-convict who threw it all away.
Amid his failure, his weakness and denial, I wish him well. I believe in rehabilitation and redemption. But, as a former state prison counselor, I also understand the delusion under which the majority of former inmates live their lives after being released from prison.
Too many of them continue to blame others for their faults and dysfunction. Too many refuse to accept real responsibility. They talk about their "mistakes" rather than their crimes. And they desperately grasp image rather than substance. And, of course, they all too often continue to hang out with a bad crowd.
In Skrep's case, that simply means coming home, where he is staying for the remaining couple of months of his sentence.
Skreps's father is a hothead with a temper he cannot control. At least he was out of control the last time I saw him, as he put his face close to mine in court following his son's sentencing and threatened me with violence. I calmly looked him in the eye. I waited but nothing happened. The head of the Scranton office of the Secret Service and an assistant United States attorney witnessed Skrep's father's childish display of macho stupidity.
"That was a threat," the prosecutor said out loud.
But I declined to press charges because I didn't want to add to the Skrepenak family's heartache by putting another bad seed into a jam that was entirely self-created.
Skrep and his dad still need therapy. Maybe the whole family needs counseling. Let's hope they're up to this terribly emotional task.
Just like that long ago day in the gym, the future awaits.
On "Corbett" we're talking and listening and reading and writing at the high-energy fast pace that makes us or breaks us. Indeed, some have broken. Just ask a few politicians who tried to deceive and cajole and spin us into their reality at the expense of our own political future.
Most of us are in this continuing conversation for the duration, whatever that means. And each day we're anxiously looking for more and better ways to speak freely and convey whatever messages we believe matter.
Obviously communication is everything in media.
But in 2012 WILK News Radio is more than a voice on the radio.
You're a major voice as well.
So welcome to the first ever "Corbett" listener/reader/talker survey so I can get a better grip on what you want, need and appreciate in the five days a week, four hours a day we spend together.
And that's just the beginning.
On the air I'm not only sharing my opinion and live observations, I'm digging into stories, investigating politicians and breaking hard news in real time. You quickly interact and offer your impressions. Off the air – at my home and office and elsewhere - you offer tips in person and through phone calls, emails and the regularly mailed hand-written letter.
You email me while I'm on the air.
You text.
The other week during the show I received an email that instructed me to call the emailer at my next break for a "huge" story. When we spoke during the news at the top of the hour, he explained the urgency of his message. He was right and I told him to do his best to get a certain political candidate on the air with me as soon as possible.
I emailed another source and put the word out.
The candidate appeared on the show in less than in 15 minutes.
We broke the story and the candidate provided details as to the serious nature of the matter. The next morning he held a press conference outside the Luzerne County courthouse that might have made the difference in his election victory on Primary Election Day.
Now Matt Cartwright is likely headed to Congress in January.
News happens fast around here. The way we communicate happens equally fast. I'm now tweeting during the show. You're texting. I'm linking stories and videos on my Facebook fan page as well providing material on the WILK News Radio Facebook page. You're commenting on both pages.
And I'm wondering how we can best use our time together, interacting in ways unheard of until recently.
What do you like most?
Least?
Do you go to Facebook to interact with me and others even if you aren't listening to the show? That seems strange to me but some people say they like to get into comment discussions even when they can't listen.
Many people listen in the car while driving from here to there. Do not text and drive, by the way. Others listen at work and can't call or text or tweet. Some listen at work with headphones and text and tweet and comment on company time – also not a good idea.
Still, I need to know how you best communicate with me and others during the time I'm on the air as well as off.
Some Saturday nights I check the pages and add a comment here or there – even on my own time.
That's the draw of immediacy. That's speech. In many ways that's freedom. So let's be free together.
The power of the people can be as savage as the political candidates. And, in Northeastern Pennsylvania, we know the feral force of politics. Our primitive lust for power and survival is rooted deep in the cultural veins that paralleled hard lives and the hard coal that drew many of our immigrant ancestors to this region.
Good battles evil every day. Good sometimes wins. Evil often takes public office.
And the brutes still hold sway in the political arena where candidates do giddy battle with crude weapons that often omit intellect. Last night's primary election results illustrate exactly what we're up against.
