January 4, 2006
 

Christopher A. Henry
Publisher
Northeast News Gleaner
9999 Gantry Road
Philadelphia Pa 19115

Fourth notice to the Northeast News Gleaner.

Dear Mr. Henry: 

This day your unwanted product has again been dumped on my Northeast Philadelphia property. I am demanding that you desist for the many deeply felt reasons that were outlined in my three ^* previous correspondences to your paper the 'Northeast News Gleaner'. 

Your corporate practices clue the non-corporate criminal elements about whether Philadelphia’s residents are home or not to the great prejudice of their personal safety and treasure ^[1]. Your littering habits are terrifying this resident ^[2].

The sheer tonnage of your commercial litter spewed in Philadelphia by your numerous publications, to be found on lawns, public streets and sewers, and which no doubt add good weight to the department of sanitation trucks and somewhere down the garbage line fill our state landfills, are concerns and struggles to be fought by tougher persons then this writer. Perhaps Philadelphia can spare the expenses to forever clean up after you. That is a question for the mayor and city council. But I think the city has enough problems with litter without your publications inundating the defenseless parts of the city on a weekly basis.

My primary and continuing firm desire not to have you throw your stuff on my property is still for the reasons of personal safety, cleanliness, and freedom from harassment, as stated at length in three previous correspondences^* to your paper. I have even returned your litter by the US mail. In addition, I wish to now visit my son ^[3] out of state and to otherwise feel free to leave my Philadelphia property, without having to notify neighbors to clean up my property after you litter it. What is it that is so hard to understand Mr. Henry?

For god sakes man, in the name of common decency, find a more respectable way to earn a buck. This aggravation of dealing with your commercial product has transformed this new year from a long bug infested summer disease problem to a winter creation of just plain wet, frozen, hazardous, and unsightly litter. 

It has occurred to me, that your arrogant, contemptuous, and relentless insistence to continue to litter my property with impunity, despite my pleas for your organization to desist, is an additional form of subtle terrorism with a small ‘t’ in the following fundamental sense. A jaded corporation flagrantly doing whatever it damn well pleases to a citizen in America is terrifying. If I, as John Q. Citizen, attempted to throw my stuff on drainage outlets, walkways, or on my neighbors’ bushes after being asked many times to cease the noxious activity…my guess is, and it is only a guess…that I would be found worthy of prosecution if my unabated activity was brought to the attention of District Attorney Abrams.  If I committed such purposeful acts on the White House lawn, I would probably be detained as a ‘person of interest’. One thing is certain. You, Christopher A. Henry, publisher of the North East News Gleaner, would not dare fling your corporate product, The Northeast News Gleaner, on the lawn of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington D.C..  For this reason, you impress me as either being a clueless executive or a simple hypocrite when you permit your company to junk up my property week in and week out, month in and month out.

I have copied this correspondence to the women and men whom might consider redressing this Philadelphia garbage dumping, in your face, weekly fiasco, legislatively. (Do you laugh?) I understand in all likelihood each politician copied may at one time or another have been feted freely or would wish to be feted in your many corporate publications. Still it is my hope against cynicism that the politicians with consciences will concern themselves with commercial products being systematically dumped on private properties, and will steel themselves against the power of your considerable news presses, to enact serious keep 'Stop Corporate Littering' legislation.  Perhaps our politicians can take a page from the Brits ^[4] in moving Philadelphia from a 'Filthadelphia' to 'Pristineadelphia' concept.

Vulnerable homeowners need the protection from commercial molestations and studied blight that other residents enjoy in more protective parts of Philadelphia. Perhaps 'Stop Corporate Littering' legislation will even curtail some home robberies and even save a life or two in Philadelphia^[5]. Become part of the solution not the problem.^[6]  