Newcomer candidate and millionaire lawyer Matt Cartwright survived a brutal race against 20-year incumbent Congressman Tim Holden that upset the status quo and turned establishment Democratic Party politics upside down. Cartwright overcame the company man who had the support of the company even though party bosses knew they couldn't trust Holden.
With more than 60 endorsements, Holden courted U.S. Sen. Bob Casey, Scranton Mayor Chris Doherty, Wilkes-Barre Mayor Tom Leighton, state senators John Blake and John Yudichak, state Rep. Sid Michaels Kavulich and other establishment Democrats.
Cartwright came into the race with a squeaky voice and too much dependence on scripted jargon. Yet his sincerity and willingness to buck the system he perceives as too conservative and oppressive for an "FDR Democrat," offered the people of his party an alternative.
The people took him up on his invitation. Now, with little significant opposition on the Republican side in November, Cartwright looks like he's headed to Washington in January. If so, we'll see if he keeps his word. We'll see if he can walk the walk through the darkened halls of power in the nation's capital.
But last night the power of the people prevailed.
Enter the savages.
Three major upsets in Northeastern Pennsylvania also illustrate our primeval side. Primordial to its core, the legislative races centered in Lackawanna County offer classic case studies of the primitive nature of the political beast.
But we in hard coal country understand the grunts and the growls. Up here, the call of the wild shapes a symphony.
Just because the newest likely members of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives – two of whom ran without any Republican opposition - deserve the jobs doesn't mean that they are fit to uphold the public trust.
They are not.
But they did what they had to do to capture the trophy that will pay them more money than they ever earned in their lives in exchange for their vow to uphold the public trust.
Between our victors – Frank Farina, Marty Flynn and Kevin Haggerty – we encounter an array of past criminal charges likely unmatched by any regional political trio of newcomers in any region in America.
Politicians usually wait until they take office before they compile a police record.
Not our mugs.
They're loaded – and I do mean loaded - with DUIs, bad checks, a questionable military discharge from the Marines, fistfights and bad barroom behavior. If the pasts of our newly elected public servants comprised a reality show the director would best be a SWAT team.
But our future lawmakers all promise pure public service for the people.
Here's looking at you, fellows.
Here's looking at the losers, too, poor saps who actually did themselves in.
Incumbents Kenny Smith and Kevin Murphy piled all their misery on themselves. They couldn't have done a better job losing re-election if they had decided to launch campaign death wishes and lose on purpose. Smith is a major tax scofflaw who owes about a quarter of a million dollars in debt and liens. Murphy publicly claimed for decades a four-year-degree from the University of Scranton that he does not possess.
Good people struggling with their own lives eventually had enough.
Except for Farina, whom voters embraced even though he actually said on "Corbett" last week that he couldn't remember how many times police charged him with crimes. To his credit and in the spirit of good government, though, Farina did remember the public drunkenness charge.
That was St. Patrick's Day in Scranton, he said, as if that somehow excused his degeneracy.
Farina's opponent, Randy Castellani, once had a county commissioner's job. But he quit in the middle of his public service without explaining his departure. Even with party backing, people argued that a quitter never wins.
Instead they welcomed Farina, who also denied ever being sentenced to probation. Farina told me on the air that maybe the guy in the probation report I held in my hands was his father, who has the same name. Farina's campaign manager then called the show to explain Farina's loud lie by saying his client had been nervous when I asked about his probation.
Too many political lug nuts in hard coal country are drunk and disorderly and proud of it. But more and more of us now refuse to buy the party line and place trust in those who are clearly untrustworthy.
Music might soothe the savage beast, but, around here, politics agitates the whole damn jungle.
Here's the video from our WILK Friday Beer Buzz bus trip to Appalachian Brewing in Harrisburg and Troeg's Brewing in Hershey.
Thanks to Joe Krugel and Krugel's Georgetown Deli & Beer in Wilkes-Barre Township for sponsoring the WILK Friday Beer Buzz and for making our first of what we hope will be many Beer Buzz listener trips possible!
's Georgetown Deli & Beer in Wilkes-Barre Township for sponsoring the WILK Friday Beer Buzz and for making our first of what we hope will be many Beer Buzz listener trips possible!