In these regards, I commend The Northeast Times who simply stopped dropping their paper on my property when asked to do so, (although they had no right to litter my property in the first place.)  The Philadelphia Sunday Sun and the Jewish Exponent does nicely with subscriptions. The Telegraph leaves their paper concisely stacked inside area stores for interested individuals to pick up. Valpak effectively sends its messages via the US mails. The Metro offers their paper in a nice green boxs. The City Paper, the Philadelphia Weekly, the Philadelphia Gay News, and the Philadelphia Business Journal all keep their papers in convenient metallic boxes available to interested readers throughout the city. The Philadelphia Tribune, Philadelphia Inquirer, and Philadelphia Daily News have papers available in stores nearby, which many people are happy to purchase. ADVO Inc. another big time heavy dumper in our city at least  provides an 'opt out' ^[7]  provision on its web site and warns residents of the dangers of their plastic bags to our children. (The Northeast News Gleaner does neither.) Therefore from this writer’s perspective, Christopher Henry, publisher of the Northeast News Gleaner is the reigning Northeast Philadelphia poster boy for litter, and earns DJG1.com's 'Mister Piggy Litter Award', for at all times being someone who does not give a common care for property, cleanliness and safety, as he litters willy nilly, with his commercial products that cannot otherwise sustain itself by sales or non-intrusive means of distribution.

I have posted this letter on one of my modest websites... DJG1.com, in case you misplace the letter on your desk which may also be a mess, while you are busy publishing your litter. 

If you have any questions regarding this correspondence, please do not hesitate to contact me directly. 

Sincerely, 
Dennis J. Gesker~
Dennis J. Gesker
***************** Street
Philadelphia PA 19111
215.632.9800
DJGGroup@comcast.net
DJG1.com
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[1] I have practiced law in Philadelphia for approximately ¼ of a century. I have also had the opportunity to interview hundreds of arrested individuals at our Philadelphia Police Department’s roundhouse. These experiences have given me confidence in making the assertion that your type of littering habits are of invaluable assistance to bums who troll for vulnerable homes in Philadelphia. Your business practices Mr. Henry, I suggest are grist for crime. Further, the assertion that that your litter attracts crime, I believe, is intuitively obvious to discerning individuals.

[2] Home intrusions are rampant on my block. By way of example; a neighbor invariably requests that I pick up the Northeast News Gleaner litter dumped on her property when she leaves her home to visit her family out of state.  A Mother and daughter were raped their home one block over. To make matters worse, at least two other neighbors homes have also been broken into and robbed. People are under nightly siege in Philadelphia. I have chased young men twice found lurking in my yard at night.

[3] My youngest son, is a navy lieutenant, born, raised and educated in Philadelphia who has inter alia served in Kuwait and Iraq, and has managed to return home intact, and is now posted stateside. Since he is in grave danger of redeployment, in the 'attack on Iraq' initiated by our president and perpetuated by 'stay the course' politicians’, who would have him wasted in the service of their politics, I would like an opportunity to visit him from time to time with maximum possible peace of mind. I do not want my home under siege while I am gone.  I do not think my son ended up in that far away 'sand box' to defend your right, Mr. Henry, to keep Philadelphia, PA, USA a perpetual pigpen.

[4] “…Police are to be given sweeping powers to arrest people …including dropping litter…”By John Steele, Crime Correspondent (Telegraph.co.uk , Filed: 29/12/2005) Note: London's citizens will not have to file expensive law suits or file criminal complaints with Lynn Abrams counterpart. England (USA's poodle) is at least being kept litter free.

[5] I understand that the homicides in Philadelphia have reached 280 in 2005. And an additional 6 or seven homicides have already occurred this year in Philadelphia. Who knows how many home intrusions of every unwanted kind ( the reported and unreported) occurred in 2005 in Philadelphia.

[6] I would not be surprised if your corporate attorneys or insurers deny any causal relationship or proximate cause or notice in some conceivable future civil litigation resulting from some hapless citizen’s sufferings or death. Consider some hypothetical situation where a felon admits he cased and selected his victim’s home based on your weekly deluge of litter that was not timely picked up by some sick, unaware, or on vacation, etceteras, home owner. Will your corporate defense be something like “Who meee…I don’t know nuttin”??

[7] ADVO Inc. is presumptuous with its litter, they should have to 'opt in' with their advertising schemes not make their victims of litter 'opt out'.   Who make the rules about inundations of litter in this city anyhow?
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*  1^st Notice :August 18, 2005 ,  2^nd Notice: September 22, 2005 ,
        3^rd Notice: November 2, 2005 
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Copy: To the 'can do' ladies and gentlemen of Philadelphia, who might be in a position to put a stop to weekly blizzards of corporate litter that descends upon Philadelphia.  Yeah ... sure.........